JOHANNESBURG: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday there was no place for threats of violence or instability after last week’s election cost his African National Congress (ANC) party its majority for the first time.
The result, announced on Sunday, was the worst election showing for the ANC, Africa’s oldest liberation movement, once led by Nelson Mandela, since it came to power 30 years ago, ending white minority rule.
Voters angry at joblessness, inequality and rolling power blackouts slashed support for the ANC to 40.2 percent, down from 57.5 percent in the previous 2019 parliamentary vote.
The result means the ANC must share power, probably with a major political rival, to keep it — an unprecedented prospect in South Africa’s post-apartheid history.
“This moment in our country calls for responsible leadership and constructive engagement,” Ramaphosa told the nation in a weekly newsletter. “There can be no place for threats of violence or instability.”
The sharp drop in ANC support has fueled speculation that Ramaphosa’s days might be numbered, either due to the demands of a prospective coalition partner or as a result of an internal leadership challenge.
But so far senior party officials have publicly backed him, and analysts say he has no obvious successor.
Former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe party has said it is considering a court challenge to the election results, despite performing much better than many had expected to come in third with 14.6 percent of the vote.
Analysts have long feared Zuma’s party may stir up trouble if his supporters, who rioted and looted for days when he was arrested for contempt of court in 2021, reject the results.
Ramaphosa added, “South Africans must stand firm against any attempts to undermine the constitutional order ... for which so many struggled and sacrificed.”
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South Africa’s Ramaphosa says violence has no place after election
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South Africa’s Ramaphosa says violence has no place after election
- Voters angry at joblessness, inequality and rolling power blackouts slashed support for the ANC to 40.2 percent
Louvre heist probe still aims to ‘recover jewelry’, top prosecutor says
- Police believe they have arrested all four thieves who carried out the brazen October 19 robbery
PARIS: French investigators remain determined to find the imperial jewels stolen from the Louvre in October, a prosecutor has said.
Police believe they have arrested all four thieves who carried out the brazen October 19 robbery, making off with jewelry worth an estimated $102 million from the world-famous museum.
“The interrogations have not produced any new investigative elements,” top Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said this week, three months after the broad-daylight heist.
But the case remains a top priority, she underlined.
“Our main objective is still to recover the jewelry,” she said.
That Sunday morning in October, thieves parked a mover’s truck with an extendable ladder below the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery housing the French crown jewels.
Two of the thieves climbed up the ladder, broke a window and used angle grinders to cut glass display booths containing the treasures, while the other two waited below, investigators say.
The four then fled on high-powered motor scooters, dropping a diamond-and-emerald crown in their hurry.
But eight other items of jewelry — including an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon I gave his second wife, Empress Marie-Louise — remain at large.
Beccuau said investigators were keeping an open mind as to where the loot might be.
“We don’t have any signals indicating that the jewelry is likely to have crossed the border,” she said, though she added: “Anything is possible.”
Detectives benefitted from contacts with “intermediaries in the art world, including internationally” as they pursued their probe.
“They have ways of receiving warning signals about networks of receivers of stolen goods, including abroad,” Beccuau said.
As for anyone coming forward to hand over the jewels, that would be considered to be “active repentance, which could be taken into consideration” later during a trial, she said.
A fifth suspect, a 38-year-old woman who is the partner of one of the men, has been charged with being an accomplice but was released under judicial supervision pending a trial.
Investigators still had no idea if someone had ordered the theft.
“We refuse to have any preconceived notions about what might have led the individuals concerned to commit this theft,” the prosecutor said.
But she said detectives and investigating magistrates were resolute.
“We haven’t said our last word. It will take as long as it takes,” she said.
Police believe they have arrested all four thieves who carried out the brazen October 19 robbery, making off with jewelry worth an estimated $102 million from the world-famous museum.
“The interrogations have not produced any new investigative elements,” top Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said this week, three months after the broad-daylight heist.
But the case remains a top priority, she underlined.
“Our main objective is still to recover the jewelry,” she said.
That Sunday morning in October, thieves parked a mover’s truck with an extendable ladder below the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery housing the French crown jewels.
Two of the thieves climbed up the ladder, broke a window and used angle grinders to cut glass display booths containing the treasures, while the other two waited below, investigators say.
The four then fled on high-powered motor scooters, dropping a diamond-and-emerald crown in their hurry.
But eight other items of jewelry — including an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon I gave his second wife, Empress Marie-Louise — remain at large.
Beccuau said investigators were keeping an open mind as to where the loot might be.
“We don’t have any signals indicating that the jewelry is likely to have crossed the border,” she said, though she added: “Anything is possible.”
Detectives benefitted from contacts with “intermediaries in the art world, including internationally” as they pursued their probe.
“They have ways of receiving warning signals about networks of receivers of stolen goods, including abroad,” Beccuau said.
As for anyone coming forward to hand over the jewels, that would be considered to be “active repentance, which could be taken into consideration” later during a trial, she said.
A fifth suspect, a 38-year-old woman who is the partner of one of the men, has been charged with being an accomplice but was released under judicial supervision pending a trial.
Investigators still had no idea if someone had ordered the theft.
“We refuse to have any preconceived notions about what might have led the individuals concerned to commit this theft,” the prosecutor said.
But she said detectives and investigating magistrates were resolute.
“We haven’t said our last word. It will take as long as it takes,” she said.
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