Jacob Zuma Resigns as South Africa’s President

  On the day Jacob Zuma finally caved to pressure to quit as South African president, he ranted to the state broadcaster for an hour about the ill treatment he had received at the hands of the party he had served since his teenage years. Zuma, besieged by sleaze and graft scandals throughout his nine tumultuous years in power, said it was “unfair” the African National Congress had told him to resign, mainly because his comrades had not followed proper party procedure.

Jacob Zuma

 To South Africans who have suffered economic stagnation and national embarrassment under Zuma, it was yet more evidence of a leader unable to look beyond the byzantine inner workings of Africa’s oldest liberation movement to consider the greater good of Nelson Mandela’s ‘Rainbow Nation.

It was Zuma’s mastery of the ANC’s internal dynamics that enabled him to survive for so long, but his political influence had been on the wane since Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa replaced him as ruling party leader in December. As recently as August, after loyal lawmakers helped him defeat a no-confidence vote brought by the opposition, he cracked jokes and broke into song with a cheering crowd outside the South African parliament.

Six months later, he was forced to resign after the ANC’s parliamentary caucus told him it would help the opposition sack him on Thursday via yet another no-confidence vote.

“It’s us who got South Africa into this mess by electing Zuma to be president,” Jackson Mthembu, ANC chief whip has said. In 2012, Zuma also angered many for scolding “clever blacks” in a speech.