Marion Edmunds
The parliamentary session ended in acrimony this week as opposition parties rallied around Pan Africanist Congress firebrand Patricia de Lille.
She has become embroiled in a fight with the party after accusing some of its top officials of spying for the apartheid government.
The National Party’s Jacko Maree yesterday walked out of the ad-hoc multi-party committee set up to investigate De Lille’s statements, and proposed that Parliament scrap the committee, claiming the ANC has already prejudged the case against De Lille.
The Inkatha Freedom Party walked out of the committee mid-week in sympathy with the PAC and outrage at the ANC’s behaviour. The Democratic Party backs the NP’s proposals, but says it expects the ANC to press on and the matter to end up in court.
However, the committee will continue to meet, with representatives from the ANC and PAC only.
“It’s a kangaroo court, and the whole process is a demonstration of ANC muscle and unequal justice,” says the DP’s representative on the committeee, Douglas Gibson.
“There is no precedent either in British parliamentary history or in South African history, before or since democracy, for a committee such as this to proceed with disciplinary hearings when the member concerned has withdrawn the remarks.” Gibson has refused to attend further committee meetings.
The special committee was set up after De Lille’s allegations in the National Assembly two weeks ago that several high-profile ANC office-bearers, including some Cabinet ministers, had been spies.
Opposition parties believe the ANC prejudged the inquiry, because it had drawn up a resolution to suspend De Lille from Parliament for two weeks as punishment for her outburst before discussions in the committee had actually started or De Lille had been given the opportunity to put her case. ANC committee chair Dirk du Toit denies this. “Everyone is entitled to do their own preparation but that does not mean a pre-judgement,” he says.
“I have not seen the document that they are speaking about and only if they come and show it to me could I identify anything. I don’t know what they have stolen from where because everything I have worked on in my file is just preparatory material,” he adds.
The row over De Lille has further united opposition parties against what is perceived to be ANC high-handedness, and weak leadership in Parliament.
The dissatisfaction stretches beyond procedural disputes to the way in which the ANC majority handles controversial legislation in committees, Parliamentary planning, and the ANC’s monopoly of research funds for Parliament.
“One of the interesting developments during this session of Parliament has been the amount of cross-party co-operation among opposition parties,” Gibson says.
“We certainly do not see eye-to-eye on every issue, but on many occasions the whole opposition has been united in indignation at the increasing tendency of the ANC to ride roughshod over all its opponents.”
Maree adds: “The parties are coming closer because there is a concern that there is a lack of leadership in Parliament generally and it is affecting Parliament negatively and reflecting badly on us as well.”
De Lille is known to have sought advice from opposition parties during her battle with the ANC.