ANC orders Zuma to step down as South African president but doesn't specify timing

WORLD / Politics

ANC orders Zuma to step down as South African president but doesn’t specify timing

Departing African National Congress (ANC) President and current South African President Jacob Zuma gestures as he addresses delegates at the 54th ANC conference in Johannesburg in December. South Africa's calm and often jovial Jacob Zuma is a former herdboy who fought in the anti-apartheid struggle and has clung on to the presidency despite a string of scandals. Now aged 75, he has survived by building a network of loyal African National Congress (ANC) lawmakers and officials, and by trading on the party's legacy as the organization that ended white-minority rule. | AFP-JIJI

Reuters

Feb 14, 2018

JOHANNESBURG – South Africa’s ruling party ordered Jacob Zuma on Tuesday to step down as head of state after marathon talks over the fate of a leader whose scandal-plagued years in power darkened and divided Nelson Mandela’s post-apartheid “Rainbow Nation.”

Leading members of the African National Congress now want new party leader Cyril Ramaphosa to replace Zuma as president, ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule told a news conference.

But the party’s national executive was split on precisely when Zuma should go, Magashule added, leaving the president’s immediate fate still hanging in the balance.