The "not guilty" verdict for the rape of an HIV-positive woman put Zuma back in the political fray, but analysts said it remained an open question as to whether he would succeed in reclaiming his position as the frontrunner to follow President Thabo Mbeki.

More importantly, analysts say, his attempt at a political comeback sets the stage for increasingly bitter wrangling within the party that has governed South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994.

As Zuma prepared to lay out his plans at a news conference scheduled for 10.00am GMT, ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe said the former number two was now free to resume his duties within the ANC as deputy president.

The 64-year-old veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle was in December barred from speaking or acting as the party's deputy leader after he was charged with rape.

ANC remains mum

The gag order from the ANC leadership deprived Zuma of a key platform to campaign for the presidency as the party gears up for a key conference next year when a new party president will be elected to lead the ANC into elections in 2009.

"The deputy president, as you know, requested to be released from his obligations for the duration of the trial. Now that the trial is over — once he's ready — he can revert to us again," Motlanthe told the Johannesburg daily The Star.

"Zuma has one foot back into the game, but only one foot," commented Richard Calland from the independent Institute for Democracy in South Africa, noting that Zuma still has to face trial on separate charges for corruption in July.

"The ANC leadership still has to find answers about Mr. Zuma and his political credibility," Calland told AFP.

"There are serious voices in the leadership of the ANC who say that what he said and what he did represented a very serious error of judgment and that he is not longer fit to assume leadership."

Not fit for leadership?

While Zuma was acquitted for rape, he faced a stern rebuke from the judge for having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman and testifying during the trial that he showered after intercourse to avoid being infected with HIV.

Judge Willem van der Merwe said it was "totally unacceptable that a man should have unprotected sex", echoing criticism leveled at Zuma from AIDS activists in a country where one in seven adults are estimated to be living with HIV.

While Zuma's political prestige as a pretender to the office once held by Nelson Mandela may be battered, he is widely seen as wielding enough power to be a kingmaker in the succession battle.

"There is going to be a lot more tension within the ANC now because Jacob Zuma supporters are going to be heartened by the verdict and so they will use this space that has opened up to re-launch their campaign," commented William Gumede, a political writer and author of a best-selling book on the ANC.

Mbeki rules out Zuma candidacy

For his part, Mbeki has implicitly ruled out Zuma as a candidate for the presidency when he declared in the days leading up to the verdict that the next president of South Africa should be a woman.

"It was a strategic pronouncement," said Gumede. "We all know that he had in mind Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka."

Mbeki appointed Mlambo-Ngcuka to replace Zuma in June, making history by naming a woman to the second highest office.

She has since taken over the government's program to stimulate economic growth, a centerpiece of its policy, and has been jetting to foreign capitals including a recent trip to Japan to meet with leaders.

AFP