Johannesburg - The motion of no confidence against President Cyril Ramaphosa is continuing on Wednesday after Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula refused a request by the ATM to postpone it.
The ATM had on Monday asked Mapisa-Nqakula to postpone the matter pending the court application.
This was after the Western Cape High Court had earlier in the day rejected the ATM’s urgent application to hear the secret ballot application. The ATM said the court application on the secret ballot will now be heard in a normal court.
However, Mapisa-Nqakula said on Tuesday that she could not agree to the ATM’s request to postpone the motion of no confidence debate because that power lies with the programming committee.
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She said the motion could not have been left on the order paper of Parliament because it would have blocked other motions.
“Rule 128 provides for the withdrawal and resubmission of a motion, ensuring no other party/member will be prejudiced by a motion remaining in an order paper for an undetermined period. The Speaker had given the ATM until 15:00 to indicate their decision in the light of her advice, and there was no response received from the party by the deadline,” said Parliament’s spokesperson, Moloto Mothapo.
He added as a result the motion would go ahead as planned.
ATM national spokesperson Sibusiso Mncwabe said they would not participate in the motion on Wednesday.
He said they were waiting for their court application to be heard in the High Court where the party is calling for a secret ballot. The ATM has two members in the National Assembly.
The party and the Speaker have been battling in court for months after initially taking on former Speaker Thandi Modise in 2020 over the same issues.
After Mapisa-Nqakula was appointed to the position of speaker last August, the ATM pursued the issue of the motion of no confidence and called for a secret ballot. But Mapisa-Nqakula refused the request of the secret ballot, saying the environment was not toxic enough to warrant a secret ballot.
The motion will be conducted through an open ballot in the national assembly.
This will be the first motion of no confidence against Ramaphosa since he came to office in 2018.
The national legislature said the motion against Ramaphosa would go ahead as planned on Wednesday.
But the ATM said it was still waiting for a date on its court application for a secret ballot after the high court rejected its urgent application on Monday.
Mapisa-Nqakula said on Tuesday that the urgency by the ATM was self-created.
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