JOHANNESBURG, July 24 (Reuters) – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday won a court challenge that halted a parliamentary impeachment process over misconduct allegations linked to the “Farmgate” scandal.
The Western Cape High Court granted Ramaphosa an “interim interdict” that will temporarily prevent the parliamentary impeachment process from moving forward.
The ruling is a boost for Ramaphosa as he awaits the outcome of a separate court case challenging an independent panel’s findings that he may have a case to answer over the scandal, which involved the theft of bundles of cash from a sofa on his ranch in 2020.
Ramaphosa has always denied wrongdoing and said the $580,000 stolen was proceeds from the sale of buffaloes, but the episode has been a major embarrassment, raising questions about why he had so much money stuffed in furniture.
Political analysts expect Ramaphosa to remain in power, even if the impeachment process does get off the ground and ultimately leads to a vote on whether he should be removed from office.
Ramaphosa still enjoys the backing of his African National Congress (ANC) party, the country’s biggest which leads a coalition government.
It is not clear how all the ANC’s coalition partners would vote in the impeachment process, but some of them would probably back Ramaphosa and the ANC has enough members on its own to stop him from being removed from office.
(Reporting by Nilutpal Timsina, Anathi Madubela and Sfundo Parakozov;Editing by Bate Felix and Alexander Winning)
