Ramaphosa must hold line against Mkhwebane

It will be interesting indeed to see which way the votes go if Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane is finally subjected to impeachment proceedings by parliament.

Last week, parliamentary Speaker Thandi Modise approved a Democratic Alliance (DA) motion on an impeachment inquiry into Mkhwebane after parliament recently adopted new rules on the removal of heads of Chapter 9 institutions.

According to sources within the ANC, the ruling party is likely to order its MPs to vote to remove Mkhwebane, along with the DA. Already, the highly influential SA Communist Party has set the tone for its tripartite partner by calling for her head.

Whether or not the MPs decide to follow party orders will be a critical indication of whether President Cyril Ramaphosa’s faction in the ANC has the power to hold the line against Mkhwebane’s supporters, those who are loyal to former president Jacob Zuma.

In many ways, Mkhwebane has appeared to be doing the bidding of that Zuma faction in the way she has selectively, and subjectively, gone after Ramaphosa and those close to him. Along the way, she has made some outrageous findings and recommendations, including one which tried to force the Reserve Bank to add promoting economic development to its mandate. That particular idea has been vigorously pushed by the Zuma faction, which also forced through a resolution at the ANC’s Nasrec conference in 2017 calling for the nationalisation of the Reserve Bank.

However, Mkhwebane has strong supporters in not only the ranks of the ANC, but also in the EFF, which has, of late, taken up the clarion call against “white monopoly capital” of the Zuma faction and which believes Mkhwebane is being targeted for turning the spotlight on senior ANC leaders loyal to Ramaphosa and exposing their supposed bad conduct.

The result of the motion to impeach Mkhwebane will not be a foregone conclusion.

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