In a dramatic media briefing ahead of Tuesday’s vote of no confidence, ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu warned that ousting President Jacob Zuma through parliamentary means would be tantamount to hurling a nuclear bomb at the South African economy.
Mthembu’s briefing on Friday came a day after ANC MP Derek Hanekom said more than half the MPs in the party’s caucus were concerned with state capture and believed action was needed.
Mthembu — often described as not being a Zuma supporter — sought to hush speculation that ANC MPs would vote with the opposition for a vote of no confidence in Zuma. He said removing a “democratically elected president” deployed by his party to lead was undemocratic and that a subsequent resignation of Cabinet would plunge the country into economic and political uncertainty.
Mthembu’s remarks were curious in the sense that the Constitution does not, in fact, require the dissolution of Cabinet if the president loses power in a vote of no confidence in Parliament. Mthembu also conflated the principle of internal party democracy when attempting to characterise the vote of no confidence as an attempt by opposition parties to dispose of the ANC through means outside of a democratic election.
Mthembu said any ANC member deployed to Parliament through the process of a party list has to have been “bewitched” to vote in line with a party that works against the ANC.
However, Mthembu’s argument attempts to give political parties’ internal constitutions equal stature to the Constitution of SA in governing the work of members. This is despite MPs swearing an oath to uphold the country’s Constitution on assuming office.
In any event, Mthembu sought to impress upon reporters that while opposition parties are seeking to hobble the governing party through the vote of no confidence, the economy and the people of SA would be the greatest casualties of the fallout should Zuma be ousted through such a vote.
“I want the people who have downgraded [SA] to junk status to know that removing a president will create so much instability and uncertainty because you will be thrusting us into an uncertain future, that the party the president comes from would be unprepared for,” he said.
He said the ANC’s resistance to a vote of no confidence should not be misconstrued as attempts to protect perpetrators of corruption or selected individuals. The ANC has, in fact, been a proponent of the idea of a judicial commission of inquiry into state capture, he said.
“All matters of public concern which cause distress to South African society must be attended to as a matter of urgency,” Mthembu said. “Further investigations by arms of state, including the judiciary, must be conducted to unearth how we got where we are and who is responsible for us getting to where we are.”
He did not clarify what Luthuli House would expect of Zuma’s Cabinet should the president be forced to step down, saying: “It will result in the entire Cabinet having to resign which will lead to a collapse in government, which will have deep and long-lasting ramifications. It will plunge our country into complete political instability and economic uncertainty”.
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