S. Africa’s ruling party asks president to resign

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s ruling party decided on Tuesday to sack the country’s president, Jacob Zuma, a senior official said, after a marathon meeting over the fate of a leader whose scandal-plagued years in power darkened and divided Nelson Mandela’s post-apartheid “Rainbow Nation”.

The decision by the African National Congress (ANC) followed 13 hours of tense deliberations and one face-to-face meeting between Zuma and his presumed successor, deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa.

The SABC state broadcaster said the 75-year-old Zulu traditionalist with no formal education had been told in person by Ramaphosa that he had 48 hours to resign. A senior party source said Zuma had made clear he was going nowhere. A domestic report said Zuma had asked for three months to resign, a request that was denied. However, ANC said no deadline had been set for him to resign.

On Friday, one of his wives, Tobeka Madiba-Zuma, posted comments on Instagram suggesting that Zuma believed he was the victim of a Western conspiracy.

South Africa’s economy has stagnated during his nine-year tenure, with banks and mining companies reluctant to invest because of policy uncertainty and rampant corruption.

Central to public anger have been allegations, now the focus of a judicial commission, that he let his friends, the three Gupta brothers who were born in India but moved to South Africa in the 1990s, use their relationship with him to win state contracts and influence cabinet appointments.