SPECULATION is rife within sections of the tripartite alliance that presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma is going to be re-charged by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) on the eve of next month’s African National Congress (ANC) watershed conference.

The possibility of a new corruption trial against the ANC deputy president comes after Zuma’s early victory over his rival President Thabo Mbeki in the weekend’s ANC provincial nominations, which put Zuma ahead in the presidential race.

Political analysts have warned a new Zuma trial before Polokwane will give currency to the perception there is a “political conspiracy” against Zuma.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), a key Zuma backer in his fight for control of the ANC, fired the first salvo when the federation issued a statement saying that it had noted “persistent” media reports suggesting that the NPA is to be “deployed” against Zuma ahead of the conference.

Cosatu warned that such a move would “plunge” the country into chaos and issued notice that the federation would oppose it politically and “in the streets ”.

“Cosatu has consistently raised its deep concern that state institutions, such as the NPA, get deployed to sort out factional internal battles.

“These concerns have deepened most recently with the way the d irector of the NPA, Adv Vusi Pikoli, was suspended,” the statement read.

T his month, the Supreme Court of Appeal made four judgments that would help the NPA in its quest to reinstate corruption charges against Zuma.

Three of the judgments concerned the lawfulness of the search and seizure warrants obtained from Transvaal Judge President Bernard Ngoepe in 2005, which authorised the search of Zuma’s homes and offices, those of his lawyers and French arms company Thint.

The fourth concerned a letter of request issued by a Durban High Court judge to Mauritian authorities to transmit 14 documents. The state requires those documents as evidence in any prosecution of Zuma and Thint that might occur.

However, there are now conflicting reports coming from sources within the NPA as to the state’s readiness to re-charge Zuma. While investigators close to the Zuma matter told Business Day they were “ready to charge” following the Supreme Court of Appeal’s decision , other sources in the NPA have suggested its acting head, Mokotedi Mpshe, was not “keen” to re-charge Zuma.

There are also claims that the NPA had already approached KwaZulu-Natal J udge P resident Vuka Tshabalala some weeks ago with the aim of fixing a possible trial date and to get the process going of selecting a judge to try the case.

However, sources in the NPA said that everything had now been “put on hold”.

Cosatu said the question that needed to be answered was whether Mpshe “can withstand political pressure and will launch legal action not with the purpose of winning any case, but just in a blatant and cynical attempt to tilt the balance at Polokwane by presenting the ANC d eputy p resident in a negative light”.

“Under the circumstances surrounding his appointment, Cosatu, and many others who truly believe in the independence of the judiciary, cannot have confidence in Mpshe.

“We seriously doubt whether he can afford to be independent and impartial, knowing what happened to his predecessor.”

With acknowledgements to Karima Brown and Business Day.