Do we like them?

Do we like Jacob Zuma?

Our score: 2 out of 10. Court rebukes, a conviction for contempt and a 2024 promise to undo gay rights sit against a real struggle history and little else.

Jacob Zuma was born in 1942 in rural Nkandla, lost his father at five and was raised by his maternal grandparents with no formal schooling. He joined the ANC in 1959, joined its armed wing in 1962 and was later convicted of conspiring to overthrow the apartheid government. He served 10 years on Robben Island alongside Nelson Mandela. He went on to become deputy president in 1999, ANC president in 2007 and South Africa's president in 2009.

The wheels came off in court. In 2016 the Constitutional Court unanimously held he had breached the Constitution by ignoring the Public Protector's order to repay part of the money spent on his Nkandla home. In 2021 the same court convicted him of contempt for defying an order to appear before the state capture inquiry and sentenced him to 15 months. The majority said it had never faced attacks like the ones he launched on it.

In 2006, as deputy president, he stood trial for rape and was acquitted. The judge found that consensual sex took place and said the state had not proved rape beyond reasonable doubt, and he doubted the complainant's credibility. Women's groups saw the case as a setback, and that is the context for how his later comments on women and gay people landed.

The latest chapter is the arms deal. Zuma is charged with corruption, racketeering, money laundering and fraud, accused of taking R4.1 million from his former financial adviser; he denies wrongdoing and says the case is political. In May 2026 Judge Chili found he and Thales had used a stalling "Stalingrad defence" and set the trial for February 2027. Separately, the High Court ordered him in October 2025 to repay about R29 million in state-funded legal fees, and he is still fighting it.

The good stuff is mostly the old stuff. Ten years in an apartheid prison for the liberation movement is a real sacrifice, and he served as deputy president and then president. We found no verified charity work or cause he has backed at a cost to himself in recent decades, and that is honestly the whole list.

So the struggle record is real, but it isn't a licence. A man who has been convicted of contempt, been rebuked over Nkandla and told a rally he would undo gay rights has used up his credit with us. The good-person test is mixed because of the Robben Island years; the harm test is a fail because of his own words.