Cyril no-confidence motion on ice until early next year

A debate on the African Transformation Movement’s motion of no confidence in President Cyril Ramaphosa was shifted from Thursday to next year.

This comes after the ATM approached the Western Cape High Court on Thursday morning, seeking an urgent judicial review of National Assembly speaker Thandi Modise’s refusal to grant a secret ballot.

Rejecting the ATM’s secret ballot proposal on Tuesday, Modise said the party had failed to advance sufficient reasons for her to grant it.

The party had not demonstrated that the current political environment was toxic enough to warrant a secret ballot to shield MPs from reprisals.

A secret ballot would prove impossible to administer because sessions of the house were being conducted in a hybrid system, with a few MPs in the horseshoe chamber in Cape Town but most working from home, she added.

But ATM president Vuyolwethu Zungula, who sponsored the motion, said in his affidavit that the MPs’ faithfulness to the constitution would be tested through their conscience rather than instructions from party bosses.

Parliament spokesperson Moloto Mothapo said on Thursday that after discussions in the high court chambers, Zungula’s lawyers and parliament’s legal team agreed for the matter to be postponed until February 4.

This means the debate on the motion is on hold until the legal issues are resolved.

The motion, tabled in terms of section 102 of the constitution by a party that has only two MPs, was never likely to succeed in ousting Ramaphosa.

It would have required a majority of 201 from the 400 MPs. Ahead of the now postponed debate, the ANC parliamentary caucus had vowed to close ranks around Ramaphosa.

The second biggest party in parliament, the DA, had planned to abstain from the vote, describing the motion as “frivolous and a waste of parliament’s programme”.

The UDM also indicated they would snub the vote.