CAPE TOWN — Further corruption charges by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) would not stop Jacob Zuma from accepting nomination to become the next president of the African National Congress (ANC) and country.

Speaking at the Cape Town Press Club yesterday, Zuma, the ANC deputy president, made it clear that, despite insisting in the past that he was not campaigning to be the next president and saying it was up to ANC members to decide their next leaders, he was effectively declaring that further fraud and corruption charges would not stop him from accepting nomination.

This is the clearest statement yet that he is still very much in the running for the ruling party’s and the country’s top jobs.

When asked whether he would accept nomination even if re-charged, he said that the constitution insisted that individuals were innocent until proven guilty. So why should he “find himself guilty” before a court has decided? “If I withdrew I would be admitting guilt.”

Zuma would not answer questions on the issue of his persistent legal attempts to prevent access to key documents in Mauritius.

Many commentators see his opposition to the NPA getting access to the documents as demonstrating that he has something to hide.

His statement on the leadership race, coming after reports that some members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions were having doubts about their vocal support for him as a candidate, is likely to further deepen the divisions between pro- and anti-Zuma factions on the left of the ruling alliance.

Facing the members of the press, some of whom he is suing for defamation, Zuma also insisted that the media had gone too far in reporting and commenting on his brushes with the law, saying some were abusing the very freedoms that he had devoted his life to protecting.

Zuma also insisted that in his many public appearances — including his recent expression of sympathy with white conservatives and advice to trades union to curtail state power — he was not campaigning for the presidency of the ANC but was simply doing ANC work, as he had done since 1994.

In response to a question, Zuma said that ANC members did not put themselves up for posts but were nominated at the conference.

“We do not campaign in the ANC.

“Only the ANC decides and you only know when the nominations are done.”

On the issue of appealing against a high court decision that the NPA should be allowed to pursue documents in Mauritius which it believes will tie Zuma to the Alain Thetard, the then head of Thales, through Thetard’s diary and hence to arms deal corruption, Zuma said he could not answer the question.

This was not because he did not have the answer, but because the NPA had made it clear that it wanted to re-charge him and to give the answers in public now might be problematic when the matter ended up in court, Zuma said.

Zuma’s response also indicates clearly that he is expecting to end up in court again on fraud and corruption charges.

He also persisted with the line that there was no bad blood between himself and President Thabo Mbeki, saying that he had learnt of this supposed conflict only through the media.

Mbeki was a comrade and a friend, he said. They met every Monday on ANC business despite suggestions that they were not on speaking terms.

He said the media were misreading and sensationalising the situation.

Mbeki had explained that he had been forced to dismiss him as deputy president of the country because of the constitution.

In response to a direct challenge from cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro, who is one of those being sued by Zuma, that he was attempting to intimidate the press, Zuma said he would not drop the case.

He said the media could not play judge when the law presumed him innocent.

He said the media was “sentencing him to death” even though he was found not guilty.

He insisted that this was not fair and that the media was abusing their freedom.

He said he had told the South African National Editors’ Forum that he had fought for freedom, including freedom of the press, but the press “have gone too far”.

With acknowledgements to Wyndham Hartley and Business Day.