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President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photo: GCIS / Flickr)
A last-minute court request meant a last-minute change in the House to postpone the vote of no confidence against President Cyril Ramaphosa until 2021. That’s the simple thing. Even less so, the fight for the secret vote that the African Transformation Movement insists on.
The Speaker of the National Assembly, Thandi Modise, had the last word on Thursday, shortly after 2 pm. “I have looked at the rules and I have decided to postpone the debate and vote on the motion.”
And it was the speaker who had to make that decision. After the Western Cape Superior Court, in the judges’ chambers, agreed to hear the challenge of the African Transformation Movement (ATM) against the decision of an open vote on February 3-4, 2021, the leader of the ATM, Vuyo Zungula, had to formally request the postponement.
“ATM wishes to postpone the motion until the completion of the legal proceedings,” he wrote Modise in a letter seen by Daily maverick.
Despite the fact that many parliamentary matters are taken to court, from lack of rules and incorrect application of rules, to disciplinary procedures, the courts have refrained from telling Parliament how to handle its affairs. If the judges have discovered that there is a problem, Parliament has been told to fix your house itself.
That happened in November 2012 when then-DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko, in the closing days of the parliamentary calendar, went to court to schedule a no-confidence motion against then-President Jacob Zuma. And although the Western Cape High Court found that there was indeed a loophole in Parliament’s rules, it was the national legislature that had to fix it.
It happened in mid-2017 when the United Democratic Movement approached the Constitutional Court directly and successfully through a secret ballot.
“The decision of the Speaker of April 6, 2017 that she does not have the power to prescribe that the vote on the motion of censure to the president be carried out by secret ballot is annulled,” the Constitutional Court ruled on June 22, 2017.
“The United Democratic Movement’s request for a vote of no confidence in the president to be decided by secret ballot is sent to the president for a new decision.”
Parliamentarians could not always operate under the cover of secrecy, according to the court, as the electorate sometimes had the right to know how their parliamentarians behaved, even in their most delicate duties.
“Considerations of transparency and openness sometimes call for a show of courage and determination to courageously promote the best interests of those they represent regardless of the consequences, including the risk of termination for failure to comply with the party’s instructions. The President must also reflect on these factors when considering whether the vote will be secret or open.
On August 7, 2017, then-announcer Baleka Mbete I finally made that decision. “I determine that the vote on the motion of censure to the president on August 8 will be secret.”
Vote of no confidence: Baleka Mbete decides in secret ballot, opposition parties say it is time to put the country above the party
A day later Zuma survivedBut the secret ballot showed that some 35 ANC deputies had broken the party line: 198 deputies voted against the motion of no confidence, 177 in favor and nine abstentions.
Distrust movement: ANC wins the battle, but what about the electoral war of 2019?
How is this relevant now, as the ATM pushes a secret ballot on its no-confidence motion against Ramaphosa?
Only a secret ballot will allow a chance to test the waters of Ramaphosa’s support, at least in his ANC parliamentary group. The motion is unlikely to meet the required majority of 200 plus one in the House, but it would be a key test – along with the opportunity for opposition parties to criticize the Ramaphosa administration.
No confidence motion against Ramaphosa: a chance for critics to tear themselves apart
But even if Modise’s decision against a secret ballot were found to be biased and irrational, as the ATM says in its court papers, the judges are unlikely to tell Modise what to decide.
The Spokesperson, in letters to the ATM, now part of the court documents, has emphasized the fundamental values of the Constitution of transparency, accountability and openness as reasons for an open vote.
“I am of the opinion that the prevailing atmosphere is not so intoxicated and charged as to justify dispensing with the constitutional values of openness and transparency,” Modise wrote to Zungula on November 30.
“The Constitution further instructs that the National Assembly must carry out its tasks in an ‘open’ manner to find the balance between the constitutional imperative of ‘transparency and openness’ …”
Furthermore, the Covid-19 health protocol allowing only 250 people in the House, including presidents and polling and support staff, was a serious challenge for a secret ballot. Parliamentarians who join sessions through virtual platforms leave electronic traces that identify them.
At that point, the ATM proposes a session of 230 deputies to cast their secret ballot, followed by the remaining deputies to cast their secret ballot.
“We reiterate that the political environment is what it was at the time when the United Democratic Movement moved the vote of no confidence in 2017 that resulted in [sic] the Constitutional Court ruling involving this matter, ”ATM attorneys M Magigaba Incorporated Attorneys wrote to the President on November 30.
As early as February 24, letters from Zungula to the president presented South Africa’s culture of political assassination as a reason MPs feared an open vote.
“It is common cause that some members of the ruling party may have been persuaded by the solid grounds of the motion of no confidence on President Ramaphosa, but may be constrained by [the] party line that in terms of his obligation to his ‘oath of office and to the people of South Africa’ is inconsequential. ”
Elsewhere in the correspondence there are other claims of bias without a secret ballot: “It is also common cause that money played a critical role in the election of President Ramaphosa, such that even now his campaign sponsors are still sealed by the court”.
However, Zungula in his court affidavit argues that the motion of no confidence is an important tool to hold the president accountable.
“It constituted a threat of the maximum sanction that the National Assembly can impose on the president if there was a reasonable perception that he had not complied with his constitutional obligations.”
Zungula said Daily maverick that he ATM had nothing to do with the ANC or any of its factions.
“When people try to say that ATMs are playing politics, it is a way of creating a perception of the ATM and not listening to the message. We have no intention of working with anyone in the ANC. We work for the cause of the people of South Africa ”.
But, in a political institution like Parliament, what is on the surface is not necessarily what bubbles underneath.
The ANC parliamentary group is not unified behind Ramaphosa. Committee chairs such as Bongani Bongo (home affairs), Joe Maswanganyi (finance), Mosebenzi Zwane (transportation), Supra Mahumapelo (tourism) and Tandi Mahambehlala (international relations), have nailed their colors to the mast by appearing in public at a Bloemfontein Court when ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule appeared there in November. Others have a lower profile in parliamentary seats.
As the motions of no confidence against Zuma have shown, the ANC has always been around in its wagons; in 2017, such a vote was even compared to attempts at regime change.
That only changed after the 2017 Nasrec ANC conference elected Ramaphosa as the party chairman. The EFF motion of no confidence against Zuma was scheduled for February 22, and the ANC numbers ready to vote with the opposition were a key factor in Zuma’s resignation of the Union buildings on Valentine’s Day.
End of President: Even though Zuma resigned, Parliament had a plan anyway
After Thursday’s postponement of the ATM no-confidence motion, Deputy Minister of State Security Zizi Kodwa said: “The ANC, we are ready for the motion. And even if you bring it back on December 25, we are ready. ”
DA leader John Steenhuisen agreed. “We got home prepared. And we hoped that our abstinence would make the president stronger. ”
While other opposition parties followed suit, EFF chief Floyd Shivambu opposed the trend by urging that when the scheduling committee meets on this motion, what it “should discuss is the logistics of a secret ballot”.
Thursday’s postponement of the ATM’s no-confidence motion pending judicial review in February 2021 comes in the context of South Africa’s fractured body politic, and it’s only the first round. DM
