SOUTH Africa’s scandal-hit ex-president Jacob Zuma has made a surprise comeback by running in May’s elections against his former party, the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
Zuma, the fourth president of democratic South Africa between 2009 and 2018, was forced from office under a slew of graft allegations.
He is still facing trial on corruption charges.
In 2021, he was briefly jailed for contempt of court after refusing to appear before a corruption inquiry.
Sentenced to 15 months, Zuma spent only two months behind bars.
He was released initially for health reasons, after which President Cyril Ramaphosa commuted his sentence.
In recent months, he has overcome a string of legal challenges by the government seeking to disqualify the small party with which he has aligned himself, so as to invalidate his candidacy.
Zuma, now 82, announced in December he would campaign for the small radical uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK, or the “Spear of the Nation” in Zulu) party.
The party’s name harks back to that of the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC) when it fought white-minority rule.
South Africans will vote for parliament on May 29, in what is set to be the tightest election since the introduction of democratic rule with the end of the apartheid era.
It is the elected members who will vote for the president.
The ANC, after 30 years in power, risks losing its absolute majority and being forced to share power in a coalition government.
Recent polls suggest Zuma’s former political home, the ANC, is on course to score below 50 per cent for the first time since it came to power in 1994 when apartheid ended.
An Ipsos survey released last week indicates that the fledgling MK could score more than eight per cent.
Zuma has urged his supporters to “take back the country”.
A powerful orator, he has stepped up his attacks on the ANC, which he says he “no longer recognises”, denouncing its leaders as “traitors”.
For a long time, Zuma prevented Ramaphosa, his successor as president, from establishing himself within the ANC, fuelling internal conflict.