Johannesburg  - South Africans are splitting their sides over a video showing a po-faced politician disappearing into thin air with a loud crack when his chair broke during a TV interview.

The chairman of parliament's portfolio committee on finance, Nhlanhla Nene, was giving an interview to SABC public television on the morning of Finance Minister Trevor Manuel's budget policy statement Tuesday when the mishap occurred.

A splitting sound heralds the demise of the chair but the bespectacled Nene, dressed in a natty pin-striped suit, merely winces and continues chatting with the female host about finance.

Then suddenly, in a classic "candid camera" moment, the chair breaks beneath him and he falls from view, behind a desk, arms waving in the air.

The presenter somehow manages to keep her composure and continues with the programme. The interview with Nene resumed later.

Two days later, the video on Youtube. com had been viewed over 28,000 times, with one cheeky viewer wondering if Nene's response typified his approach to politics.

"If you hear the first warning "crack" of an impending crisis, do you ignore it and carry on as normal until everything cracks, breaks, and collapses and then end up on your proverbial backside?" the viewer asked. (dpa)