Mondli will vote with conscience

ANC MP and former mayor of Ekurhuleni Mondli Gungubele, pictured, says he will follow his conscience in the upcoming vote of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma, saying the two things he does not want to risk are his life and name, but if he had to choose, he would pick his name.

“Your attitude to life dictates who you associate with. In other words, a party must preach its philosophy to those it wants to recruit. Once their conscience resonates with the philosophy of the party, they join the party because their attitude to life finds a connection with the philosophy of the party,” Gungubele told City Press.

“It becomes ironic and contradictory for a party to say the reason that made you join it has become irrelevant. You now say that what made me join the party can go to hell …” he added.

Gungubele’s comments come after ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu’s rebuke of MP Makhosi Khoza, who publicly stated she would not toe the party line when the motion is debated in the National Assembly on August 8.

On Friday, Mthembu called on the ANC’s national leadership to act on Khoza’s utterances, saying her recent behaviour amounted to “extreme ill-discipline” because she had defined herself “outside the collective of the ANC parliamentary caucus”.

Gungubele, who sits on the oversight committees that oversee communications and public enterprises, said what mattered should be what MPs would be voting about. “I must take a decision because when I leave parliament that day, I must be able to face South Africa and account for my decision, whether I vote in favour, against or abstain.”

You now say that what made me join the party can go to hell.

Mondli Gungubele ANC MP