FACTBOX: Zuma sworn in as South Africa president

PRETORIA (Reuters) - Jacob Zuma was sworn in as president of South Africa on Saturday after a remarkable political comeback, taking over a faltering economy plagued by crime, poverty and AIDS.

Here are some facts on Zuma, 67:

POLITICAL FORTUNES:

* The charismatic politician has survived one crisis after another on his path to the presidency. He fought corruption charges for eight years, which were dropped just before the election. A rape trial in which he was acquitted in 2006 tarnished his image.

* The former guerrilla portrays himself as a champion of the poor but has worked very hard to reassure foreign investors he would not steer Africa's biggest economy to the left, despite his close ties to trade unions and the Communist Party.

* Zuma triumphed in a bruising power struggle with arch rival former president Thabo Mbeki, who he defeated in the ANC leadership race in late 2007. The party pushed Mbeki out of office after a judge suggested he meddled in Zuma's graft case.

ZUMA - THE MAN:

* Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma was born on April 12, 1942 and received no formal schooling.

* The former goatherd has a crowd-pleasing style and populist manner. Zuma's anthem, often played at rallies, is the apartheid-era "Umshini wami" (Bring Me My Machine-Gun).

* The ethnic Zulu from KwaZulu-Natal province has earned respect at home as a peacemaker, mediating between the ANC and the Zulu-dominated Inkatha Freedom Party in the mid-1990s to end political violence which left thousands dead.

* While trying to leave South Africa in 1963, Zuma was arrested with a group of 52 ANC recruits and sentenced to ten years imprisonment. Like Nelson Mandela he was imprisoned on Robben Island.

* Zuma, a keen soccer player in his youth, has three wives and 19 children.