Politics

Understanding the Southern Cameroons Struggle

20, February 2018

Understanding the Southern Cameroons Struggle 0

Separatists in Cameroon’s restive English-speaking regions have faced a violent crackdown since declaring the creation of “Ambazonia”, a self-proclaimed republic independent from the majority French-speaking country.

The violence has helped fuel support for a growing separatist movement, including armed groups, who in turn have carried out a string of attacks on police and the military. Dozens on both sides have died, and tens of thousands have fled into neighbouring Nigeria.

ENGLISH

The political drive for the separatist cause began in 2016 after police broke up demonstrations by English-speaking lawyers and teachers who protested against working in French.

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC), locally known as “the Consortium”, was formed to campaign against what they viewed as discrimination and marginalisation by the francophone majority.

Although it campaigned for federal ties — not secessionism — the campaign met with unyielding opposition from octogenarian President Paul Biya.

The Consortium was dissolved in January 2017, two of its leaders were arrested, and within the anglophone protest movement, the pendulum began to swing in favour of independence.

On October 1, prominent leader Sisiku Ayuk Tabe declared the self-proclaimed republic of “Ambazonia”, named after Ambas Bay on the Atlantic Ocean. The state has not been recognised internationally.

Biya countered with a crackdown and enlisted the help of neighbouring Nigeria in denying a haven to the “terrorists”.

ASYLUM

In January, Ayuk Tabe and 46 of his supporters were extradited by Nigeria to Cameroon despite claims that many of them had lodged asylum applications.

In this climate of spiralling mistrust and revenge, calls for separatism, rather than federalism, are dominant.

The loudest calls have come from the Southern Cameroons Ambazonia Consortium United Front (SCACUF), headed by Ayuk Tabe, which advocates peaceful means to advance independence.

Many of its members are activists with a background in teaching, law or farming, but it also counts former leaders of the outlawed Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC), which began the campaign for independence back in 1995.

“Negotiations are our best weapon,” said Millan Atam, a SCACUF leader.

But since the crackdown and the roundup of Ayuk Tabe, the peaceful stance is being outflanked by radicals, some of whom advocate taking up arms against “the colonialist occupying forces”.

KIDNAPPING

The International Crisis Group (ICG) estimates that there are likely to be several hundred fighters.

On February 11, these groups and some other separatist movements gathered in an umbrella organisation called the Ambazonia Recognition Collaboration Council (ARCC).

Its most prominent member is a firebrand former student trade unionist, Lucas Cho Ayaba, who heads an armed group that calls itself the Ambazonia Defence Forces (ADF).

The ADF claimed responsibility for kidnapping a government official on Sunday in Batibo, a town near the Nigerian border.

It says it has “thousands of fighters,” although commentators say the figure more likely to be around a hundred or so.

“We have a bloc defence strategy — every village, every group of young people can fight for Ambazonia, and we are ready to help them,” he told AFP.

FORCE

Another armed group is Southern Cameroons Defence Forces (SOCADEF), led by Ebenezer Akwanga, like Cho Ayaba an ex-student trade unionist.

In the late 1990s, the two were allies in challenging the moderate strand of separatism, taking their slogan about “the force of argument” and reversing it, to “the argument of force.”

The ADF and SOCADEF have claimed responsibility for most of the attacks in the anglophone areas. Other smaller, armed factions are also engaged in the conflict, such as the Tigers of Ambazonia, Vipers and the Ambaland Forces, but their impact is unclear.

Attempts have been made to unite the various independence groups, with at least four “conclaves” in Nigeria. The groups have so far failed to unite behind a single leader or structure.

“Today, we are divided, it can not work like this,” a leader said via the WhatsApp messenger service.

 

Source: AFP


Ambazonia Crisis: Chief Mukete knocks Biya, Says Head of State is inaccessible

19, February 2018

Ambazonia Crisis: Chief Mukete knocks Biya, Says Head of State is inaccessible 0

The supreme leader of the Bafaws in the Meme constituency in Southern Cameroons has openly criticized President Biya over his poor handling of the crisis in Southern Cameroons. NFon Victor Mukete, the oldest member of the so-called Upper House of assembly and a long standing father of the reunification of French and British Southern Cameroons said in an interview in the French capital, Paris that the Biya regime has failed woefully in its management of the Anglophone crisis.

Chief Mukete who will be a 100 years old this 2018, told the French media that Biya is “inaccessible”. He acknowledged that Southern Cameroonians were being marginalized and observed that Anglophones have barely 10 ministers out of 60 in the government. The patriarch of Southern Cameroons reunification politics further pointed out that the creation of the commission for the promotion of bilingualism and multiculturalism was too little too late.

The paramount leader dismissed the politics of a one and indivisible Cameroon stating that only a ten state federal structure can solve the current Anglophone crisis that has shaken the country for more than a year. Chief Mukete’s influence goes beyond the Southern Cameroons minority as he is a member of the Senate, the Economic and Social Council, the Chamber of Commerce and Chairman of the Board of Camtel.

By Sama Ernest


US: Democratic lawmakers seek platform to Trump’s sex abuse accusers

19, February 2018

US: Democratic lawmakers seek platform to Trump’s sex abuse accusers 0

Democratic lawmakers in the US House of Representatives are attempting to give a national platform to President Donald Trump’s sexual harassment accusers if they win back the lower chamber of Congress in November’s midterm elections.

As the snowballing sexual harassment allegations sweep the US, toppling powerful men in business, entertainment, the media and a handful of lawmakers in Congress, a growing number of Democrats think Congress should lend a voice to Trump’s accusers if their political party controls the House next year.

“I think it would be most appropriate,” said Representative Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee who is among the handful of Democrats pushing to impeach Trump.

“I mean, this is the most unusual circumstance that you have a president with over a dozen accusers of sexual harassment occupying the most prestigious position in the country.”

Several Democratic lawmakers in the upper chamber of Congress have called for congressional hearings for Trump’s accusers, who number at least 19.

“The President has shown through words and actions that he doesn’t value women. It’s not surprising that he doesn’t believe survivors or understand the national conversation that is happening,” said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York.

“If he wants due process for the over dozen sexual assault allegations against him, let’s have Congressional hearings tomorrow,” she tweeted. “I would support that and my colleagues should too.”

Sexual harassment accusations have swirled around Trump long before he was elected president in November 2016.

Nearly 20 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct dating back decades, ranging from unwanted touching to groping to assault. Trump has denied any wrongdoing. The White House has called his accusers liars.

 

Source: Presstv


Paul Biya, Cameroon’s Roaming President: “Nobody knows what Biya thinks, or what he’ll do… everything can be changed from one day to the next”

18, February 2018

Paul Biya, Cameroon’s Roaming President: “Nobody knows what Biya thinks, or what he’ll do… everything can be changed from one day to the next” 0

Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, likes to travel abroad. As a result, he’s missed some far-reaching events in the country he rules from afar.

Pages from the Cameroon Tribune relating to Paul Biya's travels. OCCRP journalists used the state newspaper as a primary source to chart the president’s numerous foreign trips since taking office. (Image: OCCRP / Authors.) Some rights reserved.Pages from the Cameroon Tribune relating to Paul Biya’s travels. OCCRP journalists used the state newspaper as a primary source to chart the president’s numerous foreign trips since taking office. (Image: OCCRP / Authors.) Some rights reserved.

 

In October 2016, when an overloaded train derailed in the small town of Eseka, killing over 75 people, Biya was on a “brief private visit to Europe” which is how his office refers to his regular jaunts to Geneva. The president only returned from Switzerland two days after the catastrophe, finally voicing his condolences on the airport tarmac.

A year later, Biya was away on another “private” visit to Switzerland when protests broke out in western Cameroon over marginalization of the English-speaking minority population. He didn’t return for another three weeks. While he was away, his security forces violently repressed demonstrators, setting off what has since become a simmering guerilla war.

The 85-year-old Biya has led his West African nation since 1982, winning four elections by sometimes improbably huge margins (while being accused by the opposition and observers of massive fraud).

His country’s citizens have become increasingly frustrated with his repeated absences.

An investigation supported by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) gathered information about the president’s travels from 35 years of editions of the daily government paper, the Cameroon Tribune. They show that, over that time, Biya has spent at least four-and-a-half years on his “brief private visits.” This total excludes official trips, which add up to an additional year. In some years, like 2006 and 2009, Biya has spent a third of the year out of the country.

These calculations are conservative because some editions of the Tribune are hard to find, and archives in Cameroon, France, and the United States have gaps in their collections that span several years.

 

The president is not in

Cameroon is a low income country: A quarter of its 23 million citizens earn less than US$ 2 a day farming or hustling small jobs. The average life expectancy is under 60. In hopes of a better life, many of the country’s youths set off for Europe illegally in precarious vessels. Some are among the over 3,000 migrants who drowned in the Mediterranean in 2017.

Like them, the president seems to prefer a life in Europe. But the similarities stop there.

Biya’s official salary is modest (reportedly just $271 per month, plus bonuses), but he travels and lives abroad in luxury — thanks, at least in part, to his country’s taxpayers. According to Cameroonian political scientist Achille Mbembe, nobody really knows what he does on his frequent trips to Geneva, although speculation ranges from hospital treatments to shopping sprees.

While his palace in Yaoundé is rumored to be luxurious, Biya prefers to spend a large portion of his “private trips” at the five-star Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva, which offers a swimming pool and striking views of Lake Geneva and Mont Blanc.

Cameroon's President Paul Biya and First Lady Chantal Biya arrive at the opening ceremony of the Francophone Summit in Montreux October 23, 2010. (Image: REUTERS/Valentin Flauraud.)Cameroon’s President Paul Biya and First Lady Chantal Biya arrive at the opening ceremony of the Francophone Summit in Montreux October 23, 2010. (Image: REUTERS/Valentin Flauraud.)

 

He does not travel alone. His wife Chantal, renowned for her gravity-defying hairdos, accompanies him on nearly every trip, as does an entourage of up to 50 people that includes ministers, bodyguards, butlers, and various other staff.

One of Biya’s closest confidants, Joseph Fouda, a military officer and special advisor, has accompanied him on at least 86 trips, amounting to more than three years of travel since 1993. He prefers a room on a top floor of the Intercontinental. Another close confidant, Martin Belinga Eboutou, 78, has spent nearly three years travelling with the president starting in 1987, when he was Cameroon’s ambassador to Morocco. Eboutou soon became a fixture on Biya’s journeys as his chief of protocol, and later as director of the president’s Civil Cabinet.

According to reporters’ conservative calculations — based on publically available hotel room prices and a compilation of entourage lists — the total hotel bill of Biya and his colleagues for one stay at Intercontinental, adds up to around $40,000 per day. At that rate, the cost of all of the president’s private trips (1,645 days in total) would add up to about $65 million since he came to power — and that’s not counting food, entertainment, and the rental of a private plane. The president’s office did not comment on this issue.

Duration of Paul Biya's official and unofficial trips abroad, per year. (Image: OCCRP / Authors.) Click to enlarge.Duration of Paul Biya’s official and unofficial trips abroad, per year. (Image: OCCRP / Authors.) Click to enlarge.The president attempted to buy a brand new private jet in 2004, but his staff reportedly cut corners on the deal, buying a defective plane covered by a fresh coat of paint that nearly crashed on its first flight. Since then, the president has chartered at least several private aircraft, including a luxury jet formerly owned by the government of Kazakhstan. Used for regular journeys, such a plane would be large enough to carry some 300 passengers, but for an elite clientele it has been fitted with amenities such as full-size beds and an office, and seats about 60 people.

Travel by chartered plane isn’t cheap. Invoices from 2010 apparently sent by a company called CS Aviation to Director of the President’s Biya Civil Cabinet, and reviewed by OCCRP, bill the Civil Cabinet nearly $855,000 for one round trip for 50 passengers from Yaoundé to Geneva and back. Other invoices show that, in 2013, the plane was kept on standby for two weeks at a daily cost of nearly $157,000. The company did not reply to reporters’ requests for comment.

Number of days Paul Biya has spent in selected countries since 1982, when the Cameroonian president took office. (Image: OCCRP / Authors.) Click to enlarge.Number of days Paul Biya has spent in selected countries since 1982, when the Cameroonian president took office. (Image: OCCRP / Authors.) Click to enlarge.At these rates, the cost of Biya’s flights since he came to power could add up to at least $117 million.

It is not clear how much of the president’s travel money comes from the part of the national budget allocated to his office, which totaled $104 million in 2018.

According to the International Monetary Fund, more than $300 million of the revenue of Cameroon’s national oil company in 2017 was not accounted for. The president has oversight over the company, whose oil sales, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks, have historically been used as a slush fund.

According to Transparency International, Cameroon is one of the world’s most corrupt countries, ranking 145th out of 176 countries on its Corruption Perception Index.

 

Who pays, who plays

Cameroonians pay in other ways for the president’s jaunts abroad. Every time he returns to Yaoundé, his motorcade crosses the whole capital from Nsimalen International Airport to his home, the Unity Palace. A dozen gleaming cars, including an ambulance, whizz through the streets. To ensure a smooth journey, traffic is blocked on the main roads, at times for the whole day.

Snipers are positioned on top of buildings. Taciturn soldiers in green camouflage stand at every corner with assault rifles slung over their bulletproof vests. Cars, motorbikes and pedestrians are forbidden from crossing, and so huge traffic jams pile up against both sides of blocked avenues. The city’s yellow taxis must spend the day parked, earning no revenue.

Urban legends circulate about these grand displays, like the one about a bride and groom who ended up stuck, separated by the president’s motorcade, on opposite sides of an avenue. When the president passes, the city stops breathing.

President Biya’s party, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, arranges for crowds to line the closed streets and cheer for the president. But Florian Ngimbis, a Cameroonian blogger, says that Biya’s trips are seen not just as lavish outlays, “but very much also as a kind of contempt for the Cameroonian people.”

Those few Cameroonians who have the most reason to cheer Biya’s return are the dancers and musicians paid to perform on the tarmac when his plane lands. One drummer, afraid to have his name appear in this article, remembers earning $60 a few years ago: “We didn’t complain… we could drink beers for three days.” Nonetheless, says the drummer, security concerns have trumped the thirst for pomp and ceremony lately, and fewer musicians are being invited.

 

Decrees upon departure

When Biya lands in Yaoundé, he also meets his government — at the airport. Formal ministerial councils are organized infrequently, every year or two at the most. But while Biya has used public funds to sustain a bureaucracy of 65 ministers and state secretaries, he mostly governs by decree or through a handful of laws sped through a rubber-stamp parliament.

Biya signs a flurry of acts between each of his trips. For example, in 2017, he signed a dozen laws — the entire legal output for that year – in a couple of days. It took him just three days to sign the entire year’s decrees.

According to Mbembe, the Cameroonian political scientist, Biya’s decrees mostly nominate civil servants to certain positions rather than directing any substantial course in policy.

“His way of exercising power is to not decide,” Mbembe said in a phone interview, “nobody knows what Biya thinks, or what he’ll do… everything can be changed from one day to the next”. He has become a “ghostly figure” leaving civil servants without direction. According to Mbembe, the unpredictability allows Biya to instil a fear of retribution in his ruling apparatus, as well as hopes of nominations to positions rendered lucrative by corruption.

It’s a system that has kept everyone in check for 35 years — including those with ambition to take over power. But it could lead to a chaotic vacuum when the 85-year old president passes – whether he’s in his West African homeland or in a luxury hotel room far overseas.

 

Source: Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project


Paris: President Macron’s popularity drops to 44 percent

18, February 2018

Paris: President Macron’s popularity drops to 44 percent 0

A new opinion poll shows that French President Emmanuel Macron’s approval rating has fallen to below 50 percent, its lowest level since October last year.

The results of the survey by Ifop, the French Institute of Public Opinion, published on Sunday revealed that only 44 percent of the respondents approved of Macron’s performance.

The results showed a 6-percentage-point decline compared to those of a previous poll in January and also marked the lowest approval rating for the French president since October last year, when it stood at 42 percent.

The Sunday poll was conducted from February 7 to 17.

The French government earlier this month announced plans to shake up the country’s costly civil service and modernize the public sector despite opposition. France already has one of the highest public spending ratios in the world.

French Budget Minister Gerald Darmanin said a voluntary redundancy plan for government employees could be a possible move.

Macron won the French presidency last year, and his party subsequently won a commanding majority in parliamentary elections. Macron’s pro-Europe, pro-business party controls 309 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly. It recently lost two by-elections.

 

Source: Presstv


“Biya regime and the Ambazonia Interim Government have one surprising thing in common”

16, February 2018

“Biya regime and the Ambazonia Interim Government have one surprising thing in common” 0

While the search continues to find the sub-prefect of Batibo, a locality in the Momo constituency in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia abducted  last February 11 by unidentified gunmen, the Francophone  governor  has installed an acting Divisional Officer leading political commentators to opine that the Biya regime and the Ambazonia Interim Government have one surprising thing in common-the way they replace abducted leaders.

Adolphe Lele Lafrique, installed on Wednesday, Ernest Nkwandze as acting sub-prefect of Batibo and pleaded with the Batibo traditional authorities to help free the abducted DO.  Namata Diteng, the DO of the Ambazonian Batibo district, has been missing since Sunday, when his burnt-out car was found in an isolated area. Cameroon’s army said on Monday that it was continuing to search for a local official after separatists in a restive English-speaking region claimed to have captured him.

He had been meant to preside over local festivities for Cameroon Youth Day, a controversial day in the country’s two anglophone regions — in the northwest and southwest — where dozens of people have been killed since October after a violent crackdown on protests against the mainly French-speaking government.

There were numerous appeals by separatists online to “kill the prisoner” of the “colonial army”. Army spokesman Colonel Didier Badjeck told AFP that Cameroon forces were continuing their search for Diteng on Monday night.

Badjeck also dismissed as “fake news” a picture of a dead man circulating online that some separatists claimed was Diteng.

By Sama Ernest


Fru Ndi withdraws from presidential election

16, February 2018

Fru Ndi withdraws from presidential election 0

The leader of the Social Democratic Front (SDF), Ni John Fru Ndi has announced his decision not to contest the 2018 presidential elections, which according to the ruling CPDM crime syndicate should be held between the 14th of September and the 14th of October.

The 77 year old Southern Cameroonian who is also the founder and current chairman of the SDF, the so-called second-largest force in the National Assembly added that he intends to remain the head of the Social Democratic Front.

Three senior members of the SDF have so far made public their intention to run for the presidency and they include, Joshua Osih, Joseph Mba-Ndam and Tchinda Forbi. John Fru was a candidate in the presidential elections in 1992 and 2011.

By Fru James in Bamenda


South Africa parliament elects Ramaphosa as new president

15, February 2018

South Africa parliament elects Ramaphosa as new president 0

South African lawmakers formally named wealthy former businessman Cyril Ramaphosa as new president Thursday after scandal-tainted Jacob Zuma resigned under intense pressure from his own party.

Ramaphosa, the only candidate, was approved without a vote by the parliament in Cape Town, chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng told assembled lawmakers to loud cheers.

Zuma announced his resignation late Wednesday, and aimed barbs at the African National Congress (ANC) party for vowing to oust him via a no-confidence vote in parliament.

In a 30-minute televised address, Zuma said he had “come to the decision to resign as president of the republic with immediate effect”.

“I have only asked my party to articulate my transgressions and the reason for its immediate instruction that I vacate office,” he said.

Zuma, 75, had been embroiled in a divisive power struggle with Ramaphosa, the deputy president.

Ramaphosa won control of the ANC when he was elected as its head in December.

Benchmark South African stocks scored their biggest gains since June 2016 after news that a pro-business reformist would be taking the helm.

The FTSE/JSE Africa All Share Index rose as much as 2.7 percent, while the rand reached its strongest level since February 2015, gaining 0.5 percent at 11.6570 to the dollar in early trade.

Zuma said in a TV interview earlier Wednesday that he had received “very unfair” treatment from the party he joined in 1959 and in which he had fought for decades against apartheid white-minority rule.

He said he was angered over “the manner in which the decision is being implemented… I don’t agree, as there is no evidence of if I have done anything wrong.”

President of South Africa Jacob Zuma attends the last day of the NASREC Expo Centre in Johannesburg on December 20, 2017, during the African National Congress (ANC) 54th National Conference. (Photo by AFP)

 

‘We are not celebrating’

The party’s national executive committee had ordered Zuma’s recall from office on Tuesday, after a 13-hour meeting at a hotel outside Pretoria, but he at first refused.

ANC officials then said that if Zuma did not resign, the party’s lawmakers in the Cape Town parliament would vote him out on Thursday.

But, after the resignation, party deputy secretary general Jesse Duarte cautioned: “We are not celebrating.”

“We have had to recall a cadre of the movement that has served this organisation for over 60 years, it’s not a small matter.”

Zuma, who had no formal education, was jailed on Robben Island for 10 years alongside Nelson Mandela under apartheid and rose through the ranks of the ANC to take power in 2009.

But his rule was dominated by graft scandals, economic slowdown and falling popularity for the celebrated liberation party.

In a day of high drama, police early Wednesday raided the Johannesburg home of the Gupta business family, which is accused of overseeing a web of corruption in Zuma’s government.

Police said three unidentified people had been arrested in investigations into “Vrede Farm” — allegations that millions of dollars of public money meant for poor dairy farmers was siphoned off by the Guptas.

The estate of the controversial business family Gupta in Johannesburg, on February 14, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

 

Local media reported that Zuma had been pushing for a resignation deal that included his legal fees to fight multiple criminal charges — but he denied the allegations in his resignation speech.

One case against him relates to 783 payments he allegedly received linked to an arms deal before he came to power.

Other graft allegations have centered on the three Gupta brothers, who are accused of unfairly obtaining lucrative government contracts and even hand-picking Zuma’s ministerial appointments.

South African Members of Parliament sing and gestures prior to voting for a new president a day after the former president resigned on February 15, 2018, in Cape Town. (Photo by AFP)

 

The political standoff in recent weeks plunged South Africa — the continent’s most developed economy — into confusion over who was running the country, with last Thursday’s annual State of the Nation address cancelled at the last-minute.

Instead, Ramaphosa is to deliver the State of the Nation on Friday.

 Decline of Mandela’s party

Zuma, a Zulu traditionalist with four wives and a proud singing voice, had been scheduled to stand down next year after serving the maximum two terms.

In local polls in 2016, the ANC recorded its worst electoral result since coming to power in 1994 with Mandela at the helm as white-minority rule fell.

Winnie Mandela, former wife of former President Nelson Mandela, attends the closing ceremony of the NASREC Expo Centre in Johannesburg on December 20, 2017, during the African National Congress (ANC) 54th National Conference. (Photo by AFP)

 

Ramaphosa, 65, must revive the economy and crack down on what he has admitted is rampant government corruption if he is to boost the party’s tarnished reputation before a tricky general election next year.

He is a former trade unionist and Mandela ally who led talks to end apartheid in the early 1990s and then became a hugely wealthy businessman before returning to politics.

Zuma’s hold over the ANC was broken in December when his chosen successor — his former wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma — narrowly lost to Ramaphosa in a vote for the new party leader.

South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa dances on stage before his address at the NASREC Expo Center in Johannesburg on December 20, 2017, during the African National Congress (ANC) 54th National Conference. (Photo by AFP)

 

South Africa’s new president vows to tackle corruption

Ramaphosa, on Thursday, used his first speech in office to vow to fight government corruption, in a direct reference to accusations leveled against his predecessor Jacob Zuma.

“Issues to do with corruption, issues of how we can straighten out our state-owned enterprises and how we deal with ‘state capture’ are issues that are on our radar screen,” he told lawmakers in parliament.

“Those are issues we are going to be addressing and tomorrow we will also have an opportunity to outline some of the steps we are going to be taking,” said Ramaphosa, who got a standing ovation at the end of the speech.

“State capture” refers to alleged corruption of state institutions and state-owned businesses by private individuals seeking illegal profits.

(Source: AFP)


South Africa facing political showdown on President Zuma fate

14, February 2018

South Africa facing political showdown on President Zuma fate 0

South Africa braced Tuesday for a major political showdown as scandal-tainted President Jacob Zuma rejected a direct order from the ruling ANC party to leave office.

The power struggle over Zuma’s departure put the president at loggerheads with Cyril Ramaphosa, his expected successor, who is the new head of the African National Congress.

The party’s powerful 107-member national executive committee (NEC) met for 13 hours at a hotel outside Pretoria, and decided in the early hours of Tuesday to “recall” Zuma from his post.

Ramaphosa and Ace Magashule, the party’s secretary-general, had personally delivered a request for Zuma to resign to the president’s official residence in Pretoria at about midnight.

South African ruling Party African National Congress Secretary General Ace Magashule gives a press briefing on February 13, 2018 on the outcome of the ANC National Executive Committee, in Johannesburg at the African National Congress Headquarters. (Photo by AFP)

 

But Zuma “was very arrogant. He told them he was not going anywhere as he did nothing wrong,” an unnamed ANC committee member told the Mail and Guardian newspaper.

“He told them if the ANC issued a statement on its decision to recall him, he will retaliate.”

The ANC — which was once led by anti-apartheid struggle leader Nelson Mandela — reportedly gave Zuma 48 hours to step down.

ANC officials were not reachable Tuesday, but the party called a press conference for 2:00 pm (1200 GMT) at its headquarters in Johannesburg.

The ANC can “recall” the head of state, essentially forcing him to resign, but the process is a party-level instruction and he is under no constitutional obligation to obey.

If he refuses, Zuma would then likely be ousted via a parliamentary vote of no-confidence within days.

Ramaphosa, the de facto president-in-waiting, has been in deadlocked negotiations with Zuma, who first dismissed a request from party leaders to resign more than a week ago.

The stalemate has plunged South Africa — Africa’s most developed economy — into uncertainty over who is running the country, with a series of public events cancelled last week including the annual State of the Nation address to parliament.

South African opposition parties have called for early elections as the ANC’s leadership battle grinds on.

An opposition request for a no-confidence vote against Zuma, 75, this week was still being considered by the parliamentary Speaker.

(Source: AFP)


Former US Vice President Joe Biden says Trump presidency ‘a tragedy’

13, February 2018

Former US Vice President Joe Biden says Trump presidency ‘a tragedy’ 0

US President Donald Trump’s presidency is a “tragedy,” says former Vice president Joe Biden, accusing the Republican head of state of “shredding” America’s core values.

“I look at the Trump presidency as a tragedy in two acts,” Biden said last week, addressing the House Democrats Issues Conference at the US Capitol, Newsweek reported Monday night.

“The first is to what we stand for as a nation, with the core values and our standing in the world and in many cases, the democracy,” he argued.

The second act of Trump’s presidency, according to Biden, was his behavior that kept members of the US Congress from doing their job.

“This president is doing great damage,” Biden added. “We are so concerned with stopping the attack, as we should be, on American values, on our principles, that we’re having great trouble getting to the point of doing the real work of restoring the middle class and the working class.”

The former VP,  who served under President Barack Obama and is said to be one of the Democratic Party’s hopefuls to confront Trump in the 2020 race for the White House, called on Trump to stop acting like “the neighborhood bully” by using insulting words to refer to others.

Trump has stirred controversy by calling  top Democratic Senator Adam Schiff as “little Adam Schiff” and attacking North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a “short and fat madman.”

Biden also blasted the president for mixing his act with an “ugly and phony populism” that was putting the “moral fabric” of American society to the test.

“You know what that fabric’s made of. It’s made of decency. Just simple honesty; just the notion that dignity and respect… treat your opponent as well as your friend with respect,” Biden said.

Biden said he had decided not to publicly criticize Trump but could no longer keep quiet after the president’s handling of violent clashes between white supremacists and counter protesters in Charlottesville, last August.

Trump blamed both sides for the violence, which killed a young woman and injured several others.

Back in November, Biden took another shot at Trump, this time calling him a “charlatan” for taking advantage of frustrated middle class voters.

 

Source: Presstv


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