South Africa’s Zuma faces second no-confidence vote over economy

Opposition parties pleaded with the ANC to let President Jacob Zuma go, while the ruling party sang his praises.

The motion is highly unlikely to succeed as Zuma’s African National Congress (ANC) has an overwhelming majority in parliament, with 62 percent of the seats. Zuma did not attend the proceedings. This was also rejected.

Concurrently, the DA has presented a motion of no confidence against President Zuma – the second in less than a year – for debate in the National Assembly, the lower house South Africa’s parliament. MPs will debate the motion and then vote thereafter.

“South Africans demand that Jacob Zuma be taken to task for his reckless handling of our economy, and his sending South Africa into financial crisis”, Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane said on the party website.

Maimane said the more obvious Zuma’s failures became, “the more the ANC plays the race card to deflect legitimate criticism”.

DA chief whip John Steenhuisen said that in response to a DA campaign, more than a million online letters lobbying ANC lawmakers to support the motion against Zuma had been sent in the run-up to the vote. And if President Jacob Zuma is not stopped, he will wreck the economy and he will wreck SA. Because, we can not do both.

The motion was brought Tuesday after Zuma removed Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene last December and replaced him with little-known MP David Van Rooyen, who was removed three days later. “The economic consequences were entirely predictable and should have been anticipated”.

Mr Motshekga said Cabinet ministers were appointed by the President under the Constitution and the law, and “to suggest, as the DA does, that Cabinet ministers are conflicted and should not participate in this debate is absurd in the extreme”.

“Through his submissions to the High Court, President Zuma will maintain that the decision of the NDPP was rationally derived at, as evidenced by the reasons advanced and accordingly, will withstand any scrutiny”, the Presidency said. They seek to achieve this demonic scheme through dirty tricks. Problem is, despite the EFF and DA’s best efforts, the ANC majority has repeatedly blocked moves for a secret ballot whereby nobody knows who voted for what. The DA has also been spying on the ANC caucus.

ANC MPs interjected insisting Maimane be warned to refer to Zuma as “honourable” or “his excellency”.