Opposition parties will fail in their campaign to remove Jacob Zuma as president and the government will not be distracted by protests against his leadership, Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba has said.
“The ANC holds 62% of the vote in the National Assembly, so there is no chance in hell that the motion of no confidence will succeed,” Gigaba told reporters at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Durban.
The Constitutional Court will hear opposition party arguments on May 15 to allow for a secret ballot in the planned no-confidence motion.
The groups hope an anonymous vote will encourage ANC MPs to support the motion.
Gigaba said the government was focused on boosting economic growth and rebuilding confidence in the economy following the credit-rating downgrades.
Zuma has been dogged by scandal since he became president in 2009, and Gigaba is his fourth finance minister in less than two years. S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings cut SA’s credit rating to junk last month after Zuma fired Pravin Gordhan as finance minister, sparking protests by tens of thousands of people.
Only the ruling party would decide on Zuma’s position as president, Gigaba said in an earlier interview with Bloomberg TV.
“The president is going to serve his term until 2019,” he said. “Until the ANC changes its mind, the president will remain the president.”
Bloomberg
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