Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is not looking forward to a Jacob Zuma presidency, he revealed in Durban.

While the African National Congress leader was a warm and friendly man, Tutu said he was not the ideal president, The Witness newspaper and SABC radio news quoted him as saying.

"In the year of [Barack] Obama, can you imagine what it is like when you are walking in New York and they ask you who will be the next president...

"At the present time, I can't pretend to be looking forward to having him as my president," said Tutu who was speaking at a book launch at the Durban city hall.

He said he hoped the National Prosecuting Authority would decide to continue with Zuma's fraud and corruption prosecution.

"For his own sake, I hope they are not going to have a political solution. If he is innocent as he has claimed to be, for goodness sake, let it be a court of law that says so," said Tutu.

The NPA was locked in meetings earlier this week to discuss the possibility of discontinuing Zuma's prosecution.

It is expected to say on Friday when an announcement on its decision would be made.

Tutu said South Africa was at a "bad place right now".

"It was easy to be against something [during the struggle]. A far more difficult task has been left to you - making a reality of our freedom.

"So when our new government behaves somewhat strangely, it is very difficult to condemn because it looks like you are unpatriotic... we are at a bad place right now in our country.

Criticising the government's decisions

"We imagined that our idealism, our altruism, being concerned about others more than ourselves, would be automatically carried over into the post-apartheid era and we were surprised by how easily we seemed to forget," said Tutu, who also repeated his criticism against the government refusing the Dalai Lama entry to South Africa.

"When [Finance Minister] Trevor Manuel tried to justify it [the Dalai Lama decision] and was so sneery, I said 'Aikhona, This can't be what we struggled for'."

Tutu also questioned the medical parole that was granted to Zuma's former financial adviser, convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik.

"Then there's [Schabir] Shaik. It's not a laughing matter - it's people saying 'go jump in a lake' if you have objections. Is this why people died, is this why people went into exile, is this why people were tortured?

"This is our country, our beautiful country. Please allow us old people to go to our graves smiling," said Tutu.