It’s unprecedented — and it will set in motion intricate political manoeuvring in Parliament before a session of the House that will make a final decision on establishing the impeachment inquiry into Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane — officially a Section 194 inquiry.
The EFF’s support for the Public Protector is on public record and its 44 MPs may well vote against establishing an inquiry into her fitness for office.
The ANC is split along factional lines and for more than a year has procrastinated on making a decision on the Public Protector. Or as ANC Deputy Secretary-General Jessie Duarte put it after the first 2020 ANC parliamentary caucus of its 230 MPs in February of that year, “There is a process in place. The ANC has not discussed where we stand, so we can’t give you an answer either way”.