South African President Jacob Zuma easily survived an impeachment vote Tuesday after a stormy session of parliament over a court ruling that he had violated the country’s post-apartheid constitution.
Advertisement
Opposition parties want Zuma removed from office but do not have the two-thirds majority vote in parliament to impeach him.
The day that the parliament will debate on the motion for Zuma’s impeachment will be very rough for sure. Maimane said, adding that Zuma’s recent scandals and Tuesday’s debate would be reflected in future local elections, in which he predicted people would no longer vote for the ANC.
South Africa’s parliament was set to overthrow Zuma as the President as the Constitutional Court claimed he had violated their constitution on Tuesday, yet failed to get enough votes to do it so.
On Wednesday, ANC veteran Cheryl Carolus joined activists, including church officials and academics, at a news conference outside the Constitutional Court where speakers denounced alleged corruption under Zuma’s administration.
The vote followed last week’s judgment by the country’s constitutional court that Mr Zuma had breached the law by ignoring an order to repay some of the $16m (£11m) he had taken from state funds to pay for doing up his property.
The ruling was just the latest blow to the embattled president, who is widely accused of corruption for his family’s close relationship with the Gupta business family. The court instructed the South African National Treasury to calculate a cost that Zuma must repay for upgrades to his home that include a swimming pool, a chicken run, amphitheater and visitor’s center.
The failure of the impeachment motion, however, has galvanised the civil society organisations (CSOs) to map forward their strategy on how to remove the South African leader from the Presidency. It also clarifies – and a lot of people have been debating and certainly parliament has been treating it as a grey area – the power of the public protector.
The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) filed the motion soon after the Constitution Court handed out the ruling on the Nkandla saga. “I call on everyone and those in the ANC to stand up and say “enough is enough”… president please resign!”, she said. Coming out of a strategy session Monday, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe made it clear that his party is ready to use its majority to oppose the impeachment motion.
While Zuma apologised for acting unconstitutionally, he maintained that he had done so “in good faith” and promised to pay back the cash. “But efforts to oust the president will continue, potentially distracting political attention from South Africa’s dire economic situation”, Capital Economics said in a note.
Advertisement
Manuel said that it would be in South Africa’s best interest if president Zuma stepped down.
