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People are going on that an Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) commander-in-chief has once called his Democratic Alliance (DA) counterpart, Helen Zille, a cockroach and when Baleka Mbete, an African National Congress (ANC) and parliamentary speaker, characterised him as such, he cries foul. To start with, the context under which Malema called Zille a cockroach and the one under which Mbete called him are different. When Malema called Zille a cockroach, he was an ANC Youth League (ANCYL). Although Malema had become a household name at the time he called Zille a cockroach, his views carried a lesser weight in comparison with that of Mbete as a parliamentary speaker. He only carried the views of and served the interest of the ANCYL. Mbete, on the other hand, as an ANC chairperson, carries the views of the party, and as a parliamentary speaker, ought to serve the interests of South Africans in general, something on which she clearly straddles the fence.
Through her vacuous off the cuff remarks, Mbete has compromised her impartiality as a speaker. Clearly, she straddles the fence. Therefore, her lack of impartiality is largely blameworthy for an anarchical and pseudo-democratic state in which a fifth parliament has descended into under her stewardship as a speaker. For example, speaking at an ANC’s 2014 election campaign, following a release of the much-awaited Nkandla report, she made it clear that Zuma should not reimburse some of a R246 million splurged on non-security related refurbishments at his homestead in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal province, as a public protector Thuli Mandosela has recommended. In light of this statement, given that as an ANC chairperson the buck stops with her, this begs the question: How does one expect Mbete to act impartially on the matter she had already taken an otherwise stance? During the State of the Nation Address (SONA), Mbete literally refused to allow Zuma to answer the question the EFF MPs had put to him. There was no rule that prohibited the EFF MPs to ask Zuma a question.
As it had unfolded, Mbete relied on a note she – or perhaps someone – had prepared (for her) to shrug off the EFF MPs requests to rise on the question of privilege. She could not cite any rule to that effect. As she could not stand her ground, her emotions took over the proceedings. She called the police to eject the Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu. However, a horde of police, dressed in white shirts, flocked into the parliament to eject ‘all’ EFF MPs. More disappointingly, Zuma laughed when the police ejected EFF MPs. Zuma is a joke, the least one can say, though not laughable, but a shameful one. He cannot even see when the parliament has descended into a crying shame, that is, a pseudo-democracy, leading to a country’s topmost legal mind, Mogoeng Mogoeng staging a walkout while the ANC MPs were clapping hands in jubilation.
It is even more disappointing to hear that a state security minister David Mahlobo ascribed signal blockage to a so-called “technical glitch”. Clearly, Mahlobo takes South Africans for a ride. Perhaps, one should remind him that he “can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but …[he] cannot fool all the people all the time,” as a former United States president Abraham Lincoln had once. If, indeed, signal blockage had to do with a technical glitch, then a deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa is a genius. It took him to decode a note for Mahlobo to unblock the signal. The problem with the ANC, in particular, the Zuma’s ministerial henchmen is that they are good at defending him, but not good at advising him.
