Cape Town - The African National Congress on Tuesday voted down an opposition motion to impeach President Jacob Zuma for flouting the Constitution in his handling of the Nkandla scandal, sticking doggedly to a narrative that he never acted in bad faith.
The motion, brought by the Democratic Alliance and fiercely backed by the Economic Freedom Fighters and most small opposition parties, drew 143 votes in favour and 233 against.
Read: Zuma a cancerous tumour, says Maimane
“You have voted against the people of South Africa… You are traitors all,” shouted EFF leader Julius Malema as he led his party out of the National Assembly after the vote.
Earlier Malema had singled out Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan as he implored senior ruling party figures to back the motion and push Zuma out of office in the wake of last week’s Constitutional Court ruling that he had failed to uphold the supreme law by long defying the Public Protector’s findings on Nkandla.
Read: Zuma breached his oath of office: Malema
“We want to see Mr Ramaphosa, Minister Pravin, Minister Jonas, the darling of anti-corruption, if you are going to vote for this corruption against the constitution,” Malema said in the National Assembly, after reminding Ramaphosa that he was seen as one of the fathers of the Constitution.
“We need another Ben Turok to vote against the mob,” he added, referring to the former MP’s stance against the Protection of State Information Bill.
“Stop thinking for your stomach, vote with your brains.”
Speaking just before Malema, Deputy Finance Minister John Jeffery had told MPs that the Constitutional Court had not found Zuma guilty of a gross violation of the Constitution and that the president had “never acted with mala fides” because until the ruling, it had been unclear whether the Public Protector’s directives had binding force.
Malema cautioned Jeffery that he was “trying to second guess what the Constitutional Court said”.
There was unfortunate precedent for this in the very case that served before the court, he said, in that opposition parties took legal action because the president and the National Assembly had second-guessed Madonsela.
ANC MP Mmamoloko Kubayi closed the debate by suggesting the bid to impeach Zuma, launched immediately after the ruling, was a misplaced imperialist plot and said of Zuma: “He has humbled himself before the nation, he has apologised.”
That position was endorsed by the ANC’s National Working Committee on Monday, on the eve of the debate, after Zuma in a televised address at the weekend said he would respect the court ruling.
EFF MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi rose as Kubayi finished speaking, and asked: “Is that the best sweep you can come up with. Oh, God it was terrible.”
African News Agency
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