Cape Town - The nomination of African National Congress MP and National Council of Provinces deputy chairperson Lawrence Mushwana as South Africa's new public protector was endorsed by the National Assembly on Thursday by 278 votes to 32.

The ANC, Inkatha Freedom Party, New National Party, United Democratic Movement, United Christian Democratic Party and the Azanian People's Organisation, supported his appointment, with the Democratic Alliance and the Freedom Front opposed.

The African Christian Democratic Party, with five members in the House, abstained, while Pan Africanist Congress president Stanley Mogoba supported the appointment and his deputy Motsoko Pheko abstained.

The Minority Front and the Afrikaner Eenheidsbeweging were not present.

The National Assembly will make its recommendation to President Thabo Mbeki who makes the appointment for a non-renewable seven-year term.

Public protector Selby Baqwa's term of office ends on Monday.

At a press conference earlier on Thursday, the DA said it would submit a private members' bill aimed at amending the Public Protector Act and ensuring a sitting member of Parliament could not be appointed to the watchdog position.

It would also write to President Thabo Mbeki asking that Mushwana's appointment be reconsidered, DA spokesman Hendrik Schmidt said.

"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.

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.

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

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

Parties who voted in favour of Mushwana on Thursday stated they believed he was the most suitable candidate, spoke 10 out of the 11 official languages, and would be impartial and independent.

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