No confidence to be had in no-confidence debates

The DA's Kevin Mileham and Mmusi Maimane, at Thursday's largely fraught debate. Picture: Jeffrey Abrahams

The DA's Kevin Mileham and Mmusi Maimane, at Thursday's largely fraught debate. Picture: Jeffrey Abrahams

Published Nov 13, 2016

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While a vote of no confidence is a powerful tool, it’s how parties use it that counts, writes Dumisani Hlophe.

A parliamentary vote of no confidence brought by the opposition is not necessarily good for the opposition, but it’s inherently bad for the ruling party.

It ultimately depends how the opposition uses it - and how the ruling party responds.

Media headlines after the debate wrongly screamed that President Jacob Zuma “survived” a vote of no confidence.

The media possibly reached this conclusion because it focused on the numbers. That is, those who voted against the president’s resignation.

Earlier in the week, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe had equally committed a similar cardinal sin. He dismissed the debate brought by the DA as an “annual frivolous ritual”; and that “it had no chance of succeeding”.

He could reach this conclusion by only focusing on the ANC’s parliamentary majority. That is, he equally reduced the vote of no confidence debate to a numbers game.

Numerically, Mantashe was correct; the vote against Zuma had “no chance of succeeding”.

A parliamentary vote of no confidence for the president is actually part of the political power contestation by political parties.

Both the opposition and the ruling party can use this parliamentary feature of democracy to undermine their adversaries and advance their causes. On Thursday the DA, through its leader Mmusi Maimane, sought to do three things:

First, Maimane sought to present himself to South Africans as a statesman. He presented himself as a unifier of all - across political parties and civil society at large.

Possibly buoyed by the DA’s success at the local government elections, Maimane is beginning to fancy the DA as the ruling party and himself as the state president in the near future. He urged parliamentarians, ANC ones included, to choose South Africa over Zuma. In his own words, “put South Africa first”.

Second, he sought to project Zuma as unfit to hold office. In this focus, allegations of corruption and state capture became very useful for Maimane and his DA.

Maimane’s third factor was to deepen the internal tensions within the ruling ANC.

In this regard, he quoted several senior ANC officials who have in recent weeks and days intimated that President Zuma should resign as state president. These included Jackson Mthembu, chief whip; Dr Mathole Motshekga; Derek Hanekom; and others.

He even cited the ANC veterans who have recently expressed discomfort with the leadership of Jacob Zuma.

This therefore, is not a numbers game. The DA had no illusion that it would win the vote of no confidence for the removal of Jacob Zuma from the Union Buildings.

But, this is a broader DA strategy to cumulatively, muddle the image and integrity of the ruling party and weaken it in subsequent elections.

This is how the DA won the metros, by constantly and consistently sowing seeds of doubt over the ANC and its leadership to the electorate.

This is part of the DA’s 2019 campaign - projecting the ANC as unfit to govern. Thus, the vote of no confidence debate on the fitness of Zuma to govern is not “frivolous”, as Mantashe suggests.

A vote of no confidence is a perpetual powerful tool in the hands of both the opposition and the ruling party. It is what political parties manage with it that matters.

Water and Sanitation Minister Nomvula Mokonyane mounted a spirited defence of President Jacob Zuma, the ANC, and the ANC government. She combined a bit of a dirty tricks, and some substance.

The dirty trick was the common reference of Maimane as a “black face” fronting for white interests. Given the immediate reaction by the DA, it did sting. However, this tactic had not really worked in the last local government elections. It carried a sentimental value, but its effect remains limited.

Her key points were as follows: she accused the DA of manipulating parliamentary processes to secure what they did not win at the national and provincial elections.

She contrasted this with the ANC’s acceptance of the local government election’s adverse results, thus insisting that the DA should equally do the same at national level. The message was clear - let Zuma finish his term.

Perhaps her strong point was to accuse the DA of opportunistically minimising South Africa’s socio-economic problems solely to the rule of the ANC and the presidency of Jacob Zuma.

In the process, she accused the DA of absolving the apartheid masters from responsibility for current social problems, or at worst, the DA was actively pursuing an agenda of retaining apartheid economic patterns. Then she proceeded to highlight the ANC’s socio-economic agenda, and achievements.

But while the ANC got the formula right, the question really was whether the ANC presented substantive content. It’s an open-ended reflection that the ANC will have to constantly work on.

The vote of no confidence, therefore, is not the sole instrument of the opposition. It can be a very powerful tool of the ruling party. It’s not a numbers game per se. But a substantive instrument to caricature political opponents, while advancing their own positions.

The challenge faced by the ANC is that over time it has ceased to fight the war of the minds in this country.

It has long ceased to set the agenda and determine public opinion about itself, the government it leads, its own president and the direction of the country.

The ANC has ceased to set the agenda for society. Instead, it has become the agenda at dinner tables, braais, and all over. It is constantly on the defensive.

Arguments by Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba in Parliament on Thursday of a CIA-inspired regime change do not position the ANC as a leader of society, but a party suffering paranoia. This paranoia sends a message to the opposition - that the ANC is ready for the taking.

The Constitutional Court’s adverse decision on the president’s Nkandla matter should have crystalised to the ANC that Parliament is not about numerical superiority. It’s the substance of the arguments that matter. When the ruling party capacitates itself with leadership of society through transformational discourse, and public opinion of itself, its leaders and the government it runs, it will easily welcome no-confidence debates.

The media also will not see Zuma’s survival when his position was never threatened, or at risk!

* Hlophe is Governance Specialist at the Unisa School of Governance. He writes in his personal capacity.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

The Sunday Independent

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