South African President Cyril Ramaphosa today rejected "with the utmost contempt" a judicial indictment of his predecessor, Jacob Zuma, filed on the eve of the ruling party's elective conference, the South African Presidency announced.

"President Cyril Ramaphosa rejects with the utmost contempt the abuse of legal processes by Mr. Jacob Zuma and the perversion of the 'nolle prosequi' (private prosecution) provision," reads the statement published on the website of the Presidency of the Republic and quoted by Lusa.

"The summons issued to the president is hopelessly substandard and shows a complete disregard for the law," he said.

According to South African presidential spokesman Vincent Magwenya, the issue is the accusation that President Ramaphosa failed to act after Zuma complained about alleged misconduct on the part of lawyers Billy Downer and Andrew Breitenbach.

"These accusations are completely spurious and unfounded," he said.

"President Ramaphosa does not interfere in the work of the NPA [National Prosecuting Authority], nor does he have the power to do so. The President responded to Mr. Zuma and took the appropriate and legally admissible measures," said the spokesperson for the South African presidency.

The NPA prosecutor, lawyer Billy Downer, is leading the South African DA's prosecution of Zuma in a more than 20-year-old public corruption case related to the purchase of military equipment by the South African government in the late 1990s.

Zuma accused Ramaphosa of "being [an] accomplice" in alleged violations of the NPA Act.

The announcement was made by the Jacob Zuma Foundation on Twitter on Thursday evening, minutes after Ramaphosa addressed businesspeople and foreign diplomats accredited in the country at the ANC's gala dinner on the eve of the party's 55th national elective conference in Nasrec, south of Johannesburg.

"The serious crimes for which Mr. Ramaphosa has been charged in court carry a prison sentence of 15 years," he said.

In a statement, the Jacob Zuma Foundation said today that President Ramaphosa has been summoned to appear in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on January 19, 2023, to face charges in the same private case in which Zuma is suing prosecutor Billy Downer and South African journalist Karyn Maughan over the disclosure of a medical report on his state of health.

The medical document was part of the court case filed in the South African High Court in 2021. Documents filed with the court are considered public records, unless otherwise ordered by a judge.

The case threatens to jeopardize Ramaphosa's re-election at the 55th National Elective Conference of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), which will allow him to run again for the presidency of South Africa in 2024, according to local observers.

According to party rules, when an ANC member is accused of a serious crime, they must resign from office.