Home

National Assembly to debate motions of no-confidence in President Ramaphosa and Cabinet

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The National Assembly will on Wednesday debate the motions of no-confidence in President Cyril Ramaphosa and the Cabinet.

The African Transformation Movement (ATM) tabled the motion of no-confidence against Ramaphosa while the Democratic Alliance (DA) tabled the one against the Cabinet, excluding the President.

The ATM has, however, announced that it will not take part in its motion after the Speaker refused its request to postpone it.

It is the first time that a motion of no-confidence is tabled against President Ramaphosa. His predecessor, Jacob Zuma, survived six such motions.

It is also the first time ever that there has been a motion of no confidence against the cabinet.

The ATM, which has two members in the National Assembly, announced on Tuesday that it will not take part in the debate of its own motion. This is because the speaker declined to postpone it until their case challenging the open ballot voting is finalised.

The party also declined to withdraw the motion as advised by the Speaker. This would have allowed them to bring it back at a later stage.

Should the ATM’s motion be successful, the President and the entire Cabinet will have to resign with immediate effect.

Should it fail and the DA’s one succeeds, the President will remain but the rest of the executive will be forced to resign.

ATM spokesperson Sibusiso Mncwabe says, “We are not going to participate. Remember, the matter was not struck off the role. The court said that it is not urgent. It should go to the normal court role which our lawyers have already done. In all fairness, the matter is still sub judice as it is still before court and we advised the speaker about that. The matter is continuing in court. It will be improper to debate it and we asked her to postpone the debate. She wrote back to us refusing. So, our members of parliament won’t be participating in that as the matter is still sub judice.”

ATM wants a secret ballot motion of no confidence against President Cyril Ramaphosa:

 

Steenhuisen outlines the DA’s reasons for the motion of no confidence against the Cabinet

DA leader John Steenhuisen says ministers need to be held accountable for the country’s woes. He says he believes Cabinet members are ineffective and incompetent due to the recent rolling blackouts, high crime rate, unemployment rate, fuel price increases, corruption and more.

“It’s a measure that has been provided by the Constitution to be able to hold Cabinet accountable and to send a very strong message that we have no confidence in a Cabinet where unemployment has now risen, where more people are on social grants than ever before, where more and more children are dying of malnutrition every year and every other single indicator of our country moving in the wrong direction. We are not going to win the war against poverty, suffering and unemployment with the same generals around the table. We have one of the largest Cabinets in the world – but one of the world’s most inefficient, ineffective and incompetent and indifferent Cabinets and I think it is right that parliament discusses this.

Additional reporting by Risha-Maduray

Author

MOST READ