Secret ballot to decide Zuma’s future
Anonymous votes could force leader out amid pressure from opposition parties
CAPE TOWN— Over his eight increasingly embattled years in power, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa has fended off five parliamentary noconfidence motions that would have forced him from office.
On Tuesday, he is to face another, with a difference: lawmakers will vote anonymously.
The parliamentary speaker, Baleka Mbete, announced late Monday afternoon that a vote of no confidence would take place by secret ballot, following a request from a coalition of opposition parties.
More than 60 of the 249 lawmakers from Zuma’s party, the African National Congress (ANC), would have to rebel for the motion to pass — something analysts still deem unlikely. But he may find it harder to contain a bitter factional struggle within the ANC, which has dominated South African politics since the end of apartheid in 1994.
Zuma has come under increasing pressure as evidence of high-level corruption in his administration has mounted, most recently with a trove of leaked emails that appeared to expose the extent of links between senior ANC officials and an influential family, the Guptas.
The motion requires only a simple majority to pass South Africa’s 400member parliament.
If the motion passed, Zuma and his entire cabinet, including deputy ministers, would have to step down, with Mbete becoming interim president, though he would remain president of the ANC.
The party’s chief whip in parliament, Jackson Mthembu, said Friday that voting against Zuma would be “tantamount to throwing a nuclear bomb” at South Africa and that only a “bewitched” party would vote against its own president.
After Mbete’s ruling Monday, a national spokesperson for the ANC, Zizi Kodwa, said on Twitter that the party had “full confidence” that its members would vote to keep Zuma. And several small opposition parties, including the Communists, said they would vote against the measure.
Zuma has survived three no-confidence votes in parliament. Another was amended into a vote of confidence, and then passed; yet another was withdrawn. He has also withstood an attempted impeachment motion in 2016 and twice defeated votes challenging him as the party’s leader.
Leaked emails released in May, suggesting collusion between the Gupta family — which owns large companies in the technology, media and mining sectors — and senior ANC members, has built pressure on Zuma as South Africa’s economy has slid into recession, its first since 2009. The family’s relationship with the presidency has introduced a new portmanteau term into the South African political lexicon — “Zupta” — and prompted a critical report last year from the public protector, a national anti-corruption figure.
Somadoda Fikeni, a political analyst, said the no-confidence motion was unlikely to succeed, even in a secret ballot.
“The ANC doesn’t want to be seen changing its leadership on the back of pressure from the opposition, even though half the party believes that Zuma has become a serious political liability,” he said.
A more serious challenge to Zuma may come in December, when the ANC is to hold its national conference and elect its next leader.
“The president’s opponents in the ANC — and there are many — have clearly decided to wait until December to try and get rid of him,” said political analyst Steven Friedman. “The fight that matters is taking place within the party. Until we have millions of people marching on the streets, instead of merely thousands, the ANC is going to remain focused on this internal struggle.”
Friedman cautioned in an opinion essay last week that the secret ballot could set a damaging precedent.
Protesters gathered in Cape Town on Monday afternoon, led by a coalition of civil society and religious leaders. A brief but spirited counterprotest by members of the ANC’s Umkhonto We Sizwe Military Veterans Association, numbering some 50 people, was disbanded by police.
The marchers were addressed outside parliament by Mcebisi Jonas, a former deputy finance minister fired by Zuma in a contentious cabinet reshuffle in March.
The protest, organized by a coalition of more than 20 civil society organizations, was a “call for accountability from ANC members,” said Mandisa Dyantyi, deputy secretary-general of the Social Justice Coalition, which helped organize the protest. “They’re in parliament to represent the people who elected them, not their party,” she said.