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Parliament has debated and defeated six motions of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma since 2009.
This is excluding the impeachment motion brought forward by the DA in April, at the back of the scathing Constitutional Court ruling against Zuma.
It is also unlikely that last Thursday’s attempt would be the last as the DA stubbornly continues to table the motions only for the ANC to outvote them.
On one side, spectators roll their eyes and wonder for how long the DA will try to break a wall with a toothbrush; while on the other, and more importantly, they ask for how long will the ANC persist with its leader who has done nothing but cause damage to Brand ANC.
Zuma is as loathed as much as he is loved and his supporters generally throw in everything in their defence of the president.
As expected, Zuma survived Thursday’s attempt by the opposition to remove him from South Africa’s highest office.
The motion of no confidence in Zuma – which was brought about by the DA – was defeated as an overwhelming majority of the National Assembly MPs (214) voted against it with only 126 voting in favour.
Despite the factions in the ANC, despite the succession race, and despite the critical and loud voices within the party, the voting patterns are more or less the same: 113 for, 221 against in March 2015; 99 in support and 225 against in March this year, when the EFF abstained.
But the DA keeps on tabling these motions hoping that at least over 50 ANC MPs would go rogue and vote with them. As Themba Godi puts it, “this has become a political programme of the DA”.
The party also understands the motions give it and others in the opposition a valid national platform in the form of the National Assembly to attack Zuma – and to an extent the ANC – hoping the debates are chipping away at Brand ANC.
In fact, in this latest round, opposition parties took the fight to the ANC.
In his speech, Mmusi Maimane continued to appeal to the ANC benches to put South Africa first.
James Selfe was more pointed: “This is a debate about Jacob Zuma’s fitness to hold the office of president but it is also about how the ANC elected him and how the ANC protected him and while faced with overwhelming evidence that he is not fit for office, the ANC continued to support him”.
Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi tried the emotional blackmail route when he described as an “act of unimaginable obstinacy” the ANC’s refusal to remove Zuma, saying “thus, a movement that has stood for 104 years has crumbled and is taking South Africa with it all for the sake of one man”.
The EFF called it “a tactical blunder” by the ANC. “Because we believe the liberation movement itself should have found it in its own conscience to act against Mr Jacob Zuma who has abdicated his responsibility as the leader of our country and gave it to a family,” said EFF’s Floyd Shivambu. Ditto!
The ANC’s choice of who it put up to defend Zuma was rather interesting. The party chose to divide its allocated 30 minutes between two members instead of the usual three previously fielded. Up first was Water and Sanitation Minister Nomvula Mokonyane – a known and vocal Zuma supporter – who could not even vote in the motion as she is not a Member of Parliament.
Mokonyane talked a good game. She began by dismissing the motion as “a phantom” to masquerade the essence and nature of opposition politics and their quest to gain power by means other than the ballot box. The elitist forces, she claimed, wanted to advance a protracted onslaught against Zuma on speculation and unfounded sentiments with no factual standing in law and reality.
Mokonyane claimed this was to keep the majority without access to land and to remain spectators in an economy largely controlled by a minority elite that is opposed to transformation.
Zuma had after all appointed Thuli Madonsela as Public Protector, appointed commissions of inquiry whose recommendations he had taken into consideration, and signed 69 proclamations authorising the Special Investigative Unit to investigate corruption, she argued.
In conclusion, Mokonyane addressed Zuma in his absence: “The world will never appreciate the good you do a million times, but will criticise the one wrong you do. Don’t get discouraged. Always rise above all the laughter and criticism.”
But it was her choice of a Nelson Mandela quote that really summed up the Zuma defence’s position: “I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”
It says Zuma is here to stay and he will keep on trying.
Does this mean the ANC has confidence in Zuma?
Curiously, the ANC which has in previous debates, sought to amend the opposition’s motions of no confidence into motions of full confidence in Zuma, did not do so this time around.
