LET OUR PARLIAMENT NOT GO TO THE DOGS
Congress of the People believes that citizens should feel extremely concerned about our parliament literally going to the dogs. Any party that seeks to govern legitimately and competently must manifest a strong political leadership to inculcate the incorruptible virtue.
President Nelson Mandela did this with aplomb. In word and in deed he strenuously inculcated the incorruptible virtue. Therefore our politics was suffused with virtue.
Speakers Ginwala and Sisulu in their respective terms commanded respect in the House because of their moral and impartial stance. The appointment of Speaker Baleka Mbete, however, came with an agenda forethought. Once she showed her hand chaos spilled into the hallowed chamber.
We warned clearly that no alteration of rules and no use of force could make right that which was made inherently wrong by the ruling party. Bullies do wrong and then use threat of violence to rectify the wrong they themselves bred. The ruling party must squarely point the finger to itself to resolve the crisis that is now crippling parliament.
On Wednesday evening the House chair patently cited the wrong rule and compounded her stupid mistake by calling in the bouncers. The inherent dignity of the House was assaulted from two sides: the morally flawed abuse of power by the ruling party and the frontal assault on decorum by the EFF. Neither side came out with credit on Wednesday evening. Meanwhile our parliament took body blows that it will not easily recover from.
Thuggish behaviour on the part of the ruling party to suppress debate and to condone corruption will continue to reap chaos. The ruling party has lost the moral high ground.
Section 41(1)(c) of the Constitution stipulates that all spheres of government must "provide effective, transparent, accountable and coherent government for the Republic as a whole". This is not happening and this is where the ruling party is abjectly failing. Its failure to inculcate the incorruptible virtue means that the centre cannot hold and as WB Yeats would have said, "anarchy is loosed" upon the chamber.
Clearly the ruling party is taking infant steps to turn our country into a police state. If society does not act at once we too will very soon experience what the Russians suffered under Stalin and the Chinese under Mao. The ruling party will soon negate freedom of expression and trample on the right to privilege so essential to MPs in a fully democratic parliament.
The fifth parliament under Baleka Mbete and Thandi Modise is regressing rapidly.
The ruling party must understand that for discipline to prevail it must itself adhere to ethical and moral conduct. It simply must nurture the incorruptible virtue. This is what it is not doing and that is why it has lost its moral authority.
COPE urges all like minded opposition parties to resist draconian rules and particularly to resist changing the democratic character of the National Assembly. We must accept that moral force is significantly more effective than brutish physical force. What happened to Malema will happen to other opposition members tomorrow. We totally disagree with Malema's conduct but we equally disagree with the conduct of parliamentary affairs by the ruling party.
COPE wants to reiterate our stance that we will never allow the ruling party to turn our Parliament into a place where elected representatives are restricted in their freedom to raise issues that affect the nation without fear or favour. We will not allow Parliament to be turned into a military camp where only the commanders give instructions and everybody must submissively obey. We will resist dictatorship with every fibre in our body.
Let us not forfeit the legacy of Nelson Mandela. Let us work to keep it alive.
Issued by Dennis Bloem, COPE Spokesperson, 10 September 2015
