Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma is now a minister in the presidency responsible for youth, women and people with disabilities. (Photo by Luiz Rampelotto/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
ANC national executive committee (NEC) member and presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma is being disciplined by the governing party after she voted with the opposition on Tuesday in favour of adopting parliament’s section 89 report about President Cyril Ramaphosa’s conduct regarding the Phala Phala matter.
The cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister has been served with notice of disciplinary action by acting secretary general Paul Mashatile after a meeting of the ANC’s top six on Wednesday.
She and four other ANC MPs – Mervyn Dirks, Mosebenzi Zwane, Supra Mahumapelo and Thandi Mahambehlala – voted against the line adopted by the party caucus in the National Assembly, while NEC members Zweli Mkhize and Lindiwe Sisulu, who had both called for the report’s adoption, were absent during the public vote call.
In a letter to Dlamini Zuma, Mashatile said the ANC officials had discussed the defiance of the caucus position — and that of the NEC, which also rejected the Phala Phala report compiled by retired chief justice Sandile Ngcobo’s three-person panel.
Mashatile said that rule 25 of the ANC’s constitution stated that any member or office bearer who failed to abide by decisions of any structure or committee of the ANC was guilty of misconduct.
The same section gave the party jurisdiction to discipline any member committing “any act of misconduct’, including “joining or supporting a political organisation or party, other than an organisation in alliance with the ANC, in a manner contrary to the aims, objectives and policy of the ANC”.
“The national officials, having considered the report of the chief whip, and the abovementioned provisions of the ANC constitution, among others, decided to exercise the power in rule 25.9 to invoke disciplinary proceedings under the ANC constitution and therefore to initiate disciplinary proceedings against you,” Mashatile said in the letter.
He said the ANC chief national presenter had been requested to take the necessary step to institute disciplinary proceedings against Dlamini Zuma.
Dlamini Zuma, who unsuccessfully contested the ANC presidency in 2017, had hoped to stand again at the party’s conference, which starts on Friday in Johannesburg, but failed to make the ballot during nominations.
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