South Africa’s ruling party decided on Tuesday to sack Jacob Zuma as head of state, two sources said, after marathon talks over the fate of a leader whose scandal-plagued years in power darkened and divided Nelson Mandela’s post-apartheid ‘Rainbow Nation’.
Reuters reports that the decision by the African National Congress’s (ANC) national executive followed 13 hours of tense deliberations and one, short face-to-face exchange between Zuma and his presumed successor, deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa.
Zuma, a polygamous Zulu traditionalist with no formal education, has been living on borrowed time since Ramaphosa, a union leader and lawyer once tipped as Mandela’s pick to take over the reins, was elected as head of the 106-year-old ANC in December.
Ramaphosa narrowly defeated Zuma’s ex-wife and preferred successor, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, in the leadership vote, forcing him to tread carefully in handling Zuma for fear of deepening rifts in the party a year ahead of an election.
Despite the damning decision to order Zuma’s “recall” – ANC-speak for ‘remove from office’ – domestic media say the 75-year-old might yet defy the party’s wishes, forcing it into the indignity of having to unseat him in parliament.
Shortly before midnight, the SABC state broadcaster said Zuma had been told in person by Ramaphosa that he had 48 hours to resign. A senior party source later told Reuters Zuma had made clear he was going nowhere.
“Cyril went to speak with him,” the source said, adding that the discussions were “tense and difficult” when Ramaphosa returned to the ANC meeting in a hotel near Pretoria.
“We decided to recall Zuma,” the source said. Another party source said ANC Secretary-General and Zuma loyalist Ace Magashule had gone to see Zuma on Tuesday morning to tell him formally of the party’s decision.
The ANC is due to hold a media briefing in the afternoon to reveal its version of events.
One domestic report said Zuma had asked for three months to resign, a request that was denied. Another report said Zuma simply told Ramaphosa: “Do what you want to do”.
Zuma’s spokesman did not answer his mobile phone. His son, Edward, said he would not comment until after the ANC had made its formal pronouncement.
On Friday, one of his wives, Tobeka Madiba-Zuma, posted comments on Instagram suggesting Zuma, who has challenged and defied multiple attempts by the ANC and courts to rein him in, was prepared to go down fighting.
The post even suggested Zuma believed he was the victim of a Western conspiracy.
“He will finish what he started because he does not take orders beyond the Atlantic Ocean,” she said.
South Africa’s economy, the most sophisticated on the continent, has stagnated during Zuma’s nine-year tenure, with banks and mining companies reluctant to invest because of policy uncertainty and rampant corruption.
However, since mid-November when Ramaphosa emerged as a real ANC leadership prospect, economic confidence has started to pick up, while the rand – a telling barometer of Zuma’s fortunes – has gained more than 15 percent against the dollar.
The ANC’s decisive overnight move against Zuma after nearly two weeks of deliberations mirrors the fate that he himself meted out to then-President Thabo Mbeki in 2008 after being elected to the helm of the party.
The removal of Zuma, an anti-apartheid activist who spent 10 years alongside Mandela in the notorious Robben Island prison camp, also echoes generational changes in the anti-colonial liberation movements in charge of southern Africa.
In August, Jose Eduardo dos Santos stepped down after 38 years as president of oil-rich Angola and three months later Zimbabwe’s military unseated 93-year-old Robert Mugabe, the only leader the country had known since independence in 1980.
Although Zuma retains a core of faithful inside the ANC and in the rural heartlands of his native KwaZulu-Natal province, there will be few tears shed in South Africa’s urban centers, where many regard him with contempt.
