EFF, Cope stage walkout as Zuma answers questions in Parliament

The session started a half an hour late after Cope left the chamber and the EFF demanding that Speaker Baleke Mbete discipline the president.

Cope MP Willie Madisha and his colleague Deidre Carter were the first to raise objections, questioning the president's honour.

When President Zuma started to address MPs, EFF leader Julius Malema was quick to interrupt.

The EFF has written a letter to the Speaker demanding that President Zuma be prevented from addressing the National Assembly.

Here is the letter:

Dear Speaker,

We write to you to demand that you must urgently prevent Mr. Jacob Zuma from answering questions in the National Assembly on the 13th of September 2013 because he has lost the Constitutional right and statue to respond to anything as a President of South Africa.

The EFF has on several occasions written to you to request that disciplinary proceedings should be instituted against Mr. Zuma because the Constitutional Court has unanimously ruled that in his defiance of the remedial actions of Public Protector, Mr. Zuma has failed to uphold, defend and respect the Constitution as the supreme law of the land.

The only correct interpretation of the Constitutional Court's ruling on Mr. Zuma is that he has broken the oath of office and violated the Constitution. This therefore renders him personally and individually unsuitable to occupy the office of President of the Republic of South Africa. When he was sworn in as a President, Mr. Zuma vowed before the whole nation that he will uphold, defend and respect the Constitution. It is common cause that he has not done so.

If Parliament continues to treat Mr. Zuma like a legitimate President, the institution will be undermining the Constitution; violating the oath that establishes the Office of President and, and denigrating South Africa's Constitutional democracy.

It is on these basis that we write to demand that you as the Speaker of the National Assembly, the head of the legislative arm of the State, must prevent Mr. Jacob Zuma from speaking in Parliament. Parliament must instead be seized with the other business of the day, more especially the Urgent Motion of Public Interest tabled by the EFF on the current state of the South African Airways.

Regards,

Floyd Shivambu, EFF Parliamentary Chief Whip