JACOB ZUMA, the controversial South African politician accused of corruption and rape, has gained unstoppable momentum in his quest to become the country’s next president.

Last week’s voting by branches of the African National Congress (ANC) across South Africa has given him a clear lead ahead of his arch rival, President Thabo Mbeki, beating him by 2,236 votes to 1,294, and setting off a rush of placemen and office seekers to join the Zuma bandwagon.

Mbeki has vowed to fight Zuma all the way for the party’s presidency at its conference in Polokwane in two weeks’ time, warning ANC parliamentarians against voting for “criminals and rapists” - seen as a clear allusion to Zuma.

Observers say that Mbeki is in denial and simply cannot face the humiliation that awaits him. In theory he will remain the country’s president until May 2009 but there is already talk of the triumphant Zuma forces ejecting him from office long before then.

Zuma’s popularity at grass-roots level is undeniable - in his own province of KwaZulu-Natal he won 599 votes to Mbeki’s nine and even in Mbeki’s province of the Eastern Cape he won 44% of the votes.

However, the long-standing allegations of corruption against him, together with his trial for rape - he was found not guilty but admitted having unprotected sex with a young woman who he knew was HIV positive - have irreparably damaged his reputation.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who last year described Zuma as “unfit” to become president, last week declared that “the ANC must not elect someone who the country will be ashamed of”.

Others point to Zuma’s polygamous career of 20 children with nine different women, his lack of formal education - most of it at the hands of fellow prisoners on Robben Island, where he spent 10 years alongside Nelson Mandela - and conclude, in Mbeki’s words, that under Zuma the country will become “a neo-colonial basket case”.

Widely portrayed as a leftist firebrand, Zuma is in fact a rather complex figure. Born in 1942 in the deep Zulu countryside of Nkandla, the son of a policeman and a domestic servant, he knew poverty and deprivation after his father died when he was young.

Unable to continue school through lack of money, he followed his mother to Durban where he became a “kitchen boy”, wearing the regulation white calico shorts and polishing floors, cleaning windows and performing other chores. He was an eager student at the political education classes laid on by the ANC and Communist party in a scruffy building in the centre of town.

“He was lean then,” said Mathews Ngcobo, an old comrade who sat alongside him. “He was young and brilliant. He always asked questions and the questions showed he was bright. He would always excel and go beyond the obvious when we were taught anything.”

Ebrahim Ebrahim, a former cellmate, said: “He has always been a likeable person with a big laugh. He’s always cheerful. People always tended to be around him.”

In prison Zuma was a fabulous raconteur, keeping his comrades spellbound with stories of the Zulu wars. “He would tell stories in a very dramatic way and he was a good singer, dancer and soccer player,” Ebrahim said.

An ANC member at 16, Zuma joined the party’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), when it was formed in 1962 and was arrested the following year trying to leave the country for military training. On his release in 1974, he worked in the ANC underground before going into exile where he rose through MK’s ranks after receiving military training in the Soviet Union.

When he returned to South Africa in 1990 it was with a reputation as a fearless fighter and risk-taker, a militant communist who had learnt how to read and write English from Harry Gwala, his mentor.

Gwala, the ANC warlord of the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, was a ruthless killer who dominated his area by scything down opponents not only within Chief Buthelezi’s opposing Inkatha movement but, quite frequently, within his own side.

On the ANC’s instruction, Zuma edged out Gwala and took over the whole of the KwaZulu-Natal party, although this inevitably meant that he had to survive Gwala’s attempts to kill him. Luckily for Zuma, Gwala died of old age shortly afterwards.

To the surprise of many, Zuma showed himself to be a moderate and conciliatory man, winning the confidence of Buthelezi and working successfully to end the bloody civil war which had raged for more than a decade between Inkatha and the ANC. In this he revealed himself as someone entirely comfortable within the traditional Zulu world, joining in with Buthelezi to celebrate Shaka Day, dressed in loincloth and leopard skins.

Zuma’s pride in his Zulu heritage lay behind his province’s monolithic support for him as well as the “100% Zulu boy” T-shirts which, to the fury of some ANC leaders, many of his followers wear, provoking allegations of tribalism. It is certainly true that Zulus, South Africa’s largest ethnic group - some 27% of the population speak Zulu as their first language - feel it is high time that another Zulu led the ANC.

However, Zuma’s appeal is far wider - he won massive majorities in the Free State, the Northern Cape and Mpumalanga, where Zulus are either small minorities or almost invisible.

Undoubtedly much of the Zuma vote expresses anger with Mbeki who is seen as an opaque, cold and manipulative figure. It is universally assumed that Mbeki is behind the long legal pursuit of Zuma on corruption charges - which has now been going on for seven years without any conviction - as well as the “honeytrap” which led to the rape case.

Feminists are still outraged that Zuma excused his behaviour by suggesting that the young woman he slept with had seemed keen to seduce him and was wearing a short skirt, as well as by his offhand admission that he showered after sex as an anti-Aids precaution.

This still causes cartoonists to draw him with a shower mounted on his head and has greatly contributed to depictions of him as a bumbling male chauvinist clown.

Zuma happily admits that he is a fallible figure. He is a charming man, open about his own faults, a keen listener. One of his key advisers, Mo Shaik, is typical when he says: “The great thing about JZ is that he’s so inclusive. He’s happy to admit that he doesn’t always know best, he wants to hear what others have to say and then he works by consensus.”

However, as South Africa’s businessmen are quick to point out, that makes it all the more worrying that Zuma’s strongest supporters are within the trade unions and the Communist party (SACP). Will they be the key voices round the table who form the consensus that Zuma articulates?

Zuma himself has been working hard to quieten such fears, assuring investors that he has no wish to change current policies. The doubts remain. Business is asking whether he would give the leaders of the SACP and the unions leading positions in government, a move that would herald a lurch to the left.

It is difficult to imagine Zuma ignoring the political debt that he owes them. But so far he has merely indulged a vague populism, accepting the left’s cry for free education and wondering aloud whether the death penalty should be restored.

The SACP has also been at pains to state that it is not seeking any immediate nationalisation of industry. There is nevertheless great pressure from the left for more wealth redistribution, particularly in land expropriation, income support for the bottom 40% of the population, and measures to force the banks to lend more to black borrowers.

Business sees the left as economically naive, with little sense of how a globalised economy such as South Africa’s might be affected by a market backlash. Already the rand has weakened perceptibly on news of the activists’ vote for Zuma.

If, as now seems likely, Zuma defeats Mbeki at Polokwane, many expect the legal assault on him to be renewed. Zuma has left the country on “confidential business” until December 6 - thus making it impossible for anyone to serve a writ on him.

No one expects Mbeki to take defeat lying down: with 18 months to go before his presidential term ends, he will have ample opportunity to place more obstacles in Zuma’s path. Zuma’s supporters, knowing this, have begun to suggest that the ANC must avoid having two centres of power - and that Mbeki must be forced out sooner rather than later.

Zuma himself has been careful to make no such threats. Indeed, he seems happiest back at Nkandla, counting his cattle and chatting with his children. Already many unlikely figures have learnt to make the trek there to see him. It looks as if this is going to become a well-worn path for many more.

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