Jacob Zuma, who is 67 on 12 April, has spent his entire political life with the African National Congress. He was imprisoned on Robben Island for ten years and subsequently served the organisation secretly and in exile. Mr Zuma was the right hand man of former President Thabo Mbeki for many years. In 2003, however, Mr Mbeki however sacked him as deputy president over corruption allegations, setting the scene for a bitter factional fight between the two men. Mr Zuma and his supporters, many of them from the left-wing trades union movement, took control of the ANC at the end of 2007, deposing Mr Mbeki from his positions within the party and subsequently from the presidency. Of Zulu ethnicity (Mr Mbeki is Xhosa), Mr Zuma is affable, down-to-earth and socially conservative.

Mvume Dandala, 57, joined the Congress of the People, known as Cope, earlier this year and became the party’s surprise choice for presidential candidate a few weeks later. He is a prominent Methodist churchman, having served as both the Methodist Bishop of Southern African and as president of the South African Council of Churches. Mr Dandala was active in the United Democratic Front, an anti-apartheid movement during the 1980s, and took part in the talks that led to South Africa’s democratic transition. Within the Cope he emerged as a compromise candidate when the supporters of the party’s two most prominent leaders, Mosiuoa Lekota and Mbhazima Shilowa failed to resolve their differences. Cope is presenting him as a clean moral candidate in contrast to the ANC’s Jacob Zuma, whose reputation has been badly tarnished by corruption allegations.