DA moves on motion to dissolve Parliament

THE DA is pushing ahead with a motion to dissolve Parliament despite lacking support from other parties in the national legislature.

The motion will be debated and voted on a date still to be confirmed by Parliament.

Speaker Baleka Mbete told the programming committee yesterday that she received the motion from DA chief whip John Steenhuisen a few weeks ago.

She said it has been sched- uled for debate, but there is no date fixed as yet.

“The motion on the dissolution of Parliament by the DA is in the (programme of the National Assembly). It is for the programming committee to attend to it,” said Mbete.

Other opposition parties have said they would not be party to the motion, which will mean fewer votes for the DA.

This is a departure from the motion of no-confidence, where the DA even got support from ANC benches to remove President Jacob Zuma.

Now that the motion is on the agenda of Parliament, the DA has to work to get the numbers. But the refusal of other parties to support the motion will hurt it.

The DA has 89 MPs and this is the largest number of opposition MPs in one party.

The ANC has a majority of 249 MPs in the National Assembly, and it has used this majority in the past to pass laws and crucial votes.

However, the ANC almost fell short of the majority three weeks ago when some of its MPs voted in support of the motion to remove Zuma.

Out of 384 MPs who were present during the motion of no-confidence debate, the ANC got 198 votes and 177 votes went to the opposition, with nine MPs choosing to abstain.

The DA has insisted that it will push through the motion to dissolve Parliament because the ANC is failing the country by sticking with Zuma.

But other parties warned that this could not be allowed because the term of Parliament ends in 2019.

They said calling for early elections was not a solution to the failed attempt to remove Zuma. Parliament is elected for a term of five years, and all previous parliaments in the past 23 years of democracy have served their full term of office.

The programming committee is yet to meet to decide on the details on the motion to dissolve Parliament.

However, this was expected to happen before the end of the calendar year for the national legislature.