The response of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) to the Scorpions' raids related to former Deputy President Jacob Zuma was unfortunate, the presidency said on Friday.

"I think the remarks are unfortunate," presidential spokesperson Murphy Morobe told the radion station, SAfm.

"It sounds like they were said at the heat of the moment. I'm sure that in quiet reflection and consideration, even Cosatu would agree that the democracy in this country has never been stronger."

The trade union body called the countrywide raids on the homes of the deputy president, some of his associates and at offices in the Union buildings and Tuynhuis, "a full-frontal attack on our revolution itself".

Calling the raid a "brutal persecution" of Zuma, Cosatu Secretary-General Zwelinzima Vavi said it was clear the raids were a direct response to a call to President Thabo Mbeki that corruption charges against Zuma be dropped.

"The political prosecution of Jacob Zuma risks plunging our new democracy into turmoil," Vavi said.

"It has already begun to divide our movement. We are in consistent contact with the African National Congress leadership and will seek to discuss this state of affairs as soon as we get the opportunity."

Morobe said some of the comments made relating to the raids were discouraging and disappointing, "because I do not think it served the course of justice to invoke revolutionary rhetoric when the issue here relates to the pursuit of certain legal procedures."

Zuma will go on trial in October on two charges of corruption which emanated from the fraud and corruption conviction of his former financial adviser Schabir Shaik. Shaik is appealing the convictions.

He said that all the presidency did at the Union buildings was to adhere to a court injunction which allowed evidence collection by state prosecution authorities.

Morobe said that there was no need for the government or the president to engage in public debate on the matter and that they had the right to express their feelings through their structures.

"They have the democratic right to do so," he said.

With acknowledgements to Sapa and Independent Online.