SOUTH AFRICA:Is South Africa's state president-in-waiting Jacob Zuma corrupt, or the victim of a politically-motivated smear-campaign? That is the question on everyone's lips as state prosecutors prepare to charge the newly-elected African National Congress (ANC) leader with allegedly taking bribes.
On the face of it, Zuma is in deep water. His close business associate Schabir Shaik was convicted in 2005, and subsequently jailed for 15 years, for corruption and fraud.
Reports have since circulated of various payments between Shaik, Zuma and a French company involved in a South African arms deal.
But, says Dublin-born South Africa scholar Pádraig O'Malley, there are good reasons to believe something "fishy" is going on.
"This playing field is not exactly level. There is an inconsistency in the way these investigations are handled." Prof O'Malley, who is the author of a recent history of the ANC Shades of Difference, argues that South African president Thabo Mbeki - who unsuccessfully stood against Zuma in last week's ANC leadership race - has a record of interfering in state prosecutions.
"I would be surprised if Thabo is intended on reconciliation. I think he will try to kill him [ Zuma] off." Suspicion of the motives of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) stretches back to April 2001 and the then announcement of a police investigation into three ANC stalwarts - Cyril Ramaphosa, Tokya Sexwale and Mathews Phosa - for allegedly plotting to overthrow the president.
"The first person who brought conspiracy into South African politics was Mbeki," Prof O'Malley notes. "He began implanting that destructive process when he began the allegations against those three." Charges were never brought against the accused but the publicity surrounding the inquiry was enough to force all three temporarily out of politics.
Two years later, police launched another controversial inquiry - this time of Zuma and some of his associates, including former transport minister Mac Maharaj. A series of damaging leaks against the pair surfaced in the press, leading to claims that the then head of the NPA Bulelani Ngcuka was conducting a "trial by media".
In one notorious episode, Ngcuka briefed a select group of journalists, saying there was a "prima facie" case against Zuma even though the NPA was not in a position to bring charges against him.
Fast forward now to September 2007 when the NPA was investigating controversial police commissioner Jackie Selebi, who happens to be a close ally of Mbeki.
On the eve of an arrest warrant being issued for the police chief, who has been linked to organised crime, Mbeki relieved the then head of the NPA Vusi Pikoli of his duties.
Pikoli's successor Mokotedi Mpshe has refused to comment on whether such a warrant will now be issued but critically, in the hours before Zuma delivered his maiden address as ANC president, revealed that the NPA had gathered enough evidence to bring criminal charges against the newly-elected party president.
"The timing of that announcement was intriguing," says Prof O'Malley. "If you were a Zuma supporter you would find it more than odd." Ironically, the NPA may have contributed to Zuma's election last week by generating a sympathy vote for the besieged politician.
As Zuma's occasional spokeswoman Ranjeni Munusamy comments: "Had the NPA and its political masters not run their malicious double-pronged media-prosecutorial operation against Zuma, the Polokwane revolt would probably not have happened.
"And had Zuma not been tormented by state agencies, tried and ridiculed in the court of public opinion, the delegates would not have arrived at the University of Limpopo with such grit."
ANC delegates last week not only chose to believe Zuma ahead of the NPA but chose to believe Phosa too, electing him as treasurer-general of the party.
In what Zuma-backers regarded as a delicious twist, Phosa won the post from South Africa's deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the wife of the former NPA chief Ngcuka.
Whatever the truth of the conspiracy theories, Prof O'Malley says Zuma "has the capacity to be a much better president than Mbeki whom I consider to be a disaster, and an accomplice to genocide because of his failure to address the Aids crisis".
Prof O'Malley says studies show the biggest threat to security in South Africa is the possibility of a mass uprising of the poor and "Zuma has the persona of someone who can deal with that". Mbeki, in contrast, "has no understanding of his own people", having gone from exile in the apartheid era to government "without ever setting foot in a township", Prof O'Malley adds.