ANC@112
Dlamini Zuma announces plans to retire, declines ANC parliamentary list interview
Following 30 years of being a parliamentarian, ANC senior member Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has expressed her intention to retire.
The ANC is due to interview the last batch of members, including party president Cyril Ramaphosa, for its Parliamentary lists this week.
However, one of its longest-serving MPs and Minister of Women, Youth, and persons with disabilities, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma set out in a letter that she would be bowing out of parliament.
Dlamini Zuma penned a letter addressed to the Electoral Committee head Kgalema Motlanthe dated 12 January 2024 thanking him for the interview opportunity but says she would not be honouring it.
“Thank you so much for the invitation to attend the interview for the 2024 national list on 16 January at 09:30. I appreciate the vote of confidence by the branches who have once again nominated me for the ANC 2024 lists…
“It will not be necessary to schedule the interview for the 2024 national list because I have taken the decision to retire from being a member of the South African Parliament,” she said.
Read more in Daily Maverick: Repeat offender — Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma’s puzzling streak of defiance
Dlamini Zuma also thanked the ANC for affording her a number of opportunities throughout her political career.
“My sincere gratitude to the entire leadership of the African National Congress from national, provincial, regional, and branch levels for affording me the opportunity and support to serve the country and the people of South Africa as a public representative and as a member of the cabinet since 1994.
“I also thank all the ANC Presidents under whose leadership and guidance I served as a member of the executive. I am eternally grateful for making it possible for me to serve the continent as the first woman at the helm of the African Union Commission and the first chairperson of the commission from the Southern African Development Community,” she said.
Dlamini Zuma leaves Parliament having recently caused controversy by voting against the ANC in two motions.
Dlamini Zuma went against the party line last year in the vote on whether to adopt a parliamentary panel’s findings on the Phala Phala saga. She was joined by a few other ANC MPs, including Mervyn Dirks, Mosebenzi Zwane and Supra Mahumapelo.
Others who were not present during the vote included Zweli Mkhize, Lindiwe Sisulu, Bongani Bongo and Sfiso Buthelezi.
ANC members had been told to vote against the adoption of the panel’s adverse findings against Ramaphosa. With 214 votes against the adoption of the report, 148 votes for it and two MPs absent, Ramaphosa escaped possible impeachment, which paved the way for his re-election as party leader in December 2022.
Read more on Daily Maverick: ANC removes errant MPs; Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma expected to face disciplinary charges
Dlamini Zuma again defied the party when she was absent during the parliamentary vote in September on the removal from office of former Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
This was despite party secretary-general Fikile Mbalula publicly warning ANC MPs the only reason they could not attend the crucial sitting was if they were dead.
This meant that she was likely to face disciplinary action as the ANC had last year articulated its plans to discipline MPs who have failed to toe the party line, particularly in Parliament.
At the time, the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) said, “The NEC noted the report regarding the lack of action regarding violations of discipline in the National Assembly, including members voting against ANC positions on various matters.”
It decided “that the [secretary-general’s office] institute the necessary disciplinary processes”. DM
The Gap Toothed One will no doubt resign to pursue a full-time tobacco smuggling career.
And destruction of the legal economy and jobs on all spheres
Absolutely no loss to parliament or the executive whatsoever. A useless, venal luddite who has been central to the destruction of South Africa. Doubtless she’ll resurface in the newly formed MK party, cementing once and for all her hatred of ordinary South Africans in favour of the cadre elite.
This is proof that there is a God and he loves South Africa.
It’s about time!
Her career has been undistinguished ( to put it mildly) in many respects, including the so-called hard lock- down during the Covid pandemic, the production of Sarafina II, her dalliance with the Virodene disaster, her involvement in barring the visit of the Dalai Lama, financing of her campaign for ANC presidency – allegedly from a suspected cigarette smuggler, her absence from parliamentary vote on the removal from office of the former Public Protector, Busisiwe Mkhurebane, to name a few of her failures in government.
Well said Bill
And the way that she ran the department of Health into the ground in the first five years after 1994 when she was minister of Health. That in spite of the fact that she is a medical doctor herself . . .
So, time to sit back barefoot while drinking beer, which is exactly what she was doing at 11 o’clock in the morning outside the ANCWL conference in Umhlanga in 1993, while lecturing me on what to report and how to report it for SABC radio news!
Heh heh heh, about time the crooked ANC Zuma retired.
And we will all be relieved to see the back of her….now if only the rest of the ANC would follow suite…
Retirement at 65 should not be an option for politicians. Teachers, who are required to have qualifications and experience in the subject they teach as well as the skill of teaching, are retired at 65. If these highly skilled and hard working government employees are considered no longer effective, why are politicians, parliamentarians and ministers not also required to retire at 65? Remove some of the cadres and insist that ministers are qualified in the portfolio in which they serve.
Well, the highlight of the year, 13 days old, following a unbelievable start to the new year
Indeed! Best news so far.
Do not understand DM policies. Suddenly, all comments are awaiting moderation. To me is almost appears to be another Naspers online website company, claiming they are the most trusted, and the biggest. So much for media independance
That’s what happens when you select for moderation based on an AI NLP model. Why else do you think we asked to pass/fail comments?
Agree 100%. An AI NLP language model with wokeness factor dialed up to maximum. It/they/them is entirely too precious for my liking.
I aspire to be an old person one day. Hopefully a very old person.
Nevertheless, I hope I have the wherewithal to take the back seat before I become out of touch, irrelevant, and in the way …
Oh no!
There goes Kopdoek and with her better better comedy material than Monty Python at its best.
Who will ban sandals now?
Oh. I thought she retired in 1994!
How devastating!
Long overdue!!!
OMG, another Zuma gone! How terrible, how can South Africa possibly survive?!
Her retirement is long overdue, there’s nothing notable she can be remembered for.
About bloody time.
She leaves, leaving nothing at all but the hilarious ‘Zoll’ song to mark her passing …
Good Riddance!
I’m sure she will pop up in Jacob’s MK electioneering.
after adding so much value for all these years, she’ll be sorely missed.
must have stolen enough…RIP
Very very sad and disheartening to see top officials getting away with such illdiscipline . Just shows, if you have money and power, then you can abuse the system. Meanwhile, the poor and marginalized always suffers in more ways than one.
This is one article where we all agree one way or another, so amazing.
Given that crimes against women.. worse abuse and rape figures and devastating youth unemployment and no repercussions for the victims of life esidimeni and other failures in the sphere of the disabled the woman has not exactly left sparkling legacy.
This awful creature did nothing to improve the lives of any SA citizens. She was a miserable flop as chair of the African Union, and she launched a series of Covid epidemic laws and conditions that were so ludicrous that countries around the world refused to believe they actually existed. And, exist they did, to the tune of billions lost in cancelled international contracts thanks to her bans on wine and liquor exports to the EU and elsewhere. She must be consigned to the realms of obscurity where she belongs. One would hope that the useless Naledi Pandor follows suit soon thereafter.
Agree 100% ; Rather she retired from this planet altogether; She personifies EVIL ; She alsocaused complete chaos in the health system when she was in charge causing many medical officers to leave. The effect she had on the medical doctors in the state service was even worse than the effects of the drunken olive oil and beetroot minister of health . The most devastating , corrupt , immoral and malicious member of the ANC – and that’s saying a lot. Wishing that soon we can write DON’T RIP. The pits of hell are waiting.
If she actually does go it can only be good riddance. VOETSEK anc
It is not I hope telling that this enthusiasm is all from commenters of the paler variety.
Are you perhaps suggesting that she will be sorely missed?
Goodbye Mrs Zuma (one of many Mrs Zuma’s) you will not be missed. Thank you for your efforts in the struggle, I just wish you had that commitment when you had the chance to do good with it.