If he becomes SA president, Jacob Zuma would focus his attentions much closer to home than the "hands-on" internationalist and foreign policy wonk, President Thabo Mbeki.

He would concern himself much more with domestic "deliverology", leaving foreign policy to his foreign minister - or even to Mbeki himself. And beyond SA, he would concentrate more on Africa, especially southern Africa, than Mbeki has.

Some specific issues such as Zimbabwe and human rights in places like Burma might be handled more forcefully.

But the basic direction of SA's foreign policy would not change much. So say two of Zuma's foreign policy advisers, Ebrahim Ebrahim and Mo Shaik.

Ebrahim was Zuma's official foreign policy adviser when he was still the country's deputy president and is now in the ANC's international departments.

Shaik was in the Department of Foreign Affairs - including a tour as ambassador to Algeria - and is a stalwart in the Zuma camp.

Both men said Zuma would want to continue the Mbeki government's efforts to resolve African conflicts but would leave more of this work to his foreign minister.

Shaik suggested that Zuma might ask Mbeki himself to continue his peacemaking.

Ebrahim, more tactful, said Mbeki would not need Zuma to give him such an appointment. With his large international reputation for tackling conflicts, Mbeki would get such a job anyway, if he wanted it.

He suggested Mbeki could join the Elders, a group of former leaders including Nelson Mandela which tries to resolve conflicts.

Shaik said the main slogan of a Zuma presidency would be "from stabilisation to effective implementation" and so foreign policy would have to fit in with the "new science of deliverology".

He said Zuma would blow "a wind of change" through the Southern African Development Community, overcoming SA's strained relations with several countries, especially Angola and Namibia.

Both men felt Zuma would focus less than Mbeki has on the world beyond Africa. Ebrahim suggested a Zuma government would largely keep out of the Middle East, for instance. "I don't think we have the capacity to intervene there," he said.

He felt the Mbeki government was doing a good job in Zimbabwe and might well resolve the conflict. "But if that fails, we might need a re-think. It's difficult to say now what that process would be. But perhaps more public pronouncements, more criticism."

Shaik largely agreed, but felt the government should "maybe make our approach more transparent, so that SA society knows we are not ignoring Zimbabwe."

The two differed on SA's often-controversial policy at the United Nations Security Council where Pretoria has been criticised for opposing human rights initiatives, especially its vote against a US-backed resolution condemning the human rights abuses of the Burma military junta.

Shaik said while the government had voted against the Burma resolution because of a technical issue, it should still have spoken out against the human rights abuses.

He summarised the likely changes in foreign policy of a Zuma government as being "not so much in direction as in pace".

This would include more concrete efforts to build South-South relations "but understanding that the North-South linkage is also very important".

"That's very much what we are doing now, calming the countries of the North, reassuring them that there is not going to be a major deviation," he said, referring to Zuma's foreign trips to India, Britain and the US to speak mostly to investors.

With acknowledgements to Peter Fabricius and Cape Argus.