Johannesburg — OPPOSITION parties were livid yesterday about the National Prosecuting Authority's (NPA's) decision to drop charges against African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma, and accused the authority of bowing to political pressure.

The parties reiterated their demands that a judge should decide on Zuma's fate especially since prosecutors believed that the matter could still be taken to court.

The fraud, corruption and racketeering charges against Zuma were dropped because of an abuse of process by former Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy, NPA head Mokotedi Mpshe told reporters in Pretoria yesterday. He read out transcripts of a conversation between McCarthy and former NPA boss Bulelani Ngcuka showing that the two had colluded to manipulate the prosecutorial process before and after the ANC conference in December 2007. He said this did not amount to an acquittal and private prosecution was still possible.

Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille, who attempted to gatecrash the media briefing, said afterwards that she would file an application for judicial review of the NPA decision in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria today.

"The decision to withdraw the charges does not appear to be rationally connected to the information before the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP). All indications are that the NDPP has not taken a decision based in law, but that it has buckled to political pressure," she said. Zuma had now been portrayed as a wronged victim just two weeks before the elections.

Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille told reporters she was "very angry" because the NPA had not provided a substantive legal reason for its decision.

'The first casualty of this decision today is the principle that we are all equal before the law.

'The fact that the tapes are legitimate is completely irrelevant to the Zuma case. The NPA must charge Bulelani Ngcuka, Leonard McCarthy and anyone else on the tapes for interfering in the independence of the NPA," she said.

The NPA had merely replaced its loyalty to former president Thabo Mbeki with a new loyalty to Zuma, De Lille said.

Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder said the case had cost South Africans millions of rand.

"It is ... inconceivable as to how the NPA could for eight years, with great diligence, put so much energy into and spend so much taxpayers' money in the case against Mr Jacob Zuma to now suddenly decide not to continue with the case.

"It appears as if the South African public has the whole time been taken for fools while the NPA was abused to sort out internal ANC fights," he said.

Although the NPA could not divulge how much the case cost yesterday, estimates in the media have been between R60m and R110m.

The Congress of the People said the NPA's decision did not safeguard justice, due process or equality before the law. Instead, it guaranteed that Zuma would forever be branded a "criminal suspect in the eyes of much of the nation and the world".

Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said the charges would overshadow Zuma as the next head of state and the consequences of the NPA decision were bound to affect the reputation and credibility of SA.

United Democratic Movement president Bantu Holomisa said South Africans needed to brace themselves because the justice system was crumbling. "One of the most basic principles of democracy is that we are all equal before the law. That ideal now lies in tatters," he said.

"It is a bad day for the NPA. It would be far better for the leadership of the NPA to vacate their positions, because they will never be trusted again by the average South African."