#NoConfidence: Speaker must decide on secret ballot and must decide soon
17 July 2017
The DA has today written to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete, to request that she make her decision on whether the DA’s Motion of No Confidence in President Jacob Zuma, scheduled for 8 August 2017, should proceed via secret ballot by the end of this week.
It is our belief that there is no reason why the Speaker cannot apply her mind and duly communicate her decision on the secret ballot by close of business this Friday, 21 July, instead of waiting until a day or two before the vote as Mbete suggested in a recent interview.
On 22 June 2017 the Constitutional Court confirmed what we knew already, that “the Speaker of the National Assembly has the constitutional power to prescribe that voting in a motion of no confidence in the President of the Republic of South Africa be conducted by secret ballot”.
Importantly, her decision must pass the test of rationality.