Counting of votes has ended in South Africa's elections and Jacob Zuma, the mercurial leader of African National Congress, is on his way to becoming the republic's fourth president in the post-apartheid era.
The ANC was racing against itself Friday afternoon, leaving its opponents far behind and closing in on the much sought after two-thirds majority.
The former goat-herder is now ready to take the highest office in the land and will be sworn in on May 9.
It has been a long and bitter road getting to the top. Zuma was booted out as deputy president in 2005 amid a multimillion-pound arms scandal and only recently won a six-year battle to clear his name, after prosecutors dropped corruption charges against him.
In 2007, Zuma won a landslide victory over Thabo Mbeki at the ANC's Polokwane conference and was elected to the post of party president.
The former struggle hero who has six wives, likes to sing and has always managed to charm the masses unlike his more reserved predecessors.
But Zuma will have work his cut for him convincing his critics at home and skeptics abroad that he is up for the job.
South Africa has the world's largest HIV/AIDS population, 5.3 million or 11% of all South Africans, according to official figures. It has the world's ninth highest murder rate.
While Zuma has come out strongly against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, the violent crackdown after the disputed elections and the collapse of the economy has drawn floods of refugees to South Africa.
South Africa, a net importer of oil from crude, is still on the brink of a major energy crisis, that has already dented the country's economic growth.
State-owned utility Eskom, which provides 95 percent of the country's power, has rationed electricity since early last year despite warnings to the government that South Africa would run out of power if it failed to restructure the regulatory environment to attract private business.
Eskom has said it is committed to reducing coal's current 88% share of South Africa's primary energy mix to 78% by 2012 and to 70% by 2025.
Critics say there is an urgent need for the overhaul of the country's energy sector and have called for integrated energy planning, something which has been severely lacking over the last decade, and which has led to insufficient generating capacity over the last three years.
Demand levels have reached a point where it exceeds South Africa's oil refining capacity resulting in a likely shortage of refined petroleum products.
One of the ANC's main challenges is to define a clear national strategy and policy on energy security toensure a consistent electricity supply in a country plagued by chronic blackouts.
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