Many Presidents come into office with a clear agenda of the key things they would like to achieve during their time in office. Presidents always want to leave behind a legacy and I have no doubt that President Zuma has his own agenda. If he does have an agenda, it is certainly not overtly communicated indeed I often find myself wondering what legacy President Zuma is really building for himself.
Follow Zuma's travels for clues
In recent times, President Zuma has been spending a lot of time outside the country, either on official state visits or simply attending critical multilateral gatherings such as the recent African Union-EU Summit in Tripoli, Libya. I have come to observe an emerging pattern with regards to the choice of countries which the President has been visiting of late. Recently he traveled to Angola, Zambia, China, Libya and now of course, Cuba.
All these countries have one special thing in common and that is, they were somehow directly or indirectly involved in helping to keep the ANC movement "alive" during those tough decades of he apartheid era. I have therefore come a private conclusion that perhaps President Zuma is somehow seeking to establish stronger diplomatic relations between South Africa and these countries. In my opinion, Zuma may be setting about to position himself (consciously or inadvertently), as the President who can be spoken of as having started the process of making diplomatic amends between South Africa and those countries. The list of countries which helped keep the ANC "alive" is endless and in some instances, debatable.
With this in mind, I expect President Zuma to make a more concerted effort towards improving diplomatic ties with more of those countries, among them are Swaziland, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and even Russia.
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