Mkhwebane’s supporters ‘grasping at straws’ as her D-Day looms

Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s supporters are “grasping at straws trying to prove she is being unfairly treated, just hours before the parliamentary process to impeach her will culminate in a vote.

This is according to political analyst Ralph Mathekga speaking to The Citizen as politicians continued to voice their opposing views on the beleaguered advocate’s fitness to hold office.

ATM fully behind Mkhwebane

In the early hours of Monday morning, the African Transformation Movement (ATM), which has been running a fierce media campaign to Mkhwebane’s benefit, released a statement reiterating its stance that the impending vote was illegally set up. The two-seater party said this was because Mkhwebane’s application for a judicial review of the rules that allow her to be impeached by Parliament had yet to be heard.

Also Read: Mkhwebane could be playing delay tactics for some time to come

The matter was set down at the Western Cape High Court on 7 to 11 June this year.

Last year National Assembly speaker Thandi Modise convened an independent panel to assess the veracity of the DA’s motion to vote on Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office. The panel found there was prima facie evidence of misconduct on Mkhwebane’s part, giving the go-ahead for the vote to take place.

Mathekga said Mkhwebane’s attempt to challenge Parliament on its authority to remove her were fruitless. The process to impeach her could not be stopped in the courts, he said.

Mkhwebane lost the first part of her application last year, when she attempted to interdict Parliament from initiating the removal process pending a judicial review of the decision by the Speaker to accept the motion for her removal and the lawfulness of the new rules in Parliament which allowed this.

July’s court dates were set for the actual review of these rules and Modise’s decision to accept the DA’s motion.

Also Read: ANC supports inquiry into Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office

Nothing but a delay tactic

“This is just an attempt to filibuster the whole process where the reality is that Parliament can correct its own rules if it so sees fit,” said Mathekga. The principle is that Parliament is allowed to adopt its own rules and can take decisions to change its own rules in order to better do its job.

“Now, if someone is saying that Parliament cannot do its job because they are subjecting Parliament to another process under another branch of government which is the judiciary, there is no way that Parliament can be pushed around by the person it has hired itself,” he said.

ATM president Vuyo Zungula called for Modise to stall the process until the judiciary review process was complete.

“The planned meeting is ultra-virus (sic). It is concerning that the Speaker of Parliament has allowed and encouraged members of Parliament to operate under veiled processes disguised as something else but in essence are making sense / weighing the merits of whether the matter of removing Public Protector, Adv Mkhwebane should be referred to the Portfolio Committee or not,” he said in a statement.

It is not possible, he argued, for any structure to carry out an evaluation of her fitness to hold office without inadvertently dealing with the merits of the contents of the report by the independent panel. Doing so would flout the section of Rule 89 which deals with matters before the courts. Any denial of this, he concluded, would be disingenuous.

Public Protector in an ANC proxy war

Mkhwebane appears to have positioned herself in a proxy war between battling factions of the ANC, Mathekga said.

Many of her reports, including that of her investigation into President Cyril Ramaphosa’s CR17 presidential campaign, concerned the internal politics of the ANC.

Also Read: PP to face impeachment proceedings in Parliament

“She did not make an effort to ensure her reports do not get to avail her for the factional battles of the party. This is not about Parliament ultimately removing her but it belies the principle that she was hired through a parliamentary process and she should be held to account by Parliament,” he said.

“Just because parliament is divided by party and factional battles, that doesn’t diminish the significant role that it plays in how the country operates and is very much an important part of democracy.”

Political power battles have played a central role in the public debate on Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office, with several of her reports and recommendations being overruled by the courts with harsh criticisms about her competence.

Aside from the ATM’s numerous public statements in her support, Mkhwebane also has the backing the EFF and that of powerful ANC bigwigs such as ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule and former eThekwini mayor and KZN ANC MPL Zandile Gumede. The two both recently came out in support of  Mkhwebane.

Addressing ANC members during a press event earlier this month, Gumede said she rejected the idea being perpetuated that black women were inherently incompetent and corrupt. She called on women to protect and support each other.

She suggested that if Mkhwebane were to be impeached, the event would mark a setback for women empowerment.

Magashule was quoted in the Sunday Times two weeks ago calling on ANC MPS to vote against the motion in Parliament to remove her.

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