Magashule applauds MPs who avoided Mkhwebane vote
Divisions in the ANC grew wider yesterday when the ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule applauded party MPs who did not participate in the vote to establish a special committee to probe Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office.
Speaking on Durban-based regional radio station Gagasi FM yesterday, Magashule said ANC MPs who did not take part in the vote ‘did the right (thing)’ by refusing to ‘sleep with the enemy’.
At least 62 ANC MPs did not attend the voting session, notes TimesLIVE.
Before the vote, ANC national chair Gwede Mantashe issued an instruction to party MPs at a special caucus meeting in which they were told to vote in favour of a panel report that recommended the institution of impeachment proceedings against Mkhwebane.
Mantashe’s stance was at odds with that of Magashule.
‘The ANC cannot change its character, the ANC cannot sleep with the enemy. We have always defined (the opposition), especially the DA, as the enemy of the revolution. So funny things are actually happening now,’ Magashule said on radio.
‘I think maybe what you don’t know is that a lot of comrades in the National Assembly who are ANC members did not participate in that discussion and voting.’
It was not immediately clear which MPs did not participate in the vote, as Parliament is yet to publish the full record of the voting, which TimesLIVE points out is an unusual move.
The record is normally published as part of the minutes of the sitting immediately after adjournment of the plenary session.
Parliament officials told a meeting of the National Assembly’s programming committee yesterday that the publishing of names was delayed because the vote took place through the hybrid system and not the traditional manual vote.
They said the record needed some ‘cleaning up’ before the names could be made public, as some MPs kept logging on and off the digital platform.
The ANC declined to comment when asked about some of its MPs’ non-attendance for the vote.
Magashule meanwhile has made it clear that no ANC MP will face disciplinary action for defying Mantashe’s position.
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