Although the responses to the six questions started off with a repeated clearing of the throat, this was soon replaced by laughter – and a presidential acknowledgement: “I don’t know how to stop my laughter.
Is it hurting? No.” “Yes!” came the heckles from the opposition benches.
Earlier, EFF MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi already had objected to the presidential giggles: “This is not Trevor Noah’s show.” But Zuma maintained: “Thank you very much if I can laugh, because I will always laugh”.
Like laughter, the ANC was always close, according to Zuma, because he first became ANC president before state president.
“I was elected first by the ANC as a president and then given a task of leading a campaign as ANC president before I was state president through the democratic process. I came here (Parliament) as ANC president, this House elected me state president,” Zuma explained to DA MP Geordin Hill-Lewis, who asked whether he put the country or the party first.
The question came in the wake of Zuma’s comments at the recent ANC KwaZulu-Natal conference that the ANC came first. In the political fall-out, the ANC issued a statement in Zuma’s name, in which he said: “I love the ANC. It does not mean I love my country less. But, I know no other life than life in the ANC. The ANC is my life. The historic mission of the oldest liberation movement in the continent has still not been completed.”
Zuma emphasised he distinguished between party and country: “When I speak to the ANC members, I speak to ANC members. When I speak to the country, I speak to the country. And I make the distinction between the two.”
But he emphasised “ANC power” – and the party’s role in South Africa’s democracy. “The ANC started the fight for a democratic South Africa in 1912. It fought all the time until it liberated South Africa… and the ANC is taking South Africa to its prosperity,” he added.
That got DA leader Mmusi Maimane on his feet: “Can the ANC pay for Nkandla then?”, in reference to the R215 million taxpayer-funded security upgrades at his rural homestead. “Can the ANC then finance Nkandla? Which comes first? The ANC or the country?” added Maimane before Speaker Baleka Mbete called him to order.
“I don’t know if the honourable president has finished?” she asked Zuma, who replied he had. And that was the end of a 90-minute or so presidential question session, the fourth of the year in keeping with parliamentary rules the president must answer questions once a quarter.
It has been a torrid year for Zuma in the House – until Thursday’s soft landing. His question time in mid-June ended before he even read the first of the prepared answers amid another EFF “Pay back the money” fracas. The Nkandla saga had also featured in the March presidential question session amid opposition claims Zuma had been dodging the Q&A slot. In August, tempers ran high amid repeated points of order, but Zuma ploughed through the session as the Speaker ruled that just because the opposition did not like the answer, it did not mean no answer was given.
The ANC took no chances and ensured its supporters were present in the public gallery dressed in party T-shirts and regalia.
They watched the president swot away potentially tricky answers on, for example, allegations MTN is dodging taxes in various African countries – ensuring companies pay taxes in the countries they operate in was a global issue, said Zuma – and turning the ANC’s recent meeting with Hamas, one of the two Palestinian organisations, into a showcase of “ANC power” of using negotiations to reach political settlements, as the ANC did with the apartheid government.
There was a moment of tension in the first 30 minutes when EFF MP Hlengiwe Maxon asked whether appointing Vuma Mashinini, a former presidential adviser, as head of the Electoral Commission of South Africa, was an example of putting the ANC first, rather than the country.
Replying in isiZulu, Zuma retorted Mashinini was not his friend, but was a colleague at work and that he had not been involved in his nomination which was handled by an independent panel which nominated him on merit. And there were no divisions within the Presidency on that, or whether the country or party came first.
“The ANC worked and persevered to bring South Africa to where it is. It was indeed the ANC that was at the forefront of bringing liberation to this country. Democracy is a child of the ANC. You best not forget that,” said Zuma.
