African Press International (API)

Limpopo (South Africa) African National Congress (ANC’s) presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma, on Sunday vowed that he will not step down as ANC leader if he is charged, APA has learnt.

Zuma’s comments, made in Limpopo on the day of his electoral battle with President Thabo Mbeki at the ANC’s conference, came as the National Prosecuting Authority indicated that it was ready to pile new corruption and tax evasion charges on him next year.

“Why should I step down? You know what would that mean, if there were charges and I stepped down? It would mean that I plead guilty before even going to court,” he said.

“What would be the logic of it? I see no logic in it. The day, if I am taken to court, that the Judge says: ‘Zuma, we find you guilty’, as I walk out of court I will say to the ANC I am stepping down, I have been found guilty.”

All major roads leading in and out of Limpopo are being manned by traffic cops and soldiers since Friday as an expected 6000 delegates, journalists and observers started trickling in from Saturday.

A task team of ANC officials and the SA Police Service is co-ordinating the security effort for the party’s most important conference in its history.

A heavily guarded Zuma arrived in Limpopo in a nine-car security convoy with 12 bodyguards, following unverified reports that an informant had told police of a plot to assassinate him, this after a senior security official briefed Zuma in person on Friday about the alleged plot.

Fuelling paranoia in the Zuma camp, was a burglary at his Durban beachfront flat on Thursday.

Zuma’s rival, Mbeki, flew in to Polokwane in the presidential jet and immediately went into a meeting with ANC veteran Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who has been trying to broker a truce between the two men this week.

Madikizela-Mandela’s meeting with Mbeki followed a similar meeting with Zuma at his Johannesburg home on Friday.

Zuma told Madikizela-Mandela that he would not agree to “leadership by arrangement” and rejected any attempt to introduce a “subverted democracy”.

In an SABC interview on Sunday, Zuma said he would let Mbeki finish his presidential term.

“Why should he leave office early? He must finish out his term smoothly and nicely. It’s not a problem. That space also allows the ANC president to lead the [2009 election] campaign without necessarily having to deal with government every morning so that he can put every effort into the ANC.”

Zuma dismissed Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s opposition to his candidacy, saying he should stay out of politics.

“I have avoided answering the question about Tutu because I respect him. The business of the leaders of the church, in terms of what God has said: they must pray for people, not condemn them. I will expect him to pray, not to condemn.”

He said it was “dangerous” for the clergy to become involved in politics.

The mood was tense as delegates arrived at the Polokwane airport for official registration.

Delegates defiantly wore Zuma T-shirts, flouting the party’s directive banning all T-shirts bearing faces of candidates.

“I have told members of the electoral commission that everything that happens during the voting and counting should be recorded. This is not an ordinary election,” she said.

Published by Korir, API/APN africanpress@chello.no source.apa