JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has hinted he may be ready to take a fifth wife to accompany him through old age, the daily newspaper The Star said Wednesday.

During a visit to a Durban township Tuesday in KwaZulu-Natal, the 72-year-old said in Zulu “Angakayakhi indlu yokugugela... laba ngisabathathile nje” (I do have wives but I’m yet to marry my last one).

The crowd, most of them elderly, laughed and cheered, The Star said.

Zuma, who on Sunday said he was in “perfect condition” after a stay in hospital in June, had earlier given a speech about the need to respect and tend for older people.

Sihawu Ngubane, a professor at KwaZulu-Natal University, was quoted by the newspaper as saying it was fairly standard among Zulu people for a man who practises polygamy to take a last wife for his final years, sometimes the younger sister of one of his wives.