Appointing Mapisa-Nqakula as speaker of parliament could come back to haunt ANC

Former defence minister and military veterans Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula may not be the party loyalist as speaker of parliament her predecessors have been, an expert has suggested.

This ahead of the special plenary sitting of the National Assembly scheduled later this week to elect a new speaker. The event follows a major shake-up in Cabinet in the last two weeks after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a Cabinet reshuffle which saw Mapisa-Nqakula replaced as defence minister. 

In her place is former speaker Thandi Modise, creating an expected switcheroo, as the ANC caucus last week confirmed Mapisa-Nqakula as its nominee for speaker.

Prof Sethulego Matebesi, senior lecturer at the University of the Free State, expects that the opposition parties will fail to garner enough support to vote in anyone else and ANC MPs are unlikely to deviate from the party line even if the vote takes place via secret ballot.

“If you look at all the MPs, they are deployees of their political parties first and foremost, and there is an expectation that has been normalised, especially in South Africa, where you find that even the chief whip and chairperson of the caucus is answering to someone else outside of parliament instructing them to toe the party line,” says Matebesi. 

“There have been moments in the past that they have voted for a different decision as it has been seen elsewhere in the world. That has consequences and you are likely to be replaced by someone who will comply.”

But what kind of leader she’ll turn out to be in this far more powerful position is not an easy prediction, says Matebesi, because she has demonstrated that she does not always heed the call of her political seniors. In the wake of political violence and looting in early last month, Mapisa-Nqakula shocked South Africans by going against a far-reaching pronouncement by Ramaphosa that the violence amounted to an insurrection.

She earned herself a political side-eye from many of her colleagues, including her deputy Thabang Makwetla, who reportedly said that there was “no way” Mapisa-Nqakula was given a different report by the South African National Defence Force than Ramaphosa.

“You have got individuals with very strong opinions of their own, irrespective of what the party leaders are saying and I think she may be one of them. But I think in that instance she should have been paying attention to the public pronouncements, including that of the president when she made those remarks, and she may argue that her words were taken out of context ,” said Matebesi.

“That she could make such a pronouncement contradicting the president perhaps tells you something about her willingness to go against certain things. It will be very interesting to look forward to how she will deal with decisions and whether she will necessarily go the ANC way.”

The Democratic Alliance chief whip Natasha Mazzone has listed several incidents in which Mapisa-Nqakula demonstrated questionable leadership, including that she once smuggled a Burundian woman into the country from the Democratic Republic of Congo, allegedly using state resources. Mapisa-Nqakula also recently made the controversial decision to allow for the chartering of an air-force jet for an ANC diplomatic trip to Zimbabwe.

But the ruling party’s caucus sang her praises in a recent statement, hailing her as a formidable leader and gender activist. The special sitting for the vote for a new speaker is scheduled for this Thursday.

Simnikiweh@citizen.co.za