Although the numbers show that a number of ANC MPs voted
against the President, 198 MPs voted to keep the most corrupt President the
country has known in power. They voted against a background of hundreds of
thousands of emails, showing that he and his Ministers, and the people they
have appointed to manage the State Owned Entities have been involved in a
systematic corruption and robbing from the people of South Africa. They knew
that the President they supported still faces 783 charges of fraud and
corruption, which he has continued to dodge through his manipulation of the
justice system. They knew that the Constitutional Court has declared him to
have been in breach of his Oath of Office, and of his duties under the
Constitution. They knew that the country is in an increasing state of collapse,
as a result of the rampant corruption, the incompetence of Government to do anything
effectively, unless it offers personal benefits to the chain of command, and
the Marxist policies The President and his followers espouse, disregarding the
clear proof that these policies continue to drag down every other country that
applies them.
And yet they voted to keep him in power.
It would be reasonable to assume that many of the MPs voted
to protect their jobs, the large salaries and the many perks they enjoy, which
most of them would be incapable of earning in the real world, where capability
and competence are required, rather than slavish devotion to a Mafia-style
leader. This highlights the limits placed by them on their commitment to serve
the people, rather than themselves. The vote is a clear statement that the
majority of ANC MPs are willing to let the country bear the depredations of a
corrupt and incompetent leader, provided they can hold onto power and receive
their salaries.
The speeches by the ANC MPs before the vote were a mixture
of outright lies and misleading statements, highlighting the extreme lack of
capability of these people who were, presumably, the best that the Party could
muster, given the importance of the debate to them. One notable observation
that could be made of these speeches is that they all took the form of
propaganda, speaking to the emotions and prejudices of the hearers, without any
attempt to address facts and come to a conclusion on the basis of those facts.
Those facts, if faced honestly, must lead any thinking person to a view that
the present situation is a formula for disaster, and needs urgent and
comprehensive correction. That applied, to a large extent, to the speech by the
Leader of the DA, which was a disappointment to many of the listeners. It was
an opportunity to set out in the highest forum a detailed statement of the
derelictions of duty by the President and his Party under his leadership. The
speech unfortunately turned out to be a sermon, demanding that the listeners
believe and act. One might have expected that, given the background of the man.
However, one would expect more from the Leader of the Opposition of a country
in crisis.
In summary, the vote of no confidence showed clearly that
our politicians are not a credit to the people of the country. The inescapable
conclusion is that the country is in desperate need of good men and women, of
leaders and representatives of the people who are willing to set their own
interests aside, and to really understand what has happened to our democracy, to
accept that horrific mistakes and acts of criminality have been made under the
disguise of tending for the poor, and to take well considered and unselfish steps
to correct what is now patently wrong.
It is highly unlikely that this will happen in a country in
which the vast majority of the people are willing to be led by the lure of
self-benefit, rather than national interest.
