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Cape Town - After an insult-laden debate, opposition leaders walked out of Parliament on Thursday leaving the ANC to easily defeat their vote of no confidence in Speaker Baleka Mbete.
DA Alliance parliamentary leader Mmusi Maimane, who opened the debate on the motion, led the walkout after ANC Chief Whip Stone Sizani sought to table an amendment which would have seen the vote turn into one of confidence in the speaker instead.
As the DA, EFF and all other opposition parties were leaving the chamber, Sizani rose to withdraw and suggested that since there was a still a quorum - thanks to the ANC's majority - MPs should proceed to vote on the original motion.
"It is a pity you did not recognise me earlier," Sizani said before presiding officer Cedric Frolick agreed and rang the bells for the customary minute before the vote.
Asked at that point whether he would lead the opposition back into the National Assembly to vote, an angry Maimane told Sapa: "They can do what they like now.
"If it had to be a function of our walking before they allowed the vote, then no, we are not going back."
The result was 234 against the motion of no confidence, and none in favour.
It was an unexpected outcome to an afternoon of fractious debate in which the DA and EFF were called losers and counter-revolutionaries by the ruling party as its secretary general Gwede Mantashe watched from the public gallery.
Introducing the motion, Maimane argued that Mbete had an untenable conflict of interest because she also serves as chairperson of the ANC.
"Let me be clear, this motion is not personal. This is not about Baleka Mbete. Honourable Mbete is a competent member of this House. She's a former deputy president. She has her flaws, but we respect her as an experienced politician."
He said it was, however, impossible for Mbete to hold both positions and serve Parliament with the requisite neutrality.
"What this motion is about is about the office she holds in the ANC, and what it means to holding the office of Speaker. The conflict of interest is untenable."
‘Mbete a player for Zuma’s ANC’
Maimane said Mbete, who kept a serene smile through most of the debate, had been deployed by the ANC as Speaker to ensure President Jacob Zuma did not have to face any tough questions.
"She came here not as an honest referee, but as a player for President Zuma's ANC. She sold out this Parliament to her masters at Luthuli House," Maimane said.
Maimane drew a tongue-lashing from Sport Minister Fikile Mbalula who dismissed him as a token black from a party with fascist tendencies, and the EFF as disgruntled youths.
"Lately the DA has been a shopping spree to find a token black person... it found him in dusty streets of Soweto," he said.
"What gives these losers and hypocrites the audacity to question the ANC's deployment policy?"
EFF leader Julius Malema, who had repeatedly urged Deputy Speaker Lechesa Tsenoli to silence excited ANC supporters in the gallery, later returned the insult, calling Mbalula a hypocrite "who is never true to any boss because he lacks a backbone".
He added that Mbalula himself had aspired to the position of ANC secretary general but lost and was therefore carefully watched from the gallery - one of many references to Mantashe as the opposition repeatedly made the point in the debate that he was effectively running Parliament.
Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor hit back by calling the EFF and DA's joining of forces on the motion a "desperate alliance". She called the motion itself "an attack on Speaker Baleka that harms our democracy".
"It is without substance and part of an orchestrated campaign against the ANC, its members and the people."
