South Africa President set to be recalled within days

There is a high likelihood that South African President Jacob Zuma is just days away from being removed by his party as president of the country.

The Nation has been informed by high-ranking sources in the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party that, while there is still a strong lobby within the party working desperately to keep Mr Zuma in power for as long as possible, newly elected ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa and the five other members of the ANC’s top six leadership group have been given a mandate to persuade Mr Zuma to step down immediately.

Pressure is mounting on Ramaphosa, the ANC and those trying to put South Africa back into a positive light with international investors, rating agencies and with South Africans themselves, that Mr Zuma must go immediately.

STATE ADDRESS
It was clear today in a briefing in Parliament in Cape Town that National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete and her colleagues were “walking on eggs” over the issue of whether it would be Mr Zuma or Mr Ramaphosa who would deliver the annual State of the Nation address before both houses of the legislature on Tuesday next week.

Asked directly more than once, none on the podium representing the organisers of the State of the Nation address was prepared to name who would be making the address, only saying that it would be “the President on the day”.

The State of the Nation address is a major event on the SA political calendar, which brings Cape Town to a halt for the day and which has been marred in the previous two years by violent protests both inside the joint sitting of legislators and outside of it.

INVESTORS
What is worrying the ruling party, and especially Mr Ramaphosa and his supporters, is that the image of the increasingly scandal-riven President Zuma speaking for South Africa next week would reverse all the gains made since Mr Ramaphosa and his faction won in December in a hard-fought contestation for who would lead the ANC.

The SA rand has improved by more than 10 per cent against a basket of foreign currencies since then, and general investor and business sentiment has greatly improved at the prospect of business-savvy Ramaphosa taking over.

But a repeat of the wild scenes inside the joint sitting of the legislators and images of armed police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at those protesting outside it against Zuma’s continued rule would gravely harm any sense that South Africa is emerging from the damaging Zuma era.

GRAFT CHARGES
Sources at the highest level within the ruling party told the Nation that its top six officials have been given a mandate by the party’s newly-elected executive committee to meet with Mr Zuma “as soon as possible and by no later than Sunday” to tell him of its decision.

Mr Ramaphosa had been trying to avoid a summary recall of President Zuma, partly to soothe the Zuma faction’s ruffled feathers after it was largely defeated in the party’s December elective conference, and partly to avoid alienating a significant slice of ANC voters still supportive of the outgoing president and his associates.

But time is rapidly running out for Mr Ramaphosa – not least because there is also a clock ticking on whether Mr Zuma will face the long-delayed and previously dropped 783 fraud, corruption, money-laundering and related charges that have been in temporary abeyance but which will now almost certainly be re-instituted shortly.

The National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) has received representations from Mr Zuma to have those charges dismissed once and for all, but there seems almost no chance that they will be.

These are the same charges that sent the man on the other side of the exact same shady dealings as Zuma is alleged to have been involved in to jail – and there is every reason to believe Zuma too will be found guilty on them.

STATE CAPTURE
The NDPP will state within two weeks whether Mr Zuma will again be charged for those alleged violations.

ANC sources say it would be “impossible” for South Africa to make any sort of positive impression in terms of moving away from the system of corruption, influence-peddling and patronage, until tangible action is taken.

There is also a pending state capture inquiry, which is virtually certain to directly implicate him in wrongdoing.

But removing him will not be easy – Zuma himself has made that clear and those around him have rallied to his cause.

While Mr Ramaphosa was making an apparently good impression on world financial, business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, two of the pro-Zuma members of the ANC’s top six came out in public to contradict what Mr Ramaphosa had indicated in Davos, which is that Zuma would be going sooner than later.

SUPPORTERS
But even as the two “rebels” – secretary general Ace Magashule and his deputy Jessie Duarte – were issuing their pro-Zuma statements that he was “not going anywhere”, ANC deputy president David Mabuza, a former Zuma loyalist, threw his full weight behind Mr Ramaphosa and the latter’s ascension to the national presidency’s office.

This means four of the ANC’s top six are now against Mr Zuma staying in power any longer.

Consequently, on Monday of this week, the Nation learnt, there was a determination by the ruling party’s executive that a meeting be called with Mr Zuma as soon as possible and that he be told that he would be removed immediately and that he would not be making the State of the Nation address.

There was however strong resistance by Zuma loyalists against such a move.

Said one insider: “It’s a tricky situation. Cyril (Ramaphosa) does not want to deepen divisions and create a sense that Zuma has been treated unfairly or badly. Also, the party needs to keep as much unity as it can manage.’’

ZUMA EXIT
But having Zuma in front of the joint houses, with chaos inside and outside Parliament and police firing at protesters, is the very last thing he (Ramaphosa) and the country needs as he gets ready to take the reins.

“It’s not a foregone conclusion, but it looks very much like Zuma may be gone from the national stage by the time Tuesday rolls around,” the source said.

None of the senior ANC players spoken to wanted to go on the record as they wished to avoid being seen as being “on one side or the other”, as one put it.

But there was a general sense that President Zuma had to go soon and that, given the likely “negative optics” that would accompany his delivering the State of the Nation address next Tuesday, it was more than an even chance that he would be recalled before then.