Deliberations of the national assembly were already painful before Covid forced us to keep away from each other. When limited gatherings were allowed under level three, parliament reorganised its sittings via a hybrid method, where half of the MPs are in the chamber, and the other connect virtually from elsewhere. You would think that after months of this virtual set up our esteemed members would be used to the etiquette of virtual meetings: Always keep your mic on mute unless it’s your turn to speak.
The national assembly is supposed to be the country’s premier debate platform, where our elected representatives gather to not just process legislation before them, but to engage in informed and intellectual discussions on matters of national importance. Every discussion that takes place in this august house inevitably affects millions of lives outside it, and those tasked with the responsibility of representing the people must always keep this in mind when engaging in discussions.
Of course, the house is also a political institution where parties of different ideological dispositions are given a platform to display the superiority of their beliefs. But since the number of seats is allocated in proportion to the number of votes a political party obtained in the general elections, the national assembly can be frustrating for smaller parties. Their vote on legislation and other issues is almost always inconsequential and they get very limited time to speak. The voice of the ANC, with 230 seats, automatically holds sway when it comes to passing of legislation, adoption of reports or any other matters that must eventually come to a vote.
Political decisions in the national assembly are not decided by how loudly you scream, but by how many seats you have.
As expected, the ANC easily succeeded in having parliament adopt the report of an independent panel into whether an inquiry into public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office should proceed. This motion was adopted despite loud-hailing from the EFF, the public protector’s new best friends. Earlier pronouncements outside the house by prominent Radical Economic Transformation (RET) members and ANC MPs Supra Mahumapelo, Kebby Maphatsoe and Mervin Dicks against the vote did not even feature in the house. Ace Magashule must have been embarrassed after he vowed to the Sunday Times that ANC MPs would not vote for a motion sponsored by the opposition. So much for that!
I would be very worried if I were Mkhwebane. The EFF is going to court to challenge the vote that adopted the report of the independent panel, setting up the inquiry into her fitness to hold office. They are going to lose. Her friends in the RET faction have also not come through for her. All it took was a 15-minute impromptu caucus meeting for ANC national chair Gwede Mantashe to warn his MPs to toe the line or else. This vote is just the beginning of a protracted process to get her out of office. There will be court challenges and appeals, but after what happened in the national assembly, she will know that she has no political protection whatsoever, and that her days are numbered.
Political decisions in the national assembly are not decided by how loudly you scream, but by how many seats you have. For once, the DA played its political game perfectly. All they had to do was convince the ANC to support the motion to remove Mkwhwebane and it was game over. No matter how much noise the EFF made, once the ANC took a position on the matter, it became a fait accompli. There was a time closer to the vote when Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu were just going off on a tangent trying to frustrate the process, but their noise was eventually drowned out by an overwhelming vote.
Mkhwebane played the losing game from the start and is now paying the heavy price. You cannot go to war with a sitting President of a party with a parliamentary majority, in his first term, and expect to escape unscathed. She has also been found wanting on the legal front, losing almost every court case, weakening her on two fronts.
If I were the RET faction I'd be cutting her loose round about now; she has become a liability. What they should focus on henceforth is working to oust Ramaphosa in the party and not outside of it.
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