/ 5 May 2017

ANC MP: Vote for the country, not the party

Speaking out: MP and member of the ANC’s Gauteng provincial executive Mondli Gungubele
Speaking out: MP and member of the ANC’s Gauteng provincial executive Mondli Gungubele

ANC MP Mondli Gungubele says President Jacob Zuma should step down with dignity, for the sake of his children and the governing party.

And ANC MPs needed to put the interests of South Africa first when they vote in the upcoming motion of no confidence in Zuma in Parliament, he told the Mail & Guardian.

The ANC backbencher and former Ekurhuleni executive mayor is the first ANC MP to say publicly that ANC MPs should be able to vote with their conscience when the Democratic Alliance tables its motion of no confidence in Zuma.

Gungubele’s statement comes amid growing calls in the alliance for Zuma to step down. The ANC president was humiliated this week after workers booed him at labour federation Cosatu’s May Day celebration in Bloemfontein. Other union members disrupted the federation’s provincial rallies in KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo to express their unhappiness with Zuma’s leadership.

Gungubele’s public stance contradicts the party’s secretary general Gwede Mantashe, who said ANC MPs should not be dictated to by opposition parties.

Gungubele hinted he would vote against Zuma when the motion of no confidence is tabled before Parliament. He said he had strong views on the motion but would express them in the ANC caucus.

The motion of no confidence against Zuma was scheduled to be tabled in Parliament last month, but was postponed after Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement (UDM) party made an application to the Constitutional Court to force Parliament to use a secret ballot – for the protection of ANC MPs and to allow them to vote according to their conscience.

On Wednesday, the Constitutional Court said it would hear the UDM’s case on May 15. This would include argument about whether the UDM was right to take its case straight to the highest court or whether it should first approach the high court. The Constitutional Court also admitted another four organisations as amici curiae (friends of the court).

The M&G understands that a number of ANC MPs agree with Gungubele’s view. But it remains to be seen whether – if there is no secret ballot – they will act on it.

Other MPs have said it is unfair for the party to shift the burden of recalling Zuma on to their shoulders, when, in principle, it is the party that should decide.

Gungubele, who also sits on Gauteng ANC’s provincial executive committee, said he sympathised with those calling for a secret ballot, but he was not afraid to express his views openly.

He said it was ANC tradition to put the interests of the country ahead of the party. “When the ANC was born in 1912, it was because of the situation in South Africa, not because of the situation in the ANC.

“The conduct of the ANC under the leadership of our forebears always resonated with the problems of society,” said Gungubele, adding that it was wrong for senior ANC leaders to threaten the party’s deployees in Parliament should they not vote against the motion. To threaten MPs is a sign of an immature democracy, he said.

“There can be Democrats in America who vote with the Republicans. There are Republicans at times who vote with the Democrats. All the time, it is always the principle on the table. It will only be shocking when a Democrat in America votes for the ideology of the Republican. But on isolated issues, Democrats at times will vote with the Republicans. That’s a mature democracy.”

“To me, what our movement must convince everybody is what principle we are putting on the table other than the name of the president. What principle do we say we must fight for. That principle must make sense for the advancements of interests of the people,” argued Gungubele.

The biggest challenge when the motion of no confidence against Zuma is tabled was “not about the DA or the EFF [Economic Freedom Fighters], but about the issue on the table”.

“In this movement [ANC], we have been trained to deal with issues, not with [individuals]. The ANC must express its view about what will be on the table that day, not what it thinks about the DA.”

The ANC should answer the question as though there is no DA or EFF.

Gungubele said former ANC president OR Tambo had said in 1984, when he was addressing the Solomon Mahlangu School in Tanzania, that “let us tell the truth at all times even if the truth coincides with the stance of our opponents”.

“He said you cannot sacrifice the truth because it is being articulated by your enemy. For instance, if the EFF says there is a sewage leakage, are you going to say it is not leaking because so says the EFF? It is that kind of question that our movement will have to address on the day of the no-confidence motion.”

Gungubele said the “big question” for the ANC was whether MPs could, “with clear conscious, face this nation” after the vote on the no-confidence motion.

He criticised the national executive committee for failing to hold Zuma to account and for ignoring the growing public anger against him.

“There have been protest marches all over the country. Every time we respond, we say we can’t be told by the opposition. Is that the most important thing when thousands invade the streets of our country expressing a displeasure?”

Gungubele also took a swipe at Zuma’s dismissal of protesters as racist.

“You can’t, when masses of our people are protesting, refer to their race or their ethnicity. Even in the worst days of apartheid, our forebears took a stance to refuse to put our struggle against a race. They always made sure that we are fighting a racial system, not a race.”