DA MOTION ILL-ADVISED AND PREMATURE
9 November 2016
The African National Congress in Parliament will not support the motion of no confidence against President Jacob Zuma called by the DA on Thursday.
We respect the constitutionally-enshrined right of any parliamentary party to table a motion of no confidence in the President as a tool of parliamentary oversight and accountability. However the motions by the DA have become ritualistic practices founded on spurious allegations and narrow political motives rather than substance. Since the start of the current term of Parliament, which is just over two years old, a total of seven motions have been tabled by the opposition.
It is worth stating the obvious fact that one does not need substantial grounds or any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the President to call for a motion of no confidence in terms of Section 102 of the Constitution. This has thus opened the floodgates of abuse of Parliament’s time and undermining of the electoral will of the people, through the opposition’s whimsical and arbitrary invocation of this motion on a regular basis for sheer grandstanding.
By calling for this motion, ostensibly on account of the Public Protector's State of the Capture report, the DA is deliberately putting the cart before the horse. The report of the Public Protector has not made any definitive guilty findings or conclusive orders against any implicated individual, let alone President Jacob Zuma. Instead, it has brought to the fore a wide range of crucial but inconclusive matters which must be thoroughly dealt with by the Judicial Commission of Inquiry.