With elections in the next days in South Africa, the pundits are saying that they are the most important since the end of apartheid 15 years ago.
The country has a myriad of problems. AIDS is but one of them. And then there is a rampant crime rate and the many who feel that the end of apartheid hasn't benefited them.
The Seattle Times reports on the election:
"In the 15 years since Nelson Mandela won the first democratic elections here, finally closing the book on four decades of white apartheid rule, a lot has gone right with South Africa. Yet days before a new election, a deep malaise has taken hold, a creeping fear that the next decade and a half won't be as good as the first was.
"For months, the news pages have been dominated by stories about political corruption, intimidation and backroom dealing at the highest levels of the African National Congress, the party that led the fight against apartheid and has controlled the government ever since.
The man who figures to become president after the April 22 elections, Jacob Zuma, had a long-running bribery case against him suddenly dropped this month on legal technicalities that many suspect were the result of political pressure.
In low-income black townships, residents complain that while the leaders of the liberation struggle are getting rich running the new South Africa, they're still spinning their wheels in the old one — a place of deprivation where electricity, clean water and decent schools remain out of reach.
Among the still-prosperous white minority, worries about crime and corruption are driving many young, educated people overseas, leaving the country short of doctors engineers and other skilled professionals.
Since capturing the world's imagination in 1994, this country has seen itself as an African oasis. Now, for the first time, polls show that a plurality of people thinks the country is headed in the wrong direction."
The country has a myriad of problems. AIDS is but one of them. And then there is a rampant crime rate and the many who feel that the end of apartheid hasn't benefited them.
The Seattle Times reports on the election:
"In the 15 years since Nelson Mandela won the first democratic elections here, finally closing the book on four decades of white apartheid rule, a lot has gone right with South Africa. Yet days before a new election, a deep malaise has taken hold, a creeping fear that the next decade and a half won't be as good as the first was.
"For months, the news pages have been dominated by stories about political corruption, intimidation and backroom dealing at the highest levels of the African National Congress, the party that led the fight against apartheid and has controlled the government ever since.
The man who figures to become president after the April 22 elections, Jacob Zuma, had a long-running bribery case against him suddenly dropped this month on legal technicalities that many suspect were the result of political pressure.
In low-income black townships, residents complain that while the leaders of the liberation struggle are getting rich running the new South Africa, they're still spinning their wheels in the old one — a place of deprivation where electricity, clean water and decent schools remain out of reach.
Among the still-prosperous white minority, worries about crime and corruption are driving many young, educated people overseas, leaving the country short of doctors engineers and other skilled professionals.
Since capturing the world's imagination in 1994, this country has seen itself as an African oasis. Now, for the first time, polls show that a plurality of people thinks the country is headed in the wrong direction."
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