After the past week’s events, how long can the ruling party keep backing an embattled and discredited president, asks Craig Dodds.
At first it seemed the ANC benches would leave President Jacob Zuma twisting in the breeze as opposition parties tore into him during the debate on the State of the Nation Address this week.
There was a pre-emptive point of order about the EFF having sat down during the Afrikaans part of the national anthem, but it received only desultory support and then DA leader Mmusi Maimane and the EFF’s Julius Malema let rip.
Zuma was not an honourable man, said Maimane, or he would resign. He had built himself a big house on the backs of the poor. He had allowed the education of the African child to deteriorate.
On he went, trashing Zuma’s record and, by extension, that of the governing party.
Silence from the ANC.
Malema was even more ruthless, attacking Zuma’s personal history, invoking his rape trial and other personal indiscretions, not to mention his relationship with the Guptas.
Even premiers were accused, not just of being corrupt, but of taking out hits on opponents.
Malema may have anticipated howls of outrage and calls for him to withdraw, possibly another showdown with the presiding officers, but there was nothing.
Or perhaps he had calculated that by attacking Zuma and the “premier league” he would be pouring salt on the ANC’s wounds, its deep disquiet over the very issues he was raising, and he knew there would be no appetite for battle.
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It was just more than a week since the president had hung Parliament, and the ANC caucus in particular, out to dry in the Constitutional Court – admitting, as the party had refused to do in the course of its defence of him, he was bound by the public protector’s remedial actions on Nkandla.
Speaker Baleka Mbete, whose own counsel appeared to have been blindsided by Zuma’s move, belatedly announced Malema’s speech would be struck from the record, but the damage was done.
Certainly, following reports its MPs were furious over the betrayal, the DA seemed to believe the ANC caucus was not up for the fight.
Chief whip John Steenhuisen gleefully suggested how hard it must have been to come up with a list of ANC speakers to rise in Zuma’s defence, while MP Zakhele Mbhele noted that no National Assembly MPs, other than ministers and deputies who owed their jobs to Zuma, had spoken from the ANC side.
But on Wednesday the governing party put its game face on.
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Its argument, through Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel, Deputy Minister in the Presidency Buti Manamela, Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor and others, focused mainly on the economy, jobs and what the government had achieved and was doing to get things back on track.
But there were also some withering attacks on the DA and EFF, with Manamela, Pandor and MPL Tasneem Motara to the fore.
Zuma was so grateful for the latter’s intervention he just about skipped out of his seat to congratulate her.
The rest of the ANC troops also recovered their mojo, losing no opportunity to harass opposition speakers.
Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota struck a nerve, though, when he declared Parliament was in breach of its constitutional obligation to hold the executive to account.
A “faction” in the legislature, in collaboration with the presiding officers, had supported the president in undermining the constitution when he ignored the findings of the public protector, Lekota said, and NCOP deputy chairman Raseriti Tau instantly bent over backwards to prove him right, declaring the use of the word “faction” to be unparliamentary.
He was on the brink of summoning security to remove the entire DA caucus during the ensuing row – with the raucous support of some ANC MPs – when a whisper in his ear from the table staff brought him to his senses.
But the incident showed how uncomfortable the party is with the accusation made by Lekota that its abdication of its duty to scrutinise executive action had pitched the country “deep into a constitutional crisis”.
Its discomfort will only worsen, now Mbete has confirmed a date, March 1, for debate on a motion of no confidence in the president, tabled by the DA.
It’s not clear whether the Constitutional Court will have delivered judgment in the Nkandla matter by then, or whether it will grant a declaratory order that Zuma has breached his oath of office – something his legal team stressed would be seized on by opposition parties as a reason to impeach him.
The no-confidence debate is not an impeachment and there is in any case zero chance ANC MPs would support an opposition motion which, if successful, would oblige the president and his cabinet to resign.
But, given the level of Zuma fatigue in the party and the ignominy it has suffered in his defence, it would be an unpleasant experience for its MPs to go on national TV again and deny through their vote that he is not fit to hold the office he does – especially if the court has already announced that he has broken his oath.
In any case, this was already one of Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s findings.
ANC chief whip Stone Sizani has already said there will be no secret ballot for the vote and anyone not prepared to toe the ANC line should leave the party.
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe also made it clear at Friday’s march to the Union Buildings that the party considered any attack on Zuma to be an attack on itself.
So, at least until after the upcoming local government elections, Zuma is safe.
But it remains to be seen whether ANC MPs will have been galvanised by Constitutional Court proceedings to change their executive-friendly mindset.
With the party showing signs of intent to crack the whip on government performance and particularly the performance of state-owned enterprises, it is possible some who have been shielded by Zuma up until now will henceforth bear the brunt of the ANC’s wrath.
Like the “Prague Spring” Parliament enjoyed in the brief interregnum between Thabo Mbeki’s ousting as ANC president and the fourth Parliament when things reverted pretty much to normal, interesting times lie ahead in the legislature.
Political Bureau