New President to be sworn in this afternoon
The swearing in of the new president will be brought forward from Friday morning to Thursday afternoon.
THE new President of the country will be sworn in at 2pm today. This follows the resignation of former President Jacob Zuma on Wednesday night.
The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa confers the powers to appoint and remove the President of the Republic of South Africa on the National Assembly.
After Zuma resigned, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa automatically became acting president of the Republic in accordance with Section 90 of the Constitution.
At a meeting with Parliament’s Joint Programming Committee on Thursday morning, ANC’s Parliamentary caucus Chief Whip Jackson Mthembu said following the resignation of the former President, the swearing in of the new President would be brought forward from Friday morning to Thursday afternoon.
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“We received communication from the Speaker [Baleka Mbete] that she has communicated with the Office of the Chief Justice and the Office of the Chief Justice has made itself available today to officiate in the business of electing a new president. As we all know, President Jacob Zuma has resigned and then there is a need for Parliament to elect a new President.
“We had put that programme of electing a new President in our programme of the National Assembly for tomorrow morning. If we then make this sitting of today which was supposed to be dealing with the motion of no confidence to elect the new President, then we have an opening tomorrow.”
Meanwhile, the meeting agreed that the newly sworn-in President will deliver the State of the Nation Address (SONA) tomorrow (16 February) at 7pm.
