South African president faces threat of impeachment over 'Farmgate'

[Torrain]

Cyril Ramaphosa: South African president faces threat of impeachment over 'Farmgate'

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is facing a possible impeachment threat over the "Farmgate" scandal. The president has been accused of covering up a $4m (£3.3m) theft from his farm in 2020, including kidnapping and bribing the burglars into silence.

A three-volume report from an independent panel has found that Mr Ramaphosa abused his position and may have broken an anti-corruption law. He has denied wrongdoing, and said the money was from selling buffalo.

The panel's findings have been handed to parliament, which is set to examine them and decide whether or not to launch impeachment proceedings next week.

Mr Ramaphosa is less than a month away from a conference which will decide if he can run for a second term with his party, the African National Congress (ANC), in 2024. The incident could be particularly damaging as Mr Ramaphosa ran for office on an anti-corruption ticket.

[CumbrianLefty]

What practical force does impeachment have in SA?

[Silent Hunter]

Sorry, kidnapping the burglars? That's a new one.

[Cassius]

What practical force does impeachment have in SA?

I'm not sure impeachment in this context is different to a vote of no confidence, but Zuma was forced to resign and make way for Ramaphosa back in 2018 just before a parliamentary vote of no confidence that he would probably have lost. The ANC's own National Executive Committee also played a key role in forcing the early departure of Thabo Mbeki in 2008 by asking him to resign as President, so that could be another avenue for forcing out Ramaphosa early.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I am so confused.

Also, "second term"? I feel like he's been president forever.

[parochial boy]

Yeah, the ANC has a majority so could simply reject the findings and quash any impeachment. That was what already happened with Zuma's Nkandla scandal back in iirc 2016 or thereabouts.

As mentioned the more likely picture is the ANC's NEC push him out. The party has traditionally been pretty capable of doing this and seeminly has pretty effective internal processes. The problem with this now is that when they pushed out Zuma and Ramaphosa came to power, this was in the knowledge that Ramaphosa was - at the time - significantly more popular than the party itself. As in, he came in with the promis of renewal and reform after the corruption scandals and economic stagnation of late-stage Zuma.

Right now though, obviously that is no longer the case that Ramaphosa is at all popular, and people were already intensely disillusioned with his leadership before this came and put the nail in the coffin. The only problem is that, well, there isn't really another figure out there who can reclaim very much, and the existing NEC is at the end of its mandate and most of its big dogs are term limited and having to step down. Which very much handicaps their own capacity to do anything. So it isn't necessarily the case that anything will come out of this (famous last words), except another huge blow to what was remaining of the ANC's reputation.

edit - probably spoke to soon. Seems very likely he will be resigning atm

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

I remember reading in like 2019 that Ramaphosa was in trouble or in danger of a coup lol.

Does David Mabuza just become President then?