ANC strife as Zuma clings to power
SOUTH AFRICA: Rival factions of the ruling African National Congress have clashed violently after President Jacob Zuma defied calls for him to quit by telling party chiefs they could ‘‘go hang’’.
Demonstrators backing Cyril Ramaphosa, the new head of the ANC, traded insults and punches with those who still support Zuma outside party headquarters in Johannesburg yesterday.
A truck carrying Zuma’s supporters was stopped in the city centre and its occupants forced to flee. Other ANC members, including party officials, gave chase. One woman was kicked to the ground and attacked with sticks.
Ace Magashule, the ANC’s secretary-general – who, like Zuma, has been accused of corruption – was jeered and booed by opposition supporters who threw bottles of water at him.
Ramaphosa has refused to offer the controversial president immunity from possible corruption charges. Zuma told a delegation of the ANC’s ‘‘top six’’ leadership on Monday to ‘‘go hang’’, and threatened to bring down the wrath of the Zulu nation on them.
Yesterday the party called for an emergency meeting of its 80-strong national executive committee (NEC), evidence of a growing determination to force Zuma from power before he opens parliament on Friday with the annual state of the nation address.
If Zuma refuses to bow to the will of the NEC, the party has indicated it would support the parliamentary opposition in a noconfidence vote on February 22.
Zuma is supposed to remain the country’s president until elections in 2019, but there are concerns he could disrupt Ramaphosa’s attempts to modernise the party and clean up an image tarnished by corruption scandals during his 10 years at the helm.
Some opposition leaders are threatening to seek a court injunction to block Zuma from opening parliament. Others want to disrupt his speech, guaranteeing a repeat of previous brawls between MPs and security guards.
Ramaphosa, attending the Davos economic forum last week, said he wanted to ‘‘move the country forward’’, and at the weekend Paul Mashatile, the ANC’s treasurer-general, said there could not be ‘‘two centres of power’’.
Gwede Mantashe, the party chairman, tweeted yesterday that only Ramaphosa’s leadership could help South Africa restore its flailing economy.
Zuma yesterday flew to rural KwaZulu-Natal province to pay a ‘‘courtesy visit’’ to Goodwill Zwelithini, the king of the Zulu tribe of which he is a member. The king was said to be angry that Zuma had invoked the tribe in trying to see off his accusers.
Yesterday a court case and separate evidence heard at a public inquiry highlighted how divisive a figure Zuma has become.
The Pretoria High Court began hearing a case brought against Zuma by a legal pressure group and four Zimbabwean farmers who argue that he acted in cahoots with Zimbabwe’s former president Robert Mugabe to stymie efforts to compensate them for stolen land.
The second case, a tribunal investigating alleged bribes paid for arms contracts in the 1990s, heard from a whistleblower and former lawyer from French company Thales that Zuma received payments while deputy president.
Zuma’s supporters insisted yesterday that he was being targeted for his attempts to redress historic wealth imbalances between blacks and whites.
Thandiswa Yaphi, a spokeswoman for the Black Land First group, which has supported Zuma’s policy of land redistribution without compensation, said: ‘‘Cyril Ramaphosa does not have the interests of black South Africans, because the man is rich and he is black outside but he is white inside.’’ – The Times