Letter to the Deputy President
20 November 2014
Note to Editors: The following letter was tonight delivered to the Parliamentary Counsellor to the Deputy President, in response to his letter to Leaders of Opposition Parties in the National Assembly.
Dr Gerhard Koornhof, MP
Parliamentary Counsellor to the Deputy President of the Republic
Private Bag X152
Pretoria
0001
By Hand: Tuynhuys, Parliament.
Dear Dr Koornhof,
LETTER REGARDING THE OUTCOMES OF A MEETING BETWEEN THE DEPUTY PRESIDENT AND LEADERS OF PARTIES IN THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY - 18 NOVEMBER 2014
As you are aware, the meeting on Tuesday with Deputy President Ramaphosa concluded with a press conference in which the Deputy President announced a working group of Party Leaders which he would chair, to get to the bottom of the systemic problems faced by our Parliament.
That meeting, and the press conference, took place in good faith.
Since then, Deputy President Ramaphosa has misrepresented the agreements between the parties.
The Democratic Alliance's Motion of Censure against President Jacob Zuma, for his failure to appear in the House to answer oral questions, was always on the Order Paper of Parliament, and was agreed to by all Parties.
There was absolutely no agreement at the Tuynhuys meeting for the DA to withdraw this motion, and any suggestion that there was such an agreement is simply not true. All opposition parties in Parliament agree with this recollection of the meeting - there was no mention of the DA's motion at all.
You will note that the Deputy President's press release of 18 November 2014, released soon after the meeting concluded, makes no mention of the DA's motion of censure.
On the contrary, the press release says that the Parties agreed to "Reject any attempt, in whatever form, to suppress debate or silence dissent." It cannot be that the Parties agreed to suppress the DA debate, and simultaneously agreed to reject any attempts to suppress debates. This is a logical impossibility.
Indeed, I am still of the view that our motion was perfectly in alignment with the spirit of the Tuynhuys meeting - that the rules of Parliament should be observed absolutely, including by "all members of the executive".
If the actual intention of the Tuynhuys agreement was to silence the opposition, then of course we would never have been party to it.
Further, on Tuesday 18 November, when the Motion was up for debate, the ANC's Chief Whip, Mr. Sizani, entered into negotiations with the Democratic Alliance to amend the wording of, and then postpone the Motion until Wednesday, which request we then agreed to.
It is therefore inconceivable that a withdrawal was on the table, when the ANC themselves pushed the DA for a postponement. One does not postpone what one could at that same moment withdraw.
The agreements with Deputy President Ramaphosa on Tuesday included, inter alia, that a committee would be formed, that it would meet next week, and that debate on the Powers and Privileges Committee Report into the EFF would be postponed until the committee of Leaders met.
The latter of these agreements has in fact been broken by the ANC.
I urge Deputy President Ramaphosa to return to the good faith spirit of our negotiations, instead of continuing to manufacture blame against the DA.
The DA accordingly welcomes the agreement reached between all parties this evening in Parliament that 1) the report of the Powers and Privileges Committee will be held in abeyance, and that 2) all leaders of political parties will meet with the Deputy President next week.
The DA will participate in any and all ways which can make Parliament work, but we will not allow ourselves to be silenced in doing our job as the Official Opposition and we will not be co-opted into a position where we must negotiate with the Executive about what we can or cannot debate in Parliament.
Yours sincerely,
Mmusi Maimane MP
Leader of the Opposition
Issued by the DA, November 20 2014
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