South Africa sickened by Zuma’s Mandela ‘kidnap’

South Africans are reeling from the news that Nelson Mandela was effectively kidnapped recently by former comrades in the African National Congress, desperately seeking to drum up support for the party at national elections to be held in April.

Supporters of ANC presidential candidate Jacob Zuma, who is awaiting trial on charges of corruption, swooped on Mandela's home near Johannesburg last week while the ailing 90-year-old's wife was away. The old man was whisked off to a mass rally in the party's former heartland of the Eastern Cape.

Zuma's bodyguards took charge of the trip, sidelining Mandela's own security detail and abandoning all the normal safety precautions that are taken for the father of post-Apartheid South Africa.

The private plane carrying Mandela to the rally made repeated attempts to land at its destination in very bad weather, endangering the icon's life. No emergency healthcare was laid on to safeguard his increasingly frail health.

The former South African president was eventually lifted on to the stage by a desperate Zuma and his aides so that he could be seen to be present at the rally. Mandela did not address the crowd.

The symbolic appearance was stage-managed to shore up former gardener Zuma's bid for the presidency, which has been rocked by a recent split in the ANC and the formation of the Congress of the People, a new nationwide black political party.

Many South Africans were sickened by the sight of the old man being manhandled at the event, with photographs of Zuma clutching Mandela's hand gracing the front pages of national newspapers.

Sources familiar with what happened said Mandela, who