JOHANNESBURG: The struggle for the future leadership of South Africa heated up at the weekend when, for the first time, the former deputy president Jacob Zuma launched an open attack on President Thabo Mbeki, accusing him of over-centralising power.

The attack by the man Mr Mbeki fired came amid concern that the president might have a heart problem after his admission to a clinic for tests last week. The president’s woes were compounded when it was disclosed that he had bought an expensive house in Johannesburg, giving the impression that he was preparing for his retirement.

Mr Zuma laid into Mr Mbeki in a speech to the country’s largest teachers’ union in which he also criticised the government’s HIV-AIDS policy. The speech was described as a turning point in Mr Zuma’s campaign to win the ANC presidency next year. A spokesman for Mr Mbeki said he was in good health and would be at work this week.

Mr Mbeki’s wife, Zanele, threatened to sue the Democratic Alliance for invasion of privacy after they turned up with a group of journalists in tow to inspect the family’s new house, said to be worth about 22m rand (£1.6m), in the luxurious suburb of Houghton.

The chief whip of the alliance, Douglas Gibson, asked where he had got the money to afford the house. Suspicions were raised when it emerged that Mrs Mbeki had used a pseudonym when hiring a building contractor.

The only comeback against his chief tormentor from Mr Mbeki was in the form of a rebuke to those he described as the “children” of the Congress of South African Students for an attack they had made on Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The retired archbishop had advised Mr Zuma not to stand for the post of ANC president at next year’s party congress. In an online column Mr Mbeki writes, he demanded, almost with pathos: “What is it that gives the very young the audacity to repudiate what our senior citizens say?”

Mr Zuma faces a court appearance this week on corruption charges.

If he is acquitted, his drive for power could create a crisis of confidence for South Africa.

—Dawn/The Guardian News Service