The African National Congress staged a coup today and publicly fired the President of the country. Most of the cabinet will stay on, however. It's believed that the reason for the coup is so his successor, Jacob Zuma, can avoid further criminal charges.
"After a long and difficult discussion the ANC decided to recall the President before his term of office expires," Gwede Mantashe, the ANC's secretary-general, said in a press conference east of Johannesburg. The ANC has no right to do this, but Thabo Mbeki is no Nelson Mandela. Something like this cannot happen in the United States. Can You imagine the Republican National Committee ordering Bush to resign and give the job to Cheney?
ANC president Jacob Zuma was tried for rape, but , according to Wikipedia, on "8 May 2006, the Court dismissed the charges, agreeing that the sexual act in question was consensual. During the trial, Zuma admitted to having unprotected sex with his accuser but claimed that he took a shower afterwards to cut the risk of contracting HIV. This statement has been condemned by the judge, health experts, AIDS activists and the public in general."
That's the kind of thing that you can get away with when you have the courts in your pocket. More evidence of this kind of thing turned up just the other day when "On September 12, 2008, Pietermaritzburg Judge Chris Nicholson held that Zuma's corruption charges were unlawful on procedural grounds in that the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions ("NDPP") did not give Zuma a chance to make representations before deciding to charge him (this is a requirement of the South Africa Constitution), and directed the state to pay legal costs.
Now Zuma is going to become president almost immediately. SA had such potential. Mandela was a great man, and when he stepped down after two terms, it was thought that this could be the shining example to the rest of Africa. Instead, under Mbeki, it has gotten substantially worse, and the coup is one more step on the road to ruin. Cry the beloved country.