Cape Town - Disgraced former African National Congress (ANC) chief whip Tony Yengeni quit Parliament yesterday, effectively averting a humiliating showdown in Parliament and the ANC over his future.

Opposition parties, as well as the ANC, which has steadfastly backed Yengeni in public until yesterday and whose MPs appeared to be on a collision course with National Assembly speaker Frene Ginwala over his fate, welcomed Yengeni's decision.

Yengeni's fate appears to have been decided at a meeting of the ANC's national working committee on Monday. After the meeting, ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe urged Yengeni to resign, saying it would be the "honourable thing to do".

Yengeni's decision became known yesterday shortly before ANC MPs gave notice of their intention to table a motion in the National Assembly backing him. Yengeni has been convicted of defrauding Parliament by lying to it about an undeclared discount on a luxury vehicle from a group with an interest in the state arms acquisition programme. He will be sentenced later this month.

ANC spokesman Smuts Ngonyama said the ANC welcomed Yengeni's resignation because it believed it was a credible and honourable decision to take under the circumstances. "We believe it gives an opportunity for the matter to be settled in court."

He denied that there were major differences between Ginwala and ANC MPs, saying Ginwala had to be seen to be impartial, while the ANC MPs had the right to express their opinions.

While ANC MPs breathed a collective sigh of relief that a bruising showdown over Yengeni had been averted, there was still strident criticism of the way in which the party had handled the affair. A motion on the order paper yesterday called for the matter to be referred to a special committee for investigation. It was opposed by all opposition parties and by Ginwala.

Yengeni further harmed his cause when he went to the opening of Parliament and his court hearings in ostentatious vehicles and clothes. It is understood that since then the pressure on him to resign from inside the ANC had been mounting.

His resignation was as defiant as his year-long claims of innocence: a one-line letter to Ginwala and no courtesy call on the ANC's management in Parliament. His membership of the national party's executive committee still hangs in the balance. Once he has been sentenced on March 19, his case will be referred to an ANC disciplinary committee.

During the debate in the National Assembly, ANC chief whip Nathi Nhleko said the ANC viewed Yengeni's position very seriously, and believed he had done the honourable thing.

Democratic Alliance chief whip Douglas Gibson said: "Why is it that the ANC always closes ranks around the corrupt and the crooks?" Yengeni should have resigned the moment he admitted lying to Parliament with intention to defraud. When he failed to do that, the ANC should have immediately fired him, Gibson said.

With acknowledgements to Wyndham Hartley, Pule Molebeledi and Business Day.