Profile: Jacob Zuma

As leader of the African National Congress, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma is in pole position to be elected South Africa's president next year.

Just three years ago, his political career was all but written off, when he was simultaneously battling sleazy allegations of rape and corruption - double charges which would have ended the career of many politicians.

Mr Zuma was acquitted of rape, but has not been able to shake off a corruption case.

The 66-year-old has always denied charges of money-laundering and racketeering, stemming from a controversial $5bn 1999 arms deal and said he would resign if found guilty of wrong-doing.

A judge dismissed the charges in 2008 but an appeals court has ruled that the charges can be resurrected.

The ANC is, however, standing by its leader and says Mr Zuma will lead the ruling party into elections in 2009, even if he is charged once more.

His friends say the accusations against him are politically motivated.

School of hard knocks

Mr Zuma's supporters have never doubted that he had the popular touch. They contrast him to the former President Thabo Mbeki, who was seen as rather aloof.

"He is a man who listens; he doesn't take the approach of an intellectual king," said one unnamed supporter, in an apparent swipe at Mr Mbeki.

Born in 1942 and brought up by his widowed mother in Zululand, Mr Zuma had no formal schooling.

He joined the ANC at the age of 17, becoming an active member of its military wing, Umkhonto We Sizwe, in 1962.

He was convicted of conspiring to overthrow the apartheid government and imprisoned for 10 years on the notorious Robben Island.

Mr Zuma subsequently left South Africa, living first in Mozambique, then Zambia as he rose through the ANC ranks to the executive committee.

He became one of the first leaders to return home in 1990 - when the ban on the ANC was removed - to take part in negotiations with the white minority government.

He credits his political awakening to a family member who was an active trade unionist.

Man of the people

Throughout his political career, Mr Zuma, popularly known as "JZ", has been cast as a champion of ordinary people.

He enjoys strong support among trade unionists and the communist party - an ANC ally - as they believe he will redistribute South Africa's wealth in favour of the poor.

They say Mr Mbeki was too business-friendly and had presided over "jobless growth".

But Mr Zuma has told the BBC that he would not change the ANC's economic policy.

"The ANC is going to move as it moves, and change its leadership as the time comes, but keeping its direction - so nothing is going to change."

Some fear that Mr Zuma's populism could go too far and are concerned by his habit of singing the apartheid-era anthem - "Umshini wami" (Bring Me My Machine-Gun) - at his rallies.

Like many leaders of his Zulu community, Mr Zuma is a polygamist.

He has been married at least four times - he wed Sizakele Khumalo in 1973 and took Nompumelelo Ntuli as his wife in 2008.

He is divorced from Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, while Kate Mantsho Zuma died in 2000.

In January 2009 it was reported that he was planning to tie the knot again - to his fiancee, Thobeka Mabhija.

In 2006, Mr Zuma was acquitted of raping an HIV-positive family friend.

But his statement during the trial that he showered after unprotected sex with the woman to guard against possible infection provoked criticism and ridicule and some analysts predicted he would divide the women's vote.

But his popularity seems undiminished, especially among his fellow Zulus.

His victory over Mr Mbeki in December in 2007 to become ANC president was described on the Friends of Jacob Zuma website as having "confounded the analysts, revealing that the media and political commentators are out of touch with sentiment in the ANC."