On Monday, in an illuminating eight hours of court argument, the National Prosecuting Authority’s case against National Assembly speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula was laid bare.
The nation was able to catch a glimpse of the gory details set to lead to the speaker’s arrest on about 12 counts of corruption and money laundering.
It was a difficult moment for South Africa — the head of yet another crucial institution exposed but fighting to avoid accountability.
It came months before a crucial election, in which the ANC is facing the possibility of losing its outright majority.
Yet Mapisa-Nqakula saw no reason to spare her party, the institution of parliament or her country from her sordid legal fight; she opted to take “special leave” instead of resigning.
Now she may become the first parliamentary speaker to be voted out in a motion of no confidence in democratic South Africa.
Her party has an opportunity to make a marked difference to perceptions that it is soft on graft by supporting the motion urgently brought by DA chief whip Siviwe Gwarube this week, and accepted by acting speaker Lechesa Tsenoli.
The DA, says Gwarube, has written to parties including the ANC, urging them to support the motion.
“We have to insulate parliament from her and her legal woes; she cannot be allowed to drag this institution through the dirt with her,” Gwarube tells the FM.
The rules are clear, she says: the motion should be debated urgently — ideally on Thursday. But unfortunately, the ANC may once again have to be dragged kicking and screaming to do the right thing.
ANC national executive committee members have quietly expressed their wish for Mapisa-Nqakula to resign. But given her belligerent stance, bringing an application to prevent being arrested, she is unlikely to do so.
We have to insulate parliament from her and her legal woes; she cannot be allowed to drag this institution through the dirt with her
— Siviwe Gwarube
In fact, she used parliamentary communication channels to announce her decision to take “special leave”, instead of quietly communicating the decision to parliament itself and issuing a media statement in her personal capacity. Gwarube says this is exactly the kind of “decoupling” needed between parliament and the speaker to preserve the integrity of the institution.
What is left is for the ANC caucus in parliament to take a strong stand and show South Africans that it is done with shielding comrades at the expense of crucial institutions and citizens. With the parliamentary term ending soon, it would make a strong political statement if the motion is debated this week.
It would make an even stronger statement if the ANC threw its support behind the motion and voted to remove Mapisa-Nqakula. It is a golden opportunity for the party to illustrate a real commitment to elevating crucial institutions over its individual leaders.
A failure to do the right thing should be judged harshly by voters, who are set to come out in their numbers on May 29.
The ANC has repeatedly been shown that elevating individuals over institutions and the country always ends badly. Jacob Zuma, the president it shielded for years to the detriment of institutions, the country and its citizens, has now turned on the party and is seeking to unsettle it at the polls through his newly formed MK Party. The ANC failed this week in its bid to get the party deregistered and scrapped from the ballot paper — once again due to its own failure to act when it should have.
The ANC has shown a stubbornness to learn from its mistakes in the past. Voting to remove Mapisa-Nqakula would provide a glimmer of hope that it can.
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