South Africa sickened by Zuma’s Mandela ‘kidnap’

South Africans are reeling from the news that Nelson Mandela was effectively kidnapped recently by former comrades in the African National Congress, desperately seeking to drum up support for the party at national elections to be held in April.

Supporters of ANC presidential candidate Jacob Zuma, who is awaiting trial on charges of corruption, swooped on Mandela's home near Johannesburg last week while the ailing 90-year-old's wife was away. The old man was whisked off to a mass rally in the party's former heartland of the Eastern Cape.

Zuma's bodyguards took charge of the trip, sidelining Mandela's own security detail and abandoning all the normal safety precautions that are taken for the father of post-Apartheid South Africa.

The private plane carrying Mandela to the rally made repeated attempts to land at its destination in very bad weather, endangering the icon's life. No emergency healthcare was laid on to safeguard his increasingly frail health.

The former South African president was eventually lifted on to the stage by a desperate Zuma and his aides so that he could be seen to be present at the rally. Mandela did not address the crowd.

The symbolic appearance was stage-managed to shore up former gardener Zuma's bid for the presidency, which has been rocked by a recent split in the ANC and the formation of the Congress of the People, a new nationwide black political party.

Many South Africans were sickened by the sight of the old man being manhandled at the event, with photographs of Zuma clutching Mandela's hand gracing the front pages of national newspapers.

Sources familiar with what happened said Mandela, who usually starts going to bed at 4pm, was only brought home several hours later, after dark.

The ANC's spokeswoman, Jessie Duarte, said that Mandela is "no longer a prisoner" and can appear at any political rally that he chooses.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation, which has managed Mandela's travel arrangements since he stepped down as president in 1999 was not allowed to help or make plans for the visit to the Eastern Cape. "It really was very bad and irresponsible treatment of the old man," one Mandela confidant told the press.

"He really doesn't need this kind of nonsense at his time of life," a family friend told the press.

Bad publicity generated by the incident has rebounded on the ANC and Jacob Zuma. A meeting has been called between the party and the Nelson Mandela Foundation, which was extremely critical of the old man's treatment.

Zuma, who already styles himself "President" on his campaign literature, has turned on those making the allegations, attacking the media and the Nelson Mandela Foundation for their criticisms. "What happens between Madiba [Mandela] and the ANC is nobody else's business," he told a political rally in Cape Town on Sunday.

Mandela was fetched from his home in Houghton, Johannesburg by firebrand and former leader of the ANC Youth League, Fikile Mbalula, and by his grandson, Mandla Mandela, on behalf of Zuma.

The Eastern Cape has become a battleground for the ANC in an election that is being fought along increasingly tribal lines. Zuma, a Zulu, is struggling to retain a majority in the province, which blames him for overthrowing the former president, Thabo Mbeki - a Xhosa, like Mandela. The region is predominantly Xhosa.

People who have visited Mandela in the past few months said he had shown little interest in recent developments within the party. ·