Zuma: I’m not going anywhere, I’m fit and doing ‘it’ very well

Despite mounting calls from opposition parties and civil society organisations for him to step down, President Jacob Zuma on Thursday said he was not going anywhere until the African National Congress (ANC) told him to.

“I’m fit, and doing it very well. My political office was made by the ANC … and the day it thinks I can’t be president, it would remove me, and it has not done so,” Zuma said while answering MPs’ questions in the National Assembly.

Zuma told opposition MPs that he thought the bid by opposition parties to compel National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete to permit the secret ballot was unfair and parliament should conduct proceedings on motions of no confidence in the president as it did previously on an open platform.

“You are trying to get a majority you don’t have by saying, secret ballot. I think it’s not fair because you are trying to increase the majority you don’t have,” Zuma said. “That is my view: let us vote the way we have been voting all the time.”

Earlier on Thursday, the Constitutional Court ruled that Mbete had the authority to allow the secret ballot, but the court said it could not order parliament on whether that should or should not happen because it was entirely up to the speaker’s discretion.

Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng said Mbete had a constitutional mandate to ensure that she takes into account the risks associated with the decision and that it cannot only be based on the needs of her party, the ANC.

He ordered that both Zuma and Mbete should cover the costs of the case brought by the UDM and other parties.

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