This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, October 23rd, 2008.

I'm Caleb Brown.

How will the likely next president of South Africa shape that region's future.

Tony Leon, a member of Parliament in South Africa for nearly 20 years and leader of the opposition

there, was a visiting fellow at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. We spoke yesterday.

Well, Jacob Zuma is the popularly elected president of the ANC.

He was elected a party conference last year and achieved a very rare distinction in African and world politics of deposing the incumbent and all powerful sitting president of both the party in the country.

Nine months later, the same party removed President Mbeki, whom Zuma had vanquished

at a party conference in December as president of the country and we now have an interim

or phillan president Kojlemma Matlante, but there's every expectation that should the ANC win the next election next April

that Zuma will ascend to the country's presidency as well as the party presidency

which he currently holds. He is a populist. He is a traditionist in the sense he has about five wives.

He is somewhat beholden, although the extent of the indebtedness is unclear to what you might call the macro populist

forces of the ANC, the Communist Party and the Trade Union Federation, Kossartu in South Africa. but he is also every bit more popular as a figure and a politician

than his vanquished predecessor, Tarbo and Becky.

He's more in touch with the people and he's less consumed by some of the political demons which drove him back in which ultimately drove him out of office.

How do Mbeki and Zuma contrast or compare in terms of dealing with the problems of Zimbabwe

and trying to be sort of an honest tradesman there?

Well I think the problem with Mbecky from the beginning and going back to the commencement of this crisis of democracy

and the economic meltdown Zimbabwe which can be traced back to the year 2000.

Mbeki, although he's purported to be an honest broker, has essentially at all critical time

has been very pro-Mugabi and done a lot of things which have shored up Mugabe's hold on power

...