So after getting over my shock and dissapointment that Zuma was elected ANC president I decided to do some research on the man. I realized I don't really know this man but I hate him with a passion, so how about I give him a chance. Maybe just maybe there is some good in him and I just need to find it.
So after an hour on Google i found some interesting articles about him; nothing I didn't know before. But the article below was interesting to me, maybe its becoz i'm a woman. I shall reserve my comments for now until u all read it for yourselves. Its long but it makes for interesting reading.
BEING Mrs Jacob Zuma is no walk in the park. Some of his wives have stuck it out for decades, but others opted out of sharing their lives with the notorious Lothario who, in his rape trial, publicly admitted in court to having sex with an HIV-positive woman who is not one of his wives.
The 65-year-old, probably the country’s most prominent polygamist, has been married at least five times and is father to more than a dozen children.
The big question on everyone’s lips is: who will he take as first lady should he win the race for the ANC presidency and thereby land the job of President of South Africa?
Unashamedly a traditionalist, Zuma acknowledges all his wives and once told a television interviewer: “There are plenty of politicians who have mistresses and children that they hide so as to pretend they’re monogamous. I prefer to be open. I love my wives and I’m proud of my children.”
He is still married to his first wife, Sizakele Khumalo, whom he met in 1959. The quiet and painfully shy MaKhumalo, as she is affectionately known, lives at Zuma’s R1.5-million homestead in Nkandla in rural northern KwaZulu-Natal, where he spent part of this week.
While serving the ANC in exile in the 1980s, Zuma took two other brides — Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, then a medical officer in paediatrics at Swaziland’s Mbabane Government Hospital, and Kate Mantsho Zuma, then a Mozambican airline staffer.
He had four children with Dlamini-Zuma, now Minister of Foreign Affairs, but the couple divorced in June 1998 due to “irreconcilable differences”.
Zuma had five children with Kate, who committed suicide on December 8 2000 after apparent strained relations with her husband. It was her tragic death that gave the first real insight into a Zuma wife’s life. In a suicide note she handed the Rev Frank Chikane, Kate just about barred Zuma from her funeral.
“Strictly my dear children, my maternal family to attend. From the Zumas only Bro Mike and all the Mzobe family.”
Her bitterness is further captured as she addressed him about the need to care for their children in the hand- written letter.
“Please, Please will you take care of my dear children, you must not let them starve since I’ll be gone, pay their school fees to enable them to further their studies.
“Seeing that I won’t be around to borrow money from friends ... secure guarantee [for] the apartment in Killarney for my kids to stay without any eviction orders ...
“Revisit your obligations as a Father to have Love/Passion for your own children.”
Kate Zuma then reveals another agony: “I wish you luck and success with the new Makoti and would advise her that the seat she is going to occupy is very, very, very Hot.
“I hope, If it is true we will meet again somewhere, But not as husband and wife which I’ll dare not take that chance again due to bitter and most painful (24 years) marriage life I have gone through.”
It is possible that the Makhoti (new bride) that Kate refers to in her sucide note is Zuma’s fourth wife, Mantuli, a housewife. The two met through social circles a few years before their marriage five years ago. Zuma has two children with her — a five-year-old daughter and seven-month-old son.
Mantuli says she prefers to keep out of the Zuma “spotlight” and doesn’t like the publicity and hype surrounding his public life.
She moves between a R5-million Durban home that is being leased to Zuma at a “nominal” rent and Zuma’s traditional homestead at Nkandla.
Zuma recently paid lobolo to a younger wife, 35-year-old Thobeka Stacy Mabhija, with whom he has two children. The second is barely three months old.
Mabhija, who works at a cellphone company in Durban, is an elegant woman known for designer outfits. She is said to have spread the word around Durban social circles that she was going to be South Africa’s next first lady. This week she denied it.
Don Mkhwanazi, a trustee of the Friends of Jacob Zuma Trust, told the Sunday Times this week that Zuma was likely to be guided by tradition when deciding whose name to submit to the Spousal Office in the Office of the Presidency in Pretoria.
Mkhwanazi said although he had not discussed the issue with Zuma, the president-in-waiting would surely be dictated to by tradition and choose his first wife, Sizakele.
“MaKhumalo is one of the most supportive of his wives and Msholozi [Zuma’s clan name] has a lot of respect for her,” said Mkhwanazi.
Several Zuma aides who spoke to the Sunday Times on condition of anonymity said the ANC deputy president held his first wife in high regard and said she would possibly be the one, citing a number of occasions when he paid tribute to her resilience and will of steel in his speeches.
When the University of Zululand conferred an honorary degree on him in 2001, Zuma described his wife as an amazing person who had shared the better part of his life as “a wife, a friend, a sister and a mother to me — Sizakele Gertrude Zuma.
“Her loyalty and commitment to me has been an extraordinary one,” said Zuma in his speech.
“As a girlfriend, she waited for 10 years and six months for me while I was imprisoned on Robben Island. As a wife she waited for 14 years and a half when I was in exile.
“She indeed suffered a lot because of her loyalty, love and commitment to me.”
Should she become the first lady, MaKhumalo will enter a totally new world.
It is said she is the Nkandla homestead’s matriarch, and looks after some of Zuma’s brothers’ children.
She is also said to attend to some of the community’s problems when Zuma is away on business.
A senior official in the Office of the Presidency said the position of a first lady was a ceremonial one and that, if Zuma assumed power, he could choose any one of his women to be the country’s first lady.
“There is no fast rule to say this can be done or cannot be done,” said the source.
“He can choose any one of his wives, or one of his daughters as Nelson Mandela did when he separated from Winnie.”
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THE ZUMA HAREM — WELL, PART OF IT, ANYWAY
NUMBER ONE: Sizakele Zuma
No children.
EX-WIFE: Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma
She has four daughters with Zuma: Msholozi, 24, Gugu, 22, Thuli, 21, and Thuthu, 19.
LATE WIFE: Kate Zuma
She had five children with Zuma: Saady, 29, twins Duduzile and Duduzane, both 25, Phumzile, 20, and Vusi, 14.
CITY WIFE: Mantuli
She has two children with Zuma. — a five-year-old daughter and a seven- month-old son.
LATEST MRS: Thobeka Stacy Mabhija
She has two children, including a three-month-old, with Zuma.
OLD FLAME: Minah Shongwe, the sister of Judge Jeremiah Shongwe
She has a 30-year-old son, Edward, with Zuma.