Jacob Zuma

Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, born 12 April 1942 in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, is a South African politician who led the African National Congress (ANC) from 2007 to 2017 and served as President of South Africa from May 2009 to February 2018. A self-educated former herd boy, he joined the ANC in 1959 and Umkhonto we Sizwe, its armed wing, in the 1960s. He was convicted of conspiring to overthrow the apartheid government and imprisoned on Robben Island from 1963 to 1973, after which he went into exile, eventually heading ANC intelligence.

Zuma returned to South Africa in 1990 and rose through ANC ranks, serving as Deputy President under Thabo Mbeki from 1999 until Mbeki dismissed him in 2005 amid corruption allegations linked to the arms deal involving French company Thint and his financial adviser Schabir Shaik. He defeated Mbeki for the ANC presidency at the Polokwane conference in December 2007 and became national president after the 2009 elections, winning re-election in 2014.

His presidency was marked by sustained controversy. The Nkandla scandal saw the Constitutional Court rule unanimously in Economic Freedom Fighters v Speaker of the National Assembly (2016) that he had violated the Constitution by failing to repay public money spent on his private homestead. Allegations of state capture centred on his relationship with the Gupta family, later examined by the Zondo Commission (2018–2022). Facing a ninth no-confidence motion and ANC pressure under new leader Cyril Ramaphosa, Zuma resigned on 14 February 2018.

In June 2021 the Constitutional Court sentenced him to 15 months in prison for contempt for refusing to testify before the Zondo Commission; his subsequent arrest triggered widespread unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. In December 2023 he announced he would campaign for the new uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party rather than the ANC ahead of the 2024 general election.