JACOB ZUMA FORCED OUT BY ANC PARTY AS WEALTHY DEPUTY CYRIL RAMAPHOSA IS SET TO BE SWORN IN AS PRESIDENT OF SOUTH AFRICA.

JACOB ZUMA

Jacob Zuma, South Africa's embattled President has resigned after intense pressure from his own party nine years after he assumed the position of President of South Africa. Even though he announced he was quitting with immediate effect he disagreed with his ANC party's decision. The ANC had told him to step down or face a vote of no confidence in parliament.

The 75-year-old has been facing calls to give way to Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC's new leader. Mr Zuma, who has been in power since 2009, faces numerous allegations of corruption.

Zuma began his resignation speech by laughing and joking with members of the press, asking them why they looked so serious. After paying tribute to those whom he had worked with over the years, Mr Zuma said that violence and division within the ANC had influenced his decision to step down.

Jacob Zuma throws in the towel as President of South Africa..... pic.twitter.com/igAbToTmlH

— PREMIUM TWEEP (@XANTAPLUS) February 15, 2018

"No life should be lost in my name and also the ANC should never be divided in my name. I have therefore come to the decision to resign as president of the republic with immediate effect," he said.

"Even though I disagree with the decision of the leadership of my organisation, I have always been a disciplined member of the ANC. "As I leave I will continue to serve the people of South Africa as well as the ANC, the organisation I have served... all of my life."

            

The resignation of president Jacob Zuma marks the end of an era. An era of one corruption allegation after another. An era of divisions, infighting and public squabbles. There are many people who are celebrating now, and not just from the opposition benches.

Some of President Zuma's fiercest political foes came from his own ANC party. Comrades who fought white minority rule in the same trenches as he did, could not wait to see his back. He is gone now.

There is a renewed sense of hope as Cyril Ramaphosa is taking over the reins of Africa's most industrialised economy. Some will miss him though, pointing to achievements like announcing free fees for higher education. The ANC's Jesse Duarte summed up the mood for many supporters of Mr Zuma's when she said "this is a very painful moment".

The ANC (African National Congress) issued a statement saying Mr Zuma's resignation provided "certainty to the people of South Africa".

Deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte told reporters: "President Zuma remains a principled member of the ANC. The ANC wants to salute the outstanding contribution he has made."

Mr Zuma, a former member of the ANC's military wing in the days of apartheid, rose through the ranks of the party to become president. He led the country for more than a third of its time after apartheid. But he leaves office with several scandals hanging over him, and with South Africa's economy in dire straits.

What led up to Zuma's resignation?

A meeting of the ANC's National Executive Committee had announced its decision to recall Mr Zuma on Tuesday and gave him until the end of Wednesday to resign.

ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu then announced a parliamentary motion of no-confidence for Thursday, with Mr Ramaphosa sworn in as president as soon as possible after that.

But he said he had done nothing wrong and saw no reason to stand down.

How did South Africa allow one man to hold us under such polluted water for so long?

The answers are many, and most of them circle around the cliché that a country gets the President it deserves. After the "rainbow nation" triumphalism of the 1990s, the privileged were still mostly smug, the underprivileged were still mostly angry and the collective was still thoroughly traumatized by 350 years of racial division. It was the perfect platform for a populist to come and make off with the spoils.

Because, compared to the aloof philosopher-king Mbeki, who attacked the country's problems with his big words and his pipe, Zuma was unmistakably of the people -- he was entertaining, grounded, unperturbed. At the ANC national policy conference in December 2007, when the ruling party voted him into its top spot, Zuma calmed the anxious nation by showing us how freely he could dance and how hauntingly he could sing.

And then, of course, there was his political wiliness, his sheer genius for survival. Six months before he took control of the party, in June 2007, I spent two consecutive afternoons with Zuma at his home in a Johannesburg suburb. He had, by then, easily won over the country's black majority, and was now looking to appease white South Africans. Throughout the interviews, his charisma was on full display -- and its real value, it struck me, lay in how it might subdue an enemy.

Uncannily, Zuma's almost superhuman tenacity had been foretold in his middle name, Gedleyihlekisa, a shortened form of the Zulu sentence "ngeke ngithule umuntu engigedla engihlekisa" ("I won't keep quiet when someone deceives me with a beautiful smile while he is doing damage to me"). The prophecy had first come to pass during his youth in the Zululand hills, where he was the district champion stick-fighter, felling his opponents via deft use of the element of surprise.

MEET CYRIL RAMAPHOSA, THE INCOMING PRESIDENT OF SOUTH AFRICA.

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA

As deputy president, as well as ANC leader, Mr Ramaphosa is likely to step in. He is expected to be sworn in later on Thursday. A wealthy lawyer with many business interests, Cyril Ramaphosa is one of South Africa's wealthiest men with an worth about $650M.

But it is possible that he would not seek to remain as president, preferring to get his own mandate at next year's presidential elections.

The ANC, as the party in government, would then nominate a candidate to serve until then, and parliament would take a vote within 30 days.

Mr Ramaphosa was already the overwhelming favourite to win the 2019 election, one which Mr Zuma was barred from competing in, having served two terms.