By Carien du Plessis
In his first church campaign appearance after corruption charges against him were dropped last week, ANC leader Jacob Zuma has preached love, forgiveness and polygamy.
On his 67th birthday yesterday, Zuma was received with religious songs of praise, hallelujas and a massive birthday cake by the International Pentecostal Holiness Church congregation during its Sunday Easter service at its vast international headquarters.
The church comprises five plots of walled-in agricultural land in the dusty mining region of Westonaria, outside Joburg.
About 150 marriages, including various polygamous ones, were conducted as is traditionally done on religious holidays in this church.
White meringue-dressed brides and grooms, bearing large, white, lace-adorned leaves that they later used to fan them and their brides in the humid church, danced into the church in an almost two-hour-long procession on the beat of jazzy live gospel music.
Except for the marrying couples, the church separates men and women in its seating plans. The congregants wore blue and red uniforms with white pants and skirts.
After his scripted speech, Zuma told the congregation that other churches should learn from this church's endorsement of polygamy, which they justify through a narrow interpretation of the Old Testament in the Bible.
Earlier in his speech, Zuma said democratic South Africa was built on reconciliation and forgiveness.
The ANC leader quoted from various Bible verses preaching love and forgiveness in an attempt to seek unity in the country.
It wasn't clear whether he aimed the speech against those who allegedly meddled in his corruption case, which was the basis for the National Prosecuting Authority's withdrawing of his charges last Monday, or against those in the ANC seeking revenge against those alleged meddlers. "Hate is an intense and all-consuming emotion. It takes over your whole being as you plot against your perceived enemy. On the other hand, love and forgiveness are liberating emotions," he said.
The ANC earlier this week said it would support a commission of inquiry against those who allegedly interfered in his case, but later in the week the ANC Youth League indicated that it would seek to lobby the ANC against agreeing to such a commission.
Zuma told the 30 000-strong congregation, as he had told the Rhema Church as well as Afrikaner religious groupings, that the ANC was built in the church and he wanted them to advise the government.
The church, which normally has its services on Saturdays, is based on the leanings of non-orthodox Judaism and charismatic Christianity and had female journalists scrambling to find hats or scarves to cover their heads, which is obligatory in the church.
Earlier reports said the opposition Cope party was expecting its leader, Mosioua Lekota, to be at the church before Zuma, but church authorities said they did not invite him.
Journalists were forbidden from interviewing church-goers, who "might say something that is not in line with church policy", such as give negative views on Zuma, one of the church's media assistants said.
After leaving the church more than an hour after the scheduled time, Zuma went on to visit a Muslim fete in Mayfair, Joburg, where he quoted verses from the Quran in his speech.