KEY POINTS:
Lizzie Jandjies tucks herself tight into the top corner of Dan Qeqe stadium as she waits for presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma to arrive in the South African township of Zwide, in the flat hinterlands of Port Elizabeth. Beyond the stadium are houses of breezeblock and corrugated iron; homes that are an aspiration to the neatly dressed Jandjies.
Circumstances, she says, led her to an "informal settlement" about 30 minutes' drive away. In Moeggefukkel pledges of mains water have been put off until 2012 and supplies must be carried from nearby houses. There is no electricity and the dark hours are terrifying. "There is no protection," she says. "Criminals come in the night, kick in the door, steal everything and sometimes kill."
So Jandjies waits, not entirely patiently, for Zuma, the Zulu populist. She hopes that the hero of the struggle against apartheid, a man who in the past two years has faced rape and corruption charges and who entertains the crowd by singing "awulethu' mshini wami" ("get my machine gun") might hurry up what South Africans call "development". But as yet his private jet has failed to streak the blue above.
Jandjies may not share the wealth of South Africa's English, Afrikaner, Indian and middle-class black and mixed race populations, but she does share, alongside their fear of crime, a desire for change, though not everyone feels Zuma is the right man.
On December 16, delegates to the 52nd national conference of the African National Congress will meet in Polokwane, formerly Pietersburg, to decide if President Thabo Mbeki should have a third term as president of the African National Congress (ANC).
Polokwane is close enough to the border with Zimbabwe to offer delegates some cautionary guidance (and Zimbabwean refugee waiters will no doubt be a further reminder). For in South Africa's fragmented society, it is common to hear citizens, as they watch the once great liberation movement begin to tear itself apart, raise the subject of Robert Mugabe's descent into dictatorship.
As Siphiwe Zulu, an ANC branch chairman in Soweto, put it: "There is a problem of African leaders who want to stay in office too long." Such views will cut Mbeki deeply.
He, after all, is the man who has tried to foster an African renaissance, overturning Western views of a continent predetermined to failure.
His supporters point out that he does not want to remain president after the 2009 elections - the constitution prohibits that - but only president of the party. Mbeki - strategic, smart, with a love of poetry - is determined, so insiders say, not to cling to power but to see off his uneducated, militant and pugilistic old comrade Zuma, because he believes him to be unsuited to power.
Come midday at Dan Qeqe stadium, 100 people, holding banners that read "Thabo Mbeki, ANC president 2007-2012" make their way down the path.
They pack into the stand alongside the 1500 Zuma supporters and sing "Jacob Zuma is a criminal".
The Eastern Cape is Mbeki country. It was in Zwide's hard-scrabble dirt that Mbeki's father Govan, a hero of the struggle, was buried in 2001. By turning up, Zuma is sending a signal - that it was he, JZ, who carried lifelong communist Govan Mbeki's concern for South Africa's poor.
Yet South Africa's future does not rest solely on these two frontrunners. Other names will be available to delegates in Polokwane: Zuma's estranged wife, the Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, and the former Gauteng premier Tokyo Sexwale. Most intriguing, in the shadows and as yet silent, is the trade unionist turned multimillionaire Cyril Ramaphosa. "I don't remember a time when the leadership was openly contested," said a senior unionist.
Such open conflict within the ANC is unknown and is proving hard for some to bear. As I stand watching each side mock the other in the stand, an old man in a grey suit elbowed me in the ribs. He could barely speak English, but was insistent with those words he had: "One ANC. Must stay together." There were tears in his eyes.
It was never going to be an easy job, replacing Nelson Mandela as President. And Mbeki is, as one South African newspaper put it, "a hard man to love". It wasn't always so. In exile Mbeki would debate South Africa's problems, developing his belief in an African renaissance where "our rebirth as a continent must [begin] with the rediscovery of our own soul".
Now, says his biographer Mark Gervisser, the dreams expressed in exile have had to be deferred by the realities of South Africa's problems.
Mbeki's war against those "determined to prove everything in the anti-African stereotype" is now focused on those who, for honourable reasons, criticise obvious cronyism and corruption.
He has opened himself to attack by expressing scepticism about the link between HIV and Aids, in part because he believes it plays to the Western view of Africans as, in his words, "natural born, promiscuous carriers of germs"and still he grumbles that the true cause is poverty, as Gervisser's biography, released last week, reveals.
Meanwhile, his belief in an African renaissance has been tested against his loyalty to old friends. He, all but alone in the ANC, was close to Mugabe during the battle with the late Ian Smith's regime.
He has protected Jackie Selebi, the chief of police and South African head of Interpol, against charges of corruption, and he has failed to fire his alcoholic health minister, Manto Tshabalala Msimang, despite suggestions she used her influence to receive a new liver and the revelation she once stole an anaesthetised patient's watch.
Yet, set against this, Mbeki has presided over an economy that has grown by 5 per cent a year, where property prices have recovered after an initial white flight, where the Springboks once more brought home the rugby World Cup, where two million new homes have been built, and where the Government's Black Economic Empowerment scheme has established a black middle class.
"People see a lot of change," says Siphiwe Zulu, the ANC branch chairman in the Soweto neighbourhood of Zola. "Most of the streets were without tar. There were no street lights. Now there is even a shopping mall." (Soweto also has a country club and its own chapter of the Hell's Angels.)
A black elite has formed, led by Ramaphosa. The former head of the National Union of Mineworkers stepped back from politics in the 1990s to - in the words of Richard Holbrooke, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations - "show the way to a generation of black South Africans who would gradually control the South African economy".
Through mining, media and a variety of other interests, he has become one of the richest men in the country.
Unsurprisingly, the organisations that the ANC is allied to - the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the South African Communist Party and the ANC's own youth league - feel such wealth isn't trickling down fast enough.
"Black economic empowerment is enriching a very few," said Blade Nzimande, general secretary of the Communist Party. "It is not even creating a black bourgeoisie, it is creating a small group of black people indebted to the capitalist class ... A majority of communist members would prefer Jacob Zuma."
Apart from the convoy of black cars , traffic cops stationed at the intersections and the phalanx of bodyguards, Zuma strikes a modest note when he finally turns up at Dan Qeqe six hours late. He tells the crowd - once the Mbeki supporters stop singing - that the ANC needs a strong leader, and then he promises to support whoever was chosen.
Even more than dissent, the ANC dislikes the smell of ambition. Just before Zuma pulls in, another figure appears at my side. Thylani Grootboom, an Mbeki supporter, wants something understood, reinforcing his point with a jabbing finger: "Campaigning for yourself, it's against the culture of the ANC." Zuma's weakness in the run-up to the Polokwane conference is the sense, increasingly pervasive, that he is putting himself forward too much.
Zuma did not come from anti-apartheid royalty. He was raised by his widowed mother who worked as a domestic. He showed immense courage as head of the underground in KwaZulu Natal and an intelligence that negated his lack of a formal education. As with all the potential candidates, it is impossible to extract a policy, because policies are supposed to be the preserve of the party itself.
Instead there is character. In 1994 Zuma managed to convince Mandela that Mbeki would be a better deputy than Ramaphosa, yet as time passed Mbeki has increasingly believed that Zuma lacks the judgment for top office. He believes, according to Gervisser, that a Zuma presidency would destroy his dream of renaissance.
Certainly Zuma has had his difficulties. The charge of raping a 31-year-old family friend was dropped, but he hardly delighted doctors when he shrugged off the unprotected sex (he knew she was HIV positive) by saying that the shower he took afterwards "would minimise the risk of contracting the disease". He led the National Aids Council at the time.
Charges of corruption may prove trickier yet. A NZ$10.7 billion arms purchase from European companies has poisoned the South African political pool. Zuma has been accused of taking payments. Whether this derails him remains to be seen.
Andrew Feinstein was the senior ANC MP on a parliamentary committee that looked into allegations surrounding the arms deal and has just published a book, After the Party, that offers a rare insight into the ANC's methods. "Mbeki has far more to lose from a thorough investigation than Zuma," he said. "Zuma's misdemeanours were relatively small, amounting to a payment of 500,000 rand ($95,013) to protect a French arms company from any investigation, while Mbeki either directly solicited, or condoned soliciting, money for the ANC in return for contracts."
In other words, Zuma can make Mbeki's life very difficult in court.
From a new life in London, Feinstein laments what has "become of a once proud organisation". The ANC, he writes, is no longer driven by "lofty ideals but by issues of personality, power and patronage".
Meanwhile, crime grows worse. Lizzie Jandjies often chuckles as we wait for Zuma, but not about levels of crime. As the convoy sweeps away from Zwide, she prepares for the journey back to her house without electricity, water or a door to stop a determined boot. She is pleased that rival supporters have been satisfied with trading songs of disdain: "I'm just glad it didn't become violent."
- Observer
Rivals for power
Thabo Mbeki, 65
An intellectual who spent the apartheid years in exile, he was widely distrusted by colleagues. His skill in avoiding nationwide conflict in the late 1980s saw him elected president in 1999.
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, 58
A rare advocate for action on the Aids pandemic, Jacob Zuma's ex-wife is now Foreign Minister.
Tokyo Sexwale, 56
Former premier of Gauteng province, he calmed townships riven by ANC and Zulu-dominated Inkatha Freedom Party. Now an oil and diamond tycoon.
Cyril Ramaphosa, 55
The former leader of the National Union of Mineworkers shook the apartheid authorities with a devastating strike in the 1980s.
Jacob Zuma, 65
The uneducated Zuma ran the ANC underground in KwaZulu Natal and spent 10 years on Robben Island.
