“They have no idea what it’s like; how fucking hard it is for us. They don’t know what the hell we’re talking about when we talk about parliamentary oversight.”
This intriguing statement was made to me the other day by an African National Congress back-bench MP — who one might think cared little for Parliament
and its watchdog role over the executive branch of the government.
But the point he was making was rather telling: that there is a group of ANC ministers who have served in the Cabinet since 1994 and who have never served as mere MPs — Jacob Zuma, Kader Asmal, Alec Erwin, Trevor Manuel — the list goes on.
Hard though it may be for some to embrace, there is a particular class of politician that deserves our greatest sympathy — “back bench” MPs, members of the governing party who do not serve as ministers. Members of the Cabinet sit on the front benches of Parliament, the former on the back benches.
Put simply, these are the men and women ANC MPs who are expected to hold to account members of their party who serve the executive branch.
For the majority of back-benchers, whether they ply their trade in Cape Town, Westminster or Delhi, this is no easy task. By definition, ministers are senior — one does not make it into the Cabinet without some serious political weight in the party.
In effect, the more junior members of a parliamentary caucus are asked to perform a management role over the more senior members. This is a bit like the boss telling the secretary that, contrary to appearances, the former reports to the latter.
ANC diehards are fond of bending one’s ear about the great traditions of democracy and consultation that permeate every follicle and orifice of this proudly broad church of liberation struggle. But none of the mental gymnastics can alter the fundamental inequality: “We have the numbers but not the power,” as one back-bencher put it to me recently.
Every Thursday morning when Parliament is in session, in the Victorian-style Old Assembly Chamber, the ANC parliamentary caucus of 265 MPs gathers. Quite an impressive sight, and not one for the faint-hearted. I remember how a very young ANC MP in the first democratic Parliament, between 1994 and 1999, told me how hard it was to stand up and speak at the caucus — let alone voice dissent against the 20-odd ANC Cabinet ministers, sitting at the front with then president Nelson Mandela.
The ANC put you there; you were a member of its list at the last election. In any case, you are inherently loyal to your party. But you are also loyal to the hard-won Constitution, which says that the Cabinet and president are answerable to the legislature. The opposition parties can try to extract accountability, but on the strength of persuasion. Potentially, you are more influential. But how on earth do you express opposition, without appearing to breach the primary duty to the party? Or is it the primary duty?
The more you think about it, the more difficult it seems. Which is why the first available option is so popular: keep your head firmly in the parliamentary sand.
The other two responses involve even greater contortions. The first is not to worry too much about the Constitution and fiddly little things like executive accountability, and try to get your nose as far as it will go up the collective bottom of the leadership.
After all, landing a job in the executive does rather neatly solve the dilemma.
The final possible response to this challenge is less that of Houdini than a trapeze artist. A tiny band of brothers and sisters try, in foolhardy fashion, to balance the two. It is exhausting work and should not be practiced for long, certainly not in front of children.
There are those who do incredibly well at getting this square peg of accountability into the round hole of party loyalty, such as Pravin Gordhan or Blade Nzimande, committee chairs in the first Parliament. Barbara Hogan, the current finance committee chair who is on the verge of leaving Parliament in frustration at the impossibility of the role, is another case.
The only sustainable option is to accept that you will not rise up what Disraeli called the “greasy pole” of political ambition. The only time a House of Commons committee is ever remotely effective in performing oversight in Westminster is when it is chaired by a thick-skinned, been-there-and-got-the-T-shirt, old pro such as the intellectual Labour MP Gerald Kaufman. Perhaps Pallo Jordan will be inclined to play such a role now that he has been appointed chair of the foreign affairs committee.
The ANC has more than 200 back-benchers. It also has more than 20 whips to serve a Parliament of 400, partly as one whip admitted “because we’ve got to find something for all these back-benchers to do”. The ruling Labour Party in the United Kingdom appoints fewer whips to serve a House of Commons of well over 600.
I mention the whips because they are axiomatic to this exquisitely awkward embrace. They sit on the fissure that scars parliamentary systems — the overlap between the executive and the legislature. Whips are appointed by the executive to do their bidding and to get the back-benchers to do it as well. There is no point in pretending otherwise. “We’re there to keep these wankers in line,” was how a former henchman to the chief whip in the Labour Party described the case to me some years ago.
But there are different ways of performing what is in essence a political management function. The first chief whip, now Eastern Cape Premier Makhenkesi Stofile, was so submerged in administrative confusion that it was impossible to tell whether he liked Parliament or not. The whips’ corridor, where his office was housed, bore a close resemblance to that of a battlefield hospital in World War I.
The second, Max Sisulu, had the personal kudos to believe that efficiency could be married with a strong legislature, and stabilised the system admirably. But because he suspected that the chief whip’s position did not quite match his great name, he failed to accomplish all that he might have. As one insider puts it, “he was a good delegator” — a nice euphemism for the fact that he did not always make it into work in the morning.
Tony Yengeni oversaw a sound administration, and was successful at encouraging cross-party cooperation and good relations with the chief whips of other parties. But, as you might imagine, he was somewhat distracted in the latter part of his tenure, leaving things to his able bureaucrat deputy, Geoff Doidge.
Finally, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakulu built in the few months of her reign a reputation as a reformer who wanted to give ANC back-benchers a more prominent role. Sadly, her promotion to deputy minister means that we will never know if the reputation was deserved.
So to Nkosinathi Nhleko, the current chief whip. What role for back-benchers will he promote? Shortly before he took over, a document was prepared by the whips to help define what “political management” means. The first of 12-odd “principles” sets out the nature of “democracy in the parliamentary party”. Too late, or vapid, for Hogan, perhaps — but will it help save the poor old ANC back-bencher? Frankly, I doubt it. Send cards expressing sympathy and understanding, not donations. And it need not be a council of despair: progressive civil society organisations should work with independent-minded back-benchers to help strengthen their hands.
Archive: Previous columns by Richard Calland