Zuma’s presidency hangs in balance as African National Congress gathers
JOHANNESBURG — South African President Jacob Zuma faced a meeting of the ruling committee of the ruling African National Congress party Monday for a vote on his departure, more than a year before his term was due to end.
ANC representatives were expected to demand his resignation in the interests of the party.
Zuma’s term has been tainted by corruption scandals and allegations that he allowed a powerful business family to gain sweeping influence over Cabinet appointments and contracts. His deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, and supporters, are determined to force Zuma from power, after talks in recent days to try to reach an exit deal for the president.
Ramaphosa won the leadership of the party — by a narrow margin — at a national conference of the ANC last year, putting him in a position to succeed Zuma after elections due next year. He and his supporters fear that unless Zuma is swiftly ousted, the party would struggle to rebuild its declining support before the elections.
The ANC’s national executive committee, a body of 107 people that governs the party and has the power to “recall” or dismiss the president, was meeting at a hotel near Pretoria on Monday. Under ANC traditions, a president is obliged to bow to the executive committee decision but some fear Zuma may defy the party and refuse to go.
He has clung doggedly to office in recent weeks despite his deputy’s efforts to dislodge him and calls on him to resign by party leaders.
Should Zuma defy the committee and refuse to stand down, members of the party may vote against him in a vote of no confidence in parliament this month. With opposition support, this would likely see him toppled.
Under that scenario, the entire Cabinet would fall. The speaker, Baleka Mbete, would become acting president for a maximum of 30 days until the parliament voted in a new leader. Zuma has survived a succession of no confidence votes, including a vote last year that was a secret ballot, freeing ANC members of the obligation to vote on party lines. Since then, however, numbers in the ANC have turned against him.
In South Africa’s political system, the president is not elected by the population, but by lawmakers from the majority party in the lower house of parliament.
In recent weeks, Ramaphosa’s faction pressed for Zuma to go early — complaining there were two conflicting centers of power in the country and calling for his departure to provide “transition” and “closure.”
Civil society groups, anti-corruption organizations and the opposition party have also called for Zuma to be sacked, after damaging corruption scandals and allegations of financial mismanagement have emerged.
But when ANC leaders met with Zuma this month requesting he stand down to enable a “transition,” he refused, telling them he did not know what they meant by the word.
Last week Ramaphosa tweeted that he was having constructive talks with Zuma. On the weekend, however, he hardened his line, saying that Monday’s executive committee meeting would finalize the matter.
“As the leadership of the African National Congress, we are currently engaged in discussions around the transition to a new administration and specifically to resolve the issues of the position of the president of the Republic. The NEC will be meeting tomorrow to discuss this very matter, and because our people want this matter to be finalized, the NEC will be doing precisely that,” Ramaphosa said Sunday.