(From top) President Zuma with his first wife Sizakele Khumalo in Pretoria and his other wives, Nompumelelo Ntuli and Thobeka Mabhija. (Reuters)

Johannesburg, May 9: To the rarefied ranks of first ladies such as Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, South Africa will add Sizakele Khumalo.

Or will it be Nompumelelo Ntuli? Or Thobeka Mabhija?

Though South Africa’s recent general election featured all the mudslinging of a fierce political battle, it was long expected to result in the victory of ruling party leader Jacob Zuma, who was inaugurated as President today. The real mystery — one that has intrigued South Africans for months — is which of Zuma’s wives will be the nation’s new First Lady.

Zuma, a 67-year-old Zulu traditionalist, is about to become South Africa’s first polygamist President. Confronted with the First Lady question, spokesmen for his party, the African National Congress, have typically declined to respond or noted that the Constitution does not touch on the issue, thus allowing Zuma to choose or alternate.

The party, in fact, had stayed mum on just how many wives and children Zuma has — figures that even his biographer could not nail down. New clues emerged this week, however. At the bottom of an ANC statement that extolled Zuma’s liberation-movement credentials and ballroom-dancing skills, the party casually noted that he is a father of 19 and a husband to three: Khumalo, Ntuli and Mabhija. On Thursday, local news media reported that all three women were on Zuma’s guest list for the inauguration, which drew 5,000 dignitaries.

But speculation remains rife about what the Times newspaper called the “protocol nightmare” of whether the state will be obligated to cover medical care, jet transportation and security for the entire Zuma brood.

And South Africans are still in the dark about who will be Zuma’s date to galas and have dibs on the spousal office in the east wing of the President's hilltop residence in Pretoria, the administrative capital.

“As a family they are supportive of each other,” said Lindiwe Zulu, an ANC spokeswoman, noting that one of Zuma’s daughters has often accompanied him to official events.

“That family has got their own unique way of dealing with those issues. If they didn’t, I’m sure we would have heard about it by now.”

While providing fodder for headlines and comics, fascination with Zuma’s polygamy is rooted in deeper dilemmas in democratic South Africa, whose ultra-progressive, Western-influenced Constitution enshrines equal rights for women but also protects tribal traditions that were suppressed by the white apartheid government. Among them is the mostly rural practice of polygamy, which was legalised in 1998.

“South Africa is a very modern, secular country with a great Constitution, but it’s also an African country. To some extent, Jacob Zuma sort of brings it full circle,” said Penelope Andrews, a law professor at Valparaiso University in Indiana who has written widely on polygamy in South Africa, her native country. “And a lot of people are obviously fine with it.”

But not everyone. As elections approached, the leader of the African Christian Democratic Party attacked polygamy as “abuse of women”.