PANAPRESS
Panafrican News Agency
South Africa: Zuma on the ropes after State of the Nation debacle (By Craig Urquhart, PANA correspondent)
Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) – Not since Apartheid-era Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd was assassinated by a knife-wielding messenger in Parliament in 1966 has South Africa’s seat of government experienced such chaos.
Millions of South African television viewers watched in fascination as MPs prevented President Jacob Zuma from delivering his State of the Nation address on Thursday.
There was outrage when MPs and journalists pointed out that their cellphones had been scrambled, preventing them from communicating with the outside world.
Musi Maimane, the parliamentary head of the official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), stopped the proceedings before they even began when he asked the Speaker of the House Baleka Mbete to have the scrambling device switched off. She reluctantly complied.
When Zuma finally began his address, he was interrupted by an Economic Freedom Fighter MP who questioned when he would abide by the Public Protector’s report which said he was partly liable for the US$20 million upgrade to his private residence with taxpayer’s money.
Following an explosive debate between the Speaker and EFF MPs, armed South African Police Service officers entered the chamber to forcibly remove the MPs who claimed that the Speaker of Parliament violated the constitutional principle of separation of powers. In the chaos that followed, at least seven MPs where injured.
The DA pointed out that there was an important difference between the police and parliamentary security – one reports to the executive and the other to parliament.
“To allow one arm of government to suppress the work of another is a very dangerous precedent for our constitutional democracy. It is essential for the oversight role Parliament must play that its work cannot be suppressed by the security forces, and that the police may not interfere with the function and work of political parties.
"The EFF was wrong not to abide by the Speaker’s ruling. The Parliamentary security should have removed them. But calling in armed police was a violation of the constitution that the DA cannot tolerate,” Maimane said.
The scuffle in the corridors of power has sent shock waves around South Africa with several analysts warning that the country’s democracy is now under threat.
Andrew Trench, a journalist, said there could be nothing other than a sense of disbelief at what the world witnessed.
“If you doubt we are faced with an unprecedented crisis, let us spell it out. Citizens battled police officers in pursuit of peaceful protest, a cornerstone of our democracy.
"Elected representatives from the official opposition and other parties were arrested or detained. Freedom of speech and of the press was spat upon with an apparently sinister attempt to jam journalists’ communications from Parliament. Parliamentarians were frog-marched from the House, apparently by police officers dressed in civilian garb.”
Ferial Haffajee, another journalist, said the 103-year-old party ANC, which had regularly done the right thing for South Africa, seemed without leaders able to think beyond its own self-interest.
“That quality has been its greatest political equity but it has been squandered in protection of a single man,” she said.
William Saunderson-Meyer, a columnist for the Mail & Guardian newspaper in South Africa, noted that Zuma had already curtailed his presence at large public gatherings with his minders trying as best possible to ensure that he was not humiliated by booing.
“Now he cannot even deliver the most important address in the parliamentary calendar without it degenerating into a raucous circus, controlled not by the protocols of constitutional democracy but by armed policemen in the Assembly and the state’s jamming of cellular phones, so that his embarrassment could not be the instant fodder of the world’s social media.”
There was bitter irony in the fact that two former presidents – FW De Klerk and Thabo Mbeki – were in Parliament to witness the debacle.
Over the past few days De Klerk has been widely hailed for the historic State of the Nation address he gave 25 years ago announcing the release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years imprisonment and the unbanning of Zuma’s African National Congress. And Mbeki who was ousted by the ANC in a move which saw Zuma sweep into power conceded that the situation in Parliament was now “troubling” and that the fault clearly lay with the presidency.
Time will tell whether the ANC will also turn on Zuma.
-0- PANA CU/MA 15Feb2015
Millions of South African television viewers watched in fascination as MPs prevented President Jacob Zuma from delivering his State of the Nation address on Thursday.
There was outrage when MPs and journalists pointed out that their cellphones had been scrambled, preventing them from communicating with the outside world.
Musi Maimane, the parliamentary head of the official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), stopped the proceedings before they even began when he asked the Speaker of the House Baleka Mbete to have the scrambling device switched off. She reluctantly complied.
When Zuma finally began his address, he was interrupted by an Economic Freedom Fighter MP who questioned when he would abide by the Public Protector’s report which said he was partly liable for the US$20 million upgrade to his private residence with taxpayer’s money.
Following an explosive debate between the Speaker and EFF MPs, armed South African Police Service officers entered the chamber to forcibly remove the MPs who claimed that the Speaker of Parliament violated the constitutional principle of separation of powers. In the chaos that followed, at least seven MPs where injured.
The DA pointed out that there was an important difference between the police and parliamentary security – one reports to the executive and the other to parliament.
“To allow one arm of government to suppress the work of another is a very dangerous precedent for our constitutional democracy. It is essential for the oversight role Parliament must play that its work cannot be suppressed by the security forces, and that the police may not interfere with the function and work of political parties.
"The EFF was wrong not to abide by the Speaker’s ruling. The Parliamentary security should have removed them. But calling in armed police was a violation of the constitution that the DA cannot tolerate,” Maimane said.
The scuffle in the corridors of power has sent shock waves around South Africa with several analysts warning that the country’s democracy is now under threat.
Andrew Trench, a journalist, said there could be nothing other than a sense of disbelief at what the world witnessed.
“If you doubt we are faced with an unprecedented crisis, let us spell it out. Citizens battled police officers in pursuit of peaceful protest, a cornerstone of our democracy.
"Elected representatives from the official opposition and other parties were arrested or detained. Freedom of speech and of the press was spat upon with an apparently sinister attempt to jam journalists’ communications from Parliament. Parliamentarians were frog-marched from the House, apparently by police officers dressed in civilian garb.”
Ferial Haffajee, another journalist, said the 103-year-old party ANC, which had regularly done the right thing for South Africa, seemed without leaders able to think beyond its own self-interest.
“That quality has been its greatest political equity but it has been squandered in protection of a single man,” she said.
William Saunderson-Meyer, a columnist for the Mail & Guardian newspaper in South Africa, noted that Zuma had already curtailed his presence at large public gatherings with his minders trying as best possible to ensure that he was not humiliated by booing.
“Now he cannot even deliver the most important address in the parliamentary calendar without it degenerating into a raucous circus, controlled not by the protocols of constitutional democracy but by armed policemen in the Assembly and the state’s jamming of cellular phones, so that his embarrassment could not be the instant fodder of the world’s social media.”
There was bitter irony in the fact that two former presidents – FW De Klerk and Thabo Mbeki – were in Parliament to witness the debacle.
Over the past few days De Klerk has been widely hailed for the historic State of the Nation address he gave 25 years ago announcing the release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years imprisonment and the unbanning of Zuma’s African National Congress. And Mbeki who was ousted by the ANC in a move which saw Zuma sweep into power conceded that the situation in Parliament was now “troubling” and that the fault clearly lay with the presidency.
Time will tell whether the ANC will also turn on Zuma.
-0- PANA CU/MA 15Feb2015
