Jacob Zuma's no confidence vote a test of South African democracy
Controversy on multiple levels has dogged the president's career and culminated in the biggest threat yet to his grip on power.
Tuesday 8 August 2017 17:54, UK
Jacob Zuma's full name is Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma. In Zulu it means "the one who smiles while grinding his enemies".
It has proved remarkably apt.
He is an extraordinary political survivor, his jovial manner concealing a steely determination to see off his foes.
All that appeared to hang in the balance with this latest no confidence vote, but Mr Zuma lives to fight another day.
Controversy on multiple levels has dogged his career and culminated in the biggest threat yet to his grip on power.
The vote of no confidence followed his removal of a respected finance minister, a move that reduced South Africa's credit ratings to junk and set the country's currency, the Rand, plummeting.
He has never fully explained why he sacked Pravin Gordhan, but he is suspected of trying to acquire control of the South African Treasury.
Another long-festering controversy has been the wrongful use of taxpayers' money to give his private rural residence a right royal makeover. The public purse forked out for a swimming pool, amphitheatre, animal enclosure and even a chicken run.
His excuses and justifications were risible and infuriated public opinion. He repaid the money and apologised in the end but not until a court upbraided him for his conduct.
More worrying for South Africans are the allegations he has allowed a wealthy industrial family to control his government by buying influence, control and lucrative contracts.
Leaked emails between the Guptas and Zuma government officials have revealed what critics called a conspiracy of state capture. An entire government has been co-opted for one family's personal enrichment, it is alleged.
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A British PR firm became embroiled too. Bell Pottinger was accused of being behind a murky media campaign designed to distract public furore over the Gupta scandal.
It is claimed they fomented a fake race controversy about white control of the South African economy and smeared white journalists reporting on the Gupta Zuma story.
The company was forced to apologise for its operations in the country.
Jacob Zuma and the Guptas deny any wrongdoing in their relations but the scandal has cast a sinister shadow over the young Rainbow nation.
As have 800 corruption charges of money laundering and racketeering against Zuma arising from a $5bn arms deal in the 1980s.
The stench emanating from Mr Zuma's serial scandals and controversies threatens the young South African democracy's future, say observers.
The vote of confidence was a chance, they argued, not only to punish the president but also ingrain the notion of accountability into the country's political system and set it apart from much of the rest of Africa.
Mr Zuma has survived several no confidence votes in the past, and even though this was the first to be held by secret ballot, he continues to cling on to power.