The South African Candidate

THE GREAT DIVIDER: Zuma draws support from trade unionists, and ire from the middle classes

Photograph for TIME by BENEDICTE KURZEN

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The front-runner to be South Africa's next President is an unconventional candidate. Since 2005, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma has been sacked as Deputy President, tried and acquitted of rape and embroiled in a corruption scandal over defense contracts — which might yet come to court. (Zuma maintains his innocence.) He has somewhere between three and six wives (he refuses to confirm the exact number) and a total of 17 children by nine women. At rallies of his supporters, he sings the Zulu anthem: Bring Me My Machine (gun).

Yet Zuma, 65, is currently the only political figure in South Africa who has openly declared an interest in succeeding President Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki ends his second term as President in 2009, and the constitution bars him from a third. This year Mbeki also finishes his second term as president of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). And should Zuma succeed Mbeki at the ANC's annual conference in December — the incumbent hasn't yet decided whether he'll stand again — his elevation to the highest office in 2009 would be all but assured. Hence politics in South Africa is increasingly consumed by the chance of Zuma becoming President — and discussion of who might stop him. The prospect of a Zuma presidency fills South Africa's élite with dread. He is the target of the country's most syndicated cartoon strip, Da Zuma Code, which depicts him as a ruthless dunderhead. Editorials and letters in the middle-class press paint Zuma as a potential African strongman in the mold of so much of postcolonial Africa to the north, with some white commentators advising selling up and leaving should he take power. In a widely distributed column, white South African Rian Malan detailed the reasons why he thought Zuma would be President one day, then asked if anyone wanted to buy his house in Cape Town. When Zuma was sacked, the left-leaning weekly Mail & Guardian hailed his dismissal and described the battle between Zuma and his opponents as one "between yesterday and tomorrow." The business community is more muted, but the rand falls whenever Zuma's star rises and, asked what he makes of Zuma's economic policy, a prominent South African CEO sighs: "I don't think he has one."

Zuma dismisses such critics. "The majority in this country have not seen anything wrong with Zuma," the candidate said in an interview at his home in Johannesburg earlier this year. "They think Zuma is one of them. The minority has problems [and] is more vocal. [But] I go with the overwhelming feeling of this country. If the majority says, 'Zuma, do this,' I will do it."

Jacob Zuma was born in the poor, sparsely populated area of Nkandla in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal. His father, a policeman, died when he was 3 and his mother found work as a domestic servant in Durban. Zuma was working full-time by 15. His elder brother was an ANC member, and at 17 Zuma joined too. The apartheid government banned the party the next year, 1960. In 1963, Zuma was arrested, convicted of trying to overthrow the government and sentenced to 10 years, which he served on Robben Island, the famous prison off Cape Town where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for most of his 27 years in jail. After his release, Zuma helped organize underground resistance to apartheid. In 1975, he fled South Africa for Swaziland, Mozambique and Zambia — eventually becoming the ANC's intelligence chief.