Durban - The African National Congress and its Youth League in KwaZulu-Natal has said that ANC MPs who might have voted with opposition parties against President Jacob Zuma should face consequences.
Reacting to the result of the secret ballot which saw the ANC majority vote to keep President Zuma in power, KZN ANC spokesman Mdumiseni Ntuli said “the ANC is the party of consequences”.
ANCYL KwaZulu-Natal spokesman Mandla Shange said the result of the vote had “obviously showed that some of our MPs have voted with the opposition”.
“There are people who had openly spoken against the decision of the ANC. People like Derek Hanekom, Makhosi Khoza, Mondli Gungubele and Pravin Gordhan have openly opposed the decisions of the ANC.
“The ANC must act very decisively on them,” said Shange.
Ntuli said the province would calculate the results in order to establish if there were possibility that ANC MPs had voted with the opposition.
According to original parliamentary list the ANC should have 246 MPs, but there has been a number of resignations and deaths.
Out of a total of 384 MPs 198 - believed to be ANC members - voted “no”, while 177 voted “yes”, and nine abstained.
“Anybody who deviate from the party line should face consequences. If there were people who decided to vote in support of the motion it is inevitable that as KwaZulu-Natal we will support an action against them.
“The ANC must be the party of consequences, as you can’t just govern yourself and believe that the ANC would just keep quiet,” said Ntuli.
He said while the province would do the calculation, it would leave it to the National Executive Committee to investigate and “discipline those who were involved”.
“But our view is that anybody who undermines his own organisation deserve to be punished. That is why we are acting on Makhosi Khoza because we are opposed to people deciding to be above the ANC,” Ntuli said.
He said he could not only by looking at the results jump to conclusion as to how many ANC MPs voted “yes”.
“There were sizable number of the ANC MPs who were not there. I am not sure if Mama Winnie (Madikizela-Mandela) was there. I am not sure about Mcebisi Jonas.
“We did not replace the former Minister of Finance Nhlanhla Nene. So there are few vacancies,” he said.
Ntuli said the members of the ANC provincial executive committee in KwaZulu-Natal were sitting comfortable while watching parliamentary proceedings as “we knew that it was not going to be possible that the majority of the ANC members would be led by the opposition.”
“Even if there were problems in the ANC, the ANC can’t delegate its responsibility to the opposition.
“We had expected that President Zuma was going to enjoy majority support, and our MPs did not disappoint us,” said Ntuli.
ANC spokesman in KwaDukuza Region Thabani Mdlalose had accused opposition parties of using the motion out of bitterness for not having the majority, which the ANC enjoys in parliament.
“We are saying the ANC must be respected.
“It is enough that the opposition parties would collide in attempting to oust the president of the country,” said Mdlalose.
DA leader in KwaZulu-Natal Zwakele Mncwango had earlier described the ANC as “cancer and Zuma is just a cancerous cell that should be removed”.