Axed Deputy President Jacob Zuma’s backers are mobilising to take on the ANC leadership inside the party and in the streets following this week’s raids on his homes by the Scorpions.

And, as his October 11 court appearance nears, his supporters in the ANC and its alliance partners are moving to find new platforms to ensure Zuma builds on the mass support base he consolidated so effectively during the Schabir Shaik corruption trial.

Zuma’s allies in the ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal leadership successfully argued this week that he be involved in “selling” President Thabo Mbeki’s decision to fire him to ANC structures. The machinery to “sell” this message is already being put in motion.

However, today the Young Communist League, the ANC Youth League, the Congress of South African Students, the South African National Student Congress and other organisations are to launch a youth front in Johannesburg that will publicly back Zuma.

On Saturday Zuma will lead an SACP march in Durban. He is also expected to address a South African Democratic Teachers’ Union congress in Durban next month.

Cosatu’s leadership is also set to take up the cudgels on Zuma’s behalf in alliance structures. Cosatu’s central committee resolved this week to ensure “that whenever Comrade Zuma appears in court, our people will demonstrate en masse”.

These activities come in the wake of this week’s launch of the Friends of Jacob Zuma Trust at the Cosatu central committee meeting in Johannesburg.

The trust will raise funds to pay Zuma’s legal bills during his trial on corruption charges stemming from the conviction of his friend and former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, on fraud and corruption charges.

Zuma was subsequently “released” as deputy president by President Thabo Mbeki and later charged with corruption himself. Zuma, who is 63, faces up to 15 years in jail if found guilty.

But the trust will not only be picking up the tab for his legal fees. Its members confirmed to the Sunday Times that it will fund “whatever needs Msholozi [Zuma] has”.

In effect, the trust will become a war chest for demonstrations, rallies and other public activities to maintain the groundswell of support for Zuma inside the ANC and in the public arena.

The trust is chaired by Don Mkhwanazi, a former adviser to Mbeki and a close friend of Zuma.

Fellow trustees are Fikile “Slovo” Majola, general secretary of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union, and the SACP’s Sizwe Shezi.

One of the trust’s key organisers, who prefers to remain anonymous, says he and other leading businessmen back Zuma, but most are unwilling to do so publicly for fear of losing key government contracts.

Zuma’s backers have been at pains to ensure the fightback is seen not as a regional, KwaZulu-Natal response to his prosecution, but rather a national campaign driven by popular support in the ANC.

Financial and political backing for Zuma does not end with the trust itself.

Cosatu reinforced its support for him this week, with affiliates forcing the hand of their leadership, which had softened its stance. The SACP has also gone out on a limb to back Zuma, with its last central committee meeting marked by a split vote in his favour.

The ANC National Executive Committee meeting before its National General Council in Tshwane last month had to be adjourned after five hours of debate when members refused to endorse a leadership decision to have Zuma stand down from his ANC office.

NEC members also rejected attempts to have them endorse a document on the Zuma affair, which eventually had to be presented as a report of secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe. NEC members also shot down a proposal by the ANC national working committee that Zuma not attend the council meetings. During the general council, seven of nine ANC provinces forced Zuma’s reinstatement to his party posts.

In KwaZulu-Natal, attempts to discipline Zuma’s supporters for heckling his successor as deputy president, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, were shot down at Monday’s provincial executive committee meeting.

Provincial secretary Senzo Mchunu confirmed that plans for disciplinary action had been shelved. Instead, the party would launch a campaign to go to its 11 regions to brief members about Mbeki’s axing of Zuma.

“The best approach is to engage comrades, rather than individual disciplining,” said Mchunu.

Monday’s meeting also saw Zuma’s supporters in KwaZulu-Natal successfully arguing that he should be drawn into the “education” process. This will, in effect, give him the platform to engage his supporters that the party leadership has, in the main, denied him.

The ANC yesterday urged the Scorpions to conclude the Zuma investigation as soon as possible.

Smuts Ngonyama, head of Mbeki’s ANC office, said the furore over Zuma’s future was putting strain on the party and the alliance.

“We respect the [judicial] process and that it cannot move in accordance with the pace we wish for as the ANC, but we hope that the process will move to its finality as quickly as possible and we can be done with it,” he said.

Ngonyama said the ANC leadership had been “surprised” by the Cosatu demand for Zuma’s reinstatement in government and the dismissal of charges against him.

“I cannot imagine what decision more the ANC could take on this matter, except perhaps to ask for a meeting with Cosatu to hear the details of their proposal,” he said.

SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said the manner in which law enforcement agencies carry out their investigations must be above reproach.

He called for “an urgent high-level tripartite alliance meeting to discuss all the developments surrounding the ANC deputy president”.

With acknowledgements to Paddy Harper, Brendan Boyle, Ndivhuwo Mafela and the Sunday Times.