Jacob Zuma, newly elected head of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress, has been charged with corruption, according to multiple reports in the local media on Friday.

The charges, which are reported to include racketeering, tax evasion and corruption, have dramatically raised the political temperature just a week after the ANC voted out the country’s president, Thabo Mbeki, as party leader in favour of his charismatic but controversial rival, Mr Zuma. The corruption charge relates to a long-running investigation into a scandal-wracked multi-billion-dollar arms deal in the late 1990s.