Hon Speaker, on 20 November 2012, we appeared before Justice Dennis Davis and debated this issue before the court. It was the case of the ruling party that a motion of no confidence in the President is frivolous and not supported by the facts. The court, on the other hand, held that such a debate is the very stuff of deliberative democracy. In that judgment, the judge held that, in 1994, South Africa boldly began its journey away from a society based on authority to one predicated upon justification, from diktat to deliberation, and from arbitrary assertion to rational consideration. Today we are busy with this exercise guided by that judgment of the court.
Cope must, firstly, say that the President has signally failed the country and that he has lost the confidence of the nation because he has undermined the Constitution at every available turn instead of standing up to the dictates of his own oath of office. Secondly, he has created a mountain of debt which is now at 47% of the GDP. This is an excessive huge burden, and generations will have to shoulder this humongous burden with enormous pain and strain. Thirdly, there is political interference in the criminal justice system that sees the different arms of the police fighting one another rather than fighting criminals who are terrorising the nation. There are, on average, 50 armed robberies in our country and four people murdered everyday. Fourthly, political appointments of incompetent cadres are destroying parastatals and institutions of state. Fifthly, there is the ducking and diving on the massive expenditure of R250 million on his private estate undertaken right in front of his own eyes and the eyes of the nation. Sixthly, rampant corruption and lawlessness has seen over R100 billion lost in futile and fruitless expenditure since 2009. Seventhly, his total failure to reverse the ever-widening inequality has seen the rich becoming extremely rich and the poor and the jobless remaining mired indefinitely in poverty and hopelessness.
For these reasons and for so many others that I do not have time to deal with today, we will not vote against this motion. We will support it and will continue to urge you, in the ruling party ranks, to move along with the rest of us because it is the only way in which we can save ourselves as a nation. I thank you. [Applause.]