SA's looking a lot like Zimbabwe

Though former president Thabo Mbeki was often guilty, to a fault, of defending his administration, nothing could have prepared South Africans for the inappropriate appointments and point-blank refusal to accept wrongdoing among those who occupy positions of power or who are allied to current President Jacob Zuma.

It’s as if a totally different set of rules applies to the individuals concerned with no conduct bad enough or occasioning of sufficient damage to merit dismissal or suitable sanction.

George W Bush’s “you are either with us or against us” springs to mind with “us” comprising those who owe blind loyalty to the president and to a lesser degree those who are members of the African National Congress and certain of its alliance partnership members.

In essence out of a population of about 47 million this elite would equate to about a million people or constitute 2.12% of the total.

Yet in terms of the positions they currently hold as well as the steadfast refusal to entertain any action being taken against them, they are fast gaining a vice-like grip on power in this country.

Long term the price the ANC will pay for this loyalty will be a sacrifice in popularity as ordinary citizens become frustrated by lack of opportunity and incompetence.

Start with the appointment of Menzi Simelane as head of the National Director of Public Prosecutions and then add Moe Shaik, head of the SA Secret Service, and Bheki Cele, National Police Commissioner, and you have an impregnable ring of steel made up of loyalists who will defend Zuma against all comers.

Unfortunately for South Africans these are the men who hold the posts that are supposed to form the spearhead in the fight against crime as well as being responsible for the little matter of national security. As a result of their link to the ANC, and in particular the president, question must arise regarding where their priorities lie.

In the case of Simelane, his integrity has already been questioned following Frene Ginwala’s finding that he had in all likelihood interfered with the independence of the National Prosecuting Authority at the Ginwala Inquiry. The fact that Simelane now heads the NPA itself, through his appointment by Zuma, raises serious doubts over whether he would be willing, or indeed able, to confront those in power.

Cele is the man who wept openly during the president’s trial. Accordingly as head of the police it is inconceivable that he would sanction, never mind pursue, the president or any senior members of his administration.

In terms of national security and the appointment of Moe Shaik as spy boss, we are left wondering how much of the agency’s capability will be utilised in protecting the country and how much in protecting the president against those perceived to be disloyal to him. Shaik himself is a Zuma loyalist prepared to go the extra mile as we witnessed during the Hefer Commission.

Regard must then be had to the manner in which the ANC is dealing with ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema and national spokesperson Jackson Mthembu. In the case of the former, who is probably the AWB recruitment poster pin-up model with the numbers he must be driving into that camp, we have an individual who can literally say and do what he likes with impunity. Mthembu, supposedly older, wiser and acutely aware of public relations, allegedly caught drunk driving in the same week as the Soweto Mini Coopers murder disaster was not even suspended.

Their cases are merely symptomatic of the illness of looking after loyalists rather than exhaustive of the endless number of examples of this type of conduct that exists.

Of course as soon as anyone within the ANC calls for accountability, a fight immediately breaks out as is the case with the current spat regarding ministers having to appear before Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts. Allegedly Chief Whip Mathole told journalists that ministers should not be made to appear before Scopa because they had a country to run.

How this would obviate the need to be accountable to a parliamentary standing committee hasn’t been clarified as yet but when it comes to the independence of state institutions and ministers being held responsible for their personal performance, the ANC are in serious need of a number of lectures.

What cannot be in dispute is the fact that the country as a whole has not been this insecure or polarised since the days of apartheid.

The endless examples of the government and ruling party standing back or actively condoning the behaviour of loyalists leaves the impression that when it comes to certain individuals, seemingly considered to be vital to their own self-interests, they are untouchable.

In this regard we have the ANC national executive committee announcing that it would be disciplining leaders who engage in spats or trade insults in public all the while trying to condone or play down the conduct of Malema and Mthembu. A total disregard for what the country sees as priorities.

The longer this goes on the wider the rift is going to get between those who are part of this elite and the rest.

A good example being the Zanu-PF who were by far the most popular party after the liberation of Zimbabwe but who refused to look beyond their own elite. When they lost the referendum in 2000, instead of moving the party in the direction of the voters they decided to discipline the ungrateful traitors who dared to vote against them.

The result of this being that by the last election, despite refusing proper monitors, wholesale fraud, murder, intimidation and even controlling the results, they had to concede defeat.

That’s how far their popularity has fallen.

A perfect model to demonstrate how a highly popular party with seemingly good intentions at the start can be ruined by greed and cronyism.

Instead of learning the lesson and going the other way by ensuring that BEE means blacks across South Africa benefiting and affirmative action programmes that benefit all and don’t discriminate unnecessarily, the ANC is following the proven disaster that is the Zanu-PF on the road to nowhere.

The exact same format of making incompetence untouchable because they prize loyalty above ability and which ends with the inability to deliver to the electorate due to the lack of skills in the appropriate area is starting to manifest itself.

Again one need simply have regard to Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, the worst economic disaster the world has witnessed, to know how the story ends. A barren wasteland where citizens are kept in check down the barrel of a gun.

Yet in the face of that example and while currently the party with a substantial majority and every chance to make it work, the question that now needs to be asked is why the ANC is fast making its way towards an election where voting for them will be considered untouchable?