Be careful what you wish for on a secret ballot

Allowing MPs to keep their vote in a no-confidence motion secret could ultimately undermine South African democracy, argues Jan-Jan Joubert

SOMETIMES, you want a particular result so badly that you forget to consider the wider consequences of it. The court case dealing with a possible secret ballot in the coming parliamentary vote of no confidence in the president is a case in point.

Opponents of President Jacob Zuma are so focused on removing him — the man they rather simplistically see as the cause rather than the personification of corruption and state capture — that they have not thought through the consequences of their actions should they succeed.

To put it plainly: if the Constitutional Court decides that motions of no confidence can be decided in secret, it would wreak havoc in our municipalities and provinces.

One cannot easily limit the application of legal precedent to just the case at hand. If the learned justices decide that motions of no confidence may be decided by secret ballot, it would not hold for only a single sphere of government; it would hold for provincial legislatures and municipalities, too.

If that happens, the situation, especially in municipalities, would return to the bad old days of floorcrossing — only worse, because there would be no accountability or transparency.

The venality of a certain type of politician should never be underestimated. Much as many politicians are motivated by principle and a desire to serve their country, many are not.

Once before in its existence, the Constitutional Court underestimated how venal the lesser type of politician can be — when it okayed legislation that allowed floor-crossing.

At the time, every indication from within the bowels of the Constitutional Court was that the justices did not believe any great number of politicians would shed the robes of one political party for those of another.

They were wrong.

It soon became clear that the loyalties of many elected politicians were for sale.

Money changed hands, either directly or in the form of increased salaries for mediocre floor-crossers who believed their true potential was being overlooked by their parties — and that they were due higher and better-paying positions than the ones they were occupying.

In fact, the politician who does not believe he or she is being underestimated is, in my experience, probably yet to be born . . .

But at least during floor-crossings we knew which public representatives had changed tack and undermined the outcome of elections, mostly in their own material interest.

If the court decides that votes of no confidence can be held in secret, this kind of politician would again be for sale and would again hold the voter to ransom.

We would return to the politics of the purse — the politics we rightly rejected when we outlawed floorcrossing.

Only this time, the people who forsake the mandate of the voters will be able to do so in secret. They will not be held accountable because no one will know who they are.

They can even remain in their political party, cuckoos in the nest, undermining the very fibre of the political system and ruining the trust needed for it to function.

It would lessen, not heighten, accountability and would add to South Africans’ cynicism about politics.

Imagine, for a moment, you are a leader in the DA, EFF or IFP caucus in Johannesburg, where parties co-operating against the ANC hold 138 seats, and parties co-operating with the ANC hold 127 seats.

All that is needed for the ANC to gain power in the wealthiest South African municipality is for six councillors from the group co-operating with it to vote for the ANC’s motion of no confidence, and the verdict of the voters is reversed. The ANC grouping would gain six votes to give it 133, and the group co-operating against it would lose six votes to end on 132 — and be beaten.

To make matters worse, because the vote is secret and the turncoats cannot be held accountable, no one would even know which councillors were the ones who switched sides and voted with the ANC group.

Voters would not know whether it was perhaps the councillor for their ward who changed allegiance, and the turncoats would still sit in the same party caucus they betrayed, probably leaking strategy and tactics to the group their voters had rejected at the polls.

The same, of course, would hold for the pro-ANC group currently running Ekurhuleni by a wafer-thin margin: were four of its grouping to be enticed to support a motion of no confidence, the ANC government in the metro would fall and the ANC itself would not know who had voted with its opponents.

Surely the imperatives of open and accountable government cannot allow a secret ballot. In fact, if anything has to change, it is the use of the secret ballot to choose the president, premier, mayor or speaker in the first place.

A secret ballot for votes of no confidence would be a disaster. The Constitutional Court would be very unwise to grant it.

Were it to do so, massive but shortlived celebrations would surely follow in opposition circles — but the political hangover of such a victory would be horrible.

At least during floor-crossings we knew which public representatives had changed tack