If JZ made the right choice to leave...

Should he have resigned and opted to leave office ahead of elections next year, President Jacob Zuma would’ve avoided other unpleasant ways to depart. These are the ways by which he could have left office early:

Vote of no confidence

Zuma’s enemies had previously sought to topple him with parliamentary votes of no confidence.

Several such motions were tabled in parliament but failed.

During the last attempt, in August, Zuma’s opponents fell short by only 24 votes after some lawmakers from his own party – the ruling African National Congress – voted against him.

For such a motion to succeed, a simple majority of parliamentarians would be needed – 201 in total. The ANC has 249 seats in the National Assembly.

If such a vote was successful, the president and his Cabinet would have had to resign.

The speaker of parliament would have become president for a maximum of 30 days.

Impeachment

The impeachment process provides three grounds by which lawmakers can strip the president of office: a serious breach of the constitution; serious misconduct; or incapacity to carry out his or her duties.

Two-thirds – 267 – of the members of the National Assembly would have had to vote for the president’s removal for this pathway to succeed.

If a president is removed by impeachment, he or she is replaced by the deputy president, and would lose the perks and benefits normally afforded to former heads of state.

However, the prospects for this are unclear. Parliament’s oversight of the president has been criticised as being too slack.

In 2016, Zuma was found guilty of failing to uphold the constitution by the Constitutional Court – the country’s highest court – over taxpayer-funded upgrades to his personal home.

After a court battle, Zuma agreed to pay back R7.8 million that he had refused to reimburse.

In December, the Constitutional Court criticised parliament for not holding the president to account over this scandal and ordered it to draft clear rules for removing a sitting head of state.

Resignation and recall

That leaves two scenarios. His decision to relinquish power is the most dignified option. This route would “not embarrass the president”, Collette Schulz-Herzenberg, a political science lecturer at Stellenbosch University, said.

If he opposed the NEC decision to recall him and he refused to resign as head of state, the party could then have triggered a parliamentary no-confidence vote to get rid of him.

In 2008 when Zuma was president of the ANC, the party recalled head of state Thabo Mbeki, shortening his term by eight months.

The party then ordered him to quit as president because South African presidents derive their legitimacy from the largest party in parliament which elects them.

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa would take power and it would be up to the National Assembly to pick a new president within 30 days. –