The Democratic Alliance in the Free State said it intends to go ahead with its motion of no confidence against Provincial Premier Ace Magashule, despite the fact that Magashule only has one month left in office.
This is according to Dr Roy Jankielsohn, DA Leader in the Provincial Legislature and the Caucus Leader. “We were in consultation with the Speaker of Legislature since the 29th of January about two issues, the first being to have a debate on an issue of public importance, relating to Magashule’s fitness for purpose to run a provincial government, and the second, to have a motion of no confidence against him as the Premier,” Jankielsohn said.
Jankielsohn added that the DA in the province did not receive adequate response from the Speaker of Legislature, Mamikie Qabathe, which then led to the DA pursuing the matter through legal channels. “We’ve been pursuing it since then with the lawyers of the Speaker and subsequently, the Whips Committee in Legislature conceded that we need to debate the issue of public importance but there was no consensus on the issue of no-confidence,” Jankielsohn said.
According to him the rules in legislature do not make provision for a motion of no confidence, which has led the opposition party to withdraw its original application, which dealt with the two issues. As the Whips Committee had already dealt with the one, they are now in the process of a new application that deals only with the motion of no confidence in Magashule, which Jankielsohn said must be dealt with urgently. “In the absence of legislature rules relating to a motion of no confidence, we would like for parliament to follow the recommendations that the Cape Town High Court had made, which state that in a situation like that, parliamentary rules should be used for such a motion until we, as the legislature, have set up our own rules,” Jankielsohn said.
He added that he hopes the court will instruct legislature to do this so that such situations are avoided in future.
Jankielsohn said it is important for opposition parties to send a message of principle to the premier and the people of the Free State as they feel like he has various allegations of maladministration and corruption and should also not be wearing two hats at the same time. ”If we let this go, we’ll be sending a message that the things he did in his time are okay with us and they are not,” he said further. “Even though the DA and other opposition parties stand to lose in this motion, it is important to send a message of intolerance to the kind of alleged leadership Magashule has for the last decade displayed.”
Jankielsohn also added that opposition parties agreed that they would not be attending the State of the Province address, which will be held in Parys on Tuesday evening, as it will be a dishonest misrepresentation of how matters in the province are. “Magashule will not speak about how the province is not a free state and how he has failed to provide basic service delivery. He will only be speaking about his perceived achievements and as such, we’ve agreed as opposition parties to simply just stay away,” Jankielsohn concluded.
Pulane Choane
