Surprise comeback of South Africa's ex-president Jacob Zuma could challenge ANC
South Africa's ex-president Jacob Zuma is running a visible and noisy campaign for May's elections against his former party, the ruling African National Congress (ANC), another bump on a difficult road for the historical post-apartheid party.
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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.
South Africans will vote for parliament on 29 May. Elected members then vote for the president.
This election is likely to be the tightest since the introduction of democratic rule with the end of the apartheid era, in 1994.
After 30 years in power, the African National Congress (ANC) risks losing its absolute majority and being forced to share power in a coalition government.
Marianne Séverin, associate researcher at Sciences Po Bordeaux a specialist in South Africa told RFI that "Jacob Zuma could drain ANC votes in KwaZulu Natal" the second largest province of the country.
Meet Jacob Zuma,
— People Shall Govern Ngenkani!!! (@IndWorldThinker) April 29, 2024
The man who PURIFIED the MK Party from spies and agents 😂
This man is a real leader. One of the best under the Africans sun pic.twitter.com/sfiBR6owJa
New campaign, old controversy
On Tuesday, Zuma denied forging the signatures required to enable the uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party run in the elections
The MK party is bracing for a court pronouncement on whether its leader can be on the ballot or not.
Scandal-hit Jacob Zuma was the fourth president of democratic South Africa between 2009 and 2018.
He was later was forced out of office after being accused of corruption.
In 2021, he was jailed for contempt of court after refusing to appear before a corruption inquiry.
His jailing in July 2021 triggered unrest that left more than 350 dead, South Africa's worst episode of violence since the fall of apartheid.
Zuma spent only two months behind bars despite having been sentenced to 15 months.. He was released initially for health reasons, after which President Cyril Ramaphosa commuted his sentence.
An anti-corruption commission was launched to investigate the public money he had allegedly embezzled during his nine years in power.
And a damning 2022 report concluded that Zuma had played a central role in state corruption.
He is due to face trial in a bribery affair more than 20 years old where he is accused of having pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars from defence firm Thales, one of the companies handed lucrative arms contracts.
Mandela's legacy
In recent months, Zuma has overcome an additional string of legal challenges, launched by the government, seeking to disqualify the small party he has aligned himself with from elections and trying to invalidate his candidacy.
His new party's name, MK, harks back to that of the armed wing of the ANC when it fought white-minority rule.
Playing on his legacy, Zuma has urged his supporters to follow him and not the ANC, and to "take back the country".
Zuma spent 10 years in Robben Island prison with Nelson Mandela.
When the ANC was forced into exile under apartheid, he was a fearsome head of intelligence, cracking down on traitors and regime informers.
According to an Ipsos survey released last week, the ANC is on course to score below 50 percent for the first time since it came to power in 1994 when apartheid ended.
Meanwhile, the MK could score more than eight percent.
Zuma is trying to capitalise on his singular legacy.
According to Séverin, if the number of corruption charges soared in the ANC under Zuma, Zuma claims that the ANC is trying to blame him for their own problems by any means.
The powerful orator is still very popular, despite the corruption charges, and has stepped up his attacks on the ANC.
He says he "no longer recognises" the party, denouncing its leaders as "traitors".
(with newswires)
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