{"id":17291,"date":"2024-04-03T15:58:48","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T15:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/03\/leader-of-south-africas-assembly-resigns-amid-corruption-allegations\/"},"modified":"2024-04-03T15:58:48","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T15:58:48","slug":"leader-of-south-africas-assembly-resigns-amid-corruption-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/03\/leader-of-south-africas-assembly-resigns-amid-corruption-allegations\/","title":{"rendered":"Leader of South Africa\u2019s Assembly Resigns Amid Corruption Allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"549\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/02\/multimedia\/02safrica-speaker-1-gmjl\/02safrica-speaker-1-gmjl-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,549&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Leader of South Africa\u2019s Assembly Resigns Amid Corruption Allegations\" title=\"Leader of South Africa\u2019s Assembly Resigns Amid Corruption Allegations\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The speaker of South Africa\u2019s National Assembly resigned on Wednesday, a day after a judge cleared the way for her to be arrested on charges that she took bribes when she served as defense minister.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The resignation of the speaker, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, comes amid a tense, weekslong standoff with law enforcement officials over a corruption case that has dealt a blow to the governing African National Congress two months before a critical national election.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Tuesday, a judge threw out Ms. Mapisa-Nqakula\u2019s court application seeking to prevent her arrest. As of Wednesday afternoon, she had not turned herself in to the authorities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Mapisa-Nqakula, who fought against the apartheid regime as an A.N.C. activist in exile, maintained her innocence in a news release announcing her resignation. Part of her decision to step down, she said, was to \u201cprotect the image of our organization, the African National Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cMy resignation is in no way an indication or admission of guilt regarding the allegations being leveled against me,\u201d she added. \u201cI have made this decision in order to uphold the integrity and sanctity of our Parliament.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The National Assembly is the more powerful of the two houses of South Africa\u2019s Parliament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Her potential arrest exposes the A.N.C. to one of its greatest vulnerabilities \u2014 charges of corruption \u2014 ahead of elections on May 29 in which the party faces the threat of losing its absolute majority in the national government for the first time since the end of apartheid 30 years ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A.N.C. leaders have faced a litany of corruption allegations over the years that have ignited public furor as the country and many of its citizens struggle economically. Most notably, investigators found that Jacob Zuma, a former president of the party and the nation, oversaw the widespread looting of state coffers to enrich himself, his family and his friends.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">If she is arrested, she would be one of the highest ranking A.N.C. officials to face criminal charges for conduct in office, after Mr. Zuma, who faces charges for actions that occurred a generation ago, when he was vice president. (Since departing office, he has left the A.N.C. and formed his own party.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But in some ways, Ms. Mapisa-Nqakula\u2019s case provides an opportunity for the party to show that it is tackling potential wrongdoing among its members.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Under the current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, the A.N.C. has said it is aggressively working to root out corruption in its ranks. The party suggested in a statement released on Tuesday that Ms. Mapisa-Nqakula would be forced to step aside from her role in the party and in government while facing criminal charges, under a rule that the organization put in place in recent years. Her resignation seems to render that moot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Mapisa-Nqakula, 67, served as the minister of defense and military veterans from 2014 to 2021. During her final year on the job, some of the worst rioting of South Africa\u2019s democratic era erupted in parts of the country, and Mr. Ramaphosa called it an attempted insurrection. Ms. Mapisa-Nqakula publicly contradicted her boss, saying that the violence was not an insurrection. Shortly afterward, she was removed as minister and became the National Assembly speaker.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">She has argued that the prosecution\u2019s case against her is a politically motivated attempt to tarnish her reputation and the A.N.C.\u2019s during campaign season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Mapisa-Nqakula is accused of soliciting more than 2.3 million rand ($123,000) worth of bribes from a defense contractor in exchange for awarding contracts between 2016 and 2019. The police raided her home last month. After the raid, she filed an application in court making the unusual demand that prosecutors turn over their evidence to her before her arrest, arguing that their case was weak.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a court affidavit challenging her arrest, Ms. Mapisa-Nqakula said that prosecutors were abusing their powers for political purposes, as the apartheid-era government did. She feared, she said, \u201cthat this practice has once again reared its ugly head and, if not stopped, carries the real risk of further fraying the constitutional fabric of our young democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In dismissing the effort to prevent her arrest, Justice Sulet Potterill said on Tuesday that <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/newzroom405\/posts\/832803598884633\/?comment_id=6891008901004407&amp;paipv=0&amp;eav=Afawp5WbyF2RfTmCDHRj7u4EbVd_WdKB2d5C-Q1FYX-4ZmMWO_fwf380xIQCDQJOdOM&amp;_rdr\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cthe floodgates will be opened\u201d<\/a> for every suspect to ask the court to stop his or her arrest \u201con speculation that there is a weak case.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The speaker of South Africa\u2019s National Assembly resigned on Wednesday, a day after a judge cleared the way for her to be arrested on charges that she took bribes when she served as defense minister. The resignation of the speaker, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, comes amid a tense, weekslong standoff with law enforcement officials over a corruption [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/02\/multimedia\/02safrica-speaker-1-gmjl\/02safrica-speaker-1-gmjl-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1664,9283,3501,8574,1891,6952,6967],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17291"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17293,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17291\/revisions\/17293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}