A ROW between South Africa’s press and politicians over President Kgalema Motlanthe’s love life has brought into the open a subject that many of the ruling elite would rather keep hidden: are their sometimes polygamous sex lives a matter of public interest?

Motlanthe, 59, who is estranged from his wife, has a mistress, aged 45, and is also the lover of a 24-year-old, now heavily pregnant. The newspaper that broke the story asked: “Who is our first lady?” Carl Niehaus, a spokesman for the ruling African National Congress (ANC), insisted last week that the question was an invasion of privacy.

Only a few weeks ago Niehaus issued a statement denouncing as “lies” reports that Jacob Zuma, the ANC leader, who will be South Africa’s next president, was about to take a fifth wife.

When Zuma did - and then set about courting a sixth - Niehaus hurriedly insisted that Zuma’s behaviour, though “in line with African custom and tradition”, was a private matter that the media had no business to write about. Lawrence Schlemmer, a South African sociologist, said: “What you’re really looking at here is a collision of cultures which has been going on ever since the first missionaries landed at the Cape. While polygamy is rife, few wish openly to challenge monogamy. The result is endless pretence.”

Zuma is unusual in his frank acknowledgement of his own polygamy, and in the eyes of many educated Africans this is a shameful sign of his cultural backwardness.

Bishop Stanley Mogoba, a Methodist, said one thing that he had learnt was that “virtually none of the ANC leadership have normal and stable family lives”.

Neither Motlanthe nor Zuma welcomes questions about his marital life. Zuma says he loves all his children but refuses to confirm their number (thought to be about 20).

The black elite would like all such discussion to be taboo, particularly in the run-up to what is expected to be a bitterly fought general election. However, the question of who will be the first lady at Zuma’s inauguration in April simply will not go away.

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