Cape Town - The Democratic Alliance will submit a private members' bill aimed at amending the Public Protector Act and ensuring a sitting member of parliament not be appointed to the watchdog position.

The party would also write to President Thabo Mbeki asking that the appointment of ANC MP and National Council of Provinces deputy chair Lawrence Mushwana be reconsidered, DA spokesperson Hendrik Schmidt said on Thursday.

"The ANC, by insisting on Mr Mushwana's appointment, is displaying all the arrogance and contempt for dissent that has come to characterise its tenure in government," he told a media briefing at parliament.

Later on Thursday, the National Assembly will be asked to approve a parliamentary ad-hoc committee recommendation that Mushwana succeed Selby Baqwa as South Africa's new Public Protector.

In terms of the Constitution, at least 60% of the 400-member House has to approve the recommendation.

Baqwa's term of office ends on September 30.

At a meeting of the ad-hoc committee on Wednesday, Mushwana received the support of MPs from the African National Congress, Inkatha Freedom Party, New National Party and United Christian Democratic Party.

If the necessary support is secured, Mushwana's name will be forwarded to President Thabo Mbeki, who will appoint him for a seven-year term.

Schmidt said Mushwana's appointment was "utterly inappropriate" as he was an active party politician of the ruling party.

The ANC required its "cadres" to remain loyal, irrespective of where they were deployed, while the public needed to be able to trust the integrity of institutions designed to protect their interests.

ANC cadre deployments

The appointment was not an isolated incident, he said.

"Unfortunately, it is yet another addition to a litany of ANC cadre deployments and interference in independent institutions."

The fact that Mushwana was a sitting ANC MP disqualified him as a fit and proper candidate, although the DA would not have supported his appointment even if he wasn't an ANC MP.

Lawyers for Human Rights executive director Dr Vinodh Jaichand was the most suitable candidate for the post.

Schmidt said it was worrying that other opposition parties had supported the ANC, adding that the NNP's power-sharing agreement was silencing the opposition.

During Wednesday's committee deliberations, NNP MP Johann Durand said his party had no qualms about Mushwana's ability to be independent and impartial, even though he was an ANC member.

"It would be good, eventually, that it becomes practice in the appointment of the public protector, that we look at someone coming from parliament.

"No one else is so in tune with the public service as a member of parliament."

Mushwana said during public interviews that he would resign his membership of the ANC if he was appointed Public Protector.

With acknowledgements to Sapa and www.news24.co.za