Fair ground:

The recent leadership election held by South Africa’s ruling African National Congress wasn’t pretty - democracy often isn’t - but it was an encouraging step forward. For the first time since the ANC took power after the end of apartheid, there was a serious leadership race and somebody other than the front-runner won. If democracy is to fully flower in South Africa, the ANC will now need a real competition to choose its candidate for the 2009 presidential elections - and it will need to encourage other parties to get into the race.

It was good to see real politics going on inside the ANC. Normally, party leaders are chosen behind closed doors, and the rank and file then loyally vote for their leaders’ choice. If it had worked that way again, Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s president and the current party leader, would have come out the winner. Instead, Jacob Zuma, whom Mbeki fired as the country’s deputy president in 2005, waged a robust and open contest.

South Africa and the ANC should resist assuming that Zuma is the only possible nominee and the only possible next president. There are other credible candidates. For its democracy to develop, South Africa needs an inclusive political system in which any candidate, whether nominated by the ANC or another party, can compete. — The New York Times