S.Africa’s President Zuma survives attempted ousting

South Africa’s scandal-plagued President Jacob Zuma has survived a move by some members of his party to hold a no-confidence motion against him, local media reported on Tuesday without naming sources.

ANC secretary general, Gwede, Mantashe, announced yesterday that robust debate had taken place regarding Zuma’s future during an extended NEC meeting in Pretoria. It quite clearly shows that the ANC still supports Zuma‚ and support him fully. Insiders say Zuma’s defenders had regrouped, and dominated the speaker’s list. Party officials now deny there was ever such a motion tabled. Gigaba, who has served as an ANC NEC member for over 15 years, argued that party voting on important matters was a foreign culture to the ANC.

In recent months, senior ANC figures have broken with ANC tradition and openly campaigned for Zuma’s departure. While the ANC continues to fight among themselves‚ our economy is hanging by a thread.

Mr Zuma himself is one of the committee’s 104 members, most of whom were elected alongside the president in 2012.

“Zuma will only leave when the patronage faction around him decide it is time”.

Although no one has declared an ambition to compete for Zuma’s post, debate over who should succeed Zuma has heated up.

“That means that Zuma will remain president of the ANC until at least the electoral congress in December 2017, and even possibly until 2019 as president of South Africa”.

Mr Zuma survived a no-confidence vote in Parliament on 10 November, when ANC leaders backed him and MPs as a whole voted 214 – 126 in his favour. With its dominance of South African politics, the ANC is widely expected to win in 2019, making its next leader nearly certain to become president.

The president has been hit by multiple corruption allegations and damaging court rulings this year, while the ANC suffered a serious setback in local polls in August and unemployment has hit a 13-year high.

Mantashe denied reports that the cabinet ministers who said they had no confidence in Zuma had threatened to resign.

While he is believed to still have a lot of support within the party, some ministers are calling for a secret vote on the matter, hoping this would help people within the party to vote freely.

The special meeting was called a month after former Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, released the State of Capture Report which alleged that the president had been involved in business dealings with a wealthy family allowing them to influence state contracts and cabinet appointments.

If Jacob Zuma did not resign, however, then “there would be a full-blown constitutional crisis and South Africa would likely be veering towards a Zimbabwe scenario”, Nomura said. Moody’s Investors Service left the country’s rating at two levels above non-investment grade.