BARNEY MTHOMBOTHI | Partisan politics has no place in the removal of a president

The Western Cape High Court made the right call in granting President Cyril Ramaphosa the stay of execution that he sought last week, thus putting a pause to some MPs’ breathless eagerness to hang him.

The ATM, a minuscule two-cent party, which nobody voted for, has led a headlong rush to the Constitutional Court for direct access to appeal against the decision. Not to be outdone, the EFF followed suit, at which point the herd mentality took over and the entire ad hoc committee fell in line. They’re just too keen to sink their teeth into the delectable hide of the buffalo. They can’t wait to revel in what could be a big kill.

One would hope, however, that the eminent justices will give short shrift to this puerile zealotry. They surely must have better things to do than entertain the minor vexations of serial litigants.

Nobody is saying Ramaphosa should not be called to account for the bizarre incident on his farm. His feet should indeed be held to the fire.

But this is about more than just him. We need to distinguish between the man and the position he holds. The two should not be conflated. The former, like all politicians, is expendable and can easily be chewed and spewed with nary a thought. The democratic process always takes care of that. The latter, however, is sacred and has to be handled with care.

If we do things in a tearing hurry, to satisfy our insatiable thirst for blood, we may be setting a precedent that comes back to bite us

Any attempt to expel a sitting president must be based on solid, watertight and justifiable evidence. Emotion or partisan politics should play no part in such a decision. Whatever decision is made in the end must be the right one. We need to be deliberate and cautious in getting there.

If we do things in a tearing hurry, to satisfy our insatiable thirst for blood, we may be setting a precedent that comes back to bite us. Any finicky politician could then wake up on the wrong side of their bed and decide it’s the right time to take down the president, plunging the country into unnecessary chaos.

We don’t send an accused to jail, for instance, if the evidence doesn’t stack up or is not beyond any reasonable doubt. Why then should we even begin to take steps to remove a sitting president based on a document brimming with flimsy and untested contents?

But Ramaphosa is the villain of the piece. His day will and must come. The country wouldn’t be going through such agonies if he’d levelled with the public about the origin or the source of the stash of cash stolen from his couch. We probably would have even forgotten about the whole damn thing if only he hadn’t fed us some porkies.

But then it’s probably too much to ask of someone whose words are not always tethered to the truth. Being honest, it’d seem, is not in his nature. And we certainly wouldn’t be wasting the time and resources of parliament and the courts if the ANC, in a forlorn attempt to protect its leader, had not arrogantly stopped parliament from dealing with the panel’s report straight away.

The irony is they could still have got their way if only they’d had the patience to allow the process to run its course; they had the numbers to vote it down in the end. But then, pride comes before a fall.

And the report shouldn’t be treated as some sacred text. Are we sure, for instance, that politics didn’t play some part in this drama? Sandile Ngcobo, who chaired the panel that produced this seemingly inadequate hit job, was controversially appointed chief justice by Jacob Zuma, over the highly regarded Dikgang Moseneke, who was deputy chief justice and in line to take over from the retiring Pius Langa. It may be hallucination on my part, but such an appearance of bias or partiality, however minor or trivial, could have been avoided.

Phala Phala is the albatross that Ramaphosa will carry to his grave, just as Nkandla will be his predecessor’s enduring legacy. But, as shown by his exasperatingly incomprehensible appointment of Dina Pule — brought back to the cabinet after being fired for corruption by Zuma of all people — he probably doesn’t care what we think of him anymore. He has perhaps come to the realisation that he has no reputation to speak of, nor to protect. When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose, to steal a line from the great Bob Dylan.

We may be critical of the opposition parties’ alacrity in taking it upon themselves to remove a president, but it was, in fact, the ANC that set the ball rolling by so doing to serve the factional interests of the party. Nelson Mandela is the only elected president who left office without a skirmish.

By playing fast and loose with the presidency — changing incumbents to suit parochial interests — the ANC has devalued the office

Thabo Mbeki was removed after the Polokwane conference in what amounted to a coup d’etat. He had the grace, however, to politely advise his assassins on how to plunge the dagger properly without breaking the law. Years later, Zuma got a taste of his own medicine, with Ramaphosa wielding the axe this time, amid melodious promises to clean up the mess Zuma left behind. But here we are again; Nkandla has begotten Phala Phala. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

By playing fast and loose with the presidency — changing incumbents to suit parochial interests — the ANC has devalued the office. It has reduced it to a plaything. No longer seen as a repository or expression of the collective will and aspirations of the people, but just putty in nefarious hands.

In doing so, however, the ANC broke no law. It may have been neither politic nor pretty, but the constitution, especially the electoral system, gives them every right to take such a reckless decision. And they cannot cry foul now that other parties seem to be following in their footsteps.

But we need to pause and reflect before rushing helter-skelter into uncharted territory. It could be a slippery slope.