Disruptions? All in a day’s work for Mbete
The opposition wants to unseat her as ‘too partisan’ for a National Assembly speaker and her party is in turmoil — yet Baleka Mbete was upbeat about the new year when Thanduxolo Jika spoke to her this week
WITH parliament scheduled to officially reopen on February 11, the EFF is already warning of a repeat of last year’s events when its members disrupted President Jacob Zuma’s state of the nation address.
National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete, on whose shoulders rests the responsibility of ensuring that everything runs smoothly on the night, played down last year’s drama and insisted that they were ready for the annual event.
“Last year’s incident was unprecedented . . . Clearly it’s part of a political game coming from people from different political backgrounds taking advantage to attract attention,” Mbete said.
Even if proceedings were disrupted, Mbete said, this normally did not last long and parliament always continued with its work eventually.
She suggested that the media exaggerate the extent of such disruptions, creating the impression that the National Assembly is unable to do its work because of infighting among MPs.
“One must not overstate what happened because even now when we were interacting with the diplomatic corps there was a question whether we were able to pass any legislation. So I realised there is something very wrong here. I mean, a dramatic incident takes five minutes or 10 maybe, it might take 15 but that’s all,” Mbete said.
She is on her second stint as speaker, starting in 2014 — she first served in the position from 2004 to 2008 — and denied that parliament has been rendered dysfunctional by conflicts between ANC and opposition MPs.
“We passed 25 pieces of legislation in 2015, which is much more than the work or bills we normally pass. The work of parliament continues and does not depend on those who disrupt the House.”
But there can be no denying she is not popular among the opposition benches, where she is often accused of favouring the ANC and protecting Zuma and his cabinet ministers.
Yet despite this criticism, Mbete — who served as deputy president under Kgalema Motlanthe in 2008 and the first half of 2009 — received a major international boost when she was named as recipient of the Dr Martin Luther King Jr Legacy Award this month. Past winners include former UN secretarygeneral Kofi Annan and former US secretary of state Colin Powell. She received the award for her role in the struggle against apartheid.
With South Africa going through a wave of heightened racial tensions over the past few weeks, Mbete believes that ANC leaders have done enough.
The ANC, she said, believed that even though some South Africans had made unacceptable racist statements, the country was not racist.
“We had to stop ourselves from an angry discussion but [instead discussed] what leadership we must give . . . and it is that [which] you saw in the January 8 statement. We said that the branches of the ANC must give that leadership in our communities, not an angry dramatic reaction. Not an angry action to mobilise people to pick up arms, because that doesn’t take us anywhere. Our grandchildren have us to lay a platform for them to grow up in kindergarten regardless of cultural differences, regardless of skin colour and in fact ignoring and not noticing those things.
“That’s where we should lead South Africans to focus on,” said Mbete.
As the most senior woman leader in the ANC, and in terms of her position as national chairwoman, Mbete is among those whose names are raised as potential replacements for Zuma next year. Although AU Commission chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is most likely to get the nod from the ANC Women’s League as its preferred presidential candidate, some party lobbyists believe that Mbete would be the most suitable as the country’s first woman president.
Asked if she intends running, Mbete gave the standard ANC response that it was “up to the branches” to decide her future. However, she did not mince her words in supporting the women’s league’s call that the next president be a woman.
“I agree with Bathabile,” she said, referring to league president Bathabile Dlamini.
“In fact, I can even go further to say if we were where we are now in our understanding of things culturally and historically, [20th-century ANC woman leader] Charlotte Maxeke would have been the president of the ANC.”
It’s part of a game from people taking advantage to attract attention [We advised against] angry action to mobilise people to pick up arms