Not your usual chess analogy

It is easy to find references to sporting events as chess matches (see here, here, here and here) and individuals and countries as "pawns" in (geo-)political machinations. It takes some knowledge of chess, however, to make this connection:

The Jacob Zuma saga has forced President Thabo Mbeki into the zugzwang chess position, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said in his weekly letter on Friday.

"This is a position in which a player has to move but he can only do so with loss or severe disadvantage. So, while the nation and the world wait for his move, he has no good place to go," Leon said.

He said Deputy President Zuma does not intend to resign on his own -- a position he made clear in his evasive performance in Parliament this week.

And if Mbeki dismisses Zuma, as he should, he will face the wrath of major constituencies in his party, Leon predicted.

But he argued that if Mbeki does not dismiss Zuma or passes the buck to the judiciary by waiting for the appeal process to unfold, he will have failed the nation, the Constitution and the expectations of the wider world.

Read "Mbeki in zugzwang" from the Mail & Guardian.