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South African President Ramaphosa: remains in office
Photo: Nardus Engelbrecht / dpa
The debate was heated, but in the end MPs stood by him: a majority in South Africa's parliament voted against impeachment proceedings for President Cyril Ramaphosa.
A total of 214 MPs voted against, 148 in favor and two abstained.
After lengthy debates, the governing African National Congress (ANC) party backed Ramaphosa, who is accused of corruption.
The ANC has ruled South Africa for more than a quarter of a century.
He has an absolute majority in Parliament.
A week earlier, the 70-year-old Ramaphosa had filed an application with the country's constitutional court to have serious corruption allegations against him reviewed.
The President is heavily burdened by the report of a parliamentary commission of inquiry.
Accordingly, the head of state, who has been in office since 2018, is said to have violated both an anti-corruption law and the constitution.
However, his spokesman Vincent Magwenya described the report as "clearly flawed".
Independent legal experts also criticized that the report was largely based on unverified information and hearsay.
The background to the allegations is a robbery in which half a million US dollars were allegedly stolen from Ramaphosa's private cattle ranch in 2020.
The president – also a successful businessman and multi-millionaire – had reported the robbery, but not the disappearance of the money.
His predecessor Jacob Zuma, who ruled from 2009 to 2018, had to resign because of a corruption scandal.
The ANC, which emerged from the former freedom movement, has governed South Africa since the end of the racist apartheid regime in 1994.
mic/dpa