Secret ballot: 'Best news of the year'

If Baleka Mbete can do it, then nothing should stop ANC MPs from going against the party line.

This sums up the sentiment by opposition party leaders who applauded her decision to allow a secret ballot in a vote of no confidence against President Jacob Zuma in parliament today.

Economic Freedom Front leader Julius Malema said he hoped Mbete's decision would inspire ANC MPs to go against the party line.

"If Baleka went against the party line, in the open, what stops an ANC MP from going against the line in secret?" he said.

United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa, who led the legal battle for a secret ballot, said he hoped all MPs would use the opportunity to "put South Africa first".

"It's time for public representatives to honour their oath of office," he said.

DA leader Mmusi Maimane described the decision as "historic", saying he hoped it allowed MPs to exercise their conscience "freely and fairly".

IFP chief whip Narend Singh said he would write to the ANC's Jackson Mthembu to request an urgent meeting ahead of the debate to discuss the procedures of how voting would take place. This was important because there should be no fear among MPs that people could determine how they had voted.

Singh said that while Mthembu had previously indicated that a removal of the president could be a "nuclear bomb", he hoped that this bomb would be "cleansing", ridding the country of "graft and corruption".

Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota called the decision "groundbreaking".

ACDP leader the Reverend Kenneth Meshoe was "delighted that rationality has prevailed".

Pieter Groenewald of the FF-Plus was more guarded in his response, saying ANC MPs could still decide to toe the party line.

Protesters, who started marching from Keizersgracht Street in Cape Town towards parliament yesterday, were overjoyed.

"Excellent! The best news of the day, the month, the week, the year. I think there is a 50/50 chance that Zuma will be ousted," said
a religious leader.

Thousands more are expected to take to the streets today to call for Zuma's removal.