National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete is a “player” for President Jacob Zuma's ANC, the DA said.
Calling on MPs from all parties to support a motion of no confidence in the Speaker, Democratic Alliance parliamentary leader Mmusi Maimane said Mbete had a conflict of interest.
“Let me be clear, this motion is not personal. This is not about Baleka Mbete. Honourable Mbete is a competent member of this House. She's a former deputy president. She has her flaws, but we respect her as an experienced politician.
“What this motion is about is about the office she holds in the ANC, and what it means to holding the office of Speaker.”
Mbete could not serve as a leader of the ANC and a neutral Speaker.
“The conflict of interest is untenable.”
Mbete had been deployed as Speaker to ensure Zuma did not have to face any tough questions.
“She came here not as an honest referee, but as a player for President Zuma's ANC. She sold out this Parliament to her masters at Luthuli House,” Maimane said.
The debate on Mbete soon turned fractious as several Economic Freedom Fighters MPs rose to object to noise made by ANC supporters packed into the public gallery.
EFF chief whip Floyd Shivambu said those in the gallery had clearly been “rented to come and disrupt this sitting today”.
Party leader Julius Malema added: “We cannot be harassed by the ANC in here and up there”, and asked deputy speaker Lechesa Tsenoli to order them out of the chamber.
Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor rose to say she believed members of the public should respect calls to keep quiet, but it would not be proper, in a self-proclaimed “people's parliament”, to ask them to leave.
Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula hit back at Maimane, saying the DA shopped around for “a token black person ... it found him in the dusty streets of Soweto”.
Mbalula went on to dismiss the EFF as disgruntled youths and defended the ruling party's right name one of its top officials as speaker.
“What gives these losers and hypocrites the audacity to question the ANC's deployment policy?” he asked.
Sapa