Day of reckoning for S Africa’s Zuma as ANC top brass meets

Bloomberg

Time appears to be running out for South African President Jacob Zuma. Six weeks after his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, replaced him as leader of the ruling African National Congress, the party’s top brass is due to meet in Cape Town to decide whether to force him from office.
The crunch meeting of the National Executive Committee comes a day before Zuma is due to deliver the annual state-of-the-nation speech, which now may be delayed.
“Zuma will be completely isolated after the NEC decision,” said Dirk Kotze, a political science professor at the University of South Africa in Pretoria. “He lost his political power in December. If the ANC says: We withdraw our political support for you, then he is a lame duck. He cannot continue.”
Zuma’s defiance of calls to resign has stolen some of the shine from the optimism generated by the victory of Ramaphosa, who’s cheered by many investors for his pledges to bolster growth, clamp down on graft and provide greater policy certainty.
The rand has been the best performer in the world against the dollar since his Dec. 18 election as ANC leader, and was 0.7 percent stronger at 12.0471 per dollar at 1 p.m. in Johannesburg.
The ANC’s mishandling of the transition to a new leadership has damaged both the country and the party, according to Gary van Staden, an analyst at NKC African Economics in Paarl, outside Cape Town.