WATCH: Students storming Parliament ‘unprecedented’
Parliament’s presiding officers have acknowledged that the storming of the legislature by hundreds of angry student protesters on Wednesday was unparalleled.
“We indeed want to say that today’s incidents were unprecedented,” National Council of Province’s chairwoman Thandi Modise told journalists during a hastily convened media briefing.
“As Parliament, we regret this incident as we have noted that a few students, as well as a few members of the public order policing [units] were injured in the attempt to stop or to disperse the march by the students.”
Modise said she was not too concerned that students had managed to breach a national key point.
“Are we specifically worried because today the students managed to push the gates open? I don’t think we should [be],” she said.
The crowd on the move to Church Square #NationalShutDown #parliamentshutdown @thedailyvox pic.twitter.com/OFQuRyNTDh
— Sarah Koopman (@sarah_koopman) October 21, 2015“I think we were once students ourselves. I think we should also remember that Parliament was not per se the target for today’s event. We simply happened to be the venue where the executive was going to be in.”
Thoko Didiza, who was acting Speaker when the House was sitting to hear Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene’s medium-term budget policy statement, said the chanting from students of “fees must fall”, accompanied by the loud bangs from stun grenades as police tried to push the students back, could not be heard from the House.
However, Didiza and her fellow MPs were told to go their offices and stay put, she said, rather than face the wrath of the protesting students.
I'm told the crowd is singing "we need to be united. The time is now" #NationalShutDown #parliamentshutdown pic.twitter.com/BWv4jzRtDx
— Sarah Koopman (@sarah_koopman) October 21, 2015Ordinary parliamentary workers were, however, locked out of the precinct along with the protesting students. Others, who were locked inside the gates, were pelted with empty plastic bottles and shoes.
Economic Freedom Fighters’ MPs, who were forcibly removed from the House sitting after asking for an urgent debate on the student fee crisis, will also find themselves locked out of parliament for the week. In terms of National Assembly rules, MPs who disregard orders from the chair and disrupt proceedings may not enter the parliamentary precinct for a minimum of five days.
Meanwhile, the presiding officers said Parliament would be urging its oversight committees to tackle the issue of student fee increases.
Madness! Police firing at protesting students. South Africa has a "people's parliament"!? Yeah right! pic.twitter.com/I3d18SoY7q #FeesMustFall
— Ulrich J van Vuuren (@UlrichJvV) October 21, 2015“While, as mothers with students at universities, we sympathise with the students and their parents with regard to the high fees and the high cost of education in general, we propose that Parliament be given the space to get into this matter, to look at the fee rises for the year 2016.”
“As Parliament, we want to request the students to allow us that space to use our oversight committees to interrogate the medium-term budget policy statement and see how Parliament, through the prescripts at our disposal, can respond.”