JOHANNESBURG — Top leaders of South Africa’s African National Congress said on Tuesday that they had rejected calls for President Jacob Zuma to step down, reaffirming their support for the unpopular, though still powerful, leader.

Officials confirmed for the first time that some members of the party’s national executive committee, which has the authority to remove Zuma as the country’s president, had introduced a motion urging Zuma to resign during a three-day meeting that ended Monday night. No vote was taken, though committee members directly debated the issue, officials said.

In a possible sign of Zuma’s unpopularity, however, three ANC leaders declined to say at a news conference why the committee had decided to back the president.

“There was a robust debate in the NEC, for and against,’’ the party’s secretary general, Gwede Mantashe, said, referring to the committee.

At the meeting, a minority of committee members, including three members of Zuma’s Cabinet, said that the president — who has been embroiled in a series of scandals since assuming office seven years ago — is harming the party’s fortunes, according to South Africa’s media.

In August, the ANC suffered its worst showing at the polls since taking power after the end of apartheid in 1994. It lost control of major cities in local elections, and experts attributed the results to Zuma’s poor standing.

At the conference, Mantashe said, members discussed the “negative narrative directed at the president’’ as well as a recent recommendation by the public protector’s office that Zuma’s administration be investigated for corruption.

Zuma’s survival was never in doubt because the 104-member executive committee is packed with loyalists appointed by him over the years.

New York Times