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The motion of no confidence on Speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete submitted by the DA to the House on behalf of five opposition parties, accentuates their duplicitous stance to the political landscape. It is nothing short of an infantile pantomime at best with a zero probability of attaining the desired outcome but achieves their most predisposed objective, to make headlines.
The DA through Mmusi Maimane, pseudo-leader of the opposition who according to van Onselen in his Business Day column (August:25) lacks chutzpah, neither is he a forceful leader nor commands attention, asserted amongst other arguments that they condemn the Speaker for not relinquishing her party political position as ANC Chairperson following her election into the position. They further denounce her for hiring comrades into her office as advisors (read cadre deployment).
This is hypocrisy of the highest level as both the speaker and her deputy in the Western Cape provincial parliament, members of the same democratic alliance that has submitted such a trivial motion, have yet to resign as members of the DA and this is evidently reflected in the manner in which they preside over debates in the house. For example, an ANC motion asking the house to note that the Western Cape education department had been found negligent in the Rheendendal bus tragedy in which fifteen people lost their lives. After the motion was put to the house, the DA chief whip stated that there was no objection twice. However, after all the motions had been submitted and agreed to by all parties in the house, the DA chief whip asked to address the deputy speaker and stated that in hindsight they were objecting to the motion. According to the rules of the house, the deputy speaker was overtly partisan in his ruling that allowed the objection to stand thus nullifying the ANC motion without notice. Where then does the the DA get the audacity to accuse the Speaker of inability to resolve key rule-related matters of the House swiftly and without due party political decision-making?
Finally, condemning the speaker for hiring MPs that did not make it into the National Assembly is an old hypocritical DA trick used to attack the ANC while they themselves are implementing it. It was widely reported that Tim Harris, the DA MP who did not make it to Parliament was redeployed to the City of Cape Town as head of investment to boost job creation and economic growth in the city. Alas he is not the only one so were Paul Boughey, Owen Kinahan and Gerhard Ras. Furthermore, Melusi Booi and Mbulelo Bara who were initially on the list meant for parliament did not make the cut and were deployed in Zille’s office. If the above do not exemplify cadre deployment while also highlighting the hypocritical nature of the democratic alliance then I don’t know what is.
The DA and the ?5 opposition? parties should refrain from making a mockery of the House while also assuming that citizens of this country are irrational imbeciles. Voters afforded the ANC an overwhelming mandate to implement the NDP and to deploy who deem fit for purpose in whatever role. These parties can never be allowed to prescribe to the ANC who should be deployed in what capacity.
Mbete’s experience in presiding over the house, first as a deputy speaker followed by another term as speaker ensures that she is well versed on the rules utilised to guide debates in the house and she is not going anywhere.
