On Wednesday morning, Baleka Mbete was asked in an eNCA interview how President Jacob Zuma “seemed” when she broke the news to him that he would not be permitted to address the House.
“He looked like the ordinary Jacob Zuma,” she responded, “always ready to laugh at life.”
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It now seems a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ President Jacob Zuma will step down. With ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa and other members of the top six reportedly frustrated by their efforts to get Msholozi to step down gracefully,these are the options available to them.
Vote of no confidence
Zuma’s enemies have previously sought to topple him with parliamentary votes of no confidence.
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After refusing to vacate his office, President Jacob Zuma has reportedly agreed to resign as head of state, just hours after meeting ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa at a “constructive meeting” in Cape Town.
Zuma initially refused to resign after meeting with the ANC’s top six officials on Monday, and after the party convened a special national working committee (NWC) meeting on Tuesday, a decision on his fate was expected to be made on Wednesday.
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The ANC national working committee (NWC) wants the Speaker of the National Assembly Baleka Mbete, to postpone Thursday’s state of the nation address (Sona) until President Jacob Zuma is kicked out of office.
ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa was expected to meet Mbete and National Council of Provinces (NCOP) chairperson Thandi Modise on Tuesday to discuss the possibility of postponing Sona until President Zuma leaves office in line with the NWC’s resolution taken during its meeting on Monday night.
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Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane has told the party’s KwaZulu-Natal provincial congress that it needs to go beyond “taking on the man from Nkandla” and turn itself into a stable government wherever it had taken power because of the easy target President Jacob Zuma had presented.
Maimane told the congress, held in Durban, that while the party had achieved what many would have thought impossible by taking the Cape Town, Nelson Mandela Bay, Tshwane and Johannesburg Metros, it had also made serious gains in KwaZulu-Natal in the 2016 local government elections. The DA now had branches all over the province and had increased its number of councillors from 150 councillors to 201, an increase of 11.88% of the vote in 2011 to 17.4% in 2016.
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President Jacob Zuma is adamant he will deliver his State of the Nation address (Sona) on Thursday, despite calls for him to step down.
The Mail & Guardian has reliably learned that Zuma told senior ANC leaders during a meeting at his official residence this week that he would reject any attempts to force him out as the country’s highest office before Sona.
“He [Zuma] has made it clear he would not accept any decision influenced by any ‘counter-revolutionaries’, including opposition parties. He said if it meant he should face impeachment and lose all his presidential benefits, he was prepared for that as a matter of principle,” said an ANC insider close to Zuma.
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The Economic Freedom Fighters’ request for a motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma has been scheduled for February 22, a day after the budget speech.
Parliament’s presiding officers on Thursday said they had rejected the EFF’s request to hold the motion before next week’s State of the Nation Address (SONA).
This year’s SONA will go ahead as planned next week, irrespective of who is president of the country, they said.
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President Jacob Zuma will have to make representations to public prosecutions head Shaun Abrahams today to argue why he should not face 783 counts of fraud, racketeering and money laundering.
In December 2017, Abrahams granted Zuma an extension to make representations after the president’s legal team made the request. Zuma’s lawyers asked that he be given until February 19 2018 to state his case, but Abrahams instead made the deadline January 31…
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Parliament’s sub-committee on the rules of the National Assembly will meet on Tuesday to finalise issues around the process of impeaching a president. The sub-committee met on Thursday last week to discuss the proposal of a “hybrid panel” of MPs, retired judges and legal minds that would handle the in-depth processes of impeaching a president…
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ANC branches in KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State are crying foul over the composition of the provincial task teams appointed by the party secretariat this week, saying they favour the disbanded provincial executive committees that were suspended by the party’s national executive committee (NEC). On Tuesday, ANC secretary general Ace Magashule announced a provincial task..
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A presidential pardon could be part of the ANC’s package offered to President Jacob Zuma for him to vacate office before his term comes to an end in 2019. ANC insiders said this week there have been informal discussions between supporters of Zuma and ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa about the possibility of granting Zuma a..
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Social development minister Bathabile Dlamini on Wednesday declined to tell an inquiry why she thought two of her most trusted officials apparently hid a looming crisis from her for months. Dlamini has persistently blamed two different officials, then social development director-general Zane Dangor and then CEO of the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) Thokozani Magwaza,..
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A court ordered Brian Molefe on Thursday to pay back all the pension pay-outs made to him. A full bench of judges found against Molefe and set aside the pension agreement. The former Eskom chief executive was also ordered to pay costs. The ruling comes after trade union Solidarity approached the High Court to declare..
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KwaZulu-Natal’s traditional leaders appear to be on a collision course with the ANC about the governing party’s decision to dissolve the Ingonyama Trust, which controls three million hectares of tribal land on behalf of King Goodwill Zwelithini. The ANC’s national conference last month passed a series of resolutions aimed at accelerating the pace of land..
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Who is Jabu Mabuza? The new chair of the Eskom board, Jabu Mabuza has an illustrious history in the South African corporate sector. He has served as a director on a number of boards and has had experience as chair on many others including: Telkom South Africa; Anheuser-Busch InBev; South African Tourism, and the Casino..
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