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GCIS<\/p>\n
File photo: The ANC seems hell-bent upon rendering Parliament an irrelevant institution, says the writer.<\/p>\n
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Related Stories<\/p>\n
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The ANC seems hell-bent upon rendering Parliament an irrelevant institution. <\/p>\n
As a political correspondent in the 1980s I was supposed to report on Parliament, but most of my energy and time were spent on extraparliamentary politics, where the real political action was. <\/p>\n
I wholeheartedly agreed with Frederik van Zyl Slabbert when he resigned from Parliament in 1986. It was a talk shop, a sideshow. It had little influence over PW Botha, his cabinet and the all-powerful State Security Council. They all regarded Parliament as an unavoidable nuisance. <\/p>\n
We\u2019re almost back there. But there\u2019s a big difference. In 1986 Parliament was an apartheid institution in which the majority of citizens had no say. Today, it is supposed to be a true people\u2019s parliament, because we have a proper democracy now. <\/p>\n
But the real action is at Luthuli House, Cosatu House, the SACP headquarters, Nkandla, the Gupta compound in Saxonwold and the Union Buildings \u2013 and at the offices of activist groups like Section27, the Right2Know Campaign, Equal Education and Corruption Watch. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m not knocking good, hard-working members of the opposition in Parliament who are fighting a gallant battle against draconian legislation and government incompetence and excesses. They need to soldier on, especially in the portfolio committees; Parliament remains a site of struggle for a better democracy. <\/p>\n
Parliament is where we citizens turn our attention to when matters of grave national importance come before us. Like sending our soldiers to die in a foreign land. Like a serious threat to our national pride, our security and our sovereignty. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s when we want the people whom we had elected as our representatives to speak on our behalf in our Parliament. <\/p>\n
But No 1, President Jacob Zuma, did not bother to tell Parliament or ask for its agreement about the latest military adventure into the Central African Republic after the circumstances had changed on the ground. Fourteen South Africans died in a country with whom we had no historic, economic, cultural or even diplomatic ties, and we still don\u2019t know why. <\/p>\n
The clearest example of the ANC\u2019s contempt of Parliament came last week. <\/p>\n
When No 1\u2019s best friends, the Gupta family, flew their wedding guests into our main air force base, the government took notice of the national sense of revulsion and hastily launched an investigation of its own conduct, which delivered a report with little credibility. <\/p>\n
There was no credible way to deny a request to have the matter debated in Parliament. <\/p>\n
Still, the man at the centre of the storm, the man known as No 1, was absent. <\/p>\n
I watched the stormy debate and witnessed Speaker Max Sisulu struggling to rule on repeated references by ANC speakers on the report that \u201chad been made public\u201d, statements queried by opposition members. <\/p>\n
I was shocked to learn immediately afterwards that the report was withheld from MPs, but released to the media outside Parliament as the debate started. <\/p>\n
It was not given to opposition MPs for the simple reason that it would have given them extra ammunition to criticise the government. It was as cynical and contemptuous as that. <\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know who made that decision, but I know who was ultimately responsible for that act of blatant disrespect of Parliament: ANC chief whip Mathole Motshekga. <\/p>\n
According to the ANC\u2019s own website, the \u201cultimate responsibility for the actions of all ANC MPs rests with the chief whip\u201d; he is the \u201cthe political manager and strategist for ANC caucus and acts as a communications link between ANC MPs and the executive\u201d; he \u201chas the overall responsibility to ensure that the business of the House is conducted and delivered efficiently\u201d. <\/p>\n
It was under Motshekga\u2019s watch that Parliament\u2019s role had noticeably declined. <\/p>\n
He is probably the worst party whip ever to work in South Africa\u2019s Parliament. <\/p>\n
Even his own caucus colleagues are unhappy with his performance and his attitude. <\/p>\n
My view of him is that loyalty to No 1 and to Luthuli House weighs much heavier on him than the interests of democracy and that he sees Parliament as just a necessary evil that has to be managed in the interests of the party. <\/p>\n
If ANC MPs believe in the importance of Parliament and take their oath seriously, they would make their criticism known and push for a new chief whip. If they don\u2019t, we will blame the denigration of Parliament on them. <\/p>\n
When citizens go to vote in next year\u2019s general election, they won\u2019t be voting for a president or a cabinet. They\u2019re electing MPs. <\/p>\n
Our democracy is still young and developing. <\/p>\n
Citizens need to see democracy in action in Parliament. They have no way of seeing into the dark rooms where the president, the leaders of the ANC or the securocrats meet to make decisions. <\/p>\n
The Mercury<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" GCIS File photo: The ANC seems hell-bent upon rendering Parliament an irrelevant institution, says the writer. Related Stories Who can believe they didn\u2019t know? What we CAN learn from Zim The sooner the better that Zuma quits We can learn from Zim\u2019s flourishing farms ANC as adept at dodging as Nats Deep sadness yes, black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-20043","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}