Political parties have submitted their nominees to serve on the parliamentary Impeachment Committee following the 22 May 2026 deadline. While most parties met the deadline, the African National Congress requested additional time before finalizing its list. The GOOD Party and the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) have opted out of the process, citing limited representation in Parliament.
The ANC has now submitted the names of nine members and one alternate member to serve on the committee. According to Mdumiseni Ntuli, ANC Chief Whip in the National Assembly, the nominees include individuals with significant legal backgrounds and prior experience serving on comparable committees, including the recent ad hoc committee and the earlier public protector impeachment process. Among the nominees is party veteran Cameron Dugmore.
Ntuli explained that the selection prioritized comrades with legal expertise and seasoned parliamentary experience, noting that the committee is largely composed of portfolio committee chairpersons. “We want a team that will have the capacity to understand the work that is required of them but equally to act whenever there are issues that must be discussed in the committee without having to depend on consultation in each and every minute of the proceedings,” Ntuli stated.
Addressing the committee’s mandate, Ntuli emphasized that members are instructed to act objectively as public representatives. He contended that there is no inherent conflict between the interests of the ANC and the national interest when matters are considered objectively. “Our view is that these are comrades who are going to serve in the committee who have a duty to understand the facts relating to the subject at hand, to interrogate those matters and to do so truly as public representatives,” he said.
Ntuli rejected the suggestion that the ANC approaches the process with a predetermined outcome. “I don’t think at this stage it is about the success or otherwise of the impeachment process. What is required of us to do at the moment is to understand the facts at hand… and to interrogate those facts to the point at which we can come to an informed conclusion,” he said, adding that the ANC is not proceeding with a mindset to “defend at all cost” because President Cyril Ramaphosa is also the party’s president.
On the possibility of committee members dissenting from a party position, Ntuli noted that while nominees serve as part of an ANC team, they retain the ability to persuade colleagues of their views, as occurred during the ad hoc committee process. He affirmed that engagements with the party’s National Executive Committee were focused on searching for truth in the best interests of the country and the movement.
The process proceeds amid legal uncertainty. President Ramaphosa has indicated in an affidavit that it would be “intolerable and a travesty” for the National Assembly to proceed with an impeachment process triggered by the panel’s report while a challenge to the lawfulness and validity of that report remains pending in court.
Ntuli acknowledged the Speaker of the National Assembly will need to seek legal guidance on how to proceed. The committee is scheduled to meet on Monday to elect a chairperson, as required by parliamentary rules once a committee is constituted. “If the legal opinion that the Speaker receives… says to her, well, notwithstanding the intervention of the president, the work of the committee must continue… then the committee is going to have to proceed,” Ntuli explained. Conversely, should legal advice recommend caution, appropriate steps would be taken to ensure compliance with the law and the Constitution.
In a separate matter, Ntuli addressed the ANC’s decision to decline an invitation to a proposed “Conference of the Left,” which would include parties such as the SACP and EFF. He stated that the party’s National Executive Committee questioned what genuinely constitutes a “left” agenda among the convening organizations, noting that some participants may be “far left than being left.” Ntuli characterized the proposed gathering as “essentially a platform to bash the ANC and the government” rather than a space for objective reflection on challenges facing progressive politics. He maintained that declining the invitation does not diminish the ANC’s identity as a disciplined force of the left, asserting that such a designation requires engaging with initiatives based on their substantive content, not merely their self-description.
