Today's Signal
Ramaphosa refuses to resign as Phala Phala impeachment committee opens
The political class South African returnees came home around is now formally on trial.
President Cyril Ramaphosa told the nation on May 11 that he will not resign over the Constitutional Court’s May 8 ruling, which found that the National Assembly acted unlawfully in 2022 when it voted against adopting the Section 89 panel report on the 2020 Phala Phala farm robbery. National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza moved the same day to establish an impeachment committee. Ramaphosa says he will take the panel report on judicial review to halt the committee process.
For South African diasporans, the next two quarters now contain real political uncertainty. The Phala Phala saga has been the slow-burn scandal of the post-Zuma ANC era; an active impeachment process compounds the political instability already triggered by Pretoria’s January temporary withdrawal from the G20 and the wider US-South Africa diplomatic rift.
Returnees who left in the Zuma years and came back under Ramaphosa’s stabilisation narrative should not panic, but should re-examine assumptions: investment timing, property purchases, and the durability of policy continuity all sit on this outcome.