South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal today plunged the country back into political turmoil after it ruled that corruption charges against Jacob Zuma, the controversial president of the governing African National Congress (ANC), could be reinstated.

The court ruling, which overturned a lower court’s dismissal of all charges against him in September last year, comes only months before elections widely expected to take Mr Zuma to the Presidency, a prospect that appals opponents and delights supporters in equal quantities.

It ensured months more turbulence in a long-running political saga that has bitterly split the once-dominant ANC, the movement that defeated apartheid and brought Nelson Mandela to power, and claimed the scalp of ex-president Thabo Mbeki, Mr Zuma’s arch rival.

A breakaway party, led by Mbeki loyalists, has also raised the prospect of the most sharply contested polls since the advent of democracy in 1994, and the danger of violence as the ANC reacts badly to competition in its traditional heartlands of poor rural areas and teeming black townships where white-dominated opposition parties hold little sway.

Supreme Court Judge Louis Harms said that a High Court judge made several errors and had “overstepped his authority”. He said that by commenting on claims that Mr Zuma was a victim of a political conspiracy rather than restricting himself to legal questions Judge Chris Nicholson had strayed into “pontification and judgementalism”.

“The appeal is upheld with costs,” he concluded, reading the judgement of the five-member appeal bench.

Today’s ruling is unlikely to stop Mr Zuma being elected, but could strengthen the challenge from the new party, the Congress of the People (COPE), and embolden more ANC dissidents to quit.

State prosecutors were quick to say that the ruling meant Mr Zuma “remains a charged person”. He faces 16 charges of corruption, tax evasion, money laundering and racketeering stemming from a multi-billion-pound arms deal in which British and European companies are accused of paying backhanders.

The issue has convulsed South Africa for almost a decade with many senior ANC figures implicated. Mr Zuma, a populist grassroots politician supported by the left and adored by the township poor, has been at the forefront of the drama since his financial advisor was jailed for negotiated bribes on his behalf. It was said that he needed the money to keep three wives, a host of girlfriends – two of whom he is expected to marry before the next election expected in April – and at least 16 children.

Supporters of Mr Mbeki, who was sacked by the ANC a week after the September ruling, said that the appeal court judgement had vindicated him of charges that he mis-used state organs to prevent his rival from becoming South Africa’s next president.

Mr Mbeki fired Mr Zuma as deputy president of the country in 2005 and then stood against him for the leadership of the ANC at the end of 2007 – a move that triggered the bitter internal power struggle he subsequently lost.

Supporters of Mr Zuma, who was also acquitted on rape charges in a sensational headline-grabbing case in 2006, have always maintained that he was a victim of a Mbeki-inspired conspiracy. The ANC, disturbed by Mr Mbeki’s pro-business policies and intolerance of critics, backed Mr Zuma, a Zulu who herded goats as a boy and has no formal education unlike the Mbeki elite which spent many of the apartheid years overseas.

Mr Zuma, 66, may now take the case to the Constitutional Court, claiming that the long delay in bringing the issue to trial has infringed his constitutional rights. Legal sources say that talks with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), which brought the charges, are also underway on a possible out-of-court settlement.

Whatever happens, the ANC has pledged to stand by the man whom it endorsed at a huge weekend rally as the party’s presidential candidate. However, the prospect of Mr Zuma leading a campaign with corruption charges hanging over him could well cost the ANC votes and re-invigorate the opposition. Today, the son of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel prize winner who has publicly condemned Mr Zuma as “unsuitable” for the number one job in a country with the highest HIV/AIDs infection rate in the world, said that he was joining the current official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, because the ANC had failed the people.

The stakes are now higher than ever. If the ANC fails to hang on to a two-thirds majority in parliament, it will be unable to pass legislation granting Mr Zuma amnesty as president

Business leaders are also concerned that a sitting president spending months in court would damage the country’s international image at a time of global recession.

South Africa has led calls for tough action on corruption and poor governance across the continent it aspires to lead.

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