Cyril Ramaphosa: laying down the party line
The ANC president’s January 8 statement will be watched closely for clues on where the balance of forces lies within the NEC
In an uncanny moment of déjà vu, the ANC again finds itself with two centres of power: the president of the republic is no longer head of the party. And the pressure on the ANC’s newly elected leadership to recall SA president Jacob Zuma is mounting. In 2008 it took the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) nine months — from the point at which Zuma was elected ANC president — to force President Thabo Mbeki, to resign. This was done less than a year before the 2009 national elections. Round two may be even more complex: Zuma does not look ready to go down without a fight, even though he no longer holds any official leadership position in the party. He is now nothing more than an ANC member who must toe the party line.But Zuma is also a high-risk deployee with a target on his back. Late last year the constitutional court directed the national assembly to formulate rules to regulate the impeachment of a president in terms of section 89 of the constitution, after it was found that p...
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