Last Saturday, at the launch of the ANC’s election manifesto, party president Jacob Zuma pledged a graft-free government and promised that the party would introduce a raft of measures to curb corruption in the administration of the republic.

On Monday, the Supreme Court of Appeal reinstated fraud and corruption charges against him.

In the days that followed the ruling, the ANC, it s alliance partners and their youth movements rallied to insist that Zuma would be their candidate for president despite the court ruling. They vowed to wage a titanic struggle to help him avoid ever going to court to answer the very serious charges against him.

But the ANC may not have its way on this one.

Unless the ruling party adds cynicism to the contempt it has already shown for the South African public by trying to foist this man upon us, and perverts the spirit of our constitutional democracy by amending existing law to shield Zuma from prosecution, it now seems likely that he will have to go to court sometime during the next president’s five-year term of office to defend himself against a devastating array of charges. It would not be a short trial.

Among men and women who truly want the best for their country and not just for themselves, this alone would be reason to withdraw support for his candidacy. Instead, we hear that he is a victim of the political conspiracy and that he is innocent unless proven guilty. But it is no conspiracy to strategise and campaign to block the election of an unsuitable candidate; it is politics. Innocence of crime is not a reason to elect anyone to high office; it is merely one necessary condition.

To recap: Zuma faces 16 main charges of fraud, corruption, money-laundering, tax evasion and racketeering and, under that umbrella, more than 1 500 specific allegations of criminal behaviour. He has had to defend or apologise for inappropriate comments about women, homosexuality, capital punishment and the rights of criminals, all of which contradict the spirit of the constitutional democracy our president is charged to protect.

There are many still in the leadership of the ANC who acknowledge privately that they believe Zuma would be a bad president ­ either because of the clear ambiguity of his ethics or because they doubt his intellectual capacity to lead a country as complex as ours. Some of them are among those who rushed to condemn the intellectual tyranny of Thabo Mbeki’s presidency once he was hobbling. Now they are silent even within the party. They are wearing cowardice as a badge of honour.

How can they sleep, knowing that they are surrendering our fabulous but still challenged country to the leadership of a man who they believe is neither suitable nor competent? Is it possible that among the thousands of active ANC leaders and the millions of that party’s supporters, this is the best man they can find to lead us?

The spirit of our democracy enshrines Zuma’s right to fight his conviction in every way he can. But his catch-me-if-you-can response to the very serious allegations against him is hardly the action of an innocent man. Instead of rushing to court to debunk the charges, he has sought to persuade a foreign government to block an investigation in the country he aspires to lead; he has thwarted every effort to bring the case to court; he has tried to sell the very delays that he has engineered as a reason to drop the charges against him; and he has sought to blackmail his political comrades with threats to expose the allegedly more serious criminal behaviour of political peers if he is made to face allegations of manipulating the state’s arms acquisition programme to his own advantage.

If Zuma knows of criminal activity by party colleagues and is willing to keep this to himself in return for a free pass to power, he has no right to be president. If the leaders of the ANC know that he is hiding evidence of criminal activity *1, they must insist he reveals it immediately. We cannot afford a president elected on a plea bargain.

We believe there are enough men and women in the party who know their defence of this man is wrong and that they could, together, turn this terrible tide. If they find each other and speak up together, they could deliver a victory for honour, good sense and the future of South Africa.

Jacob Zuma may be innocent *2, but until he has faced the charges against him he should not be considered for any public office ­ least of all president.

With acknowledgements to Sunday Times.