Jacob Zuma, SA’s political Houdini

CAPE TOWN – Jacob Zuma, who is almost certain to become South Africa’s next president, is a veteran of the anti-apartheid movement whose earthy style has earned him both loyal followers and fierce detractors.

His drive to the top of South African politics has been dogged by an eight-year corruption scandal centred on an arms deal, but his legal woes evaporated yesterday as prosecutors dropped the charges — just two weeks before general elections.Born in 1942 deep in the Zulu heartland, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma – the son of a policeman and a domestic worker – was brought up in extreme poverty by his widowed mother.’I didn’t have a father and circumstances did not permit me to go to school … So I took it upon myself to help myself. I would use other people’s books and ask lots of questions,’ he once said.’People without formal education are looked down upon and often feel shy … I have done everything the educated have done.’Zuma worked as a cowherd to supplement his mother’s meagre income and joined the ANC when he was 17, becoming a member of its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) three years later.He was arrested in 1963 and sentenced to 10 years at Robben Island prison alongside Nelson Mandela for conspiring to overthrow the apartheid government.HOME SOILFollowing his release, he helped build up the ANC underground in then-Natal province but went into exile in 1975, first in Swaziland, then in Mozambique and finally in Zambia.In the late 1980s, he was entrusted with running, from Lusaka, the ANC’s underground cells and its intelligence department, a position that allowed him to build a network of supporters within the liberation movement.When the apartheid-era ban against the ANC was lifted in 1990, Zuma was one of the first exiled leaders to return and start operating on home soil.A skilled negotiator, Zuma helped defuse tensions in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal, where fighting between supporters of the ANC and the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party in the run-up to the first democratic elections in 1994 left more than 12,000 dead.His subsequent political career was marked by a deep rivalry with former president Thabo Mbeki, an intellectual often perceived as aloof from the public, in sharp contrast to Zuma’s grassroots appeal.Mbeki sacked Zuma as deputy president in June 2005, after his financial adviser was jailed for canvassing bribes for him.In 2006, Zuma was acquitted of rape but ridiculed for testifying in court that after having consensual sex with his HIV-positive accuser, he believed taking a shower after sex was sufficient protection against infection.He was head of the National AIDS Council at the time.But he has earned an intensely loyal following, including hardline supporters such as the head of the ANC youth league, Julius Malema, who has said he was ‘prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma’.Like Mandela, he has an instinctive rapport with people, characterised by his tendency to break into dance often accompanied by supporters singing his signature tune ‘Umshini Wami’ (Zulu for ‘Bring Me My Machine-Gun’).Even Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu concedes Zuma is a ‘likeable’ person, but decries his shameful track record.’At the present time, I can’t pretend to be looking forward to having him as my president,’ Tutu said on national radio last week.Zuma is a polygamist, who is reportedly on the verge of marrying his fifth wife, although one of his wives has died and another has divorced. – Nampa-AFP