JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress, led by its president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has denied calls that he faces an impeachment hearing over allegations that He kept a large sum of money in the sofa at his game farm and did not report a crime when it was stolen.
The ANC executive committee’s decision was announced on Monday after a day-long meeting – essentially killing a report has been prepared by a panel of three members recommend that the impeachment hearings continue.
Mr. Ramaphosa filed a lawsuit in the nation’s highest court on Monday to challenge a report brought by two retired judges and a lawyer, alleging that he may have violated the Constitution.
Congress is expected to convene on Tuesday to vote on whether to pass the report and hold impeachment hearings. ANC members hold the majority of seats in the National Assembly. While they’re not required to do what their executive committee asks, analysts say it’s highly unlikely they’ll break the ranks in the expected public vote.
Mr Ramaphosa has been fired since a political foe filed a criminal complaint in June alleging that a a large amount of American money was stolen from a couch in a game farm, Phala Phala Wildlife, owned by the president. The complaint alleges that Mr. Ramaphosa never reported the theft and tried to cover it up to avoid publicity about hiding such a large amount of foreign currency in his private home.
The president has insisted that he did nothing wrong. But when the Congress-appointed panel’s report was released last week, Mr. Ramaphosa considered resigning, advisers said, under heavy pressure from his opponents in the ANC, as well as other members of the ANC. rival political party.
But while his political views seemed tenuous soon after the report was released, Mr Ramaphosa and his allies have been on the move ever since.
On social media, his supporters have questioned the impartiality of a lawyer on the panel, posting old photos of her smiling alongside some of the president’s detractors. Protests in support of Mr Ramaphosa have been convened, and allies in his party argue that those who want to oust him are criminals who fear his anti-corruption agenda.
They have also called the report profoundly flawed.
“It is a nonsense report,” Zamani Saul, prime minister of the Northern Cape province and a supporter of Ramaphosa, said in an interview. “There is no conclusion on everything.”
