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• State of the Nation Address postponed
The African National Congress (ANC), which has ruled since Nelson Mandela won the post-apartheid 1994 election, is divided over whether President Jacob Zuma should be “recalled” from his position.
The party’s leaders weighing the future of Zuma yesterday evening postponed a meeting scheduled to hold today to decide a “matter of serious concern” which would have heralded a bid to unseat a president besieged by corruption allegations.
The party released a statement saying it had held “fruitful and constructive discussions” with Zuma.
Separately, the Speaker of parliament said the President’s State of the Nation Address, the keynote political event of the year, which had been scheduled for tomorrow, would be postponed, piling added pressure on Zuma. Zuma, whose presidency has been marred by graft scandals and economic decline, has been in a weakened position since he was replaced as leader of the ANC by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa in December.
Zuma, in power since 2009, is fighting for survival. He faces the imminent risk of being ousted from office by his own party.
As president, Zuma had been due to deliver the State of the Nation address to parliament in Cape Town tomorrow, a closely-watched event that shapes the political agenda for the coming year.
But the party’s national executive committee, its highest decision-making body, will hold a special meeting today to discuss his possible removal.
“We thought that we needed to create room for establishing a much more conducive political atmosphere in parliament,” parliamentary Speaker Baleka Mbete told reporters. “A new date for the State of the Nation address will be announced very soon.”
The ANC executive committee meeting today may “recall” Zuma from office.
He is constitutionally entitled to refuse to obey the instruction, but to do so would trigger political chaos, say commentators.
The ANC’s deputy secretary-general, Jessie Duarte, told reporters that senior party officials had discussed Zuma’s future on Monday. “It was discussed at a great deal of length. I can say to you that there are different views,” she said.
Many ANC members are pushing for Cyril Ramaphosa, the new head of the party, to replace Zuma, 75, as president immediately. But Zuma loyalists have said that the serving president should complete his second and final term in office, which would end when elections are held next year.
Duarte confirmed that if Zuma resigned, deputy president Ramaphosa would automatically take office. “What we are hoping for is that the NEC (national executive committee) will emerge with a united view on this matter,” she said.
The power struggle has rocked the ANC, the much-celebrated liberation party which led the fight against white-minority rule but has since lost much of its public support.
“Jacob Zuma is not just a pushover,” Xolani Dube, an analyst with the Xubera think-tank in Durban, told AFP.
“He is not someone who respects Ramaphosa because Ramaphosa has not gone through all the rituals to become an ANC president… he was not in prison, he was not in exile.” Zuma faces several court cases, including over 783 payments he received allegedly linked to an arms deal before he came to power in 2009.
