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🇵🇾 Paraguay /Elections & Politics

South African Parties Accuse Ramaphosa of ‘Wasting Time’ in Impeachment Process

From ABC Color · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Newswire Named sources In the courts
  • Four opposition parties urged South Africa’s Western Cape High Court to reject Ramaphosa’s challenge to a 2022 panel report concerning the Phala Phala farm theft.
  • The parties said the president is using the legal challenge to delay parliamentary accountability proceedings.
  • The report found that Ramaphosa may have committed a serious violation of anti-corruption laws, while the president argues that the panel lacked sufficient evidence and ignored his lack of bad faith.

Opposition parties accused South African President Cyril Ramaphosa of “wasting time” as his legal challenge to a 2022 report entered its final day of hearings in the Western Cape High Court.

The case concerns a report that examined the theft of a large amount of cash from Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm in Limpopo. Ramaphosa is asking the court to set the report aside, arguing that the independent panel did not have enough evidence and failed to consider his defense that he had not acted in bad faith.

They are only wasting time.

· Dali MpofuThe MK party lawyer accused Ramaphosa of delaying the impeachment-related process.

Dali Mpofu, representing the uMkhonto weSizwe party, said the president was using a “Stalingrad” strategy to delay the process for as long as possible. Mpofu argued that because the rules allow Ramaphosa to present his version of events, the panel was required to weigh all the evidence fairly, which he said it had done.

Stalingrad

· Dali MpofuMpofu used the term to characterize what he described as the president’s strategy of prolonged legal delay.

The African Transformation Movement, which initially brought the motion against Ramaphosa, joined the MK party, the Economic Freedom Fighters and the United Africans Transformation party in opposing the challenge. UAT lawyer Thabani Masuku said that if Ramaphosa’s application succeeded, Parliament would be unable to hold the president accountable. He said the Constitution requires the president to submit to such accountability processes.

EFF lawyer Mfesane Ka-Siboto also argued that Ramaphosa’s alleged bad faith was shown by his failure to report the 2020 farm robbery to police. Former intelligence chief Artur Fraser filed a complaint in 2022 alleging that almost 4 million euros had been stolen from the farm. Ramaphosa put the amount at $580,000, or about 500,000 euros at the current exchange rate. The theft led to the creation of the panel, whose report concluded that the president may have seriously violated anti-corruption laws.

If this application were to succeed, Parliament could not hold the president accountable.

· Thabani MasukuThe UAT lawyer argued that the challenge threatened Parliament’s ability to pursue constitutional accountability.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Color in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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