Where was Baleka Mbete during clashes?

Where was National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete and her deputy Lechesa Tsenoli when the police clashed with students at the parliamentary precinct on Wednesday?

Mbete was expected to attend the Inter-Parliamentary Union assembly in Switzerland, but City Press has confirmed that after selecting a hotel for the South African delegation in Geneva, she did not attend the event.

Her office did not confirm her whereabouts, and her spokesperson, Mandlakazi Sigcawu, said Mbete and Tsenoli “were attending to commitments outside of Parliament”.

City Press established that Tsenoli was in Tanzania, while the secretary to Parliament, Gengezi Mgidlana, and the secretary to the National Assembly, Masibulele Xaso, were on the Geneva trip.

ANC chief whip Stone Sizani was off sick and his deputy, Doris Dlakude, was also in Switzerland.

When asked about the absence of key parliamentary leaders at one of the scheduled events on the parliamentary calendar – the important medium-term budget policy statement – Parliament’s spokesperson Luzuko Jacobs said a multiparty delegation, which included National Council of Provinces (NCOP) deputy chairperson Raseriti Tau, chairperson of chairpersons Cedric Frolick and house chairperson Grace Boroto, was attending the annual sessions of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Jacobs did not include Mbete’s name as part of the delegation and when asked about her, he referred questions to her office.

Acting Speaker Thoko Didiza, one of the four house chairs, was left to hold down the fort when the #FeesMustFall students were dispersed from Parliament with stun grenades by public order police on Wednesday.

Didiza later told journalists: “I didn’t hear anything … we were advised at the end of the sitting that MPs should go back to their offices.”

Sigcawu told City Press that Mbete and Tsenoli “were in regular contact” with NCOP chairperson Thandi Modise and Didiza