Tag Archives: ANC

15 Mar

Zuma Exit Spurs Revival of South Africa’s Once-Cowed Parliament

Jacob Zuma’s exit as South Africa’s president has given a new lease of life to the nation’s previously submissive parliament.

While the African National Congress used its dominance of the legislature to shield Zuma and his appointees through repeated scandals, its lawmakers have found their voice since Cyril Ramaphosa replaced him as party leader in December and as president last month. Cabinet ministers and officials have been grilled over the misuse of state funds and for failing to do their jobs properly.

ANC lawmakers were reluctant to cross Zuma because he controlled the party’s leadership structures that determined whether they retained their jobs.

Zuma survived several opposition no-confidence votes, despite the nation’s top court ruling that he violated his oath of office for failing to repay taxpayer funds spent on his private home.

He was also implicated by the nation’s graft ombudsman in allowing his son’s business partners to loot state funds and influence cabinet appointments — a phenomenon known in South Africa as state capture.

Ramaphosa won control of the ANC on an anti-graft ticket after fending off a challenge from Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Zuma’s ex-wife and preferred successor, and Zuma was forced to resign on Feb. 14.

Ramaphosa is adamant that he and his government must be held to account and state capture must be stamped out.

“This is the year in which we will turn the tide of corruption in our public institutions,” he said in his first state-of-the-nation address last month.

Over recent months, ANC lawmakers have worked alongside the opposition to convene probes into state capture and summoned cabinet ministers, Zuma’s son, Duduzane, and several of his close allies to appear before them.

They’ve also hauled officials from government departments, the state broadcaster and the national tax agency before them to explain a series of management failings.

Parliamentary sittings that previously degenerated into shouting matches and brawls between members of the radical Economic Freedom Fighters and the legislature’s security officers, who were instructed to evict them when they tried to prevent Zuma from speaking, are now relatively mundane affairs.

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06 Mar

Zuma’s Exit Sparks Shifting Political Alliances in South Africa

Jacob Zuma’s forced resignation as South Africa’s president did more than revive confidence in the ruling African National Congress. It’s deepened divisions between the two main opposition parties, threatening their control of the nation’s key cities.

Together with the ANC’s shift to support expropriation of land without compensation, Zuma’s replacement by Cyril Ramaphosa has thawed its relations with the Economic Freedom Fighters.

The party hounded Zuma over allegations of graft and advocates the seizure of white-owned farms, banks and mines.

That’s increasingly isolated the Democratic Alliance, the second-largest party which took power in Johannesburg, the economic hub, and Pretoria, the capital, in a municipal vote in 2016 by forming a loose coalition with EFF.

As that arrangement frays, its chances of pushing the ANC below 50 percent of the vote in general elections next year are fading.

“The ANC and EFF will probably contest the 2019 national elections separately to maximize their share of the total vote, but are then likely to join up in some or other new format,” said Frans Cronje, chief executive officer of the South African Institute of Race Relations. “The EFF will hand the cities back to the ANC in exchange for senior leadership roles.”

That would mark a dramatic change in the political landscape. The EFF was founded in 2013 by former ANC youth wing leader, Julius Malema after the ruling party expelled him for criticizing Zuma and sowing divisions within its ranks. It won 6 percent of the national vote in the last national elections in 2014.

He and his fellow lawmakers, who wear red berets, coveralls and maid’s uniforms in parliament, have been a thorn in the side of the ANC as they castigated Zuma for a succession of scandals and pressed the government to ensure that the black majority received a greater shape of the nation’s wealth.

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02 Mar

Politics Can Be Murderous in South Africa’s Port City of Durban

Politics around South Africa’s third-biggest city, Durban, can be a murderous affair. A bloody battle for positions gripping the African National Congress has left dozens dead in KwaZulu-Natal province in the past year.

The region, which accounts for more than a fifth of the party’s total membership, has been a battleground between two factions vying for control of positions with access to government budgets worth billions of rand.

A local councillor who’s represented constituents in the Umlazi community outside Durban for the past decade learned in December that party colleagues were plotting her assassination.

“The political contest is no longer healthy,” said the councillor, who asked not to be identified because she fears for her life. “If I challenge you, it means I will be your enemy till you die.”

KwaZulu-Natal was one of the hotly contested regions in the race to elect a successor to Jacob Zuma as leader of the ANC in December.

Cyril Ramaphosa defeated Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Zuma’s former wife and ex-chairwoman of the African Union Commission, and was elected South Africa’s president last month.

Violence has claimed the lives of 22 politicians since January 2016 and about 100 others in the past four years in the province, according to Mary De Haas, a researcher who’s monitored the region for several decades. Drive-by shootings are a favoured method of killing in Durban, a port city of 3.7 million people.

It’s so bad that a commission headed by Marumo Moerane, a lawyer, is holding public hearings on the violence that are regularly attended by sobbing relatives recounting how their family members were slain.

Recent political turmoil in the government has filtered down to cripple some of South Africa’s crime-fighting units, said Senzo Mchunu, the former premier of KwaZulu-Natal.

The province is no stranger to political violence, reaching its height in the run-up to South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994 that brought Nelson Mandela to power after white-minority rule.

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14 Feb

Zuma Has Next Move in ANC Power Battle as Gupta Home Raided

The noose tightened on South African President Jacob Zuma as the police went after key allies while leaders of the ruling African National Congress vowed to force him from office.

Police raided the Johannesburg home of the Gupta family, who are in business with Zuma’s son, Duduzane, early Wednesday as the nation awaited the president’s next move in his struggle for power with Cyril Ramaphosa.

Time is against Zuma, South Africa’s ultimate political street fighter, as Ramaphosa has relentlessly grabbed political space since he won the presidency of the party by a razor-thin majority in December.

The ANC expects Zuma to respond to its decision to replace him Wednesday, its spokesman Pule Mabe told Johannesburg-based state broadcaster SAFM. The presidency said no media event was scheduled.

Zuma succeeded in delaying the inevitable last week when his apparent willingness to negotiate prompted Ramaphosa and the rest of the ANC leadership to postpone a meeting of their top body, the National Executive Committee, to decide his future.

But as the talks dragged on, the NEC decided late Monday that his time was up. When he countered by asking to remain in office for up to six months, the party bosses said enough is enough.

“It’s not up to Zuma now; he no longer has any option,” said Mpumelelo Mkhabela, a political analyst at the University of Pretoria’s Center of Governance Innovation. “They gave him the option to take control of his own resignation, and when that didn’t work the party took control. The idea of trying not to humiliate him didn’t work.”

While ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule was at pains to show respect for the president on Tuesday, saying Zuma had done nothing, critics say his tenure will be remembered as a time when South Africa went from being known as a “rainbow nation” to one colored by corruption.

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14 Feb

Zuma Defies ANC’s Call to Quit, Leaving South Africa in Limbo

South Africans awoke to find their nation in limbo after President Jacob Zuma’s refusal to obey his ruling African National Congress’s request to resign voluntarily prompted its top leadership to order his removal from office.

The ANC’s National Executive Committee decided to “recall” Zuma, 75, during a 13-hour meeting that ended early Tuesday, according to five people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the decision hasn’t been made public.

It marked the failure of efforts to convince Zuma to agree to an amicable transfer of power from his scandal-ridden administration to one headed by party leader Cyril Ramaphosa.

Unless Zuma decides to resign soon, the ANC will have to order its lawmakers in parliament to approve a motion of no confidence in the president.

The political impasse already forced the unprecedented postponement of last week’s scheduled annual state-of-the-nation address and may imperil the presentation of the budget on Feb. 21.

The ANC is holding a press conference at 2 p.m. to explain its next move. Zuma’s spokesman, Bongani Ngqulunga, didn’t answer calls to his mobile phone.

“There is nothing good about a leadership limbo in any country,” said Daniel Silke, the director of Political Futures Consultancy in Cape Town.

“This extreme political uncertainty is the last thing South Africa needs as it tries to claw back some credibility in the minds of investors and the global community.”

The ANC wants Ramaphosa, a 65-year-old former labor union leader and businessman, to take over as soon as possible before elections next year so he has time to show he can meet his pledges to rebuild a battered economy — the most industrialized in Africa — and clamp down on the graft that critics say marred the Zuma era.

The rand has gained the most against the dollar of the 16 major currencies since his Dec. 18 election as ANC leader.

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12 Feb

Zuma’s D-Day Nears as Ramaphosa Promises Power Transition

South African President Jacob Zuma’s fate is set to be sealed when the top leadership of the ruling African National Congress meets to conclude the transition to a new administration.

The National Executive Committee will assemble on Monday in the capital, Pretoria, as Zuma, 75, has defied growing pressure to resign since his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, replaced him as party leader in December. His nine-year tenure has been marred by scandal and eroded support for the ANC.

“Our people want this matter finalized,” Ramaphosa told a crowd of about 3,000 people on the Grand Parade next to the Cape Town city hall on Sunday to commemorate the 28th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison.

“The National Executive Committee will be doing precisely that. We know you want closure on this matter.”

While the 65-year-old lawyer’s rise to the ANC’s top post assured him of being its presidential candidate in elections next year, the new leadership wants an early exit for Zuma so it can begin rebuilding support.

Should Zuma refuse to obey the national executive’s order to step down, it could tell its lawmakers to use their majority in parliament to vote him out of office, clearing the way for Ramaphosa to take over.

Mandela Address

Ramaphosa delivered his speech at exactly the same venue and time when he held the microphone for Mandela’s address 28 years ago on the day he was freed from a 27-year incarceration. The rally Sunday marked the start of a series of events to celebrate the centenary of Mandela’s birth.

“As we emerge from a period of difficulty, a period of disunity and discord, this Nelson Mandela centenary year offers us what I would call a new beginning,” said Ramaphosa, who was Mandela’s favored successor two decades ago. “It offers us an opportunity to restore to our national life the values and principles for which he so firmly stood.”

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09 Feb

Top ANC Officials Cancel Events as Zuma Exit Talks Intensify

Top South African ruling party officials pulled out of events being staged to commemorate the centenary of the birth of national icon Nelson Mandela on Friday morning, as negotiations intensified over President Jacob Zuma’s exit from office.

The African National Congress’s top six officials had been called into an urgent meeting with Zuma, Johannesburg-based broadcaster eNCA reported. ANC spokesman Pule Mabe said he didn’t have details on the meeting.

Zuma has shrugged off a succession of scandals during his nine-year tenure as president, but pressure has been mounting on him to quit since Cyril Ramaphosa won control of the ruling party in December. Talks about a transition of power are due to be concluded within a matter of days, Ramaphosa said in a statement on Wednesday.

Investors are banking on Ramaphosa fulfilling his pledges to revive the flagging economy and clamp down in the corruption that has become synonymous with the Zuma era.

The rand gained as much as 0.9 percent on speculation that Zuma is set to quit, and traded 0.8 percent stronger at 12.0721 per dollar by 9:49 a.m. in Johannesburg on Friday, the best performance out of 31 major and developing-nation currencies tracked by Bloomberg.

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-09/top-anc-officials-cancel-events-as-zuma-exit-talks-intensify

08 Feb

Zuma Exit Appears Step Closer as ANC Holds Transition Talks

South African President Jacob Zuma appeared a step closer to resigning as he held crunch negotiations on the terms of his exit with the new leader of the ruling African National Congress, Cyril Ramaphosa.

The talks prompted the ANC’s National Executive Committee, its top decision-making body, to postpone a special meeting called for Wednesday to decide whether to force Zuma from office.

Ramaphosa said the talks about the transition of power would be concluded “within coming days” and that the “uncertainty” over Zuma’s position is a cause of concern. Zuma is seeking immunity from prosecution after he leaves office, according to an official with knowledge of the talks.

“I am certain that the process we have now embarked on will achieve an outcome that not only addresses these concerns, but also unites our people around the tasks that all of us must necessarily undertake to build our country,” Ramaphosa said in an emailed statement.

“Both President Zuma and myself are aware that our people want and deserve closure.” Zuma’s expected departure has been cheered by many investors who welcome Ramaphosa’s pledges to bolster growth and clamp down on graft.

Business confidence rose to its highest level since October 2015 last month amid expectation that the new leadership will implement more pragmatic and predictable policies, the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry said on Tuesday.

The rand has been the best performer in the world against the dollar since Ramaphosa’s Dec. 18 election as ANC leader. It was 0.4 percent weaker at 11.9720 per dollar at 3:12 p.m. in Johannesburg Wednesday.

“The worst-case outcome is a drawn-out multi-month saga in which Zuma refuses to go and the ANC fails to commit to an impeachment or vote of no confidence, but we are not there yet and we judge the probability of this to be low at this time,” said Frans Cronje, chief executive officer of the South African Institute of Race Relations.

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07 Feb

Zuma Resignation Appears Nearer as ANC Delays Crisis Meeting

South African President Jacob Zuma appeared a step closer to resigning after the ruling African National Congress delayed an emergency meeting to discuss whether to force him from office.

The decision by the ANC’s National Executive Committee, its top decision-making body, to postpone its meeting until later this month came after “constructive” talks between Zuma and Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, party spokesman Pule Mabe said late Tuesday. Ramaphosa replaced the president as leader of the ruling African National Congress in December.

“My supposition is that the postponement of the NEC means the core issue around Zuma’s exit has been resolved and now they are ironing out the details,” Richard Calland, an analyst at risk advisory company the Paternoster Group, said by phone from Cape Town.

Earlier, parliament decided to ask Zuma to delay his state-of-the-nation address scheduled for Thursday due to fears of violence, National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete told reporters outside parliament in Cape Town.

Investor Cheer

Ramaphosa has been cheered by many investors for his pledges to bolster growth, clamp down on graft and provide greater policy certainty. While the rand has been the best performer in the world against the dollar since his Dec. 18 election as ANC leader, it was 0.3 percent weaker at 11.9554 per dollar at 7:54 a.m. in Johannesburg Wednesday.

The ANC’s former head of intelligence, Zuma took power in May 2009 and clung to office through a series of scandals with the aid of his allies who controlled most key positions in the party and government.

Since Ramaphosa beat Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Zuma’s favored successor and ex-wife, in the December vote for the party leadership, the president’s fortunes have waned. The legislature is due to debate a motion of no-confidence proposed by the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters party on Feb. 22.

To read the full article, click here. 

 

06 Feb

Zuma’s Future Is in the Hands of South African Ruling Party’s Top Body

South African President Jacob Zuma’s future is in the hands of the ruling African National Congress’s highest body after he defied calls by top leaders to resign.

The ANC’s National Executive Committee will hold a special meeting Wednesday to discuss the transition from Zuma’s administration to one headed by the new party leadership elected in December and headed by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, the party said in a statement on Monday.

Zuma, who’s due to deliver the state-of-the-nation address on Thursday, defied calls by the top six leaders to resign at a meeting on Sunday, according to five senior party officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Zuma’s response to the leaders was discussed at a meeting of the ANC’s 26-member National Working Committee on Monday, which decided to refer it to the NEC, the party said.

Two senior party officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the party’s top decision-making body would decide at its meeting in Cape Town whether to force Zuma from office.

“This is the beginning of the end for Zuma,” said Theo Venter, a political analyst at North-West University’s business school in Potchefstroom, west of Johannesburg. “He has used up all his options. It remains in doubt whether he will deliver the state-of-the-nation address.”

While Zuma is due to step down in mid-2019, his nine-year tenure has been marred by a series of scandals and policy missteps. Critics say if he remains in office, the party could lose the electoral majority it has enjoyed since it took power under Nelson Mandela in the first multiracial elections in 1994.

The divisions Zuma’s leadership has exposed within the ANC were evident outside the party’s headquarters in Johannesburg on Monday, where the president’s supporters and opponents staged rival protests amid a strong police presence.

 

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