The motion is defeated
The Economic Freedom Fighters’ motion of no confidence in the Speaker of the National Assembly has been defeated after 282 Members of Parliament voted against it.
The motion was therefore not agreed to, delivering a decisive setback to the EFF’s attempt to remove the Speaker through Parliament.
The result confirms that the motion failed to secure majority support in the National Assembly. It also places the EFF’s latest parliamentary challenge under renewed scrutiny, with MPs rejecting the party’s attempt to turn dissatisfaction with the Speaker into a vote for removal.
And the rebuke was not the ANC’s alone. When the division was called, the parties that spend their working lives opposing the movement declined to hand the EFF its victory. The story of the vote is as much theirs as anyone’s.
The numbers tell the story
The outcome is stark: 282 MPs voted against the motion, 101 voted in favour and 17 abstained. For a party that presented the motion as a test of the Speaker’s legitimacy, the vote produced the opposite result.
The EFF may continue to generate headlines, but parliamentary authority is ultimately determined in the chamber. On this occasion, the overwhelming majority of MPs rejected its case.
Even her critics declined to fire her
The most revealing feature of the vote was not the ANC’s support for the Speaker. It was the behaviour of the parties that spend their working lives opposing the ANC.
The Democratic Alliance, the IFP, the Patriotic Alliance, FF Plus and ActionSA all declined to support the motion. DA chief whip Glynnis Breytenbach told the House that the party’s decision “should not be interpreted as an endorsement of every decision she has taken. It is rather a recognition that the remedy proposed by this motion is disproportionate to the shortcomings identified.”
DA parliamentary leader George Michalakis was blunter: a motion of no confidence, he said, was “a much too drastic a step” for the grievances at hand. Breytenbach also conceded a point the EFF spent months disputing, that Didiza “did follow through on instructions from the Constitutional Court to establish an Impeachment Committee and to refer the relevant report to it for consideration.”
Only the EFF, the MK Party, the ATM, the ACDP, the NCC and the United Africans Transformation sided with the motion. Concluding the debate, EFF leader Julius Malema told the virtual sitting he was shocked by the level of support for the Speaker. The House had given him his answer.
From the benches that oppose her
“The remedy proposed by this motion is disproportionate to the shortcomings identified. But we will continue to scrutinise the Speaker. We will continue to defend the independence of this Parliament.” DA chief whip Glynnis Breytenbach
Defending Parliament’s constitutional role
The motion was brought after Speaker Didiza chose not to oppose President Cyril Ramaphosa’s court application seeking to interdict the impeachment proceedings against him. The EFF argued that the Speaker had failed to defend Parliament and had not acted independently.
The vote exposed the weakness in that argument. Members who opposed the motion recognised that disagreement with a decision does not automatically amount to misconduct or incapacity. They noted that Didiza had allowed the impeachment committee to perform its work, while arguing that her decision on the President’s legal application did not justify her removal.
The movement’s own defence of the Speaker was carried by ANC MP and Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Cde Mmamoloko Kubayi.
Cde Mmamoloko Kubayi
“Not only did the Speaker respect the separation of powers between Parliament and the judiciary by implementing judgement, she also protected the independence and integrity of Parliament by taking steps that would ensure that the president of a party she belongs to is held accountable before Parliament.” ANC MP and Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development
That distinction is essential to the health of the democratic project. Parliament must be able to exercise its constitutional responsibilities without every difficult procedural or legal decision being converted into a political removal campaign.
A record that speaks
Speaker Didiza is not a newcomer placed into public office without experience. She has served in Parliament since 1994 and has held senior responsibilities across successive democratic administrations: the first woman Deputy Minister of Agriculture, later Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs, Minister of Public Works, Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, and House Chairperson responsible for internal arrangements, before being elected Speaker of the National Assembly in June 2024.
Her public record includes work on the Agriculture and Agro-Processing Master Plan, market-access initiatives for South African agricultural products, and the Presidential Employment Stimulus during her time in government, a lineage the movement’s municipal one-million opportunities programme carries forward.
That history matters, because the EFF attempted to reduce a public servant with more than three decades of democratic and parliamentary experience to a single contested decision. The National Assembly refused to accept that reduction.
Experience over political theatre
The vote was also a reminder that Parliament is not a stage where the loudest accusation automatically becomes the truth.
The EFF sought to portray the Speaker’s position as a betrayal of Parliament. The majority of MPs reached a different conclusion: that Didiza had acted within the institutional and legal framework available to her, and that political disagreement was not sufficient grounds for her removal.
The result places the EFF’s parliamentary strategy under scrutiny. High-volume confrontation may attract attention, but it does not replace evidence, procedure or the ability to persuade other parties. The party tabled the motion. The majority examined it. Parliament rejected it.
The ANC’s parliamentary responsibility
For the ANC, the outcome is a reminder that defending democratic institutions requires both political confidence and constitutional discipline, the same discipline the movement’s capable, ethical government programme asks of every public representative.
The ANC-led majority did not need to turn the proceedings into a spectacle. It allowed the motion to be debated, permitted MPs to vote, and then accepted the clear institutional outcome. That is the proper way to defend Parliament: not by silencing criticism, but by ensuring that criticism is tested against procedure, evidence and the constitutional threshold for removal.
The vote further demonstrates that the ANC remains capable of defending experienced public representatives when opposition parties attempt to convert political disagreement into institutional destabilisation. It is the difference between a movement that attaches dates to its promises and one that attaches slogans to its grievances.
Parliament has spoken
The Speaker remains in office because the majority of the National Assembly voted for that outcome. More importantly, the vote reaffirmed the principle that South Africa’s democratic institutions must be protected from attempts to weaken them through sensationalism and political opportunism.
Speaker Thoko Didiza’s record, experience and continued parliamentary mandate now stand alongside the result: 282 Members of Parliament voted against the EFF’s motion of no confidence. The EFF brought the challenge. Parliament delivered the answer.
Follow the parliamentary record
The People’s Register reports on the institutions that govern the country, from the National Assembly to the ward committee.
Sources and further reading
This report draws on the division record, parliamentary reporting and the Speaker’s public record.
- Speaker Didiza survives EFF’s motion of no confidence, News24, 26 August 2026
- EFF bid to oust Speaker Thoko Didiza soundly defeated in Parliament, EWN, 26 August 2026
- DA refuses to back EFF’s motion of no confidence against Speaker Thoko Didiza, EWN, 26 August 2026
- Didiza survives EFF motion of no confidence, supported by DA and other parties, IOL, 26 August 2026
- National Assembly elects Ms Thoko Didiza as Speaker, Parliament of South Africa
- Angela Thoko Didiza, South African Government
- End of term: Minister Didiza reflects on her legacy, Food For Mzansi