Our constitution makes provision for the firing and reconstituting of the cabinet, should a simple majority of the National Assembly — 201 members — support this in a vote. During last week’s debate on the state of the nation address (Sona), I announced that I had tabled a motion of no confidence in the cabinet.
People, quite rightly, want to know our rationale. Why has the DA taken this specific action? Do we think it will succeed? If we have doubts, why table it? And why the cabinet and not the president himself? Is this a tacit vote of confidence in President Cyril Ramaphosa?
I will try to answer those questions. But before I do, it is important to remember the role of parliament in our democracy. One part of this role is to make laws by which our country must function. The other part is to hold the executive to account.
Each of the 400 elected MPs swore an oath to be faithful to the Republic of South Africa and to uphold the constitution. This oath makes it very clear that our allegiance as parliamentarians should be to our country before our party.
The president swore a similar oath, and the language of his oath is even more explicit in putting country first. This was a conscious inclusion by the authors of our constitution, because even in our democracy’s honeymoon phase it was possible to envisage a scenario where party loyalties and ambitions might clash with the interests of the republic and its people.
We cannot risk the possibility of a president David Mabuza
Fast-forward a couple of decades, and that scenario has come to pass. The interests of the ANC have overtaken the interests of the country, and a large number of the executive no longer even pretend otherwise. Ramaphosa himself is on record as saying: “I would rather be seen as a weak president than ... split the ANC, because that is not my mission. My mission is to keep the ANC united.”
This is no different to his predecessor, Jacob Zuma, who said a few years earlier: “I argued one time with someone who said the country comes first. And I said, as much as I understand that, I think my organisation, the ANC, comes first.”
Which brings me back to our motion of no confidence. It is telling that just about no-one, other than the ANC speakers in the Sona debate and the president himself, has disputed our allegations against the cabinet. There is near unanimous agreement in the media, among opposition parties, in the business community, in civil society and among ordinary South Africans that our cabinet is a failure.
In my Sona debate speech I highlighted 11 of the worst ministers — from the rank failure by the three security cluster ministers to protect lives and property in July’s riots, to the almost comical track records of people like ministers Fikile Mbalula, Lindiwe Sisulu, Angie Motshekga, Gwede Mantashe, Patricia de Lille and Ebrahim Patel. But in reality I could have devoted my entire speech to all 28 ministers.
The smoking gun is surely the report into the July riots where 354 people died, billions of rands' worth of property was looted or set alight and thousands of jobs were destroyed. The report stated: “The Executive... carries some of the blame too and must take responsibility for its lapse of leadership.” Which means that heads must roll, rather than merely offering a learning opportunity to do better, as Ramaphosa conveniently interpreted it. Further smoking guns can be found in the Zondo reports, where corrupt ministers are named, as well as in the Gupta leaks and a raft of exposés in the media. We can no longer pretend we have a legitimate cabinet.
Do I think our motion has a chance of passing? Yes I do. Perhaps not a good chance, going by similar votes in the past, but never before has the ANC been more divided. If we’re aiming for 201 votes, we need only 31 ANC MPs to break ranks. And the last motion of no confidence in Zuma showed us that the party line is by no means guaranteed.
Even if this motion had almost zero chance of success, we’d be failing in our constitutional duty as opposition if we did not do everything in our power to hold the government to account.
Why the cabinet and not Ramaphosa himself? The answer to that is twofold. Firstly, the man waiting in the wings is a threat to our democracy. We cannot risk the possibility of a President David Mabuza. Secondly, Ramaphosa brought a reform agenda to parliament in his Sona speech. In words, at least. So while this motion no confidence in the cabinet is not an endorsement of the president, it is an acknowledgment that we can work with some of the things he said.
Why the cabinet and not Ramaphosa himself? The answer to that is twofold
We have repeatedly stated that the DA will put its full weight behind reforms brought to parliament. We don’t care whose plan it is, as long as it is the right plan. And if the president’s constructive Sona promises are rendered impossible by his cabinet, we want to give him a chance to clean out that cabinet and start again.
However, the truth is that he cannot touch his cabinet. Just this past week we learnt from public service & administration minister Ayanda Dlodlo that the long-promised lifestyle audits for cabinet ministers will not happen any time soon. These audits were promised by Ramaphosa in his very first Sona, in 2018. Now we are told that auditing his cabinet ministers is not a priority.
He cannot hold them accountable, he cannot audit them and he cannot fire them. The best he can do is an occasional reshuffle, or perhaps a diplomatic posting. This is despite the fact that he has expressed his own vote of no confidence in them by parachuting outsiders into his office to take over the duties meant to be performed by ministers. Three such appointments to his “super-presidency” were announced in his Sona speech, and it’s likely that more will follow.
So that’s where we are now. There is broad consensus in the nation that the entire cabinet is compromised and poses a threat to the stability and the economic recovery of our country. There is no doubt they have to go. But the president has all but admitted that he cannot and will not touch them. We can now either lament this powerless state of affairs, as many have already done, or we can try to do something about it.
• Steenhuisen is DA Leader
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