Court delivers Zuma impeachment blow

South Africa’s top court has ruled that parliament had failed to holdPresident Jacob Zuma accountable for using public money for private homeupgrades, a move that could lead to impeachment proceedings.Opposition parties had gone to the Constitutional Court to argue thatthe speaker of parliament failed to enforce the appropriate processes tocensure Zuma over the scandal.Zuma had failed to abide by recommendations made by the country’santi-corruption watchdog in 2014 over refurbishments at his personalhome in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province that misused $15mn (€12mn) oftaxpayers’ money.The scandal came to a dramatic climax when the Constitutional Court lastyear found the president guilty of violating his oath of office byrefusing to pay back the cash.“We conclude that (National) Assembly did not hold the president to account,” said Constitutional Court judge Chris Jafta.“The failure by the National Assembly to make rules regulating removalof the president ... constitutes a violation” of the constitution, thecourt said.It ordered that the National Assembly “must comply” with theconstitution and make rules that could be used for the removal of thepresident “without delay”.Defeated in court and facing mounting public criticism, Zuma laterrelented and paid $500,000, a sum set by the treasury following lastyear’s ruling.In power since 2009, Zuma stepped down last week as president of theruling African National Congress (ANC) party after a 10-year term markedby numerous damning court judgments against him.Yesterday’s ruling is expected to pile pressure on the beleagueredleader to resign ahead of the end of his term as state president in2019.Zuma was succeeded by his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa in a tightly foughtcontest in which his former wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma also ran.Sydney Mufamadi, an ANC stalwart who has known Zuma for decades, saidthat the president would not step aside because he had no “sense ofshame” and called on parliament to act following the judgment.“This is going to be an acid test of the new leadership of the ANC andparliament,” said Mufamadi, who is now director of the School ofLeadership at the University of Johannesburg. “Parliament has theauthority to remove him ... not to protect an errant president.”The ANC’s deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte said that the party hadnoted the ruling and would “discuss its full implications” when theparty’s decision-making National Executive Committee meets on January10.One of the opposition parties that took the matter to court, Congress ofthe People (COPE), said the ruling had left Zuma exposed and put theANC under pressure to act against him.“He has reached a point at which he is like Saddam Hussain in a hole andthere is no other chamber to go except to come out. He’s got to comeout now,” said COPE leader Mosiuoa Lekota.In a statement the National Assembly said it had “already initiated aprocess, as part of its overhaul of rules” to put in place a procedurefor removing a sitting president.Ralph Mathekga, a political analyst and author of the book When ZumaGoes, said that the judgment would strengthen the position of thoseseeking to remove Zuma.“Zuma is on his way out, the only difference is how ANC members willnegotiate with him. It’s going to take negotiations with Zuma to so thathe can leave office,” Mathekga said.The main opposition Democratic Alliance party has said it will seek tohave its parliamentary motion of impeachment against Zuma “re-tabled” assoon as possible.