Parliament is not a kindergarten: Zuma

President Jacob Zuma responding to debate on the Presidency Budget vote. Parliament, Cape Town, 27/05/2015

President Jacob Zuma responding to debate on the Presidency Budget vote. Parliament, Cape Town, 27/05/2015

Published May 27, 2015

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Parliament - After being labelled “sick” by the Economic Freedom Fighters, President Jacob Zuma on Wednesday mockingly accused his opposition critics of living in a parallel world and lacking political ideas.

Without naming them, Zuma told the Democratic Alliance and the EFF that they were an embarrassment and would never grow beyond a certain share of the national vote.

“That is the problem of parties that suffer from poverty of politics.They have no substantial political issues to raise in Parliament, that is the problem. Anything that comes, they jump onto it and (it) becomes a slogan,” Zuma said in his response to the debate on the presidency’s budget vote in the National Assembly.

“They have got nothing to raise. If you listen to our good friends the opposition, I am telling you, you can think you live in another world. Some people who could not say ‘Nkandla’, they have now heard,” he added, before repeating the name of his hometown several times and chuckling.

Zuma said he was unable to respond to many opposition MPs who delivered scathing speeches, because they had said nothing of substance.

“I am dealing with contributions that are very meaningful because others … there was nothing said. There is a broken president in a broken country, you know?,” he said three months after DA leader Mmusi Maimane branded him “a broken man” in response to the state of the nation address. At the time, Zuma had pointedly ignored Maimane’s headline-making speech.

“The opposition must say, for example, what is their alternative to the current policy. No debate in that area. Others want to stand for hours just one after the other, point of order, point of order, point of privilege, you know?”

He went on to urge the opposition to show more respect for Parliament.

“We trust that matters of decorum will be taken seriously so that we do not disappoint our people. I wish one day I could be given just one day to be the presiding officer,” he said.

“The manner in which you at times behave, we actually undermine their intelligence, why they elected us to this House. As leaders of this House we are South Africans and we have a duty to build our country together. Let us work together to build a truly non-racist, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa.

“Being an opposition in democracy, I understand it differently.Your opposition must be felt, it must be constructive because if you are not serious, we are not going to take you seriously. We are not even going to listen to what you say.

“You can’t sit and finish a year, discussing the house of one man, just one man, a house, just a house,” he said in reaction to the EFF’s campaign of confronting him about the cost of his private home in Nkandla that has twice seen presiding officers send police into the chamber to remove EFF MPs.

The remarks came shortly before Police Minister Nathi Nhleko was expected to release his long-awaited findings as to whether Zuma should repay a portion of the cost of the upgrade to his Nkandla homestead, as directed by Public Protector Thuli Madonsela.

“You can’t just take Parliament as another place, as if it is a kindergarten. It is a serious matter. We are dealing with the country. It is the same as when we were fighting for liberation. We need to change South Africa for the better and we can’t change it in the manner in which we conduct ourselves. I am pleading: Let us change, let us respect the rules, let us respect the presiding officers, let us respect one another. It is absolutely important. Let us raise our issues with dignity.

“That is why the people of this country will vote ANC all the time. There are parties that will never grow beyond a particular point and they know it as they sit here.”

On Tuesday, EFF chief whip Mbuyiseni Ndlozi had applied the adjective “sick” to both Parliament and the president, and urged Zuma to immediately release the report of the Farlam commission of inquiry into the 2012 shooting of mine workers at Marikana as “a cure”.

After Zuma concluded his reply to the debate on Wednesday, Ndlozi rose and smilingly accused Zuma of running away.

Speaker Baleka Mbete quipped that she could assure Zuma that he did not wish to be in her seat for a single day.

ANA

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