A vote of no confidence in Ramaphosa's Cabinet: What then?
Photo Credit: Flickr/ Courtesy of GovernmentZA
During his speech in response to the President’s State of the Nation address, the DA’s John Steenhuizen announced that he would be tabling a vote of no-confidence in cabinet. Describing the cabinet as a “rag-tag mob of crooks and free-loaders”, he said that it was time for a complete change.
Although I find John’s description of the cabinet over the top (he also said that cabinet was "a massive jobs-for-cadres scheme where no one is too corrupt, too lazy, or too useless to land one of these plush jobs"), there can be little doubt that President Ramaphosa is facing some major challenges with capacity in his cabinet.
Although there are a few ministers who are doing excellent jobs, it is clear that many lack capacity and vision or are simply too scared to do anything innovative. If they are not in a state of paralysis, many ministries are limping from one disaster to the next.
Together with a severely weakened civil service this – far more than the factional infighting in the ANC – remains the biggest threat to Ramaphosa’s presidency and the country’s prosperity.
Like so many problems in our political domain, this is very much a legacy from the Zuma past.
However, whilst I agree that new blood is needed in the cabinet, the DA’s motion has no chance of success.
As Jan Gerber pointed out a few days ago, the Constitution determines that a majority of the members of the National Assembly must pass such a motion. This means that 201 members need to vote for it to succeed. The ANC currently has 230 seats which leaves the opposition with 170. Assuming that all the opposition members are present on the day (unlikely), they would still require 31 ANC members to vote for them.
That ain’t gonna happen.
Firstly, it is unlikely that a secret ballot would be agreed to by the speaker. Thus, the ANC MPs would never take the risk of expulsion by voting with the opposition. Secondly, even in the case of a secret ballot, the ANC parliamentary caucus in Parliament remains very supportive of the current president. Even though some would fancy a future cabinet position, they recognise that such the passing of such a motion would be humiliating to the President and the ANC as well as result in significant chaos. So, this motion will only make the ANC close ranks and passionately defend their colleagues in cabinet.
However, there is another question that needs to be answered.
Let’s for a moment say that through some miraculous turn of event the motion passes, what then?
The Constitution only says that in such a scenario the President must reconstitute the cabinet. It is not clear whether he could re-appoint the same members again. If he can, then it is difficult to see what the point would be.
If he has to find new candidates for all the positions, we could be in even bigger trouble. The current cabinet of 64 includes President Ramaphosa, Deputy President David Mabuza, 28 ministers and 34 deputy ministers. This is one of the biggest in the world, and one has to wonder what has happened to the president’s commitment to reduce the size of the executive.
However, even if he reduces the cabinet significantly, it is difficult to see where he would find enough competent and experienced new ministers. Remember, the President is only allowed to appoint two ministers from outside of the National Assembly, so the rest would have to come from the existing members of parliament.
Although there are some very good ANC MPs, there would definitely not be enough to fill the cabinet overnight.
Even when it comes to deputy ministers the President would face a challenge. Deputy Ministers are often selected from the chairs of Portfolio Committees since they presumably have a level of seniority and knowledge of the portfolio.
However, post the previous national election the RET faction, under the helm of Ace Magashule, succeeded in getting many of their supporters appointed as chairpersons. So not really the preferred candidates for a new, dynamic executive.
The DA’s motion will, of course, create a lot of noise, which is presumably all they are hoping for.
However, what cannot be denied is that the President urgently needs better support from his cabinet. These men and women should step out of their big, black luxury vehicles and step up to the mark. The President cannot govern the country with all the enormous challenges alone.
Unfortunately, increasingly that seems to be the case.