A fund-raising concert was being held in Johannesburg on Sunday by Zuma's supporters. Newspapers did guess work on possible outcomes and consequences of the trial.

    But more will just turn on radios and TVs on Monday morning for a live broadcast when Judge Willem van der Merwe delivers the verdict in the Johannesburg High Court.

    A 31-year-old HIV-positive woman and daughter of an old-time friend of Zuma, who considers herself a lesbian, alleges that on November 2 last year, the former deputy president raped her in the guest room of his Johannesburg home while she was staying overnight during a family crisis.

    Zuma argues that after receiving a number of sexual signals from her, including the wearing of a short skirt, he gave her a massage and they had a consensual sex in his bedroom.

    Zuma, who still retains as the deputy head of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, was charged in a low key court appearance on December 6.

    The trial of Zuma, 64, has gripped the nation and aroused frenzied debates on critical issues about power struggles and divisions inside the ANC, gender-based abuse and HIV/AIDS since it began on February 13 and has been intensively covered by South African media.

    Both the complainant and the accused testified that a condom was not used, a bombshell news in South Africa whose HIV/AIDS epidemic is among the worst in the world.

    While anti-AIDS activists and advocators of women's rights cried foul for what Zuma had allegedly done, his die-hard supporters insisted that the rape claim, together with a previous charge of corruption, was driven by political motives to prevent him from becoming the next president of South Africa.

    Zuma also faces separate charges of corruption and will stand on trial in July. He was sacked by President Thabo Mbeki as the country's deputy president in June of last year.

    Zuma is a popular politician in South Africa and a veteran of the ANC-led struggles to end apartheid. At one stage he was championed by trade unionists and those on the political left as a likely presidential candidate to succeed Thabo Mbeki when he completes his term in 2009.

    But the charges of rape and corruption appear to have left his political career in tatters. Enditem