Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa is supporting an ANC call to its MPs to vote along party lines in the motion of no confidence against President Jacob Zuma when it is debated in Parliament.
Ramaphosa yesterday accused opposition parties of refusing to accept the fact the ANC wants its MPs to toe the party line when they were doing exactly the same thing.
The deputy president also apologised over the Marikana massacre, saying it was his intention to take advice from ANC stalwart Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to go and visit the families of the 44 miners who were killed in August 2012.
Ramaphosa was answering questions in Parliament when he responded on Marikana and the motion of no confidence in Zuma.
The United Democratic Movement and other opposition parties will be in the Constitutional Court on Monday where the hearing on a secret ballot on the motion of no confidence will be heard.
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa took Speaker Baleka Mbete and Zuma to the Constitutional Court in a bid to allow a secret ballot to be taken at the conclusion of the debate.
Both Zuma and Mbete have opposed the UDM application.
Ramaphosa backed his party, which has insisted that all its MPs would toe the party line.
He was replying to questions from opposition MPs who are calling on their ANC counterparts to “vote with their conscience”.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane wanted to know if Ramaphosa would support a change in the electoral system.
He said a constituency-based system would make politicians more accountable to the voters who directly elected them.
Asked directly by Maimane if he would vote with his conscience on the motion against Zuma, Ramaphosa said parties must be allowed to tell their MPs how to vote.
“With a matter like this, it’s easy to play to the gallery. We are all here on a party mandate, from the president down (to the backbenchers),” said Ramaphosa.
He refused to comment on the stance taken by former presidents Thabo Mbeki, Kgalema Motlanthe and FW de Klerk on the removal of Zuma.
“We have a party system, and the party system dictates that we should exercise a vote in a particular way,” he said.
Ramaphosa also called for a discussion on the electoral system - on whether the proportional representation system was favoured or the constituency-based system.
However, he said the current system worked well because it allowed even smaller parties to be represented in Parliament.
On his apology on Marikana, he said he apologised for the language he used in an email he had sent to former minister of police Nathi Mthethwa.
Ramaphosa said he was responding to a question from a student at Rhodes University last weekend when he apologised.
“When I addressed students at Rhodes, one of the young people came to me and said I asked you that question because I wanted to understand what your conscience was telling you,” he said.
He said he was trying to stop the further killing of people at Marikana, as 10 people had already been slain, including miners, police officers and security guards.
He said that as a former general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, he was disturbed by the nature of the killings of the mineworkers.