South Africa's Zuma Faces Impeachment Vote as Mandela Ally Calls for Resignation
Aislinn Laing, Johannesburg
4 APRIL 2016 • 4:10PM
Opponents of South Africa's embattled President Jacob Zuma will appeal to African National Congress MPs to vote according to their consciences ahead of a special motion in parliament for him to be impeached following a damning court finding against him last week.
The motion to remove the president stands little chance of success without a widespread rebellion by MPs who form part of the ANC's massive majority in parliament, analysts say.
The Democratic Alliance, the largest opposition party in parliament, lost a bid for MPs to vote in a secret ballot and have appealed instead for them to "put South Africa first".
"It is now time to put South Africa and the Constitution first again," said spokesman Phumzile van Damme. "Anything less will be an insult to our Constitutional Democracy, which so many people fought and died for."
The vote comes after one of the most respected and oldest members of the ANC added his voice to mounting calls for Mr Zuma to resign.
Ahmed Kathrada, 86, a close friend of Nelson Mandela who was jailed alongside him in 1964, said the “crisis of confidence” in the country’s government could only be solved by his stepping down.
“I know that if I were in the President’s shoes, I would step down with immediate effect,” Mr Kathrada wrote in an open letter he described as “agonising” to have to pen.
“I believe that is what would help the country to find its way out of a path that it never imagined it would be on, but one that it must move out of soon.”
Mr Kathrada’s call was echoed this weekend by a range of groups including South Africa’s council of churches and its national defence union as a senior government minister and Zuma ally was booed off stage at a festival in Cape Town.
On Thursday, the Constitutional Court issued a damning indictment of Mr Zuma’s refusal to pay back public money spent on his private country estate in Nkandla, saying he had broken the law and parliament had failed in its duty to hold him to account.
On Friday, Mr Zuma gave a televised address in which he apologised for the fiasco but said he had been wrongly advised and never intended to abuse public resources.
Amid suggestions it should recall Mr Zuma to avoid damaging its chances in forthcoming local elections, the ANC has since reiterated its confidence in the president.
South Africa’s military union on Sunday said if the president would not step down, South Africans should take mass action to remove him. JG Greeff, the national secretary, said that the union would encourage “all members of society, including soldiers” to take part in “any lawful mass action campaigns” to prompt Mr Zuma’s downfall.
"Given the ruling made, the president can no longer be considered a fit and proper person to remain the commander-in-chief of the South African National Defence Force, nor can any of the parliamentary members who so stubbornly protected him be considered fit and proper persons to hold office as members of Parliament,” Mr Greeff said.
The Council of Churches said the ANC would do more damage to the country and its own integrity by failing to recall Mr Zuma.
“We can only hope that President Zuma will act on any shreds of integrity that still remain in the Office of the President, and stand before the people of South Africa, taking ownership of the quagmire he faces, consult with his political advisors and do the honourable thing in circumstances,” it said in a statement.
Thabo Makgoba, Desmond Tutu’s successor as the Archbishop of Cape Town, said that South African society was now governed by “fear”, and that MPs were too afraid to hold the president to account. Desmond Tutu is also reported to have told visitors this weekend: “You may give up on political parties but don’t give up on South Africa”.
Max Sisulu, the son of the revered former ANC Secretary-General Walter Sisulu and the former speaker of South Africa’s national assembly who remains in the top ANC leadership, said the Constitutional Court ruling that parliament had failed to hold Mr Zuma to account was “difficult and painful” to hear.
He said the court order that Mr Zuma must pay back state money had to be obeyed. “Parliament must put its house in order and do the right thing. It was quite clear from the start what was needed,” he said. “If there is something wrong, you fix it. Our people were able to change the whole system of apartheid and establish democracy. This is fixable.”
The country’s Communist Party, which is in coalition with the ANC in government, said the president’s apology was not enough and called for a deeper inquiry to look at why he, and parliament, took so long to understand what happened at Nkandla was wrong. If it did not, the ruling coalition would lose any “moral authority” it had left, it warned.
At the Cape Town jazz festival, a speech by Nathi Mthethwa, the arts and culture minister and Zuma loyalist, had to be cut short after festivalgoers booed, jeered and made football substitution gestures.
However, in Melmoth, a town in Mr Zuma’s heartland of KwaZulu-Natal, hundreds of people dressed in ANC regalia arrived in buses and braved the rain to hear Mr Zuma make a speech in which he implored them to let him be their "shepherd, and lead".
4 APRIL 2016 • 4:10PM
Opponents of South Africa's embattled President Jacob Zuma will appeal to African National Congress MPs to vote according to their consciences ahead of a special motion in parliament for him to be impeached following a damning court finding against him last week.
The motion to remove the president stands little chance of success without a widespread rebellion by MPs who form part of the ANC's massive majority in parliament, analysts say.
The Democratic Alliance, the largest opposition party in parliament, lost a bid for MPs to vote in a secret ballot and have appealed instead for them to "put South Africa first".
"It is now time to put South Africa and the Constitution first again," said spokesman Phumzile van Damme. "Anything less will be an insult to our Constitutional Democracy, which so many people fought and died for."
The vote comes after one of the most respected and oldest members of the ANC added his voice to mounting calls for Mr Zuma to resign.
Ahmed Kathrada, 86, a close friend of Nelson Mandela who was jailed alongside him in 1964, said the “crisis of confidence” in the country’s government could only be solved by his stepping down.
“I know that if I were in the President’s shoes, I would step down with immediate effect,” Mr Kathrada wrote in an open letter he described as “agonising” to have to pen.
“I believe that is what would help the country to find its way out of a path that it never imagined it would be on, but one that it must move out of soon.”
Mr Kathrada’s call was echoed this weekend by a range of groups including South Africa’s council of churches and its national defence union as a senior government minister and Zuma ally was booed off stage at a festival in Cape Town.
On Thursday, the Constitutional Court issued a damning indictment of Mr Zuma’s refusal to pay back public money spent on his private country estate in Nkandla, saying he had broken the law and parliament had failed in its duty to hold him to account.
On Friday, Mr Zuma gave a televised address in which he apologised for the fiasco but said he had been wrongly advised and never intended to abuse public resources.
Amid suggestions it should recall Mr Zuma to avoid damaging its chances in forthcoming local elections, the ANC has since reiterated its confidence in the president.
South Africa’s military union on Sunday said if the president would not step down, South Africans should take mass action to remove him. JG Greeff, the national secretary, said that the union would encourage “all members of society, including soldiers” to take part in “any lawful mass action campaigns” to prompt Mr Zuma’s downfall.
"Given the ruling made, the president can no longer be considered a fit and proper person to remain the commander-in-chief of the South African National Defence Force, nor can any of the parliamentary members who so stubbornly protected him be considered fit and proper persons to hold office as members of Parliament,” Mr Greeff said.
The Council of Churches said the ANC would do more damage to the country and its own integrity by failing to recall Mr Zuma.
“We can only hope that President Zuma will act on any shreds of integrity that still remain in the Office of the President, and stand before the people of South Africa, taking ownership of the quagmire he faces, consult with his political advisors and do the honourable thing in circumstances,” it said in a statement.
Thabo Makgoba, Desmond Tutu’s successor as the Archbishop of Cape Town, said that South African society was now governed by “fear”, and that MPs were too afraid to hold the president to account. Desmond Tutu is also reported to have told visitors this weekend: “You may give up on political parties but don’t give up on South Africa”.
Max Sisulu, the son of the revered former ANC Secretary-General Walter Sisulu and the former speaker of South Africa’s national assembly who remains in the top ANC leadership, said the Constitutional Court ruling that parliament had failed to hold Mr Zuma to account was “difficult and painful” to hear.
He said the court order that Mr Zuma must pay back state money had to be obeyed. “Parliament must put its house in order and do the right thing. It was quite clear from the start what was needed,” he said. “If there is something wrong, you fix it. Our people were able to change the whole system of apartheid and establish democracy. This is fixable.”
The country’s Communist Party, which is in coalition with the ANC in government, said the president’s apology was not enough and called for a deeper inquiry to look at why he, and parliament, took so long to understand what happened at Nkandla was wrong. If it did not, the ruling coalition would lose any “moral authority” it had left, it warned.
At the Cape Town jazz festival, a speech by Nathi Mthethwa, the arts and culture minister and Zuma loyalist, had to be cut short after festivalgoers booed, jeered and made football substitution gestures.
However, in Melmoth, a town in Mr Zuma’s heartland of KwaZulu-Natal, hundreds of people dressed in ANC regalia arrived in buses and braved the rain to hear Mr Zuma make a speech in which he implored them to let him be their "shepherd, and lead".
No comments:
Post a Comment