South Africa's top 10 personalities of 2009

The criteria for my top ten was very simply based on media coverage the personalities received in their sphere of influence and more importantly on the social impact of the reasons for the interest generated by each personality. Looking at the personalities in my top ten, they are dominated by politicians but the list also includes, an athlete, sports admistartors, business personalities, an economist and an "entertainer", where the word entertainer is used very loosely. The names are not listed in any particular order.

1. President Jacob Zuma: he came back from the political wilderness to lead the ANC to an election victory and became the fourth president of the Republic of South Africa since the first democratic lections of 1994. All signs are that Mr. Zuma’s legacy as President will be one based on service delivery;
2. Helen Zille: her party gave the ANC a run for their money in the general elections resulting in her party winning the Western Province making her Premier of that province, the only province not governed by the ANC;
3. Julius Malema: like him or not, Julius has made himself head in 2009. No doubt he will continue to do so in 2010;
4. Sizwe Nxasana: in June 2009 he was appointed the first Black CEO of a banking group. Nxasana will take over as Group CEO of First Rand Limited on 1 Jan 2010;
5. Alan Knott-Craig: he finally relinquished his post as CEO of the Vodacom Group, having started the company from scratch and led it to become the number mobile company in South Africa. He capped off the year by releasing his autobiography "Second is Nothing";
6. Tito Mboweni: the former Governor of the Reserve Bank took his last bow and made a calm and un-eventful exit at the helm of the Bank. Uneventfulness and Calmness is what the markets expected from Mboweni’s exit, and that’s what the markets received;
7. Caster Semenya: she epitomises both pain and joy. If Caster has not been broken by the ASA debacle at the IAAF World Championships in Berlin, she must surely be a stronger person for this experience. I hope it is the latter;
8. Carlos Alberto Perreira: the Bafana Bafana coach takes my award for “the come back-kid of the year”. Now all he needs to do take South Africa to the knock-out stage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup;
9. Irvin Khoza and Danny Jordaan: these two gentlemen have made South Africa proud by successfully delivering first, the FIFA Confederations Cup and then more recently the 2010 FIFA World Cup Draw. Now the stage is set for the final event in 2010;
10. Ras Dumisani: Not only did he embarrass himself but he also embarrassed South Africa with his uninspired rendition of the national anthem in France. The less said about Ras the better.
    

May you have a Properous 2010