South African President Cyril Ramaphosa secured a reprieve after a court decision on Friday temporarily halted a parliamentary impeachment probe into the leader of Africa’s biggest economy.
The order pauses what threatened to be a damaging political spectacle over the theft of $580,000 in cash from Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala private game farm. It also shields Pretoria’s fragile government — a market-friendly coalition formed after the African National Congress lost its majority in 2024 — from political rifts.
The ruling freezes public hearings and witness subpoenas until a full judicial review of the report underpinning the inquiry. The court will sit in September to decide whether to strike down the statutory foundation of the inquiry, delaying one of South Africa’s biggest political risks.