South African politics seem stuck in a loop over the past decade: two presidential scandals, two Constitutional Court rebukes of parliament for unconstitutional conduct and the same performative politics.
When the Constitutional Court ruled that the National Assembly acted “inconsistent with the constitution” in the saga of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s dollar-stuffed sofa cushions on his private Phala Phala game farm, it echoed the late March 2016 finding that the national legislature acted “inconsistent with the constitution” in the scandal over the taxpayer-funded upgrades at former president Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla homestead.
Like his predecessor, Ramaphosa has turned to the courts. It’s the same playbook, repackaged in a business suit rather than a populist “100% Zulu” T-shirt.
“I will not resign,“ Ramaphosa said in Monday evening’s televised address, highlighting “nothing in the Constitutional Court judgment compels me to resign my office”, adding that resigning would “give credence to a panel report that unfortunately has grave flaws”.
In 2016 the ANC closed ranks around Zuma, maintaining that nothing in the judgment required him to resign and defeating a DA motion of no confidence on April 5. The then solo-governing party publicly accepted Zuma’s evening televised apology for “the frustration and confusion“ over the Nkandla debacle: “I never knowingly or deliberately set out to violate the constitution.”
Ramaphosa’s review litigation over the Section 89 panel report that in November 2022 recommended he had a case to answer before MPs could effectively stall any parliamentary impeachment inquiry. Central here is National Assembly Section 89 that “no member (MP) may reflect upon the merits of any matter on which a judicial decision in a court of law is pending”.
The impeachment proceedings of former public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane are illustrative. Though an impeachment inquiry was agreed in March 2021 and the committee established in June 2021, Mkhwebane’s litigation against the rules delayed parliamentary hearings until July 2022. After a delay-riddled process the House eventually impeached her in September 2023.
Strictly speaking, National Assembly speaker Thoko Didiza ticked all the court-required procedural boxes in announcing that she is tabling the Section 89 panel report in parliament, referring it to the president, establishing an impeachment committee and submitting the judgment to the rules review subcommittee.
All of these steps could happen while the impeachment inquiry is stalled as the presidential review application winds its way through the courts.
Didiza centralised control by stating that she’d “determine the appropriate programme, procedural arrangements, timeframes and institutional support” for the impeachment committee.
Traditionally, committees set their own working arrangements under rule 167, including terms of reference, as did the Mkhwebane inquiry. Committees established for a specific purpose are generally rooted in multiparty discussions.
Whether through political protection, what the Phala Phala judgment described as gatekeeping, or procedural paralysis, the effect is the same: accountability is delayed.
The Phala Phala panel report never went away, even though in December 2022 the ANC used its numbers in the house to nix a full impeachment inquiry just before the ANC elective conference.
It may have been bad legal advice for Ramaphosa to subsequently drop the review or possibly a dose of political arrogance. The May 2024 elections disproved the belief in perpetual ANC numerical dominance.
For a deeply political institution such as parliament arithmetic is now the problem. No side in the national unity coalition divide has the required two-thirds majority, or 267 “ayes”, to uphold or reject Ramaphosa’s impeachment. Ditto any no-confidence motion. So, it is about damage limitation. And spin.
The danger is not that presidents survive scandals. It is that constitutional accountability becomes performative without consequence. After Nkandla, South Africa can’t pretend not to recognise the pattern.
• Merten is a veteran political journalist specialising in parliament and governance.
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