The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
During the apartheid era, Zuma, who had no formal education, spent 10 years in jail on Robben Island alongside Nelson Mandela before rising through the ANC ranks to take power in 2009.
Local media said he had been pushing for a resignation deal that would include his legal fees to fight a series of criminal charges — but Zuma denied it in his speech.
One case against him relates to 783 payments he allegedly received linked to an arms deal before he came to power.
Other graft allegations have centred on the three Gupta brothers, who are accused of unfairly obtaining lucrative government contracts and even hand-picking Zuma’s ministerial appointments.
Police on Thursday said an arrest warrant had been issued for one of the brothers, Ajay Gupta.
The political standoff had plunged South Africa — the continent’s most developed economy — into confusion over who was actually running the country.
– Tricky election looms –
Zuma, a Zulu traditionalist with four wives and a proud singing voice, had been scheduled to stand down next year after serving the maximum of two terms.
In local polls in 2016, the ANC recorded its worst electoral result since coming to power in 1994 under Mandela as white-minority rule fell.
Ramaphosa, 65, must now work to revive the economy and crack down on what he has admitted is rampant government corruption if he is to repair the party’s tarnished reputation before a tricky general election next year.
He is a former trade unionist and Mandela ally who led talks to end apartheid in the early 1990s and then became a multi-millionaire businessman before returning to politics.
