LEADER UNLIKELY TO FACE IMPEACHMENT
South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress, is standing by its president, Cyril Ramaphosa, rejecting calls that he face an impeachment hearing over accusations that he kept a large sum of cash in a sofa at his game farm and failed to report a crime when it was stolen.
The decision by the executive committee of the ANC was announced Monday after an all-day meeting — essentially killing a report that had been prepared by a three-member panel recommending that impeachment hearings go ahead.
“It means the president continues with his duties as president of the ANC and the republic,” Paul Mashatile, the ANC’s treasurer general, said at a news conference after the meeting. “The decision that we take is in the best interest of the country.”
But the president is hardly out of the woods. He still has to answer to several other investigations, including by the ANC’s integrity committee, the national prosecutor’s office and the public protector, a corruption watchdog, as Mashatile pointed out. And his bid to win a second term as ANC president in elections to be held in less than two weeks is hardly a sure thing.
Ramaphosa has been under fire since a criminal complaint filed by a political foe in June alleged that millions of dollars in U.S. currency was stolen from a couch at a game farm, Phala Phala Wildlife, owned by the president. The complaint alleged that Ramaphosa never reported the theft and tried to cover it up to avoid the publicity — and potential legal violations — over having that much foreign currency hidden at his private residence.
A report issued last week by two retired judges and a lawyer said that he might have violated the constitution and recommended that Parliament begin impeachment hearings. On Monday, Ramaphosa filed a legal challenge in the nation’s highest court challenging the report.
Parliament is scheduled to convene today to vote on whether to adopt the report and hold impeachment hearings. ANC members hold a majority of the seats in Parliament. While they are not required to do what their executive committee says, analysts say it is unlikely that they will break ranks in what is expected to be a public vote.