President Jacob Zuma and speaker of the National Assembly Baleka Mbete have submitted affidavits opposing the UDM’s Constitutional Court application to force a secret ballot vote in the motion of no confidence against the president.<\/p>\n
In the separate submissions, both Zuma and Mbete said that the question of the secret ballot was not for the Constitutional Court to decide.<\/p>\n
Mbete submitted that she is not personally opposed to a secret vote, but must uphold the rules of the National Assembly, which does not give her the power to order a secret ballot.<\/p>\n
She criticised the UDM’s application to the Constitutional Court saying it worked against the country’s separation of powers, and that the party should have approached the Parliamentary Rules Committee.<\/p>\n
Zuma’s submission was more direct, saying that UDM itself has admitted that there is no Constitutional mandate for the vote to be made in secret, and so is\u00a0not competent.<\/p>\n
The president also said that claims made by the UDM that MPs were being threatened or intimidated were not supported by any evidence and were unfounded.<\/p>\n
The UDM is looking for a court ruling to give Parliament the go-ahead to vote in the motion of confidence against president Zuma in secret. The party is arguing that when a president is elected by Parliament, it is done in secret, so there should be nothing stopping the removal of a president being handled in the same way.<\/p>\n
The rules of the National Assembly do not explicitly make provision for the vote to be done through a secret ballot; however, Constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos has argued that that Mbete is being disingenuous in saying she doesn’t have the power to order a secret vote<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n According to de Vos, the house rules make provision for the Speaker to order a manual vote when the house’s electronic systems are not used. This can be done at the Speaker’s discretion, he said.<\/p>\n The motion of no confidence was initially set to take place on April 18th, but has been put on ice until the court matter has been resolved.<\/p>\n
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