Zuma expected to win leadership of South Africa's ANC

POLOKWANE, South Africa (Reuters) - Controversial populist politician Jacob Zuma looked on track on Sunday to win the leadership of South African's ruling ANC and become the country's next president in 2009.

After party delegates met for more than 11 hours on Sunday, officials said the vote for the new leader would be held on Monday. Earlier reports had suggested it might be on Sunday night, after the first day of a five-day conference.

A bitter struggle between supporters of Zuma and current South African President Thabo Mbeki for leadership of the party has deeply divided the previously monolithic ANC, which has led Africa's biggest economy since the end of apartheid in 1994.

"Voting will start tomorrow in the morning and go throughout the day," ANC spokesman Thabo Masebe told reporters just before the first day ended. It was not clear whether the voting by more than 4,000 delegates would be completed on Monday.

Zuma went into the meeting as favourite to succeed Mbeki as leader of the dominant African National Congress and become the country's president in 2009, when Mbeki must step down.

His chances seemed boosted after Mbeki made a lacklustre three-hour speech focusing on details of his policies instead of rousing delegates to his side. Some dozed during the speech.

Reflecting the concern of party veterans over the party's divisions, Nelson Mandela told delegates in a message: "Of course it saddens us to see and hear of the nature of the differences currently in the organisation."

Mbeki defended his record in his speech, but acknowledged the gravity of the rift. "Completely unacceptable tendencies have emerged within our movement, which threaten the very survival of the ANC," he said.

SCANDALS

Zuma, a populist who has recovered from a corruption scandal and a rape trial, in which he was acquitted, has already secured a strong majority of party branch nominations.

But Mbeki is still fighting to fend off the challenge and secure his third term as ANC leader.

This would give him strong influence over the choice of next president.

Delegates and commentators criticised Mbeki's speech.

"It was too detailed and it lacked a lot of passion," said tycoon Tokyo Sexwale, who was once seen as a compromise leadership candidate but now backs Zuma.

Some delegates at the five-day conference booed Mbeki's ministers and aides and cheered Zuma supporters as they arrived.

Mbeki, who took over the party from Mandela in 1997 and then the country in 1999, accused some ANC members of dishonesty:

"This is the practice that again is entirely foreign to our movement -- the practice of using untruths, of resorting to dishonest means and deceit to achieve particular goals."

Mbeki fired Zuma, then the country's deputy president, in 2005 after he was linked to a corruption scandal surrounding a multi-billion dollar arms deal. Although the case against him collapsed, investigators have now submitted fresh evidence.

A rape trial in which he was acquitted in 2006 has often overshadowed his status as an anti-apartheid hero who spent 10 years at Robben Island prison with Mandela.

Many poor South Africans regard him as a man of the people who can bring the benefits of black majority rule to the poor, millions of whom still live in townships that are a glaring reminder of decades of domination by the white minority.

Zuma has tried to reassure foreign investors that he would pursue the strategies that have delivered an economic boom despite the support he has received from increasingly vocal left-leaning trade unions and the Communist Party.

Mbeki, often described as aloof and arrogant, has won praise from the business community and a new black middle class. But many South Africans say he is out of touch with millions of poor who have yet to benefit from black rule.

(Additional reporting by Phumza Macanda, Ron Derby and Paul Simao; Writing by Marius Bosch and Mike Georgy; Editing by Barry Moody)