The refusal of the ruling Party to allow the scheduling a
Vote of No Confidence in the State President confirms a trend that has become
glaringly obvious in the past year.
There can be no doubt that the bosses of the African National Congress
and its partners have no intention of handing over their privileged position to
any other Party, under almost any circumstances. This trend is one that should set off alarm
bells, not only amongst those in South Africa who hold democracy in its true
meaning dear, but also amongst those people throughout the world who have been
witnessing the descent of this African nation, started less than two decades
ago as the Rainbow Nation, the nation that epitomized the hopes of the world
that at least one African nation could break free of the shackles of corruption
and the incompetence inherent in nepotism that has bedeviled almost every other
African nation that has gained its ‘freedom from the colonial masters’. The
claim by Gwede Mantashe that the question is not one of refusing to permit the
vote, but rather of ‘programming’ that vote, is typical of the ANC’s tendency
to mush any question into insensibility.
There can be little doubt that the right to hold a vote to
censure the State President is a matter of the gravest urgency and
importance. A vote of this nature that
is passed by Parliament will result in the removal of the State President from
that high office. That is the clearest
manifestation of the right of the people to hold those in high office
accountable for their actions. The
refusal to permit such a vote at short notice is tantamount to an admission
that it has a more than negligible prospect of being passed. An immediate agreement by the ruling Party to
such a vote would have shown the public that the ANC has confidence that the
subject of the vote is without foundation.
A fumbling refusal to permit the vote is a clear statement of their lack
of confidence, and should be seen as a clear cause for concern by the voting
public. Given the almost universal
disapprobation of the thinking, non-ANC-leader public of the conduct of the
State President, a man who, apart from Robert Mugabe, is probably the most
heavily-criticised State Presidents of the recent past worldwide, it appears
that the proposed vote, if it is secret, as it should be, has a real prospect
of unseating Jacob Zuma.
And therein lies the problem. The ANC and its partners have gone on record
in the recent past to call on the public to take every step necessary to retain
its hold on power, even to the extent of ‘giving up our lives’ if
necessary. That sort of call goes well
beyond the boundaries of democracy in any definition of it, other than that
given by such laughable republics as the ‘Democratic Republic’ of East Germany,
a State that could by no stretch of the imagination be classed as democratic in
any way. They have taken steps to expand
and reinforce their hold on the Army, a traditional means of retaining power
when the vote goes the wrong way. They
are proposing to disarm the citizenry even further, by expanding the controls
of Government over the security industry.
They have already taken steps to remove any form of threat of armed
resistance by the citizens. They have
failed to adhere to the underlying principle in the Constitution that there
shall be a neutral investigatory body capable of investigating the actions of
men of power, and, apparently contrary to a Court Order, and certainly contrary
to the wishes of the representatives of a large proportion of the voters, they
have refused to hand over documents that might enable Parliament and the public
to understand why criminal charges against the impending State President were
withdrawn so precipitately.
It is clear to any thinking person that the dark clouds of
despotism are gathering on the horizon.
It is rapidly becoming clear which way the ANC is taking the
country. It is rapidly becoming clearer
that urgent action is required by all who love this new country of South Africa
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