With the ANC no longer having a majority in parliament, its MPs have to enhance their capability to advance a superior logic in debates to persuade others to support their position.
ANC chief whip Mdumiseni Ntuli is the first ANC chief whip to lead a caucus that does not have the 50% + majority that his predecessors enjoyed and which allowed the ANC to push through unpopular decisions without the support of other parties.
“It's a challenging task, I must be honest. It's a really challenging task,” said Ntuli responding to a TimesLIVE question about leading the smallest ANC caucus since 1994.
But, he said, the ANC caucus understands that unlike in the past, all of its MPs will be required to effectively apply themselves to the work of parliament.
“There's no room for anyone to disappear for a day or two or for a meeting or two given the fact that numbers are not on our side — but equally we have a responsibility to enhance our capability to advance a superior logic in the work of parliament,” he said.
Ntuli said the party does not encourage matters to be settled by a vote. This was not only because the ANC no longer enjoyed a majority but because “we think the ANC should constantly cultivate its capacity to persuade the correctness of whatever position we want to advance or are advancing in a portfolio committee”.
This is quite a change of tactic by a party that previously pushed through unpopular decisions by using its numbers in the legislature.
The party's new challenge is that its MPs have to double their effort to enhance their skills in various parts of their responsibilities but equally to conduct research in a much more detailed way than they may have done in the past so that the ANC MPs are in a position to produce the most advanced logic on any policy direction that parliament is engaging on, said Ntuli.
He revealed that he was chairing a GNU whips forum, a platform on which the GNU parties exchange ideas about issues before parliament.
“We understand that there may be issues where we ourselves are disagreeing in the GNU and the commitment we have made is that never mind how much we disagree, we must never run away from engagement so that when we engage the possibility exists for us to have a meeting of minds. At some point, there may be certain concessions that each of the parties with strong views may have to make.
There's no room to disappear: ANC chief whip on leading a 40% caucus
Party is coming to terms with not having an outright majority in parliament
Image: Sandile Ndlovu
With the ANC no longer having a majority in parliament, its MPs have to enhance their capability to advance a superior logic in debates to persuade others to support their position.
ANC chief whip Mdumiseni Ntuli is the first ANC chief whip to lead a caucus that does not have the 50% + majority that his predecessors enjoyed and which allowed the ANC to push through unpopular decisions without the support of other parties.
“It's a challenging task, I must be honest. It's a really challenging task,” said Ntuli responding to a TimesLIVE question about leading the smallest ANC caucus since 1994.
But, he said, the ANC caucus understands that unlike in the past, all of its MPs will be required to effectively apply themselves to the work of parliament.
“There's no room for anyone to disappear for a day or two or for a meeting or two given the fact that numbers are not on our side — but equally we have a responsibility to enhance our capability to advance a superior logic in the work of parliament,” he said.
Ntuli said the party does not encourage matters to be settled by a vote. This was not only because the ANC no longer enjoyed a majority but because “we think the ANC should constantly cultivate its capacity to persuade the correctness of whatever position we want to advance or are advancing in a portfolio committee”.
This is quite a change of tactic by a party that previously pushed through unpopular decisions by using its numbers in the legislature.
The party's new challenge is that its MPs have to double their effort to enhance their skills in various parts of their responsibilities but equally to conduct research in a much more detailed way than they may have done in the past so that the ANC MPs are in a position to produce the most advanced logic on any policy direction that parliament is engaging on, said Ntuli.
He revealed that he was chairing a GNU whips forum, a platform on which the GNU parties exchange ideas about issues before parliament.
“We understand that there may be issues where we ourselves are disagreeing in the GNU and the commitment we have made is that never mind how much we disagree, we must never run away from engagement so that when we engage the possibility exists for us to have a meeting of minds. At some point, there may be certain concessions that each of the parties with strong views may have to make.
Mbalula calls GNU snub by SACP 'unfortunate' and a missed opportunity
“I know for instance that the DA has a very strong view about the SABC bill, it's a matter that we're going to discuss with them. (While) we continue to discuss it in the portfolio committee, equally we will have a dedicated time to reflect on that question,” he said.
Ntuli believes the mechanism has been working effectively but it didn’t mean there won't be a time where parties disagree.
“But our commitment is to ensure that we regularly engage one another as GNU partners but also to engage beyond the GNU partners, political parties that are represented in parliament because there may be instances where one of the GNU partners also raises a matter that gets the support of the opposition. So the engagement has to be a dynamic one which transcends the boundaries of the GNU.”
The forum of the GNU whips is not just a platform to deal with crisis, but brings together parties in the multiparty structure that otherwise ideologically do not share a common view on the project of social transformation.
“It has been our considered view as the ANC that if you work together and you want to build confidence and trust, you must have a regular interaction because some of what is known as areas of divergence between for instance the ANC and the DA and the ANC and the Freedom Front Plus or ANC and the IFP, some of them are more perception than reality about what we want to achieve and the disagreements are always about the method of achieving your own objectives as opposed to the objective itself.
“There are few instances where we disagree with the DA and we disagree fundamentally about certain issues and we have accepted that and in those areas where we disagree, we disagree and when they come before parliament we will have to find a mechanism through which we take positions and decide on the work of parliament.”
Ntuli emphasised that the forum was not a crisis committee but a committee that looks at the work of parliament to make an input in terms of how to deal with complex challenges which are being handled by various parliamentary committees.
TimesLIVE
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