Zuma Managed To Stay İn Power

South African President Jacob Zuma has managed to stay in power after a tight vote on a motion of no confidence against him, the eighth time he has shrugged off such a challenge.

After hours of debate and days of mounting political tension in South Africa, the final tally of the vote came out as 177 out of 384 votes for yes, 198 for no and nine abstentions.

While he had successfully navigated seven such votes, today's was different as for the first time MPs could vote anonymously.

During the debate, opposition MPs sought to convince ANC MPs to vote with their conscience and not along party lines. To a degree they succeeded, with the vote showing that the vote in support of Zuma was noticeably less than the number of seats held by the ANC.

That some ANC members had voted in support of the motion of no confidence, was something which opposition parties have hailed as unprecedented

With a handful of MPs absent from today's vote, there were 87 of the 89 Democratic Alliance (DA) MPs and all 25 of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) MPs in the house. The ANC won 249 seats in Parliament in the last elections, but two deaths have reduced that number to 247 members of Parliament, while it was also expected that not all ANC MPs would be present.

Included within the ANC's block are 36 members of the SA Communist Party, which has in the past spoken out against Zuma. Despite having given criticism of the ANC's leadership, SACP leaders had encouraged their members to vote with the partners in the ruling tripartite alliance.

The resulted was announced by National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete. Had the motion been successful, she would have stood in as head of the state and Parliament would have had 30 days to vote ina  new cabinet.

The ANC will in December hold its national conference at which a new leader of the party will take power. Several contenders have announced their bids, with front runners being Zuma's ex wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who up till recently headed the African Union and has held ministerial positions in previous presidencies. Another lead contender is deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa. - Town