(Below is the full AFP portrait of Dr Dlamini-Zuma published in the
Johannesburg-based daily Mail & Guardian)
Elected by the 54-member pan-African bloc in Ethiopia on Sunday, she
becomes the first woman to head the African Union commission.
An experienced diplomat, Dlamini-Zuma (63) is known for her competent
management and stern personality.
A doctor by training, she was health minister when Mandela became the
country's first black leader.
She went on to be foreign minister for a decade, earning praise for
her shuttle diplomacy to end the war in the Democratic Republic of
Congo.
But her critics found fault with her "quiet diplomacy" towards
neighbour Zimbabwe, during a crisis that saw President Robert Mugabe
evict thousands of white farmers from their land in 2000.
Her former husband President Jacob Zuma named her interior minister.
Although that was seen as a demotion, she won plaudits for turning
around a ministry mired in gross mismanagement to achieve the first
clean audit in 16 years.
'I'm a Zulu'
In her campaign to win the pan-African bloc's top job, she vowed to
work at making it "a more efficient and effective organisation".
And while she may have defeated the incumbent, French-speaker Jean
Ping of Gabon, she has refused to be labelled as an English-speaking
candidate.
"I am not Anglophone, I'm Zulu," she said.
Once she got to work in the post, she added, she would be
"implementing programmes ... agreed upon by everybody" rather than
"consulting the Anglophone and the Francophone".
Dlamini-Zuma has the backing of the predominantly English-speaking
Southern African region and is the first person from the region to
hold the top commission job since the AU was created a decade ago.
"She takes her work very seriously," said Prince Mashele, an analyst
at the Centre for Politics and Research, who worked with
Dlamini-Zuma's ministry when she was foreign minister. "She has the
rare quality of putting up very good administrators," Mashele added.
'A little more affable'
But she has raised eyebrows with her unsmiling demeanour.
"I thought she could do better if she was a little more affable," said Mashele.
Born January 27 1949, in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal,
Dlamini-Zuma took up politics in high school.
In the 1970s she went into exile, and studied in Britain at the
universities of Bristol and Liverpool, while helping organise the
anti-apartheid movement overseas.
She met Zuma while working as a paediatrician at a Swaziland hospital
and became the polygamist president's third wife in 1982. They
divorced in 1998.
When the ban on the ANC was lifted in 1990, she returned home.
Legislation
After the first democratic elections she was tapped by Mandela to
transform the country's segregated health system.
She is remembered for introducing legislation that overhauled the
highly unequal system and gave the poor access to free basic care.
But she was also criticised for championing a controversial HIV drug
that was later proved to be ineffective.
When Zuma fell out with ex-president Thabo Mbeki and moved to oust him
as ANC leader in 2007, she stood as Mbeki's running mate for the ANC
presidency.
But when Zuma won party polls and later become president, he kept his
ex-wife in his Cabinet – a rare Mbeki ally to avoid the axe.
"She is an astute politician, a veteran, the experience she acquired
as foreign minister puts her in good stead to take over this role" at
the AU, said Keith Gottschalk of the University of the Western Cape. –
AFP
***
SOURCE:
(mg.co.za/article/2012-07-16-dlamini-zuma-iron-lady)
0 comments:
Post a Comment