{"id":591,"date":"2016-04-06T13:59:42","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T13:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/2016\/04\/06\/president-zuma-survives-vote-to-remove-him-from-office\/"},"modified":"2016-04-06T13:59:42","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T13:59:42","slug":"president-zuma-survives-vote-to-remove-him-from-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/president-zuma-survives-vote-to-remove-him-from-office\/","title":{"rendered":"President Zuma survives vote to remove him from office"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Zuma was found to have failed to uphold the constitution by the Constitutional Court\u201a leading the Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane to table the motion.<\/p>\n

The opposition’s bid to remove President Jacob Zuma in Parliament was defeated by 233 votes to 143 on Tuesday evening.<\/h3>\n

After the vote was announced\u201a EFF leader Julius Malema stood up\u201a saying: \u201cYou have voted against the constitution\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Opposition parties banded together to argue that the Constitutional Court’s findings last Thursday made Zuma unfit to continue leading the country\u201a but once the results were announced\u201a staged a walk out.<\/p>\n

Opening the debate\u201a Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane said: “When we were elected to Parliament\u201a we swore an oath to uphold the constitution. It was therefore our duty to table this motion today. In his judgment last week\u201a the Chief Justice (Mogoeng Mogoeng) was scathing about the conduct of the ANC parliamentary caucus and the presiding officers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know the ANC will fall in line behind Zuma\u201a but it is not our job to worry about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Economic Freedom Fighters’ Malema said: “I don’t know if (Deputy President) Mr (Cyril) Ramaphosa is going to vote against the constitution”. “It is better to stand alone and stand for the truth!”<\/p>\n

He said Zuma “wanted to convert South Africa into a banana republic”.<\/p>\n

United Democratic Front leader Bantu Holomisa said Zuma has “put the country at a crossroads”.<\/p>\n

The deputy justice minister\u201a John Jeffrey\u201a led the ANC’s defence of Zuma\u201a saying: \u201cWhat opposition now\u201a with the benefit of hindsight\u201a say was crystal clear\u201a was not so crystal clear\u201d.<\/p>\n

The session started with the opposition demanding that Speaker Baleka Mbete recuse herself because she was not impartial.<\/p>\n

Malema said: “You are sitting there illegally. You violated the constitution. We cannot discuss Zuma with you presiding over this matter!”<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mbete responded: “Nothing in the constitution or in the rules requires me to recuse myself. The judgment makes an order relating to the National Assembly.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zuma was found to have failed to uphold the constitution by the Constitutional Court\u201a leading…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}