It always makes me shudder to think of Jacob Zuma fraternising with other leaders at events such as the G20 Summit, his torrid history of rape allegations and corruption tailing behind him for all to see.

By many accounts he can be quite affable at such events, but it’s more difficult to blag your way through televised interviews with the likes of Chinese journalist Tian Wei.

Zuma was appearing to offer insight into how SA, as the only African country, could contribute to the summit. It really didn’t go according to plan, and many analysts have said that he humiliated himself with his ‘lack of understanding of core economic issues’.

Feel like a proper cringe? Well it’s happening anyway:

Some of the more stinging criticism below from MyBroadband:

Peter Bruce, Editor-in-Chief of Business Day and Financial Mail, said Zuma should not have accepted the interview.

“He is simply not able to hold an English conversation on, say, aspects of industrialisation at any length,” said Bruce.

Moneyweb editor Ryk van Niekerk called the interview cringeworthy, adding that it “underlines his lack of understanding of the challenges facing the South African economy”.

“If it wasn’t such a massive embarrassment for South Africa, it would have been funny,” said van Niekerk.

Let’s just pull one Zuma quote and take a closer look:

I think of all the regions of the world, [Africa] was the only one which was totally colonised and stayed there for a long time without Africa doing its own things. It was only in the decade of the sixties that they began to get their independence.”

And then those pesky facts:

It is debatable whether Ethiopia was ever colonised, but what is not debatable is that many African countries gained independence long before the sixties. Egypt gained independence in 1922, Ghana in 1957, Liberia in 1847, and Libya in 1951, to name a few.

Never let truth get in the way of a good story, right?

Another day, another cringeworthy demonstration of our president’s glaring inefficiencies as a leader.

At least there’s one guy who manages to hold his own when it comes to interviews with international media (HERE).

[source:mybroadband]