South Africa political deadlock as Zuma clings to power

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa's political impasse deepened on Saturday with no resolution to extended talks over President Jacob Zuma's expected departure from office after his own party called for him to resign.

Cyril Ramaphosa, the president-in-waiting, and the ruling ANC party have said negotiations should be concluded within days, but have given no details on how Zuma will be eased out of power.

The stalemate has left South Africa's political scene in limbo, with a series of public events cancelled this week including Thursday's State of the Nation address to parliament in Cape Town.

Zuma cleared his diary of weekend engagements, but his deputy Ramaphosa is to speak at a rally in the city on Sunday to kick off a year of celebrations marking 100 years since Nelson Mandela's birth.

February 11 also marks the day Mandela was released from jail in 1990 -- a key date in modern South Africa's re-birth as apartheid white-minority rule crumbled.

"We are confident when (Zuma and Ramaphosa) finish they'll give South Africa a positive way forward," Environment Minister Edna Molewa said Saturday.

"We are really saying: 'Just be patient'."

Susan Booysen, a politics professor from Wits University in Johannesburg, said Zuma may fight on for several more days.

"A stalemate is the best description for the situation," she told AFP.

"Zuma is a fighter to the end and is refusing to resign, while Ramaphosa doesn't want to be divisive.

"Zuma pretended to open the doors of negotiations, but he is digging in."