The Zuma presidency could be a lot worse (Malema could actually be a Minister or something :(), and while I used to think Mbeki was a good president aside from the AIDS thing, it seems I was wrong about him and he was actually just fronting, as more stuff about the underhandedness has come out. One thing I’ll say about Zuma, what you see is pretty much what you get, even if it isn’t pretty, and he definitely thinks with his penis first,which isn’t reassuring (but - Kennedy, Clinton, they were OK presidents, weren’t they?)
I have it good authority that you can’t give the man any policy documents to read, he prefers verbal briefings as he finds reading tough going, which is a little too Dubya-like for my liking, but any quirks like that are balanced out by the reversal on AIDS policy.