Cape Town - A big showdown is looming today between pro- and anti-Ramaphosa groupings within the ANC as both groups have converged on Parliament sitting at the City Hall where MPs will vote on whether to impeach President Cyril Ramaphosa for his involvement in the Phala Phala scandal.
On one side of the fence will be ANC Youth League members calling on Ramaphosa to resign as president, while a pro-Ramaphosa contingent of ANC members will be supporting him, with the ANC Women’s League, on Sunday, saying it would also come out in support of Ramaphosa.
Inside the building, MPs will be deliberating on Ramaphosa’s future and the Section 89 report, which found that he may have a case to answer before an impeachment committee.
But before that, ANC MPs will be hauled into a caucus meeting, where they will discuss how to go about the proceedings. Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe confirmed this to the Cape Argus.
ANCYL’s Dorothy Nyembe branch chairperson Sinethemba Hlatshaneni said 20 taxis loaded with ANCYL members would descend on the large Edwardian building on Darling Street to demonstrate against Ramaphosa.
Pressed on how many anti-Ramaphosa members will be at the demonstration, Hlatshaneni said it would be “a Moria of people” – a reference to the Zion Christian Church’s pilgrimage.
He said: “We’re just calling for him and his conscience to resign and step aside. It’s not a protest, but a demonstration.”
Last week, Hlatshaneni led an anti-Ramaphosa demonstration of about 50 members outside Parliament, prompting the ANC in the Western Cape to investigate which of its members joined the demonstration.
ANC chief whip Pemmy Majodina didn’t respond to queries.
Asked about the dissenters and for an update on the investigation, ANC provincial spokesperson Sifiso Mtsweni said that he wasn’t aware of the planned demonstration and that the ANCYL was best placed to respond.
Asked about today’s deliberations on the Section 89 report, Mantashe said: “We’ll see, but the reality of the matter is that you cannot put the cart before the horse. You allow processes to take their course, and allow people to test the law to the extreme.”
On anti-Ramaphosa protests, Mantashe said: “If an ANC person is anti the position of the ANC, you must know they’re not a person of the ANC because in the ANC we discuss these issues and argue them.”
He said when the collective in the ANC have made a pronouncement, it’s for members to follow the ANC decision.
He was asked if the Top Six, the ANC’s most powerful structure, had issued instructions to MPs on how they should vote or deliberate the Section 89 report, and whether MPs who vote with their conscience, if the report is tabled, will be punished.
“We have a caucus (this) morning. We go to the caucus of the ANC, we’re used to doing that. And everyone who is a member of the ANC will listen to the message of the ANC.”
Because then-secretary general Mantashe was rumoured to have dished out instructions to MPs via SMS, we asked about this and he said: “I don’t do that. I talk to them directly. I’ll be in the caucus (today). I will say my piece in the caucus.”
Quizzed about NEC member Dr Zweli Mkhize’s claims that Mantashe bullied dissenters in a recent NEC meeting that was to discuss the future of the president, he said: “I can show you his message to me, where he is actually seeing the oversight on his part. I didn’t bully … in that meeting 56 people spoke.”
He alluded to Mkhize trying to speak after everyone had spoken “with different views” and the summary given back to the meeting. “It’s being selfish,” Mantashe said.
On the Section 89 report, he said Ramaphosa had not been found guilty of anything. “The report says ‘may have’, now if you don’t know what ‘may have’ means…”
He said the now-expelled Carl Niehaus will now “be ill-disciplined out there”.
On Ramaphosa almost resigning in the aftermath of the Phala Phala report and Mantashe’s role in convincing him not to resign, Mantashe said he was being given credit for something he didn’t do, though he welcomed Ramaphosa’s U-turn.
Meanwhile, the African Transformation Movement on Monday called for Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula to allow for a secret ballot.