Opposition party ejected from African parliament during brawl

About 20 Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party members, who were wrestled from their seats by plain-clothed guards, had refused to let Zuma speak and furiously shouted down Speaker Baleka Mbete.

Before the guards moved in, the EFF members, led by their firebrand “commander in chief” Julius Malema, yelled that it was the president who should be thrown out.

“He broke his oath of office. Zuma is the one who must go,” they shouted.

In March, the country’s highest court found that Zuma had violated the constitution over the spending of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money on his private rural residence at Nkandla in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.

In April another court said he should face almost 800 corruption charges relating to a multi-billion dollar arms deal, that were dropped in 2009, shortly before he became president.

Outside parliament, Malema told reporters and cheering supporters: “These bouncers must know that if they give violence, we will respond with violence. We are not scared.”

The disruption was the latest in a series of showdowns in parliament as pressure mounts on Zuma to resign or be axed as president by the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

He has been urged to step down by a number of senior ANC veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle, which brought liberation icon Nelson Mandela to power in 1994.

The parliament chaos comes a few months before local elections in August. Some analysts predict that if the party suffers a major drop in support, Zuma may not serve out the last three years of his final term.

Nevertheless, Zuma retains widespread loyalty in the party, and ANC lawmakers have regularly rallied to his defence.