POLOKWANE (South Africa): South Africa’s feuding ruling party met on Monday for the election of a new leader, a vote expected to put Jacob Zuma on course to become state president in 2009.

Zuma, a populist with support from powerful trade unions and rank-and-file members of the ANC, is widely tipped to seize the party leadership from South African President Thabo Mbeki.

As heavy rain lashed this northern town, 4,000 African National Congress delegates went into closed session ahead of the vote. It was not yet clear whether the result would emerge on Monday.

Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota, the conference chairman struggled to maintain order before the closed session as Zuma supporters chanted his trademark, anti-apartheid song “Bring me my machine gun.”

The ANC, holding the first contested leadership election for more than 50 years, is riven by the deepest splits in its history over the rivalry between Zuma and Mbeki.

The two men, both 65-year-old veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle, are a sharp contrast.

Mbeki is an intellectual and conservative economist skilled at internal party politics but uncomfortable with crowds. Zuma had no formal schooling but has the charisma and flamboyance that Mbeki lacks and is seen as a champion of the poor.

Zuma’s likely election is worrying markets because of his strong backing from left-leaning trade unions and the Communist Party. The rand sunk to a three-week low on Monday.

“It looks like Zuma is going to get the nomination and that is a real worry for South Africa in the future,” said Carlin Doyle, emerging markets strategist at State Street Global Advisors in London.

ANC spokesman Smuts Ngonyama told reporters Mbeki, who took over the ANC from Nelson Mandela in 1997 and the country’s presidency two years later, was “deeply, deeply concerned” about party infighting.

Mbeki, who must step down as South African president in 2009, wants a third term as party leader to avoid becoming a lame duck as well as to influence the choice of his successor.

Mbeki and some of his ministers have been jeered at the five-day conference, which started on Sunday.

The winner will inherit the reins of a party that has ruled Africa’s largest economy virtually unopposed since the end of apartheid in 1994 — but one that is also badly divided amid charges of smear tactics and vote-buying.

Mbeki’s camp argues Zuma is unfit for top office because of his chequered past, which has often overshadowed his status as an anti-apartheid hero who spent 10 years in jail with Nelson Mandela.

Police are investigating allegations that he accepted bribes in an arms deal. He denies any wrongdoing. The burly Zulu politician was also acquitted in 2006 of raping an HIV-positive woman but evidence in the case tarnished his reputation.

Mbeki’s supporters have stoked fears that Zuma could tilt the country sharply to the left, an accusation he denies.

Zuma was the country’s deputy president until he was fired by Mbeki in 2005 because of the corruption investigation. His backers have accused senior government officials of using state institutions to smear their hero and deny him the presidency.

Although Mbeki has been praised for spurring economic growth, critics say that his government has neglected the poor.—Reuters