Dlamini-Zuma called untrustworthy in backlash for voting against Ramaphosa

Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma may have betrayed not only President Cyril Ramaphosa by voting against him, but herself as well.

Flip-flopper

After voting publicly against Ramaphosa and contrary to an ANC national executive committee decision to reject the Phala Phala report produced by the Section 89 independent panel, Dlamini-Zuma was being portrayed by some on social media and ANC WhatsApp groups as a flip-flopper and a leader who could not be trusted.

Videos and news articles have been circulating, quoting her addresses during her campaign in Alexandra, north of Johannesburg, and elsewhere contradicting herself. Some were comparing what she said and did in parliament on Tuesday and what she said in 2017.

The minister, then an ANC presidential candidate campaigning in 2017, criticised ANC MPs who voted against former president Jacob Zuma during a motion of no confidence in parliament earlier.

She also accused the members of being selfish and behaving as if they represented themselves and not their people in parliament. Addressing the ANC Women’s League during that time, she told ANC supporters that members should support the party’s final decision, even when they disagreed with it. But in parliament this week, she did exactly what she had accused these MPs of doing by voting against Ramaphosa.

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Absent MPs

The unprecedented high number of opposition MPs who were absent during the vote was condemned by some as tantamount to defending the president’s action.

But the Democratic Alliance (DA), which voted in favour of the report and had the highest number of absentees, defended its MPs who did not attend.

DA chief whip Siviwe Gwarube said some of its MPs were on leave and others were involved in a by-election campaign in the North West.

But ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba said he believed the absences were a boycott and a “demonstration of how the opposition has become complicit in the problem”.

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