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🇿🇦 Opposition parties ask Africa’s top court to revive impeachment hearings for the president

Two South African opposition parties asked the country’s top court Tuesday to revive impeachment proceedings against President Cyril Ramaphosa over a scandal where more than half a million dollars in cash was stashed in a couch at his ranch and then stolen.

The leftist Economic Freedom Fighters and African Transformation Movement want the Constitutional Court to overrule a vote by Parliament in late 2022 that saved Ramaphosa from impeachment hearings.

Ramaphosa’s African National Congress party used its parliamentary majority to stop an impeachment vote by lawmakers. But the opposition parties say Parliament did not fulfill its constitutional duty to hold the president to account after a preliminary investigation found some evidence of misconduct by Ramaphosa and recommended a full probe.

The opposition parties want a full parliamentary investigation.

Ramaphosa was cleared of wrongdoing by financial authorities, by a public watchdog and by police after a two-year criminal investigation.

The case threatened Ramaphosa’s leadership after it was revealed in June 2022 that around $580,000 in U.S. banknotes was stolen from a couch at his game farm. The theft happened in early 2020 but came to light two years later.

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