Democratic Alliance (DA) Parliamentary Leader Mmusi Maimane has spoken out after the DA’s Members of Parliament walked out of the State of the Nation Address (Sona) on 12 February.
“I didn’t plan to disturb or leave the house,” he told the Randburg Sun.
“[I] didn’t expect that police would be the violent force.” When asked if the DA was in solidarity with the Economic Freedom Fighters in disrupting/ and or leaving the Sona, he responded that “I don’t support the EFF as my statement indicates, they were wrong and should be accountable.”
The DA MPs staged a walkout on account of them believing that Speaker of the National Assembly Baleka Mbete failed to answer a question on whether it was police officers who escorted Economic Freedom Fighters MPs out of parliament, or parliament security.
Maimane issued a media statement after the incident saying,“By calling armed South African Police Service officers into the chamber to remove MPs, the Speaker has violated the constitutional principle of separation of powers…
“It is essential for the oversight role parliament must play that its work cannot be suppressed by the security forces, and that the police may not interfere with the function and work of political parties. The EFF was wrong not to abide by the speaker’s ruling. The Parliamentary security should have removed them. But calling in armed police was a violation of the constitution that the DA cannot tolerate.”
Maimane added that the evening was “nothing short of a disaster, and an insult to South Africans”.
