Baleka Mbete fuels crises by shielding inept leaders

Baleka Mbete must shoulder much of the blame for the social grants debacle, writes John Steenhuisen

Amajor debate is raging in the UK over the partiality of the speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow.

Bercow's cardinal sin? Being caught up in a row after a leading Sunday newspaper revealed that he had voted for the "Remain" campaign in the Brexit referendum on Britain's membership of the EU.

This would probably strike most South Africans as somewhat frivolous, given the almost daily display of blatant party political partisanship by our National Assembly speaker, Baleka Mbete.

The fifth democratic parliament has been characterised by the robust and often violent and chaotic scenes that have come to typify the "high days" in the chamber.

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It is simplistic to exclusively apportion blame to so-called "disruptive" parties represented in parliament without simultaneously examining how the overtly partisan role and lack of leadership by the speaker have equally contributed to the breakdowns in the house.

It would be reckless, too, to simply point to the disrespect shown to Mbete without referring to the remarkable disrespect and dishonour she herself has shown to the important office of speaker.

Nowhere is this more evident than the manner in which the executive is protected by Mbete during oral question sessions.

Bearing in mind that these are the only unscripted exchanges where MPs can truly hold the executive accountable, Mbete's default position of protecting the executive from difficult and probing questions by MPs lays the foundations for disaster.

An excellent example is the way in which Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini was consistently aided and abetted by Mbete to avoid answering tough questions relating to the social grants crisis.

For months, whenever opposition parties put the facts, raised the alarm and aimed to arrive at solutions, Dlamini was allowed to intentionally mislead the house to the effect that her department stood ready to take over grant payments on April 1 2017.

When opposition MPs challenged these obvious lies, Mbete was the first to rush to Dlamini's defence in not forcing her to answer questions.

Instead of scrutiny, Dlamini was shielded from accountability. This crisis could have been avoided had parliament been protected in performing its role by a speaker who actually placed the institution above her organisation.

It is also for this reason that the SABC was virtually brought to its knees before Minister of Communications Faith Muthambi belatedly felt the firm hand of parliamentary accountability in the ad hoc committee probing the SABC.

For an entire year before this, Muthambi was allowed to regularly evade parliamentary accountability with impunity by simply not answering written and oral questions by opposition MPs, or by simply not showing up, with no discernable steps by Mbete to force Muthambi to account.

The National Assembly Guide to Procedure, published in 2004, sets out that "although affiliated to a political party, the Speaker is required to act impartially and to protect the rights of all parties. Equally, he or she is entitled to support from all members, whatever their political affiliation."

This indicates that for the National Assembly to function correctly there has to exist a covenant of mutual respect between parties represented in the assembly and the speaker.

The rules of parliament in acknowledging the key importance of this covenant also direct the speaker to conduct herself impartially.

Rule 26(4) states that "the speaker must act fairly and impartially and apply the rules with due regard to ensuring the participation of members of all parties in a manner consistent with democracy".

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Whenever the speaker acts in a way that is partisan, biased or conducts herself in a manner that favours a single political agenda, she breaks that covenant and at the same time undermines the very rules that she is tasked with upholding.

She does this at her peril and by extension opens herself up to attack and also places the consistent enforceability of the rules of the National Assembly at great risk.

The genesis of this problem is the incongruous duality of Mbete's roles as chairwoman of her political party and as speaker.

The roles are mutually exclusive. While the South African constitution does not require, as is the case in Britain, that the speaker resign from any political role, her senior political role in the top six of her party makes it impossible for Mbete to ever be seen as acting impartially.

South Africa requires a functioning and vibrant parliament if our multiparty democracy is to survive.

It also requires a parliament that is unafraid to hold the executive accountable as the constitution prescribes.

It is equally essential that parliament is not impeded from performing rigorous oversight and from asking the tough questions.

Sadly, speaker Mbete has sullied the role to such an extent that she is regarded as little more than the goalkeeper for the executive, rather than the champion of the institution.

As she tries her best to kill off proper parliamentary accountability and strangle impartiality, Mbete would do well to remember the dying curse of Mercutio in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet of destructive behaviour being "a plague on both your houses".

Her partiality is having the same effect, as the grants debacle proves.

• Steenhuisen is the DA chief whip in the National Assembly