A.N.C. leaders increased the pressure on Mr. Zuma, who said the effort to remove him was “unfair,’’ by announcing that if the president did not resign, they would try to remove him through a vote of no confidence in Parliament as early as Thursday.
Breaking his silence in a live interview with the state broadcaster SABC, Mr. Zuma said he had done nothing wrong and that party officials had not given him a reason for their decision. “Nobody’s saying what I’ve done,” he said.
It is the latest in a series of extraordinary moments for the party, which has shielded the president for nearly nine years through several scandals and corruption charges. “The ball is in his court,” Paul Mashatile, the party’s treasurer general, said at a news conference on Wednesday, a day after the A.N.C. ordered Mr. Zuma to step down.
A few hours earlier, Mr. Zuma came under pressure to resign on a new front, as the police raided the residence in Johannesburg of the Guptas, a family with wide-ranging business interests and close ties to one of the president’s sons and his political allies.
Continue reading the main story
Related Coverage
In South Africa, One Question Dominates: How Much Longer Should Zuma Stay? FEB. 3, 2018
A.N.C. Debates Zuma’s Fate in South Africa: Will He Go Now or Now-Now? FEB. 12, 2018
How Bell Pottinger, P.R. Firm for Despots and Rogues, Met Its End in South Africa FEB. 4, 2018
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Local news outlets reported that three people, including a member of the family, had been arrested as part of a new police inquiry into influence-peddling.
Political experts have pointed out that by vacating the presidency, Mr. Zuma would make himself vulnerable to pending inquiries and corruption charges that he has been able to deflect as the sitting president.
The developments, as well as conflicting messages from leaders of the A.N.C., deepened the uncertainty surrounding Mr. Zuma’s future and the paralysis over South Africa’s governing party and government.
They further complicated efforts by Mr. Zuma’s presumed successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, the deputy president, to achieve a smooth transfer of power that would avoid widening fissures inside the party.
The recent events were also a clear sign of how much has changed in the two months since Mr. Ramaphosa was chosen to succeed Mr. Zuma as the leader of the A.N.C., creating what South Africans refer to as the two centers of power.
Mr. Zuma, seemingly untouchable just a couple of months ago, is now almost certain to lose the presidency, either through a resignation or through a vote in Parliament.
Photo
Police officers closed off roads around the Johannesburg home of the Gupta family, close allies of President Jacob Zuma of South Africa. Credit James Oatway/Reuters
The police’s investigative unit — which has long been subject to political interference — is now investigating the Guptas, a powerful family who appeared to operate above the law under Mr. Zuma’s protection.
Analysts said it was no coincidence that heavily armed police officers had raided the Guptas’ luxury compound and carried out arrests even as Mr. Zuma appeared to dither over whether to address the nation. The intended message, they said, was that those closest to Mr. Zuma, or even Mr. Zuma himself, could be next unless he acceded to the party’s order to quit, well before his term as president was scheduled to expire in mid-2019.
Ace Magashule, the party’s secretary general, said that Mr. Zuma had been given no deadline, but the party was clearly divided over how forcefully to push the president to the exit.
No comments:
Post a Comment