With Nelson Mandela gone, many South Africans are questioning the ANC

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Protesters demonstrate in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Aug.16, 1962, demanding Mandela’s release after his second arrest. His wife, Winnie, whom he had married in 1958, joined the protests. Mandela was sent to a penal colony off Cape Town, where he spent 13 years laboring in a quarry. (Dennis Lee Royle / Associated Press)

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Mandela and other African National Congress activists were freed in 1990. On Feb. 11, Nelson and Winnie Mandela march through Paarl with a cheering crowd. (Alexander Joe / AFP/Getty Images)

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South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela waves to the media and guests after making a joint statement with President George H.W. Bush on the White House South Lawn on June 25, 1990. (Kevin Larkin / AFP/Getty Images)

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Mandela attends a service at First United Methodist Church in Los Angeles in 1993. (Axel Koester / For The Times)

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Mandela and President F.W. de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, for their leadership of a negotiated transfer of power from South Africa’s white minority to the black majority. (Jon Eeg / Associated Press)

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Nelson Mandela listens to speakers at a campaign rally at Soweto Stadium before addressing the crowd himself on April 23, 1994, three days before national elections. (Walter Dhladhla / AFP/Getty Images)

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Mandela casts his ballot April 27, 1994, during South Africa’s first democratic election, marking the first time he -- or any black person in the country -- had been able to vote. (Walter Dhladhla / AFP/Getty Images)

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Nelson Mandela and regional African National Congress leader Allan Boesak, right, greet the crowd at a campaign rally on April 17, 1994, 10 days before South Africa’s first all-race national elections. (Guy Tallim / AFP/Getty Images)

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Nelson Mandela dances with Imilonji Kantu choir members at a victory celebration on May 2, 1994. (Los Angeles Times / Los Angeles Times)

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South African President Nelson Mandela addresses the United Nations General Assembly on Oct. 3, 1994. (Jon Levy / AFP/Getty Images)

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President-elect Nelson Mandela waves to the crowd with his two deputy presidents -- Thabo Mbeki, left, and Frederik de Klerk -- after the inaugural sitting of South Africa’s first all-race parliament on May 9,1994. Mandela was elected South Africa’s first black head of state by the post-apartheid assembly. (Alexander Joe / AFP/Getty Images)

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Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat speaks with Mandela in Tunis in 1994 during an African summit. Arafat was an observer at the summit. (WAFA / Associated Press)

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President Nelson Mandela walks with Pope John Paul II after the pontiff’s arrival at Johannesburg airport September 16,1995. This was the Pope’s first official visit to South Africa. (Walter Dhladhla / AFP/Getty Images)

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Queen Elizabeth II pays a state visit to South Africa in 1995, the first by a ruling British monarch since 1947. (Adil Bradow / Associated Press)

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South African President Nelson Mandela speaks before a special session of the U.N. General Assembly on Oct. 23, 1995, in which he appealed to the U.N. to redefine its role in the world and reshape its structure. (Timothy Clary / AFP/Getty Images)

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President Mandela at his Pretoria residence with Percy Yutar in 1995, who as a state prosecutor 31 years earlier sentenced Mandela to life in prison. (Adil Bradlow / Associated Press)

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President Mandela and Vice President Al Gore after a meeting in Cape Town, South Africa in 1997. (Sasa Kralj / Associated Press)

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President Mandela greets Britain’s Princess Diana during her 1997 visit to Cape Town, South Africa. (Sasa Kralj / Associated Press)

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In Libya, President Mandela visits with leader Moammar Kadafi in 1997. (Enric Marti / Associated Press)

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South African President Nelson Mandela takes the arm of British Prime Minister Tony Blair as they chat while strolling on the grounds of the Royal and Ancient St. Andrews Golf Course during a break in the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting on Oct. 26, 1997. (Johnny Eggitt / AFP/Getty Images)

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Presidents Mandela and Clinton look out from a cell on Robben Island in Cape Town’s Table Bay in 1998. Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in this prison cell during apartheid. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

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U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt, left, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and President Clinton welcome President Mandela during a 1998 visit to Washington. (Paul J. Richards / AFP/Getty Images)

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At Mandela’s Pretoria residence in 1998, he and Graca Machel examine a birthday card for him from his former prison guard. Mandela and Machel were married later that day in Johannesburg. (Adil Bradlow / Associated Press)

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Nelson Mandela shakes the hand of Pope John Paul II during a visit by Mandela to the Vatican on June 18, 1998. (Paolo Cocco / AFP/Getty Images)

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President Nelson Mandela shows off his just-received honorary degree from Harvard University on Sept. 18, 1998. (John Mottern / AFP/Getty Images)

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Mandela, then the outgoing president, casts his ballot at a Johannesburg polling station during South Africa’s 1999 election. (Peter Dejong / Associated Press)

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South African President Nelson Mandela and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki wave to well-wishers after Mandela’s last major address to Parliament on Feb. 5, 1999. (Obed Zilwa / Associated Press)

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Nelson Mandela receives Michael Jackson for a visit on March 23, 1999. (Anna Zieminski / AFP/Getty Images)

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Mandela, standing behind Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, joins a royal gathering at St. James’ Palace in London on Oct. 31, 2002. to mark the centenary of the Order of Merit. (Kirsty Wigglesworth / AFP/Getty Images)

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Former President Nelson Mandela and his wife, Graca Machel, join United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and President Thabo Mbeki on stage at the World Summit on Sustainable Development on Sept. 2, 2002. (Pedro Ugarte / AFP/Getty Images)

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Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz walks past a photograph of Nelson Mandela as a political prisoner on Robben Island during an official visit to the country on July 6, 2002. (Anna Zieminski / AFP/Getty Images)

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Nelson Mandela speaks at an AIDS conference on July 14, 2003. (Jean Ayissi / AFP/Getty Images)

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Former U.S. President Bill Clinton shakes hands with former South African President Nelson Mandela during the inaugural Nelson Mandela Lecture at the Johannesburg Civic Centre, on July 19, 2003. The lecture coincided with Mandela’s 85th birthday. (Rajesh Jantilal / AFP/Getty Images)

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Nelson Mandela holds the Jules Rimet World Cup at FIFA headquarters after South Africa won the right to host the 2010 World Cup finals, the first to be played in Africa, on May 15, 2004. (Franck Fife / AFP/Getty Images)

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Nelson Mandela celebrates his 89th birthday flanked by former President Jimmy Carter, right, and former United Nations chief Kofi Annan, during the launching ceremony of the group known as the Elders -- a brain trust of elder statesmen -- on July 18, 2007. (Alexander Joe / AFP/Getty Images)

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Lithographs by Mandela are displayed as part of an exhibition of his works at Belgravia Gallery in London in July, 2008. (Sang Tan / Associated Press)

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A group of schoolchildren participates in a program at the Nelson Mandela Foundation on the eve of Mandela Day on July 17, 2011. (Stephane de Sakutin / AFP/Getty Images)

By Robyn Dixon

Dec. 14, 2013 12 PM PT

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Nelson Mandela, cushioned in the comfortable blur of old age, never knew much about the scandals and corruption that have engulfed the party he believed in and its leader, President Jacob Zuma.

What would the old man have thought?

Rather than sailing into next year’s elections in a sentimental fog of Mandela nostalgia, the African National Congress is finding that its mythologizing of Mandela has left many voters anxious and uncomfortable with the lack of a Mandela-style figure to lead the country out of its problems of mass unemployment and poor education and health services.

Zuma’s use of state money to build a palatial mansion in his home village of Nkandla — and a police massacre of dozens of striking miners last year — stand in glaring contrast with the ideals of Mandela, whose iconic status is hard to live up to.

“Mandela, when these things happened, he was already not very well. It was not possible for him to talk about these things,” said Andrew Mlangeni, 88, Mandela’s jail mate and confidant on Robben Island, who spent 26 years behind bars for his anti-apartheid activities. “All I can say is if he was well, perhaps he could say something.”

Mlangeni was the first speaker at Tuesday’s memorial service for Mandela, where rowdy ANC members treated the occasion as though it were a party conference, cheering their heroes, but booing Zuma, in a global humiliation that party spokesman Jackson Mthembu admitted “came as a bolt to all of us.”

Many analysts had expected that Mandela’s death would deliver the ruling party a macabre boost in elections next year, predicting the ANC would deck the country out with posters of the late leader, hoping to benefit from one last shot of his “Madiba magic” at a time when the party’s credibility is low.

“One of the consequences of this very long, drawn-out memorial is that people are measuring the behavior of the current leadership with the ideal of Mandela,” said analyst Mark Gevisser. “No one can compare favorably with that kind of hagiography.

“I cynically assumed that Mandela’s death would be ‘good’ for the government in electoral terms because people would turn out in their droves to vote for the party,” Gevisser said. “What one woman said to me is, ‘It’s the opposite, because what Mandela’s death has caused us all to remember [is] what was so great about him and therefore how far our leaders have fallen.’”

The public humiliation of Zuma at the memorial service in front of leaders from around the world was shocking, and started a ripple effect. In the queue to see Mandela’s body lying in state in Pretoria, people chimed in with criticism.

“When Zuma talks about the good that Madiba did, but fails to emulate Madiba himself, let alone coming close to that, he deserved what came his way,” Malphia Honwane of Manyeleti said in a letter to the mass-circulation Daily Sun, referring to Mandela by his clan name. “The people are disappointed with the current crop of leaders to such an extent that they can’t hold back their anger.”

Opposition leaders say the booing indicates that Mandela’s death has given voters, who for years cast their ballots for the ANC out of deference to him, “permission” to vote for the opposition.

Mamphela Ramphele, leader of opposition party Agang, said Zuma’s speech sounded like an address to party members, and “the booing of the president by members of the ANC speaks to their discontent with him, his conduct as president and his personal conduct — as much as for me it was an embarrassment that the president of South Africa was booed in the presence of heads of state from so many countries.”

“You cannot expect the people of South Africa to respect the office of the president when the president and governing party do not,” she said.

But analyst Gevisser said that South Africans have often expressed anger and dissatisfaction in interviews before elections, only to go ahead and vote for the party.

“It’s almost part of election season for people to talk about how dissatisfied they are,” he said, “and it does not necessarily translate into how they vote.”

Although he predicted no threat to Zuma’s leadership, he said the president’s credibility had taken a serious blow.

“I don’t think he’s finished,” the analyst said, “but he’s severely compromised, and compromised on the world stage as well.”

The most tangible symbol of disillusionment with Zuma is the mansion he built for himself, which has aroused both envy and contempt. Many South Africans mutter darkly about his lifestyle and the fact that he has many wives.

An analogy that often comes up, speaking to South Africans about Mandela’s death, is a family that loses its way after losing the head of the household.

“People do not respect our current president the way they used to respect Madiba,” said Irene Makitla, 33, who got up at 5 a.m. and waited hours Thursday to view Mandela. “We are so afraid, we are asking ourselves what is going to happen after this. Before, people were doing things because they honored and respected Madiba, but we don’t know what people might do next.

“It’s like in a house there is a mother or father keeping the law. When the mother or father is not around, people start playing around.”

Mandela had played no political role since his endorsement of Zuma before elections in 2009. The ANC kept him alive in politics by constantly invoking his name and using his image. In April, Zuma and ANC figures visited a frail, apparently disoriented Mandela, snapping photos with a flash, drawing condemnation from Mandela’s ex-wife, who said it was insensitive and compromised Mandela’s dignity.

Lifelong ANC supporter Tyson Mbanjwa, 38, said Zuma’s conduct would have tested Mandela’s support for him had the former president been aware of what was going on in his twilight years.

“I think we need a change of leadership because we didn’t see any change with him [Zuma] as leader. I think even Mandela would [have liked] to change Zuma, because he doesn’t listen to others. They were booing him because they need a change of leadership,” Mbanjwa said.

Gevisser said the contrast between Zuma and Mandela doesn’t mean the public will reject the ANC in next year’s election, but it means that some South Africans have edged closer to the day when they would change their vote.

He said the positive thing coming out of the grief over Mandela is dialogue in the ANC about how the party had lost its values and how to recover them.

Yet there is nobody who could inherit the Mandela mantle. “The leadership vacuum is really profound,” Gevisser said.

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