Ambitious Dlamini-Zuma breaks cover, goes digital

Presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma seems to have gone digital in her effort to become the ANC's - and the country's - next president.

A website, www.nkosazana.com, registered in Panama, South America, has been set up with little transparency about who the brains behind her digital campaign are

Dlamini-Zuma has been unofficially campaigning for the top job, visiting ANC structures and speaking at an array of public events.

But, because open campaigning is banned in the ANC, she has been forced to use subtle means to get her message out.

• Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma gets blue light perks based on 'threat and security assessment'Presidential contender Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is still receiving taxpayer-funded special VIP protection despite government saying earlier this month that she would have to sacrifice this perk when her term ended as African Union chairperson.

The website, set up on March 19 - four days after she was welcomed back to South Africa by hundreds of supporters at Johannesburg's OR Tambo International Airport - provides a platform for her résumé as well as the projects she participated in during her tenure as chairman of the African Union Commission.

Although most of it appears to be a legacy project, a compilation of the work she did at the AU and previously as a minister, many see it as a campaigning tool. It has been added to her Twitter profile.

Since her return, Dlamini-Zuma has spoken at a number of events across the country, most of them organised by the ANC Women's League.

• Cope condemns Zuma and Mbalula for Dlamini-Zuma’s blue light perkThe Congress of the People (Cope) has slammed the provision of a presidential protection unit to Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as unconstitutional and illegal.

The events are promoted on her social media platforms and her site directs visitors to videos of speeches she delivered and a gallery of pictures.

Until her visit to an ANC cadres' forum at Zamdela, in the Free State, on Thursday, Dlamini-Zuma has steered clear of openly talking about ANC politics.

But on Thursday she spoke out against those marching to demand the removal of President Jacob Zuma from office.

She criticised opposition parties that used the courts when, as she put it, they failed to win arguments in parliament.

Her speech on Thursday is widely seen as the launch of her campaign to become president. Many in the audience made it clear that they would lobby for her to take over from Zuma.

Dlamini-Zuma is not the only one using digital platforms.

Supporters of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa launched a digital campaign earlier this year under the banner "CR17 Siyavuma" but he has denied authorising it.