The African National Congress (ANC) national general council yesterday rejected the former deputy president Jacob Zuma’s “request” to be relieved of his ANC duties pending the outcome of his corruption trial.

The plenary session decision, during a behind-closed doors session, means that Zuma can now resume his party duties pending the outcome of his corruption trial.

Zuma’s reinstatement enables him to access his base in the ANC and to campaign.

It keeps him in the race for the presidency pending the outcome of his corruption trial.

The rejection was a victory for the ANC’s populist constituency against President Thabo Mbeki, who was attempting to rally the organisation around his decision to dismiss Zuma from the cabinet last month.

“The people won by a technical knockout,” a key Zuma loyalist said.

Sources within the party said that the request was first rejected by the party’s national executive committee two-day meeting that ended on Wednesday — a day before yesterday’s plenary session meeting.

“This basically means that the ANC members … do not understand the correctness of this decision. We all have found it problematic.

“What do we do with an elected ANC official who cannot be replaced ... what this means is that he will be able to continue his job at the ANC,” another source said.

“The official party line was that ANC delegates had requested Zuma to reconsider his request to resign and he has accepted it,” the source said.

The Zuma affair forced its way on to the agenda of the ANC meeting yesterday, with senior party officials forced to backtrack on earlier orders that Zuma not be discussed at the meeting at all.

ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe added a special eight-page note on the Zuma issue to his organisational report to the council.

The excerpt was a last-minute addition following a clamour from Zuma-supporting members, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, to discuss his sacking from the cabinet last month.

Motlanthe’s unexpected delivery of the excerpt marked the first time that senior party leaders spoke directly to ordinary members after Zuma’s sacking and “withdrawal” from party activities.

Its presentation followed defiant displays of pro-Zuma sentiment by sections of the estimated 1500 delegates, who wore T-shirts proclaiming his innocence and sang of him as their president.

Motlanthe later said there was nothing wrong with ANC members singing Zuma’s praises, saying they were “expressing their confidence in his leadership”.

He said he had no doubt that if the council meeting were an “elective conference”, the delegates would be free to elect Zuma president.

He said the ANC was “in pain” and that it was the first time in its history it had a deputy president facing criminal charges.

Members were free to respond to this pain in different ways.

They could sing, toyi-toyi or cry, Motlanthe said.

“It’s a very painful experience and members must understand and appreciate that we are going through pain.”

Motlanthe’s candour and the party’s turnaround on the Zuma saga followed weeks during which the ANC attempted to project a “business-as-usual” image, to keep Zuma off the council’s agenda, and to pretend that the ANC was united on the matter.

Despite previous efforts to explain President Thabo Mbeki’s decision to dismiss Zuma from his cabinet by deploying ANC heavyweights to speak to ordinary members around the country, the Zuma matter provided the subtext to the opening day of the council meeting.

This suggests that the matter will stay with the party well beyond this weekend’s meeting.

The Zuma saga’s entry on to the agenda also means council delegates will now have to discuss Zuma in closed commission and plenary deliberations that are due to begin today.

Motlanthe said of the Zuma saga: “The events of the last few weeks have been both difficult and challenging for the organisation, and had the potential to cause confusion and doubt among the rank and file of the broader democratic movement,” Motlanthe told the meeting.

He acknowledged that the ANC had been “greatly pained” by the demise of its deputy president, and that ordinary members were not happy with how the party had dealt with Zuma.

With acknowledgements to Vukani Mde and the Cape Times.