Jacob Zuma

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His Excellency
Jacob Zuma
Zuma in 2009
4th President of South Africa
In office
9 May 2009 – 14 February 2018
Deputy
  • Kgalema Motlanthe
    (2009–2014)
  • Cyril Ramaphosa
    (2014–2018)
Preceded byKgalema Motlanthe
Succeeded byCyril Ramaphosa
13th President of the African National Congress
In office
18 December 2007 – 18 December 2017
Deputy
  • Kgalema Motlanthe
    (2007–2012)
  • Cyril Ramaphosa
    (2012–2017)
Preceded by
Terror Lekota
Personal details
Born
Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma

(1942-04-12) 12 April 1942 (age 82)
Political partyuMkhonto we Sizwe (from 2024)
Other political
affiliations
African National Congress (1959–2024)[1]
Spouses
(m. 1973)
Kate Mantsho
(m. 1976; died 2000)
(m. 1982; div. 1998)
(m. 2008)
Thobeka Mabhija
(m. 2010)
Gloria Bongekile Ngema
(m. 2012)
Children20 (estimated), including Gugulethu, Thuthukile and Duduzane
Occupation
  • Politician
  • anti-apartheid activist

Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (Zulu: [geɮʱejiɬeˈkisa ˈzʱuma]; born 12 April 1942) is a South African politician who served as the fourth president of South Africa from 2009 to 2018. He is also referred to by his initials JZ and clan names Nxamalala and Msholozi.[2][3][4][5] Zuma was a former anti-apartheid activist, member of uMkhonto we Sizwe, and president of the African National Congress (ANC) from 2007 to 2017.

Zuma was born in the rural region of

Robben Island Prison as a political prisoner. He went into exile in 1975 and was ultimately appointed head of the ANC's intelligence department. After the ANC was unbanned in 1990, he quickly rose through the party's national leadership and became deputy secretary general in 1991, national chairperson in 1994, and deputy president in 1997. He was the deputy president of South Africa from 1999 to 2005 under President Thabo Mbeki, Nelson Mandela's successor. Mbeki dismissed Zuma on 14 June 2005 after Zuma's financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was convicted of making corrupt payments to Zuma in connection with the Arms Deal. Zuma was charged with corruption and was also acquitted on rape charges in the highly publicised 2006 trial. He managed to retain the support of a left-wing coalition inside the ANC, which allowed him to remove Mbeki as ANC president in December 2007 at the ANC's Polokwane elective conference
.

Zuma was elected president of South Africa in the

higher education, a series of attempted structural reforms in key sectors involving restrictions on foreign ownership, and more stringent black economic empowerment requirements. In the international arena, Zuma emphasised South-South cooperation and economic diplomacy. The admission of South Africa to the BRICS grouping has been described as a major triumph for Zuma, and he has been praised for his HIV/AIDS
policy.

Zuma's presidency was beset by controversy, especially during his second term. In 2014, the Public Protector found that Zuma had improperly benefited from state expenditure on upgrades to his Nkandla homestead, and in 2016, the Constitutional Court ruled that Zuma had failed to uphold the Constitution, leading to calls for his resignation and a failed impeachment attempt in the National Assembly. By early 2016, there were also widespread allegations, later investigated by the Zondo Commission, that the Gupta family had acquired immense corrupt influence over Zuma's administration, amounting to state capture. Several weeks after Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa was elected to succeed Zuma as ANC president in December 2017, the ANC National Executive Committee recalled Zuma. After a fifth vote of no confidence in Parliament, he resigned on 14 February 2018 and was replaced by Ramaphosa the next day.

Shortly after his resignation, on 16 March 2018, the

medical parole two months later on 5 September. The high court rescinded his parole on 15 December. The parole was declared unlawful by the Supreme Court of Appeal, but it allowed the Department of Correctional Services to consider whether to deduct the time spent under it from his sentence. On 11 August 2023, the Department of Correctional Services granted Zuma remission of his 15-month sentence.[6]

Early life

Zuma was born in

policeman who died when Zuma was five,[9] and his mother, Geinamazwi, was a domestic worker.[7]: 4 [10] His middle name, Gedleyihlekisa, means "one who smiles while causing you harm" in Zulu.[11] He did not receive formal schooling.[12]

He has at least three brothers—Michael,[13] Joseph,[14] and Khanya[15]—and at least one sister—Velephi.[16] Michael Zuma was employed by Khumbula Property Services, a construction company, and in 2011 admitted to using his elder brother Jacob's political status to secure a government contract for the company in exchange for a homestead in Nkandla.[17][18]

Anti-apartheid activism

Imprisonment and exile

Zuma began engaging in anti-

North West Province.[20] Zuma was convicted of conspiring to overthrow the apartheid government and was sentenced to ten years imprisonment, which he served on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela and other notable ANC leaders also imprisoned during that time.[20] While imprisoned, Zuma was a referee for prisoners association football games, organised by the prisoners own governing body, Makana F.A.[21]

After his release from prison, Zuma re-established ANC underground structures in Natal.[22] He left South Africa in 1975 and was initially based in Swaziland where he met Thabo Mbeki. In Mozambique, he dealt with the arrival of thousands of exiles seeking military training in the wake of the 1976 Soweto uprising. He became a full member of the ANC National Executive Committee in 1977,[20] and a member of the ANC's Politico-Military Council when it was formed in 1983.[23] He was also Deputy Chief Representative of the ANC in Mozambique, a post he occupied until the signing of the Nkomati Accord between the Mozambican and South African governments in 1984. After the Accord was signed, he was appointed as ANC Chief Representative in Mozambique.[20] In December 1986, the South African government requested that Mozambican authorities expel six senior members of the ANC, including Zuma. He was forced to leave Mozambique in January 1987, so he moved to the ANC headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia, where he was appointed Head of the ANC's underground structures, and shortly afterward was named chief of the intelligence department.[20]

Zuma was also a member of the South African Communist Party (SACP).[19] He joined in 1963, served briefly on the party's Politburo,[23] and left in 1990.[24]

Return from exile

After the ANC was unbanned in February 1990, Zuma returned to South Africa on 21 March[10] to begin the negotiations process.[22] He was one of the first ANC leaders to return to South Africa for negotiations.[10] Later that year, he was elected unopposed as the ANC's Southern Natal Chairperson. Zuma, as a Zulu, became known as a leading peace broker in Natal during the political violence of this period that was concentrated in that province, and arose largely from conflict between nationalist supporters of the then Xhosa-dominated ANC and supporters of the Zulu nationalist[25] Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).[10] He is also credited with having expanded the ANC's Zulu support base in Natal.[26] At the ANC's July 1991 elective conference, Zuma stood for the post of ANC Secretary-General and lost to Cyril Ramaphosa, but was elected Deputy Secretary-General, comfortably beating Alfred Nzo and Popo Molefe in a vote.[27]

In the

ANC provincial chairperson for KwaZulu-Natal, and at the ANC's 1994 elective conference he was elected national chairperson, beating Pallo Jordan and Jeff Radebe by a large margin.[30] He held both positions until 1997, having been re-elected provincial chairperson in 1996.[20]

Rise to the presidency

Zuma with the Indian Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat in Johannesburg, 2004

Deputy presidency

Zuma was elected deputy president of the ANC at the party's 50th National Conference in Mafikeng in December 1997, and was subsequently appointed deputy president of South Africa in June 1999, pursuant to the 1999 general election.[20] Zuma served under newly elected President Mbeki and was the chief mediator in the Burundi peace process,[31] in which he worked with Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, who chaired the Great Lakes Regional Initiative, a grouping of regional presidents overseeing the peace process in Burundi.[32]

Under Bulelani Ngcuka, the NPA opened its investigation into Zuma.

In late 2002, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) announced that Zuma was one of several ANC politicians under investigation by the Scorpions for corruption related to the R30-billion Arms Deal, a major defence procurement package which the government had signed months after Zuma's appointment to the deputy presidency.[33] In August 2003, however, National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) Bulelani Ngcuka told the media that the NPA had a "prima facie case of corruption" against Zuma but had decided not to prosecute on the basis that the case was unlikely to be won.[33] A highly public spat ensued between Zuma allies and Ngcuka, who was accused by Moe Shaik and Mac Maharaj of having been an apartheid spy, an accusation later dismissed by the specially appointed Hefer Commission.[34] Zuma laid a misconduct complaint against Ngcuka with the Public Protector, Lawrence Mushwana, who in May 2004 found that Ngcuka's statement to the media had been "unfair and improper".[35][36]

Mbeki and Zuma were both re-elected in the 2004 general election, but on 14 June 2005, Mbeki removed Zuma from his post as deputy president following the conviction of Zuma's associate, Schabir Shaik, for making underhanded payments to Zuma in relation to the Arms Deal.[37] Mbeki told a joint sitting of Parliament that "in the interest of the honourable Deputy President, the government, our young democratic system and our country, it would be best to release the honourable Jacob Zuma from his responsibilities".[38] Zuma also resigned as a member of Parliament.[38]

His successor as deputy president of South Africa was

Utrecht, KwaZulu-Natal.[39]

First corruption indictment

Soon after Zuma's dismissal, the NPA announced its intention to instate formal corruption charges against him.

Pietermaritzburg High Court dismissed the application, and when the NPA indicated that it was not prepared to proceed with the trial, the matter was stricken off.[42]

Rape trial