South Africa

South Africa

Reporter’s Parliamentary Notebook: Dlamini-Zuma is in, Makhosi Khoza is out of ANC benches

Reporter’s Parliamentary Notebook: Dlamini-Zuma is in, Makhosi Khoza is out of ANC benches

The ANC benches in Parliament on Thursday gained one doctor, former African Union Commission Chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, as it lost another, Makhosi Khoza. The governing party knew of the arrival of the one, but not the departure of the other. By MARIANNE MERTEN.

Unlike many times on the campaign trail for ANC president, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, now an ANC MP, did not manage to dodge the media. Security and other officials notwithstanding.

Gathered outside the deputy speaker’s boardroom, the cameras, voice recorders and notebooks were at the ready as has not happened with the swearing in of other MPs in living memory of the democratic Parliament over the past 23 years.

And what was Dlamini-Zuma’s comment? ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe and the office of the ANC chief whip had informed her she would be coming to Parliament as an ordinary MP. “As far as I’m concerned I’m coming to Parliament. No one has said anything to me about Cabinet or anything else,” she said. “I will focus on what they say I should focus on (in Parliament). I will wait (for) what they say….”

And that was it, pretty much. Aside from a photo request from a representative of a woman’s league of a Khoi-San organisation, who had patiently waited along with the journalists. Then the newly-minted ANC MP, accompanied by a selection of officials and protectors, departed via the lifts at the back entrance to the boardroom. No-one was really interested in Matthew Wolmarans, who was sworn in as ANC MP alongside the former AU Commission chairperson.

Some 1,452km north, outspoken ANC MP Makhosi Khoza cut ties with the political party she had belonged to since the age of 11. The announcement in Johannesburg was not necessarily a surprise as Khoza had not minced her words about her disillusionment over the state of the governing ANC in the run-up to last month’s secret ballot vote of 198 against and 177 for, with nine abstentions, in the motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma.

I want to say goodbye to the new alien and corrupt ANC. I quit,” she announced at a media briefing at Lilliesleaf Farm – the venue a pregnant reminder of the ANC’s struggle against apartheid, and shelter to Nelson Mandela in 1961. On 11 July 1963 security police raided the farm, arresting 19 activists to join what would become the Rivonia Treason trial.

I will not be led by leaders who lost legitimacy and credibility. So it is with a heavy heart that I have to say that this is no longer the ANC that I know. This ANC is alien and corrupt,” Khoza said, according to News24. “The ANC has been hijacked by this alien and corrupt type. I reject its leaders, but I do not reject the members of the ANC.”

The ANC in Parliament was caught off guard by this resignation. Spokesperson for the governing party’s parliamentary caucus, Nonceba Mhlauli, who had been present for the swearing-in, said the party has not received Khoza’s resignation, nor even noticed of her resignation.

While the ANC took a dim view of Khoza’s resignation through the media, the DA sharply criticised the swearing-in of Dlamini-Zuma as bringing ANC factional battles to the national legislature.

As a strong supporter and close family to (President) Jacob Zuma, Dlamini-Zuma will only protect the President and his allies while deliberately ignoring the interests of South Africa and its people. Her interests only lie on protecting the corrupt and failed legacy of Jacob Zuma, the Guptas and the ANC,” said DA Chief Whip John Steenhuisen in a statement. “The DA does not appreciate ANC infighting impacting on the people’s business at Parliament. We cannot allow party politics to bring the legislature to a grinding halt. Dlamini-Zuma’s deployment to Parliament is not being done in good faith.”

Parliament is not unfamiliar to Dlamini-Zuma, having served since 1994 as minister of health, foreign affairs and home affairs, before heading to the AU in 2012.

Thursday saw a lot of action in the corridors of Parliament, on a two-week constituency recess. The swearing in came 13 days after it emerged Dlamini-Zuma and Wolmarans would come to Parliament, and three days into the recess.

Deputy Speaker Lechesa Tsenoli conducted the swearing in. Afterwards he left from a side entrance alongside senior staff of the National Assembly Table, those who sit just below the presiding officer during sittings, alongside Parliament’s spokesperson Moloto Mothapo, as Dlamini-Zuma briefly interacted with journalists.

Parliament’s official statement was brief. “As it is common practice in Parliament, the new MPs will immediately undergo an induction programme and be provided with all necessary tools of trade to assist them with carrying out their parliamentary duties without delay,” said Mothapo.

Neither this statement, nor Dlamini-Zuma’s earlier comments she knew nothing of anything to do with Cabinet, necessarily end speculation that her stint on the ANC parliamentary benches could be a short one.

Officially Dlamini-Zuma replaces Pule Mabe, who resigned his seat on the ANC parliamentary benches effective from the end of August. Wolmarans, the ex-Rustenburg mayor who served one year of a 20-year jail term for murdering a whistle blower before the conviction and sentences was overturned in mid-2014, replaces Brian Molefe, the one-time Eskom boss who spent about three months in Parliament before his controversial attempted return to the power utility.

And while Wolmarans’s seat on the ANC parliamentary benches has raised eyebrows even in the governing party’s caucus in Parliament, the focus has consistently fallen on Dlamini-Zuma.

Her move to the national legislature comes with less than 90 days to go before the ANC’s December national elective conference, where she hopes to clinch the party’s top post, rather than Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Amid the Byzantine choreography of the ANC there appears to be a move towards a unity leadership slate first mooted at its national policy conference in July. And there is an argument Dlamini-Zuma’s move to Parliament at this juncture would serve to strengthen her party presidential campaign. And once in Parliament, the door is open for a move to Cabinet.

That, of course, is Zuma’s prerogative. But in the current factional manoeuvring a Cabinet reshuffle to include Dlamini-Zuma could at least open another strategic option in what is a complex political chess game.

If this is indeed part of the bigger picture plan, then Dlamini-Zuma’s swearing in as ANC MP is the first step. It is required because Cabinet already includes the maximum constitutionally permissible to ministers from outside the ranks of Parliament – Water and Sanitation Minister Nomvula Mokonyane and Public Works Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko, both of whom are widely regarded as allies of the President.

The waiting game is on. DM

Photo: ANC MP Makhosi Khoza addressed a gathering at The Conference for The Future of South Africa at the Rhema Bible Church in Randburg on Tuesday, 19 July 2017. Photo: Ihsaan Haffejee

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