EFF tabled the motion in June, saying the speaker failed to defend parliament in the first impeachment process against a sitting president.
EFF leader Julius Malema. Picture: Gallo Images/Sharon Seretlo
Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has failed in its bid to remove Thoko Didiza as the speaker of parliament.
Meeting virtually on Wednesday, 26 August, a majority of the members of parliament (MP) voted against a motion of no confidence in Didiza, brought forth by the EFF.
A total of 208 MPs voted against the motion, while 101 voted in favour of it.
The party tabled the motion on 26 June, saying the speaker failed to defend parliament in the first impeachment process against a sitting president.
This is after Didiza’s decision not to oppose President Cyril Ramaphosa’s urgent interdict application to pause the parliamentary impeachment process pending a separate legal review.
Heated debate before the vote
Ahead of a chaotic voting process punctuated with interruptions, raised voices and insults, MPs shared their reason for voting for or against the motion.
ANC chief whip Mdumiseni Ntuli said removing Didiza would set a dangerous precedent.
“If we remove a speaker every time a losing party in a legal dispute dislikes how she understands her own constitutional and institutional role, we will have created a precedent far more dangerous than anything alleged in this motion,” Ntuli said.
“We would have told every future speaker that their security of tenure depends not on lawful conduct, but on satisfying the loudest voices in the room on any given day, whether rational or irrational. This would plunge this institution, the National Assembly, into chaos and create a constitutional crisis.
“We cannot allow the EFF’s strange way of thinking to prevail. It is dangerous. It is unsustainable.”
MK Party backs the motion
Philasande Mkhize, uMkhonto weSizwe Party MP, expressed the party’s intention to vote in favour of the motion.
She said when the speaker forfeits her ability to be seen as an independent, she forfeits the confidence of the house and to preside over it.
Their vote, Mkhize added, is not out of hostility to Didiza as a person but “out of fidelity to a foundational constitutional principle”.
‘We do not believe that the case has been made’
Democratic Alliance MP Glynnis Breytenbach said the motion of no confidence is a very serious constitutional instrument and should not become a convenient political weapon whenever a party disagrees with a speaker’s ruling or decision.
“The question before us is not whether the speaker has made mistakes; she has. The question is whether those shortcomings are of such a nature and magnitude that this house should conclude that she has fundamentally failed to discharge the responsibilities of her office and should therefore be removed,” Breytenbach said.
“On that question, the Democratic Alliance’s answer is no. We do not believe that the case has been made.”
The Patriotic Alliance’s Marlon Daniels called the EFF’s motion a “whole lot of noise and a “political theatre dressed up as constitutional oversight”.
“We have to cut through those noises because this is not about accountability. It’s purely about vindication… You cannot remove a speaker on vibes.”
