DA threatens removing Cyril Ramaphosa as president

DA’s Federal Council chairperson Helen Zille warned that they are close to removing Cyril Ramaphosa as South Africa’s President.

She made this threat in the aftermath of the battle surrounding Ramaphosa’s decision to remove Andrew Whitfield from his role as Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition.

Ramaphosa explained that he removed Whitfield as Deputy Minister because he undertook an international visit without the President’s permission.

“His travel to the United States was a clear violation of the rules and established practices governing the conduct of members of the executive,” he said.

Whitfield acknowledged that he had travelled to the United States without permission from the President. However, he said he had asked for permission.

He explained that he had written to Ramaphosa for permission 10 days before his trip and followed up daily about the issue. However, this was ignored, and he received no feedback.

Whitfield said he has it on good authority that the President saw the request, and he also received confirmation of his request.

He took the lack of feedback from Ramaphosa as approval, which, in retrospect, he acknowledged was a mistake.

There were no signs that it was a problem until he was fired by Ramaphosa as Deputy Minister four months later.

This caused a significant rift between the ANC and DA and has placed the stability of the government of national unity (GNU) under threat.

“Ramaphosa concocted an excuse to remove a DA Deputy Minister out of the blue, because of his own failure to respond to a request for travel permission,” DA leader John Steenhuisen said.

In response, the DA demanded that Ramaphosa fire ANC Ministers and Deputy Ministers implicated in corruption within the next 48 hours.

This did not happen, and on Saturday, 28 May 2028, Steenhuisen announced that the DA withdrew from the planned National Dialogue.

Steenhuisen and his party further said they will vote against departmental budgets for corrupt ANC Ministers.

Numerous reports suggested that withdrawing from the government of national unity was on the table for the DA, but that the camp proposing to stay achieved a close victory.

DA threatens removing Cyril Ramaphosa as president

Steenhuisen stated that, instead of Ramaphosa and the ANC working respectfully and collaboratively with all partners within the GNU, they repeatedly undermined these principles.

The DA stated that, from the outset, Ramaphosa violated the Statement of Intent signed by all members of the GNU by appointing a bloated executive without consulting the DA.

“He signed destructive pieces of legislation into law without even having the decency to inform his partners,” the DA leader said.

“He presided over a disastrous budget process, where he failed to take seriously the views of parties who were opposed to the ANC’s proposed two-percentage-point VAT increase.”

Zille added that Ramaphosa refused to enable meaningful power-sharing to drive collaborative and urgent reform of the economy to create jobs.

The Whitfield saga drove the rift between the ANC and DA to breaking point, and Zille is threatening that they may remove Ramaphosa as President.

“We have the power in our numbers, because of the voters, to bring the government down, and we will use that power,” she said.

“We are very close to firing the President,” Zille said in an interview with Newzroom Africa about the recent developments.

She said a motion of no confidence against President Cyril Ramaphosa, which would have brought him and the government down, was on the table.

Zille said they have done their numbers and believe they can gather enough support to successfully remove Ramaphosa from office.

ANC national spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri said the DA’s threats against them are falling on deaf ears because it is so constant.

She added that the ANC will defeat any motion of no confidence against President Cyril Ramaphosa in Parliament.