South African lawmakers chose a critic of President Cyril Ramaphosa to head an inquiry into whether the head of state should face impeachment, in a move seen as preserving the probe’s independence. Ramaphosa launched a lawsuit last week after the Constitutional Court ordered a revival of an inquiry over his handling of the 2020 theft of foreign currency at his game farm. The president has effectively tied his personal political survival to the credibility of some of the most respected institutions in Africa’s biggest economy, all of which have cleared him of wrongdoing.
The parliamentary committee overseeing the probe, which met for the first time this week, elected Makashule Gana, an MP from the smaller social democratic RISE Mzansi party. Gana, who has no documented links to Ramaphosa, holds a casting vote in a deadlock, and wields power to summon individuals and demand documents.
The selection may help the ruling coalition to quiet fears that Ramaphosa’s African National Congress party would install a loyalist to oversee a whitewash. Still, the process faces immediate legal challenges: Ramaphosa launched a legal bid to overturn an underlying report, arguing it relied on hearsay and misapplied the legal threshold for misconduct.