South Africa’s polygamist president has confirmed that he fathered a daughter last year with a woman who is not one of his three wives or fiancee, and criticized those who said his actions undermined the country’s campaign against AIDS.
South African President Jacob Zuma’s statement on Wednesday is his first comment on the issue since Johannesburg’s Sunday Times reported this week that the baby girl born in October was Zuma’s child. Critics said the 67-year-old president’s behavior sends the wrong message in a country struggling against AIDS. Experts say having multiple, concurrent partners heightens the risk of passing on HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
South Africa, a nation of about 50 million, has an estimated 5.7 million people infected with HIV, more than any other country.
“It is mischievous to argue that I have changed or undermined government’s stance on the HIV and AIDS campaign,” Zuma said in the statement. “I will not compromise on the campaign. Rather we will intensify our efforts to promote prevention, treatment, research and the fight against the stigma, attached to the epidemic.”
Zuma, who has 19 other children, has three wives and is engaged to a fourth woman.
Brian Sokutu, a spokesman for Zuma’s African National Congress Party (ANC), said that the president’s relationship with a fifth woman was not adulterous because Zuma is a polygamist who may have been intending to marry the woman. But Sokutu said he could not comment on whether a marriage was imminent.
“There is something called courtship,” Sokutu said. “What that means is that before you do officially get married there is the courting period. And during that period anything can happen.”
Zuma is popular in South Africa for his personal warmth and populist policies, and some applaud him for embracing what they see as traditional African values. However, since the Sunday Times report, he has faced criticism from political opponents as well as ordinary South Africans, some of whom have accused him of using tradition as an excuse for bad behavior.
Sokutu, though, said he did not expect political fallout from Zuma’s admission.
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