South African opposition calls for Zuma’s resignation

Participating in the debate on Zuma’s state-of-the-nation address, Malema acknowledged that he had “led the charge for the removal of President Mbeki” and admitted this was a mistake.

He sang “the wheels of the bus go round and round” when he accused ANC MPs of standing up for a president who had thrown them under the bus.

Malema delivered a scathing speech in which he listed a number of so-called errors in judgement made by Zuma in his role as president, and in his personal life.

Shortly before the EFF’s departure, Congress of the People (Cope) leader Mosiuoa Lekota led his party out of the chamber, after accusing Zuma of having broken his oath of office by admitting to have benefited from the R246-million security upgrades at Nkandla.

South African president Jacob Zumba is urging businesses around to world to invest in Africa to bring more jobs and opportunities to the region.

Zuma said it was important for MPs to remember they were in Parliament to serve those who had voted for them.

Several ANC MPs leapt to Zuma’s defence, lashing out at opposition party MPs for insulting the president.

In the hard-hitting speech, the DA leader said that the President lived up to the opposition’s expectations last Thursday because they had expected “empty words of a man out of touch with the people – and, sure enough, that is exactly what we got”.

“I think we should change; we are not doing any good for our voters”.

“I believe when we say “honourable members” we mean it. We can’t call ourselves honourable, but behave dishonourably”. “We want to reveal the obvious fact that if it takes 22 years to redistribute 10% of the land, it will take South Africa 100 years to redistribute 50% of the land”.

Zuma said: “The global economic climate is far from favourable”.

He said he’s heard the business sector’s concerns, including the need to better govern state-owned enterprises, public/private partnerships, improved labour relations and infrastructure development.

He said the South African National Defence Force would be deployed wherever it was needed, in order to contribute to peace and stability in the continent.