Remove Zuma & Mbete to restore dignity of Parliament
6 May 2016
COPE notes with disbelief the irony of Mr Zuma asking Ms Mbete to get the House in order. Under the very fair, impartial and dignified Speaker Max Sisulu, there was great decorum in the National Assembly. After Ms Mbete took over with a clear agenda to protect Mr Zuma, the House descended into utter chaos. Her deployment has backfired massively.
The ruling party no longer occupies the moral high ground it once did. The National Assembly, tragically, is no longer representing the people and neither is the ANC ensuring a “government by the people under the Constitution” as is demanded by our Constitution. Neither is the National Assembly in the present time “providing a national forum for public consideration of (public) issues”. What we now have, as the whole nation has witnessed and the Constitutional Court has found, is an important tier of government, the National Assembly, that has forfeited its independence and has become a toady of the executive.
Congress of the People has frequently lamented the enormous shortcomings of Ms Mbete. She is biased, arrogant and conflicted. She sits as Speaker but functions as the National Chairperson of the ANC. She is so transparent in her bias that she has lost total control of the House. She commands no respect whatsoever. Neither does Mr Zuma. Between the two of them, they have succeeded in making parliament the national and international “embarrassment” that Mr Zuma acknowledges that it has become.
Under the present control of the ruling party, parliament has become an acute embarrassment. Amusement at what has been going on there has turned to contempt. The empty benches on the opposition side, with the exception of two IFP members who cut very lonely figures, spoke loudly and clearly of the trust deficit in the present leadership of the ruling party. Such total and unequivocal rejection by the opposition parties is a wakeup call for the ruling party to really get its house in order.
Everyone is now going to ask Mr Zuma, wherever he goes, why almost everyone from the opposition side is questioning his legitimacy to occupy the highest office in the land. He will have to explain why he has lost the confidence of such a large part of the nation.
COPE is baffled that Mr Zuma has done no introspection. After all, he is the central cause of the chaos engulfing parliament. Whereas the presidents who preceded him held the nation together and managed the economy well, Mr Zuma has presided over a South Africa tearing itself apart and teetering at the edge of economic collapse.
Mr Zuma should publicly declare that he and Ms Mbete have dismally failed the nation. On top of that he should acknowledge that neither of them qualifies to continue in office after the findings of the Constitutional Court. Their exiting the political scene will put South Africa back on the track to growth, stability and prosperity.
Yesterday, the bootlicking and bum-sucking ANC caucus, with the exception of two IFP representatives, had Mr Zuma and Ms Mbete all to themselves and what an uninspiring and lack lustre lot they showed themselves to be.
COPE urges the ruling party to calculate the enormous and long lasting damage that the pair is causing to it and to the country also. Both have the assurance of a guaranteed lifelong pension that is extremely generous. In the name of God, they should exit before they ruin our country utterly. The empty opposition benches signified near zero confidence in Mr Zuma and Ms Mbete. Her humiliation was complete when Mr Zuma publicly hauled her over the coals in the National Assembly yesterday.
Issued by Dennis Bloem, COPE Spokesperson, 6 May 2016
