South Africa’s ruling party has put off an emergency meeting to talk about President Cyril Ramaphosa’s future, as calls for his resignation persist amid a scandal involving money stolen from his farm.
The national executive committee of the African National Congress was supposed to meet on Friday to talk about a parliamentary report that says Ramaphosa may have broken anti-corruption rules when millions of dollars were stolen from a couch in 2020.
The committee has the authority to force the president to resign, as it has done in the past. Paul Mashatile, the party’s treasurer general, told reporters that top ANC leaders will study the report before reconvening ahead of a parliamentary discussion on Tuesday. Lawmakers are likely to discuss the findings and decide whether to pursue impeachment.
Ramaphosa has said that he is not to blame, saying that the stolen money came from the sale of animals on his property and that he did nothing wrong. The legislative investigation, on the other hand, questions his reasoning, as well as where the money came from and why it wasn’t told to the financial authorities. It indicated a possible conflict between the president’s personal and professional interests.
The president still has some support from the national executive committee and legislative caucus of the party in power, but the latest investigation raises serious questions about how he handled the farm theft and where the money came from.