When Alfred Duma Municipal Speaker Themba Ngubane chose to order armed bodyguards into the council chamber to remove IFP councillor Lizwilakha Qwabe yesterday (June 29), he did something not even the Speaker of Parliament has ever done.

These were not peace officers or council security, they were a motley collection of municipal bodyguards assigned to protect ANC office bearers. They acted in unison, making a mockery of the fact that they are supposed to protect certain individual councillors. They took instruction and acted with the Speaker’s approval.

They entered the council chamber with side-arms and physically removed the councillor. When opposition party members spoke out, they were removed as well.

Now we need to understand something: this was not Public Safety or the SAPS, but a private security company hired by council.

Not hired by the Speaker, yet they acted under his instruction.

However, in the rules covering just such an incident, the Speaker is only legally mandated to adjourn the meeting. Nowhere is the Speaker, Municipal Manager, Public Safety or anyone else given authority to bear arms or forcibly remove a councillor.

Whoever advised the Speaker that his action was legal should be fired. It is also a provision of the Municipal Manager to advise council should they break the law or any rules. The fact that the municipality’s legal advisor was also present indicates that the Speaker has every intention of carrying out democracy under the barrel of a gun!

I have looked at a full recording of the events before the guards entered and while there was robust debate, no threats of any kind were made against the Speaker.