{"id":1223,"date":"2018-02-08T13:51:33","date_gmt":"2018-02-08T13:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/?p=1223"},"modified":"2021-12-23T14:06:09","modified_gmt":"2021-12-23T14:06:09","slug":"south-africas-anc-was-preparing-to-fire-zuma-this-week-top-official-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/1223\/south-africas-anc-was-preparing-to-fire-zuma-this-week-top-official-says\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa&#8217;s ANC was preparing to fire Zuma this week, top official says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"LTR\">South Africa\u2019s ruling African National Congress (ANC) had been preparing to fire Jacob Zuma as head of state this week, according to leaked comments from a top party official, but a negotiated exit now looks more likely<span dir=\"RTL\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"LTR\">The ANC had scheduled a meeting on Wednesday evening of its National Executive Committee (NEC), which has the authority to fire Zuma, but canceled it late on Tuesday after \u201cconstructive\u201d talks between new ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa and Zuma<span dir=\"RTL\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"LTR\">Ramaphosa said on Wednesday he was holding direct talks with Zuma over a transition of power and he hoped to conclude their discussions \u201cin coming days<span dir=\"RTL\">.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"LTR\">But leaked comments from senior ANC official Paul Mashatile suggested that at the weekend Zuma was digging in. Mashatile was part of a group of the ANC\u2019s top six most powerful officials who met Zuma late on Sunday at his official residence in Pretoria in a bid to convince him to resign<span dir=\"RTL\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"LTR\"><span dir=\"RTL\">\u201c<\/span>Zuma basically said to us: \u2018I\u2018m not going anywhere. I\u2018m not convinced by you guys so I\u2018m not going to resign,\u201d Mashatile told investors at a mining conference in Cape Town on Tuesday. His comments emerged in a recording leaked to several domestic media outlets late on Wednesday<span dir=\"RTL\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"LTR\"><span dir=\"RTL\">\u00a0\u201c<\/span>Our view is that if the president doesn\u2019t want to resign, for whatever reason, we have a party to run that is going to be very soon in the election campaign,\u201d Mashatile said. \u201cWe want to ensure that we are not involved in motions of no-confidence, or impeachment that will affect our party<span dir=\"RTL\">.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"LTR\">Mashatile was not immediately available for comment and an ANC spokesman did not respond to a request for comment<span dir=\"RTL\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"LTR\">South Africa holds elections next year and ANC leaders worry Zuma\u2019s tenure, which has included corruption scandals and an economic slowdown, could help it lose a majority it has held since the end of apartheid in 1994<span dir=\"RTL\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"LTR\">Zuma took power in 2009 but has been in a weakened position since Ramaphosa replaced him as ANC leader in December<span dir=\"RTL\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"LTR\">Zuma has survived several no-confidence votes in parliament but faces another on Feb. 22 filed by the far-left opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters<span dir=\"RTL\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"LTR\">ANC officials say they want Zuma to resign rather than be forced out by a vote of the ANC\u2019s executive committee, or a parliamentary no-confidence vote, either of which could expose divisions in the party<span dir=\"RTL\">.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa\u2019s ruling African National Congress (ANC) had been preparing to fire Jacob Zuma as head of state this week, according to leaked comments from a top party official, but a negotiated exit now looks more likely. The ANC had scheduled a meeting on Wednesday evening of its National Executive Committee (NEC), which has the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"Reuters","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":""},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,33,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","category-southern-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}