PARLIAMENT
ANTHONY BUTLER: Zombie MPs have been jolted back to life
What on earth has happened to ANC MPs? Two decades ago, the party’s legislators helped forge SA’s new Constitution and overhauled a vast swathe of apartheid-era legislation. Soon after these triumphs, however, many of the governing party’s MPs moved into a dormant or even vegetative state. Party whips and the caucus code of conduct damped any enthusiasm they might have felt for parliamentary oversight. Any committee chairman showing abnormal signs of intellectual activity was quickly appointed a deputy minister. The quality of ANC MPs steadily declined as the legislature became a retirement home for divisive provincial politicians. Even the arrival of the noisy EFF in 2014 did not rouse most ANC members from their slumbers. But almost all parliamentary zombies have now been jolted into life by the shock of Cyril Ramaphosa’s elevation to the presidency. Every day now, a torrent of statements pours out of the parliamentary media office. Earlier this week, the portfolio committees on p...
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