His longevity despite the problems had earned him in South Africa the nickname “Teflon” president. But at 82, business finally caught up with Jacob Zuma. This Monday, the ex-president became ineligible. He had tried, in vain, to return to politics one last time during the general elections of May 29.
Elected president in 2009, the former pillar of the African National Congress (ANC) was pushed before the end of his second term to resign by his own camp in 2018 after a series of scandals. Despite a corruption trial still ongoing, he tried to run for a deputy seat in the next election. To achieve this, he took the lead in a new small opposition party named after the former ANC military organization, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK).
At the end of a legal saga which monopolized the campaign, the man who repeatedly claimed not to “fear justice” was finally stopped on Monday by the Constitutional Court, the highest court in the country. She declared him ineligible because of a prison sentence. This same Court sentenced him to fifteen months in prison in 2021 for his refusal to testify before a commission of inquiry into rampant corruption during his nine years in power.
Prison and parole
In 2022, a damning report revealed the central role played by Jacob Zuma in the plundering of state coffers during his nine years in power. He claimed to be wrongly presented as “the king of the corrupt”. He has not yet been worried in this context. The man whose middle name, Gedleyihlekisa, means in Zulu that he “laughs while crushing his enemies” ultimately spent just over two months behind bars, benefiting from conditional release for health reasons and then ‘a remission of sentence.
A proven networker and tactician, Jacob Zuma has always benefited from fervent popular support, particularly in his stronghold of KwaZulu-Natal. His incarceration in July 2021 triggered, in a gloomy socio-economic context, unprecedented violence since the advent of democracy in the country in 1994, causing more than 350 deaths. Many people fear a new disaster scenario with the announcement of his ineligibility.
Self-taught and polygamous cowherd
Born on April 12, 1942, the former self-taught cowherd was the country’s first officially polygamous head of state. Married six times, he has four wives and around twenty children. Proud of his Zulu origins, a great dancer and remarkable singer, his smile during his public appearances masks a predatory patience honed in the prisons of apartheid. He spent ten years in the Robben Island penal colony, with Nelson Mandela, during the fight against apartheid. There he discovered a passion for chess. Released, Jacob Zuma had headed the intelligence services of the clandestine ANC.
Once the ANC was in power, “JZ” rose through the ranks and became vice-president in 1999. He ended up taking power with the support of the unions and at the time embodied the hopes of promotion for the poorest. He would later be found guilty of having the taxpayer pay for work on his luxurious private residence.
“A shower” to protect yourself from unprotected sex
In 2006, Jacob Zuma was acquitted of raping the HIV-positive daughter of one of his former comrades. He scandalized the country by claiming to have “taken a shower” after unprotected sex, thereby thinking of minimizing the risk of HIV contamination. This testimony has earned him, even today, being sketched by the South African cartoonist Zapiro with a shower head above his bald head.
The ex-president is still on trial in a bribery case dating back to 1999 involving the French group Thales.