CAPE TOWN: South African President Jacob Zuma on Tuesday survived a parliamentary vote of no confidence, with enough ANC lawmakers sticking by their leader despite divisions and fierce criticism of his rule.
The motion brought by the opposition needed to secure 201 of the 400 votes in parliament to succeed, but fell short with 177 votes, national assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete announced.
If Zuma had lost, he would have been forced to resign along with his entire cabinet.
Criticism of Zuma from within the African National Congress (ANC) has grown amid multiple corruption scandals and South Africa’s mounting economic woes, while the celebrated party of Nelson Mandela has declined sharply at the polls.
But ANC officials and analysts had predicted the president would survive the vote given the party’s large parliamentary majority.
“The party will spin this as a win, but it’s a weak victory,” independent analyst Daniel Silke told AFP, after at least 30 of the 249 ANC lawmakers voted to oust the president.
“There are marked signs of a rebellion within the ANC. It will perpetuate the factional infighting after a relatively close vote. There was a relatively substantial mutiny,” Silke said.
The ANC parliamentary party celebrated victory over what it described as an attempted “soft coup.”
“It has been the publicly stated intention of the opposition... to sow seeds of chaos in society to ultimately grab power,” it said in a statement.
Several opposition parties led thousands of anti-Zuma protesters outside the national assembly before the vote, while supporters of the president held a rival march.
Zuma, who has built up a network of loyalists in the ANC since coming to power in 2009, has survived several previous parliamentary votes but these had been held without secret balloting.
“Today’s motion of no confidence result is closer than anyone expected,” Mmusi Maimane, leader of the main opposition Democratic Alliance party said, hailing “brave” ANC lawmakers who voted against Zuma.
“Jacob Zuma is the manifestation of what the ANC has become — a toxic mix of corruption, cronyism and nepotism.”
Mbete, the speaker of parliament, made a surprise decision Monday to hold the ballot in secret after a campaign by the opposition who hoped to encourage ANC members to vote against their leader without fear of intimidation.
Zuma, 75, is due to step down as head of the ANC in December, and as president before the 2019 general election — lessening pressure for his party to trigger imminent change.
The ANC has acknowledged recent criticism of the party, including the impact of a cabinet reshuffle in March when respected finance minister Pravin Gordhan was replaced with a close Zuma ally.
Gordhan’s sacking led to a string of downgrades to South Africa’s credit rating as well as causing the rand currency to tumble.
Public support for the ANC, which swept to power under Mandela in the first non-racial elections in 1994, slipped to 55 percent in last year’s local polls — its worst-ever result.
A handful of MPs, including Gordhan, have publicly joined calls from anti-apartheid veterans and trade unions for Zuma to resign, as South Africa endures record unemployment and a recession.
Zuma has been engulfed by corruption allegations while in office.
A court last year found him guilty of violating the constitution after he refused to repay taxpayers’ money used to refurbish his private rural house.
He has been accused of being in the sway of the Gupta business family, allegedly granting them influence over government appointments, contracts and state-owned businesses.
He is also fighting a court order that could reinstate almost 800 corruption charges against him over a multi-billion dollar arms deal in the 1990s.
Zuma is seen as favoring his ex-wife, former African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, to succeed him ahead of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.
S. Africa’s Zuma survives vote to oust him
S. Africa’s Zuma survives vote to oust him
US to cut roughly 200 NATO positions, sources say
- Trump famously threatened to withdraw from NATO during his first presidential term and said on the campaign trail that he would encourage Russia to attack NATO members that did not pay their fair share on defense
WASHINGTON: The United States plans to reduce the number of personnel it has stationed within several key NATO command centers, a move that could intensify concerns in Europe about Washington’s commitment to the alliance, three sources familiar with the matter said this week.
As part of the move, which the Trump administration has communicated to some European capitals, the US will eliminate roughly 200 positions from the NATO entities that oversee and plan the alliance’s military and intelligence operations, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private diplomatic conversations.
Among the bodies that will be affected, said the sources, are the UK-based NATO Intelligence Fusion Center and the Allied Special Operations Forces Command in Brussels. Portugal-based STRIKFORNATO, which oversees some maritime operations, will also be cut, as will several other similar NATO entities, the sources said.
The sources did not specify why the US had decided to cut the number of staff dedicated to the NATO roles, but the moves broadly align with the Trump administration’s stated intention to shift more resources toward the Western Hemisphere.
The Washington Post first reported the decision.
TRUMP RE-POSTS MESSAGE IDENTIFYING NATO AS THREAT
The changes are small relative to the size of the US military force stationed in Europe and do not necessarily signal a broader US shift away from the continent. Around 80,000 military personnel are stationed in Europe, almost half of them in Germany. But the moves are nonetheless likely to stoke European anxiety about the future of the alliance, which is already running high given US President Donald Trump’s stepped-up campaign to wrest Greenland away from Denmark, raising the unprecedented prospect of territorial aggression within NATO.
On Tuesday morning, the US president, who is scheduled to fly to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in the evening, shared another user’s post on social media that identified NATO as a threat to the United States. The post described China and Russia as merely “boogeymen.”
Asked for comment, a NATO official said changes to US staffing are not unusual and that the US presence in Europe is larger than it has been in years.
“NATO and US authorities are in close contact about our overall posture – to ensure NATO retains our robust capacity to deter and defend,” the NATO official said.
The White House and the Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment.
MILITARY IMPACT UNCLEAR, SYMBOLIC IMPACT OBVIOUS
Reuters could not obtain a full list of NATO entities that will be affected by the new policy. About 400 US personnel are stationed within the entities that will see cuts, one of the sources said, meaning the total number of Americans at the affected NATO bodies will be reduced by roughly half.
Rather than recalling servicemembers from their current posts, the US will for the most part decline to backfill them as they move on from their positions, the sources said.
The drawdown comes as the alliance traverses one of the most diplomatically fraught moments in its 77-year history. Trump famously threatened to withdraw from NATO during his first presidential term and said on the campaign trail that he would encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin to attack NATO members that did not pay their fair share on defense. But he appeared to warm to NATO over the first half of 2025, effusively praising NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and other European leaders after they agreed to boost defense spending at a June summit.
In recent weeks, however, his administration has again provoked alarm across Europe. In early December, Pentagon officials told diplomats that the US wants Europe to take over the majority of NATO’s conventional defense capabilities, from intelligence to missiles, by 2027, a deadline that struck European officials as unrealistic. A key US national security document released shortly after called for the US to dedicate more of its military resources to the Western Hemisphere, calling into question whether Europe will continue to be a priority theater for the US
In the first weeks of 2026, Trump has revived his longstanding campaign to acquire Greenland, an overseas territory of Denmark, enraging officials in Copenhagen and throughout Europe, many of whom believe any territorial aggression within the alliance would mark the end of NATO. Over the weekend, Trump said he would slap several NATO countries with tariffs starting February 1 due to their support for Denmark’s sovereignty over the island. That has caused European Union officials to mull retaliatory tariffs of their own.
