Beset by Troubles, S. Africa's Voters Are Divided Over Zuma

JOHANNESBURG -- One week before this country's fourth democratic elections, South Africa's main opposition party has unveiled a last-ditch campaign slogan that minces no words: "Stop Zuma."

In a nation tumbling toward recession and beset by rampant unemployment, poverty and AIDS, the main and most divisive election issue has been one man: Jacob Zuma. The jovial and wily leader of the ruling African National Congress, having fought off charges of rape and corruption, is poised to become president of this regional powerhouse after Wednesday's poll.

For Zuma, who rose from unschooled herd boy to guerrilla fighter, the victory would be the pinnacle in a story of unlikely comebacks. What it would mean for South Africa's young democracy is an open question. In the final days of the campaign, Zuma is viewed by critics as a man prepared to destroy democratic institutions in a quest for power and by backers as a conciliator who will unify a divided party and lift up the poor.

The ANC is expected to win the election with more than 60 percent of the vote. But analysts say the victory will indicate more about voters' loyalty to the former black liberation movement than their faith in Zuma. Recent polls indicate that about as many South Africans trust Zuma as distrust him, while just half of likely ANC voters think he is not guilty of long-standing graft charges, which were dropped this month in a controversial move by prosecutors.

"Listen, there's no country where there's no corruption," one ANC supporter, who gave his name as Andrew, said at a Pentecostal church where Zuma spoke on a recent Sunday. "Zuma is a very kind man."

But Zuma, 67, will take office at a time when South Africans are wrestling with bigger questions about whether the country and its venerated ruling party are on a path toward progress or on a road to ruin. Zuma's fiercest critics seem to believe the latter, and in him they have found a powerful symbol of rot.

"The ramifications for the country, and particularly the judiciary and the rule of law, are absolutely catastrophic," said Andrew Feinstein, a former ANC member of Parliament who says he quit in protest over the party's silencing of corruption probes. "Zuma is corrupt, and politically he operates in quite a thuggish manner."

On the campaign trail, it is not easy to discern just what Zuma is. The off-the-cuff remarks that fanned fears in the past -- against homosexuality and for vigilante justice, for example -- have become rarer. Now, true to ANC tradition, which eschews displays of self-promotion, he methodically reads speeches that repeat the party's promises to create jobs, develop hinterlands and boost services and welfare for the poor.

Though unions and the Communist Party supported his rise, Zuma has strived to appease investors and business leaders by vowing not to dismantle the economic policies that have kept South Africa stable. He says his government will be tough on criminals, lazy civil servants and corruption.

"All citizens must remain vigilant against any abuse of power," he told reporters after his corruption charges were dropped.

But it is after speeches -- when he cracks jokes in his native Zulu, dances and sings -- that Zuma has won many fans among the grass roots, who had felt little connection to the stiff and scholarly Thabo Mbeki, who led South Africa as president for most of the past decade.

"He's a good leader because he does not run away from problems," said Thandeka Shongwe, a student, who took a break from shopping in a township mall to laud Zuma's common-man appeal and his decision to pursue his ambitions despite his legal woes. "He's a fighter."