President Cyril Ramaphosa's backers say the expectation today that ANC MPs would vote against the process of his impeachment is a vindication of the strategy to get the party to rally around its president.
One ANC NEC insider speaking to Sowetan said: “We defeated them [Ramaphosa's detractors]. We gave them leeway to speak and ventilate their issues but when it comes down to the crux of it, we’re on top,” the NEC member said.
A second ANC NEC member said there was no way they would have allowed the report to be noted.
“That report is fundamentally flawed and there was no way we’re going to allow it to be debated in parliament.
“Ramaphosa is going nowhere and right now we’re going to take the lead from him. If he decides to take the report under review then we’ll do it. Initially we were caught off guard by the panel report but we remain confident in the president,” the ANC NEC member said.
Another ANC NEC member and an ally of Ramaphosa speaking to Sowetan said the party had its own resolutions and constitution on what happens should the president be incapacitated but "right now we don’t want to entertain that because that will be the preoccupation of the media. We don’t plan on reports that are still to be issued but obviously we’re going to sit down like we did with the section 89 and deliberate on them.
“We don’t respond to those kind of scenarios. We respond to and engage on reports when we get them.
“There’s a basic approach if the president is incapacitated. The problem of entertaining a scenario would be we’re already pre-empting the president might be found guilty. Politically there are ways to do it… If the president dies today – that scenario is the same is if president is taken out today. We know what happens if the president is incapacitated. The ANC responds to every situation it is confronted with,” the NEC member said.
While Ramaphosa dodged political accountability over the independent panel’s Phala Phala report after the ANC’s national bosses closed rank on Monday, the question remains if legally he will be able to avoid the pending investigations conducted by state authorities.
At least three other state institutions are investigating the allegations made by former spy boss Arthur Fraser in relation to the Phala Phala farm scandal.
However, the ANC still faces the possibility of adverse findings by at least three other state institutions. The SA Reserve Bank (SARB) is investigating Ramaphosa for not declaring the foreign currency stolen on his Limpopo farm. The Hawks are probing the theft that happened and the events that led to it.
Ramaphosa also faces an investigation from the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) and also from the public protector.
Speaking during a media briefing after Monday’s national executive committee meeting, ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile said the party will cross the bridge of the other reports when they come.
“We will win or we will be defeated. That’s how parliament works. We will fight for our views and we’ll fight to win but at the end of the day, parliament will decide which idea is carried forth.
“We’re not preventing the president from being held accountable… not at all. We’re saying there are other processes unfolding and the president has appeared before the integrity committee and that committee is reporting to the NEC on the 9th [December] about their findings.
“[Taking the panel’s report under review] is really the decision of the president and we really can’t speculate and we need to allow those processes to unfold. They [state institutions] will report at the right time and the president will decide at that point [what to do],” Mashatile said.
On Monday, Ramaphosa filed papers at the Constitutional Court to take the panel’s report that found he has a case to answer to under review.
Ramaphosa has asked the Constitutional Court to review the panel report and set it aside.
In the papers before court, Ramaphosa says “the panel misconceived its mandate, misjudged the information placed before it and misinterpreted the four charges advanced against me. It moreover strayed beyond the four charges and considered matters not properly before it.”
The move could possibly postpone parliament’s planned sitting to debate the section 89 panel report into the Phala Phala theft.
A special chief whips' forum sat on Monday morning and was advised that if Ramaphosa goes to court to challenge the report, the matter will be sub judice and may not be discussed or adopted by the house.
Mashatile told journalists there was no way the ANC would support a process that could possibly lead to Ramaphosa’s impeachment.
“The report has been taken on review by parliament, should parliament meet tomorrow to deliberate on the report and adopt it, the ANC will vote against it. That’s the decision. We’ll vote against it because that report will set other processes in motion like impeachment and we won’t support processes that will lead to the impeachment of the president,” he said.
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