”Very sour and strained” relations between African National Congress MP Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and fellow parliamentarians, including those of her own party, meant she would not have received a fair hearing over her non-disclosure to Parliament of regular monthly donations and financial interests.
This was part of the argument put forward by Madikizela-Mandela when her legal battle with Speaker Frene Ginwala returned to the Cape High Court on Monday. Madikizela-Mandela is asking the court to review the guilty verdict of the ethics committee.
She also wants to nullify a pending public reprimand by Ginwala and a pay deduction.
The court heard that as relations within her own party ”became sour”, this had created a ”reasonable apprehension of bias”.
Madikizela-Mandela also charged that Parliament’s management of the complaint against her was ”grossly irregular, unlawful, unfair, unreasonable and ccompanied by malice and ulterior motive”.
As the saga awaits conclusion with the ruling of the court, which reserved judgement, the tussle has turned into a stand-off between two of the ruling party’s most powerful women.
The ANC parliamentary caucus remains on the sidelines. It supported the speaker’s moves to discipline Madikizela-Mandela, based on a resolution passed by the ANC-dominated National Assembly in November, but also defended the MP’s right as a citizen to approach the courts.
The caucus was not in a position to remove Madikizela-Mandela from her post — that was the job of the ANC national executive committee, which has yet to reach a decision in its probe of, among other things, her long absence from Parliament.
The ANC-dominated rules committee earlier passed the buck on what to do about her defiance of Parliament.
Following this, Ginwala sent a second letter to Madikizela-Mandela to present herself in Parliament on April 2, when observers expected her to get a public dressing-down. But she obtained an urgent interdict, with costs, to stop the speaker from censuring her — even in absentia.
Madikizela-Mandela was sixth in the race for the new ANC national executive committee at December’s Stellenbosch conference. Ginwala was 16th.
She has, until now, been regarded as an untouchable in the ANC, but Die Burger reported that Ginwala told MPs at a symposium at Somerset West that she had received backing from President Thabo Mbeki for the move against Madikizela-Mandela. The newspaper quoted Ginwala as saying the president had sent a letter to say there was no place for corruption in Parliament.
So Ginwala is appealing to the highest ranks of the ANC, while Madikizela-Mandela is counting on her popular appeal among the rank and file.
The speaker is close to Mbeki with ties stretching back to their time exile. Mbeki and Madikizela-Mandela have publicly differed on issues like the government’s HIV/Aids policy, and they clashed during a June 16 2001 rally when her cap was dislodged after she was rebuffed trying to greet him after her late arrival.
Mbeki, however, generally draws her into his inner-circle close to elections.