Mandela Foundation rebukes Zuma, calls for leadership change

The foundation set up to guard the legacy of the late Nelson Mandela on Tuesday blamed South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma for poor leadership in the Africa’s most industrialised nation and urged a change in political rule .

Since coming to power in 2009, Zuma has survived a string of corruption scandals. But South Africa has had to bear the cost of his antics as investors worry about its political stability, business climate and rule of law.

The non-profit Nelson Mandela Foundation, whose board consists of ten prominent South African academics, politicians and journalists, called on the African National Congress (ANC), the liberation movement once headed by Mandela and now led by Zuma, to change its leadership.

Several ANC members have called for the 74-year-old to quit but the ANC’s top leaders have backed him. In August municipal elections the ANC suffered its worst losses since taking power when apartheid fell in 1994.