S. African Parliament Rejects Motion To İmpeach Zuma

South Africa's parliament on Tuesday rejected a proposal to establish a committee to look into whether or not President Jacob Zuma was fit to hold office.



The motion was proposed by the Democratic Alliance (DA), the country's main opposition party, which says Zuma violated the constitution by failing to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir – for whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued two arrest warrants – when the latter visited the country in June.



"President Zuma attacked the very foundation of our constitutional democracy," DA leader Musi Maimane told parliament.



"Our broken president broke the law to protect yet another broken man," he said.



President Zuma, Maimane went on to assert, should face impeachment for having allowed al-Bashir to leave the country when a South African high court had issued an interim order preventing him from doing so.  



In a parliamentary vote, 211 MPs voted against the DA's proposal, 100 voted in favor and 17 abstained.



In June, a high court in Pretoria issued an interim order blocking al-Bashir, who was in South Africa to attend an African Union summit, from leaving the country.  



Al-Bashir, however, defied the order and flew back to Khartoum unhindered.



The South African opposition and judiciary had expressed displeasure at the time with the government's apparent failure to respect the court order.



In 2009 and 2010, the ICC issued two separate arrest warrants for al-Bashir for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Sudan's Darfur region.



Lindiwe Zulu, a government minister, defended the decision to allow the Sudanese president to leave, telling parliament that al-Bashir's arrest in South Africa would have led to instability in Sudan and jeopardized Pretoria's relations with other African countries.



The ruling African National Congress currently enjoys a majority in South Africa's parliament. - Güney Afrika