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It is with the greatest of sadness that we see that the National Assembly has become the laughing stock of the nation and the world. A place where a certain amount of dignity, and respect should be the order of the day has become a total circus to say the least.
First there was the Economic Freedom Fighter debacle last week, in which the speaker of the house didn’t know how to appropriately handle the matter, with the Minister of Police calling in the troops, and then yesterday the Democratic Alliance became the punch-bag.
Ironically there also seems to be a lack of respect and adherence to decorum by the ruling party in that the appropriate Minister yesterday didn’t even consider it inappropriate to tell the Speaker of the National Assembly - that ‘you are not going to tell me what to do’. This kind of behaviour is not only uncalled for but had it been forthcoming from any of the opposition members in parliament I am sure that the Speaker would have insisted that the member should retract what has been said, and if he or she didn’t do that would have been asked to leave the house, but as ruling party, the Minister just got away with it.
It is sad to see how the dignity and the decorum of parliament have gone down the drain, and this is indeed a very sad day in our democracy.
The ruling party in no way respecting the democracy and because of its majority in parliament, by implication thinks that they are above the law, rules and regulations of parliament and abiding to it. This is the greatest misconception (fallacy, delusion, misapprehension, mistaken belief, misunderstanding) that can possibly be.
The Ministers of Communication, Defense and all those within the Security cluster are conveniently avoiding answering questions that are put to them, and use all possible avenues to sidetrack the responsibility for them to answer to the matters as discussed and this is but an indication that they fail in their duty to be accountable to the country and to parliament for their mandated responsibilities that they lack in exercising.
Opposition parties in all other spheres of government can expect to be treated harshly as the example has been set in the National Assembly, with threats being flung at each other, and members of the house, ‘being conveniently saved’ the embarrassment with the speakers ‘point of order’ that has been emanating on just too many occasions, when the ruling party find themselves in a situation that they have run out of answers and or excuses to cover up on all their wrongdoings.
No party is exonerated from any rules, regulations and or statutes that are applicable in the National Assembly and for that matter in any other legislature within the country and this the ruling party should understand that it can’t use its majority that it may have, to act in whatever unorthodox manner it wishes to do at the time, as they are just as everyone else, subject to and have to abide by the rules applicable.
Renting a crowd, threatening individuals on a personal level, non issues becoming issues, opposition parties becoming punch bags, humiliation and demoralized to act on their mandate, should all never be – this is not what was fought for, with lives lost, and in the eyes of the world, makes us a mockery to what the democracy should be and us abiding by the Constitution of the country, and its legality and supremacy.
We need to get our house in order as we will soon find ourselves isolated for foreign investments and indirectly being back in the time prior – 1994.
