At a time of national crisis, it would have seemed petty and inappropriate if parliamentarians had spent their time fighting over points of order instead of being seen to stand together and offer leadership on the issue of xenophobia. But the fact that the xenophobia debate would take place on the same platform as the President’s answer session meant that things were unlikely to run entirely smoothly.

As soon as Speaker Baleka Mbete opened proceedings, it became clear that the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) had a different idea about what was going to happen. The resolution before Parliament was that the President would complete answering the three questions he did not finish before the “Pay back the money” events ended August’s Q&A early. The EFF, however, felt that the session should take up at the point where it last ended – mid-Nkandla discussion.

The DA disagreed. “The Democratic Alliance also wants to know when the President will pay back the money,” chief whip John Steenhuisen said. But the party felt that parliamentary rules had to be upheld. Steenhuisen promised that the next time Zuma is before parliament for a full Q&A session, there would be questions about Nkandla on the order paper once again.

The characteristic tussling between the EFF and the Speaker ensued. The Fighters were not satisfied with an oral vote on the resolution, and called for a division (where votes are registered via machine). The results came back with a rare display of unity from the rest of the House: 316 votes in favour of the President’s Q&A going ahead as laid out by the Speaker, with 18 votes against.

It was a reminder of how marginal the EFF’s influence is in the House if they are left to vote alone.

With that procedural bunfight out of the way, the National Assembly could finally address the pressing business of the day: xenophobic violence.

Zuma delivered a flat address on the subject, which ticked most of the basic boxes but failed to inspire – or to issue a particularly strong admonition against the violence. He reminded South Africans of the solidarity shown by other African countries during Apartheid; he said it was misleading to label all foreigners as criminals; he appealed for “calm and restraint”.

Zuma also asked South African users of social media to refrain from “fanning the flames of violence” on Facebook and Twitter, prompting the heckle from the DA: “And your son?”

Zuma’s son Edward has twice in recent days made inflammatory comments in interviews about the presence of foreigners in South Africa. His father’s address to Parliament issued no condemnation of any statements made by leadership figures, including the contentious utterances by King Goodwill Zwelithini in March.

Even EFF leader Julius Malema, in a contribution to the debate which did not shy away from placing responsibility for the violence at the feet of the state, was at pains to state that he was not imputing any responsibility to Zwelithini. The man who could have done most to clear matters up – IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi – declined to give any comment on the matter, saying that the King was “used like a football”.

A soccer metaphor was also employed by the DA’s Mmusi Maimane, who warned against “turn[ing] xenophobia into a political football”, but pointed to the economic exclusion of young people which he suggested lay at its root. Maimane also managed to work in a subtle Nkandla reference: “Foreign business owners are not the enemy,” he said. “The real enemy is a culture of corruption which takes from the poor and gives to the rich.”

Malema showed no such subtlety, heaping blame for xenophobia on the African National Congress (ANC). The EFF leader said the South African population had learnt through the example of the state that violence was the way to resolve problems. “In Marikana, you killed them,” he said – possibly bolstered by the court ruling this week that the EFF was within its rights to blame the ANC for the massacre.

“You [Zuma] must take full responsibility for teaching people that peaceful resolution does not exist,” Malema told the President. He added that Zuma’s body language had been much less forceful when addressing the xenophobia crisis than when previously attempting to rebut Nkandla criticisms.

At the end it was arguably Malusi Gigaba, who was forthright and passionate, who delivered the strongest contribution to the debate – one that should have come from the President rather than the minister of home affairs. His statement of the positive contribution made by foreign nationals to South Africa was far more emphatic than Zuma’s lukewarm endorsement. In one of his best lines, Gigaba said that the idea that all foreigners don’t pay tax was as “preposterous” as the idea that all South Africans do pay tax.

Gigaba said that the stereotype of migrant criminality should also be “reject[ed] with the contempt it deserves”. He pointed out that South Africans are languishing in foreign jails around the world for drug trafficking offences, but that does not mean that South Africans are universally tarred with the same criminal brush.

Gigaba also warned against possible “diplomatic and retaliatory actions against South Africans” in other African countries, and said that the state would “stamp its authority” on those committing crimes against foreign nationals.

The minister could not resist concluding his address with an ad hominem swipe against Malema, however, saying that the same disrespect Malema showed to his own father was now being transferred to the President.

With the xenophobia debate concluded, the House could proceed to the President’s oral answers.

The three questions Zuma had standing over from the August session were on fairly specialised topics, and Zuma dispensed with his answers with high speed and few details.

In response to a question about the long-awaited Traditional Affairs Bill, which will finally enshrine political rights for Khoi San people, Zuma said that progress was being made but that it was “not a simple matter”, and that “there is no bill that moves very quickly”.

The IFP had submitted a question about presidential pardons for political offences committed before 1999, and Zuma responded again that the consideration process was ongoing but that he could not commit to a resolution date.

In a follow-up query, the DA’s Glynnis Breytenbach wanted to know what rationale was used to pardon Booker Nhantsi. Nhantsi, who is the husband of acting prosecutions boss Nomgcobo Jiba, had his criminal record for stealing clients’ money expunged. Breytenbach invited Zuma to dispel the perception that such pardons were politically motivated.

Zuma did not take her up on the offer. He said that such applications were “very specific” and [sic] “facts must have made the decision to be taken”.

When the DA protested that this amounted to a non-answer, Speaker Mbete reprimanded them: “I thought you would appreciate that the President makes an effort to answer a totally new question,” she said.

The final query dealt with by the President related to the US-Africa leaders’ summit, which took place in August last year – an example of a question which had drastically dimmed in relevance in the intervening months. The IFP’s Mkhuleko Hlengwa pointed out that Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe had not been invited to the summit, and asked if Zuma was doing anything to facilitate a working relationship between Mugabe and the international community for the sake of Zimbabwe’s economic future.

Zuma responded that South Africa had opposed sanctions against Zimbabwe originally, and since that time Europe has relaxed its position somewhat. “In our opinion Zimbabwe has dealt with the issues it needed to deal with,” Zuma said. He added that South Africa did not consider it its responsibility to lobby the international community on behalf of Zimbabwe, a country which could stand on its own two feet.

The agreement on an extra occasion on which the President would come to the National Assembly to complete questions from the last parliamentary term was hailed by opposition parties at the time of its scheduling as a victory for holding the executive to account. In truth, if the debate on xenophobia had not been added to the agenda at the last minute, the session would have been virtually meaningless.

Even as it was, it’s hard to know what was achieved. It was telling that at the exact moments when the parliamentary debate on xenophobia was happening, news outlets were reporting ongoing looting and violence. Clearly the people who most needed to hear those messages were not glued to a TV to witness the President weakly tell them off. DM

Photo: South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma answers questions about his State Of The Nation Address (SONA) in parliamentt in Cape Town, South Africa, 19 February 2015. EPA/NIC BOTHMA