Tuesday may have been a good day for the ANC in Parliament, but it was not a good day for democracy, says Marianne Merten.
Cape Town - Make no mistake, Parliament is a highly political arena, and the ANC skillfully outmanoeuvred the opposition to soundly defeat the motion of no confidence in Speaker Baleka Mbete.
But in doing so the majority party scored a democratic own goal.
The lasting image is of the ANC, its benches packed with ministers and MPs, sitting by itself to use its numerical dominance to vote down the motion after an opposition walk-out saw the departure of even MPs whose parties did not agree with the DA-led motion.
The 234 against, zero for and no abstention vote recorded in the electronic voting system – followed by a round of applause – ended a fractious debate, marked by an undercurrent of nastiness, with labels like “token”, “counter-revolutionary”, “factory fault”, “losers” and “hypocrites” fired off by several ANC speakers amid rigorous finger-wagging. The talk of “buttocks” and “rented crowds” from the opposition benches contributed to this new low point in parliamentary debates.
The ANC brought a political argument to counter what the opposition cited as a series of failures by Mbete to act as an impartial Speaker by serving as both Speaker and ANC national chairwoman.
As DA parliamentary leader Mmusi Maimane in whose name the motion was brought, put it – the motion of no confidence vote was one either for South Africa or Luthuli House.
The ANC argument went like this: the ANC is the ruling party, whose majority was confirmed as recently as the May 7 elections when it gained 11.4 million votes, and as the liberation movement it is the leader in society, a position the opposition parties lacked the legitimacy to challenge, hence its resort to undermining democratic institutions. No one captured it better than the debate’s battle axe, Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula: “What gives this bunch of losers and hypocrites the audacity to question the ANC deployment policy?… The Speaker is not a consultant in this House. She is an elected member of the ANC… and the ANC has won majority rule and therefore we don’t apologise”.
Why does this matter? Tone of debates or the flurries of points of order, the MP’s weapon to disarm an opponent, have little direct impact on South Africans’ daily battles amid rising electricity, petrol and food prices, to find jobs or to access quality health care, housing or basic services.
While Parliament is a political terrain, its rules are aimed to ensure a fair contest in constitutionally-enshrined multi-party democracy whose systems are geared towards enabling a multiplicity of voices. Thus even a 0.25 percent polling support leads to a seat in the National Assembly, and finance from the public purse to help run a political party.
Under the parliamentary rules opposition parties have the right to bring motions of no confidence, make critical members’ statements, tackle what they deem policy inconsistencies and delivery failures during debates or passage of legislation. The ANC has the right to counter any and all of these by any means it deems necessary, from sweetheart questions to ministers to astute arguments picking apart opposition parties illogicalities.
But to effectively facilitate this, the Speaker must have and retain the confidence of all political parties, not just the majority party. The need for neutrality is emphasised by the election of the Speaker from among MPs by a secret ballot overseen by the chief justice.
Thus is it good enough, as Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor asked, that “the Speaker has done all a Speaker should do. She has convened sittings, question days, members motions and debates agreed by parties?”
In 1994, the ANC changed the seating in the House so opposition party leaders had front row seats, and could be seen in the regular television broadcasts, in a move to entrench a new democratic culture in the legislature. Ten years ago with the introduction of chairpersons to assist in presiding over the House, one of the three posts was allocated to the opposition parties. While the seating arrangements remain, there is no longer an opposition party house chairperson – and for the first time in 20 years an ANC party office bearer is in charge as the National Assembly presiding officer.
Tuesday’s debate saw a show of force with ANC supporters, many dressed in yellow “Vote ANC” T-shirts or the ANC Women’s League green and black outfits, taxied in for the day – and addressed by Mbete from a police van using a police loudhailer in the presence of National Council of Provinces chairwoman Thandi Modise before the debate.
By facing off the opposition parties in the way the ANC did, the majority party avoided possible court action as happened over the motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma, when the courts asked Parliament to fix a vacuum in its rules in that matter.
But the democratic ground narrowed in the unfolding acrimonious debate.
If opposition frustration is not meaningfully addressed, there is a risk they will resort to withdrawing MPs from the House at crucial times to ensure the required 200 plus one quorum is not met. Legislation cannot be passed, debates would fall flat and votes to adopt anything from committee oversight reports to international treaties will be scuppered.
Tuesday may have been a good day for the ANC in Parliament, but it was not a good day for democracy.
Political Bureau