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South Africa: President Zuma Enters His Last Days in Office
[All Africa] President Jacob Zuma faces a vote of no confidence tabled in Parliament by his own party within days if he does not resign his office.Leaders of the ANC are still hoping to avoid his and the party's "humiliation" by having further talks with him. But the party wants its new leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, to deliver the annual "State of the Nation" address at the formal opening of this year's session of Parliament. This became clear on Tuesday when the party's secretary-general, Ace Magashule, announced that Zuma had been "recalled" as a public representative, and the ANC caucus in Parliament was summoned to an urgent meeting on Wednesday. In South Africa, members of Parliament are not directly elected by voters but are chosen by their parties on the basis of the proportion of votes a party wins. The ANC's practice is to "deploy" and "recall" MPs at the discretion of party leaders. Once a parliament is constituted, it elects the president of the country ‐ inevitably until now the leader of the ruling party. Magashule and his deputy, Jessie Duarte ‐ both among the last of the top leaders of the party to support Zuma ‐ delivered a letter to the president on Tuesday informing him that the ANC's national executive committee had decided to recall him. The decision, reached in debate beginning after lunch on Monday and lasting until the early hours of Tuesday, had not been easy, Magashule told an interviewer on the ANC's Twitter feed. "Indeed, President Zuma does have support," he said. Zuma asked the party that he remains as president of the country for another three to six months in order to fulfil his roles as a regional leader in the Southern African Development Community and in the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) group of nations. Posted by: Fred 2018-02-14 |
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