Cape Town - The DA’s calls for ANC MPs to ditch party loyalty and “vote with their conscience” in the mooted motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma has been labelled hypocritical by analysts.
This is in light of the DA’s own constitution stating that its members stand to lose membership if they vote against a party member in a motion of no confidence.
Political analyst Somadoda Fikeni said the DA’s calls were nothing but partisan politics, and it was hypocritical of the opposition party to urge members of the ANC to defy their party orders.
“Double standards have been part of our politics for some time, where parties abandon their own policies to make various gains."
“Similarly with corruption, they (DA) make so much noise about corruption in the public sector, but they say nothing about it (corruption) in the private sector, because it is closer to them and funds them,” Fikeni said.
A clause in the DA constitution states that a member ceases to be a member of the party when he or she votes in a manner other than in accordance with a party caucus decision which is consistent with party policy.
It further states that membership can be revoked if members vote in favour of or in any other manner in support of a motion of no confidence against a member of the party except with leave from the federal executive.
But the party’s chief whip, John Steenhuisen has rubbished the claims of hypocrisy, saying the vote of no confidence in Zuma signified a crucial time in the country’s history.
Steenhuisen argued that the DA constitution was crafted carefully so that if the federal executive was divided on the future direction of the country, it would allow members to vote freely without the lead of the federal executive.
“I am really doubtful that if our party was in the same divided, split and fractured nature that the ANC finds itself in, that it would be very difficult to sustain not allowing our members of Parliament to vote how they felt,” he added.He said the party’s federal executive has the power to pass a resolution which would allow members of Parliament to vote in a way they wish, if the party was facing a similar situation as the ANC.
“DA’s federal executive would certainly not expect MPs to toe the party line, particularly when the party itself is in such turmoil,” he said.
Protas Madlala, also a political analyst, said the DA’s calls to the ruling party MPs smacked of hypocrisy.
“It is not only the DA, even the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) are being hypocritical and that’s why they pushed the United Democratic Movement (UDM) to make the court application for the motion of no confidence,” said Madlala.