JohannesburgParliament dodged Ramaphosa’s impeachment for 2 years.
South Africa’s Constitutional Court ruled Parliament’s refusal unconstitutional; removal requires a 2/3 parliamentary vote — more than any single party controls.
The Democratic Alliance holds the votes to reach that threshold; it has not said how it will vote.
Sources: Daily Maverick
THE MECHANISM
South Africa's Section 89 impeachment requires a two-thirds vote of the National Assembly to remove a president for serious violation of the constitution, serious misconduct, or inability to perform office. It has never succeeded. The bar is deliberately higher than a no-confidence motion, which needs only a simple majority.
THE PHALA PHALA INCIDENT
In 2020, thieves broke into Ramaphosa's game farm and stole foreign currency stuffed inside a sofa. The amount — never officially confirmed — was reportedly several million dollars in undeclared US cash from a buffalo sale. The cover-up, not the theft, became the scandal: the Reserve Bank, SARS, and Parliament were never notified as law requires.
THE SECTION 89 PANEL
In 2022, an independent panel led by former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo found prima facie evidence Ramaphosa may have violated the constitution and the anti-corruption act. Parliament, controlled by his own ANC, voted not to adopt the report — burying the impeachment process before it began. That parliamentary refusal is what the Constitutional Court has now struck down.
THE ARITHMETIC
The ANC lost its outright majority in May 2024 for the first time since 1994, taking 40%. The Democratic Alliance — now its coalition partner in the Government of National Unity — holds 22%. Together with smaller parties opposed to Ramaphosa, the two-thirds threshold is mathematically reachable, but the DA breaking with its own coalition president would collapse the GNU itself.
THE CONCOURT'S ROLE
South Africa's Constitutional Court was designed in 1994 as a check on parliamentary majoritarianism — a deliberate break from the apartheid-era doctrine of parliamentary supremacy. It has repeatedly forced Parliament to do what political incentives push it to avoid: in 2016, it ruled that Parliament had failed to hold Zuma accountable over Nkandla; the Phala Phala ruling extends that line.
THE ZUMA PRECEDENT
Jacob Zuma faced eight no-confidence votes and a Section 89 process and survived all of them while in office. He eventually resigned in 2018 under ANC internal pressure, not parliamentary vote. The lesson South African political watchers draw: presidents fall through party caucuses, not floor votes — which is why the DA's posture matters less than what the ANC's National Executive Committee decides.