Whether or not Jacob Zuma becomes president, it's clear the political forces in the country are undergoing a dramatic realignment, writes Bonny Schoonakker
Just over three years ago, when Jacob Zuma's political career seemed all but wrecked by allegations of corruption and rape, a little bit of help came from an unexpected quarter. Even his friends had despaired, and were quoted (anonymously) as saying that the former deputy president's chances of becoming South Africa's next president had gone, irrespective of the outcome of his looming rape trial.
But Jurg Prinsloo, a lawyer previously known to the South African media only as a throwback to Verwoerdian apartheid and a defender of white supremacists accused of racial murders, emerged as one of Mr Zuma's earliest defenders. He filed a defamation suit on his behalf against newspapers that had reported on his alleged rape of a family friend.
'Zuma had been kind to Afrikaners,' Mr Prinsloo was quoted as saying after being asked for his reasons for offering his legal services to Mr Zuma for free.
At the time, it seemed a bizarre and unbelievable claim.
Mr Prinsloo had also been a leading member of the now-defunct Conservative Party, which was formed in 1982 as opposition to the ruling National Party, which was showing a growing reluctance to enforce apartheid and keep South Africa in white hands. An advocate (the South African equivalent of a barrister), Mr Prinsloo has also defended Clive Derby-Lewis and Janus Walusz, who were both convicted in 1993 of the murder of Chris Hani, the charismatic and popular leader of the South African Communist Party, of which Mr Zuma probably was, and still may be, a member.