S. African Official Shows Interest In Top ANC Post

Victory by Foreign Minister Could Help Her to Presidency

JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 16 -- Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma this week signaled her interest in heading South Africa's ruling African National Congress, a position that could put her on track to become the country's next president -- and its first woman in the top job.

Dlamini-Zuma remains a long shot but far from implausible, analysts say. And with the party's decisive national convention just a month away, her candidacy adds a new twist in a contest long dominated by two men, one of whom happens to be her boss, President Thabo Mbeki, and the other her ex-husband, former deputy president Jacob Zuma.

The Mbeki-Zuma rivalry has consumed South African politics since Mbeki fired Zuma in June 2005, shortly after Zuma's financial adviser was convicted of having a corrupt relationship with him. Despite this and other legal problems, including rape charges -- Zuma was exonerated last year -- he has emerged as the most potent challenger to Mbeki's bid to win a third five-year term as party president.

On Thursday night, Dlamini-Zuma tentatively stepped into this fray.

Decades of precedent keep candidates for power within the ANC from openly campaigning for themselves. But in an appearance on Kaya-FM radio station, a caller asked Dlamini-Zuma directly whether she would serve as party president if elected.

"The ANC cadres never refuse when they are deployed," she replied, in the peculiar vocabulary of a party shaped by liberation politics. "It's a decision of the ANC. Of course an ANC cadre has a responsibility to respond to what the ANC thinks they should do."

In addition to Mbeki and Zuma, Dlamini-Zuma joins millionaire businessman Tokyo Sexwale as a major candidate for the presidency of the African National Congress, which dominates South African politics.

The party's secretary general, Kgalema Motlanthe, businessman Cyril Ramaphosa and the country's deputy president, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, also have been mentioned as possible candidates.

Whoever wins the job would be heir apparent to the national presidency in the next election in 2009 -- except for Mbeki, who is constitutionally prohibited from running again for president of the nation after serving two terms.

In the race for party president, Mbeki and Zuma enjoy commanding leads over the other candidates among party activists. Both are expected to reach the party conference, in mid-December in the northern city of Polokwane, with substantial support.

"It's very, very tight," Business Day political editor Karima Brown said. "The contest will go down to the wire."

But the antipathy between Mbeki and Zuma extends to their supporters. If neither wins decisively, a deadlocked convention could force a search for a viable compromise candidate. Dlamini-Zuma, who served as health minister under President Nelson Mandela, is widely liked within the party. Mbeki has said South Africa's next president should be a woman.