Hello internet friends (non-Facebook edition): In South Africa, the Times has written an obituary for the ANC, the party of Mandela that led the fight of resistance against apartheid and won the support of the world by stewarding South Africa peacefully into the post-apartheid era.

The paper asks "

if everyone is of the character described above, what are the chances of a new and committed cadre of the ANC emerging? I venture that the chances are very small, if not non- existent. The ANC of our dreams is dead. In its place is just another tawdry, corrupt political party."

(Of course, just because the times writes about it, doesn't make it so. They're the ones that reported that Zimbabwe had collapsed this summer.)

Solitary confinement cells in Constitution Hill prison in Johannesburg. Many ANC members were held here during the apartheid era.

Nominations were opened for the top six positions in the party. There was hope a compromise candidate might emerge that would satisfy both sides of a party deeply divided between current president Thabo Mbeki and the favorite to win, former deputy president Jacob Zuma. However, the nominations closed quickly, with Zuma supporters leaping up to call "closure" on the nominations before any new candidates emerged.

With Jacob Zuma poised to win the party presidency, the real position to watch is deputy president. Zuma is likely to be brought up on corruption charges, which will force him to step down as party leader and make him ineligible to run for the presidency of South Africa. That will leave the deputy president of the ANC to run in his place. The ANC is a widely popular party, polling around 70 per cent.

The Mail and Guardian is suggesting the one to watch for this position is Kgalema Motlanthe.

While the legions of Zuma supporters among the delegates defied the national chairperson, singing Zuma's theme song while he was trying to bring a meeting to order, they fell into respectful silence with Motlanthe took the microphone.

"Motlanthe appears to have set himself up perfectly," the Mail and Guardian reports. "There is every chance that he will trounce Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as deputy president, thereby setting himself up for the top role.

"This is not a far-fetched idea. If Jacob Zuma is charged with corruption or if he only serves one term as country president (should he become party head honcho), then Motlanthe would have played a perfect game of political chess."