In only a few short months the fourth democratic Parliament will have to elect the fourth president of SA in what is certain to be the most important task for the national legislature this year.

Of almost equal importance will be the deliberations of a special ad hoc committee that will meet to review President Kgalema Motlanthe’s decision not to accept the findings of the Ginwala inquiry and his decision that National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli be dismissed. Parliament has the power to reverse the president’s decision.

The first few weeks of Parliament promise to be hectic as several important matters are crammed into as short a time as possible so that MPs can return home to campaign for their respective parties as election time draws near.

Between February 6 and February 11 Parliament will hear Motlanthe’s state of the nation speech and will debate it for a single day as opposed to the three days devoted to it in the past.

The dust will hardly have settled on the debate when Finance Minister Trevor Manuel will table the 2009-10 budget on February 11, which includes the Division of Revenue Bill (which determines how much centrally raised revenue will go to the provinces and to local government).

Some committees will begin work between January 12 and 23, with some plenary sessions to follow between January 26 and 30.

This period is likely to be used for the Pikoli committee and for the processing of legislation considered urgent because Parliament will rise until after the election, when the budget and division of revenue have been dealt with.

The Pikoli committee has an onerous task. The prosecutions boss was suspended by then president Thabo Mbeki shortly after he got search and arrest warrants against police commissioner Jackie Selebi. According to the law, an inquiry had to be held into Pikoli’s fitness to hold office and this was headed by former National Assembly speaker Frene Ginwala.

Ginwala disagreed with Mbeki and found Pikoli was fit, although she criticised some of his actions with regard to national security.

Motlanthe inherited the task of ruling on the Pikoli matter. He did not accept Ginwala’s finding and wants Pikoli to be dismissed. Again according to the law, Parliament must review this decision. It remains to be seen whether a parliamentary committee has the stomach to overrule the president, particularly when many of the MPs involved will want to achieve electable positions on party lists ahead of the election.

The new Parliament will be sworn in after the election and its first order of business will be the election of one of its number as the fourth president of a democratic SA. While the experts are insisting that it will indeed be African National Congress president Jacob Zuma, there has been considerable speculation that he could be replaced by someone else, perhaps Motlanthe, particularly if the National Prosecuting Authority wins its appeal against the scrapping of the charges against Zuma and they are reinstated.

Zuma was charged with fraud, corruption, tax evasion and money laundering before Judge Chris Nicholson ruled the charges were illegal because Zuma had not been allowed to make representations before being formally charged.

Once the president has been elected there will be another state of the nation speech as he or she opens the new Parliament.

Then the new crop of MPs will have to be appointed to committees and to begin the arduous task of deliberating on all of the budget votes of the various departments and entities of state. It is going to be an eventful year *1 ­ not only for Parliament but also for SA.

With acknowledgements to Wyndham Hartley and Business Day.