Cyril gets DA’s nod

The DA believes that President Cyril Ramaphosa is a better devil than his ANC opponents and abstaining from the motion of no confidence in parliament, the opposition party wants protect him against the Zuma/ Magashule camp.

According to the DA leader John Steenhuisen, the motion proposer, the ATM Movement, is part of that “fightback’’ scheme because the two-MP party was established by the Jacob Zuma/ Ace Magashule faction of the ANC as a side project to oust Ramaphosa. However, the DA still wants to force Ramaphosa to account for his failures.

“It’s no coincidence that in the same fortnight that Magashule was charged, they have this motion on the order paper; so we are not going to be dragged into the ANC politics,” he said.

The DA abstention was a statement that they still wanted to hold Ramaphosa accountable by using parliamentary procedures, while avoiding riding on an ANC factional scheme designed against him.

“We said we wouldn’t support the motion because we wouldn’t support the removal of the president. Who will replace him? Is it Mr [David] Mabuza, is it Mr Magashule? We felt we can’t take that tougher risk. At the same time, voting against the motion means we have full confidence in the president. I don’t have confidence in the president.”

He said Ramaphosa had three years to bring his reform agenda to parliament, including economic reforms. He still hadn’t done that. He had three years to take action against alleged corrupt individuals such as ANC MP Bongani Bongo, Magashule and former mineral resources minister Mosebenzi Zwane and others who were all still seating in their positions.

“So rather than vote against the president to help his enemies around him have their way, we should rather abstain so that they could not reach the threshold of 50% plus one that will be required for the motion to succeed. It’s a clear warning sign that he must move quicker against the enemies of growth and to bring his reform agenda to parliament. We’ll help him pass it.”

The ATM submitted its motion early this year claiming that it had lost confidence in Ramaphosa. It will be heard on 4 February 2021.