Mthembu slams ANC MP Gungubele for ‘worst form of ill-discipline’
The chief whip says the MP is promoting himself at the expense of his party.
ANC Parliamentary Chief Whip Jackson Mthembu. Photo: Supplied
The ANC’s chief whip in parliament, Jackson Mthembu, said in a statement on Monday that it was regrettable that there was “complete collapse of discipline among certain ANC members of parliament”.
The statement said “Comrade Mondli Gungubele has become the latest ANC MP to join a defiance campaign to publicly pronounce that he will not vote according to the ANC party line in the upcoming motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma by the opposition in parliament”.
Gungubele, an ANC Gauteng provincial executive committee deployee and MP, said last week that unless President Zuma and the ANC dealt with allegations of corruption before August 8, he would be “dishonest” to vote in support of Zuma during a motion of no confidence debate on the day.
Gungubele, who, together with former finance minister Pravin Gordhan, is a member of a committee tasked with oversight of public entities, was defiant, and accused the ANC of betraying its glorious history and its electorate.
“If the life of the president remains as it is until the 8th of August and the organisation is not dealing with the reports [of corruption and state capture] and the president himself does not deal with those reports, I will be lying if I vote for him during the debate,” Gungubele explained.
Gungubele became the third ANC MP after Dr Makhosi Khoza and Gordhan to publicly state they would not comply with the three-line whip notice from Mthembu or the party caucus’ instructions on the day.
The three-line whip, a tradition derived directly from the House of Commons in the UK, has in recent times been reduced to a WhatsApp group message the office of the chief whip sends out to all ANC MPs before a vote is taken.
Gungubele is adamant he will defy all instructions that require him to vote against his conscience.
“There is a difference between the party decision and what the party is supposed to stand for. And what the party stands for has not changed,” he emphasised.
The MP is also unfazed by prospects of being hauled before the party disciplinary committee.
“I will leave that to the organisation … I stand by what I said earlier today that I will vote with my conscience.”
He also dismissed speculation that if the EFF succeeds in luring 60 ruling party MPs to vote with the opposition to vote out the president, parliament could collapse.
“That is simply a lie. Should the president be voted out of power, the speaker will take charge, and she will have 30 days in which to appoint a new president. The bureaucracy, the civil service, the judiciary and other arms of government will operate as normal.”
A furious Mthembu has responded by saying: “Notwithstanding the decision of the ANC, and the decision of his own party caucus to not vote in support of this motion, comrade Gungubele has gone on record on various media platforms this past weekend stating that he will be voting with the opposition to remove the president and the ANC government from office. These utterances are utterly out of order and represent the most extreme form of ill-discipline.
“The organisation, through its secretary-general comrade Gwede Mantashe, has spoken to comrade Gungubele on numerous occasions regarding his public pronouncements. We have also had discussions with the ANC leadership collective of the Gauteng province, which comrade Gungubele forms a part of and raised our concerns with his continued utterances.
“Comrade Gungubele has expressly defined his political programme to be that of self-promotion masquerading as political correctness at the expense of the ANC.
“What is particularly unfortunate is that comrade Gungubele, who is a long-serving leader of the ANC and has been a member of parliament before, has decided to act in such a crude defiant manner not in keeping with democratic centralism and collective leadership as a defining feature of the ANC.
“We have a full appreciation of the political challenges facing the ANC. The organisation at all levels is engaged in a political programme of self-reflection and correction. The ANC has always stated that structures of the ANC must engage on the political challenges the organisation is faced with. The recent National Policy Conference is one such example where the organisation had frank discussion about the challenges it is faced with.
“The ANC parliamentary caucus is accountable to the ANC national executive committee. No ANC member of parliament is a free agent. They are deployees of the ANC in parliament and take their directive from the party, as is the case in all political parties in South Africa.
“We are calling on the organisation through its constitutional structures to act against the ill-disciplined behaviour of comrade Gungubele. His ill-discipline is no longer an ANC caucus matter as it is questioning and defying decisions of the ANC as a political centre and authority.”
The ANC has also urged its Gauteng leaders to take action against Gungubele.
“Any action on Mondli lies with Gauteng. Every member of Parliament belongs to a region and a branch in the provinces. The province must do what it is supposed to do….when [Zuma’s son] Edward insults members of the NEC in public, the relevant province must do what it has to do…ours [national ANC] is to say hey, that behaviour is unacceptable, that’s it, but Mondli’s behaviour is unacceptable,” said ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe.
