Simelane is just the man as judicial janitor

It is an immutable law of politics. Leaders surround themselves with sycophants as instinctually as a queen bee wallows among drones. The difference is that bees at least produce honey; honey-smothered leaders produce dross.

In the latest loyalist appointment to a supposedly independent post, President Jacob Zuma has named Menzi Simelane, his new personal puppet, as the National Director of Public Prosecutions.

This is an ANC tradition: largesse in exchange for loyalty. Leaders come to power vowing to keep touch with the common herd and to listen to dissenting voices in pursuit of statesmanship, but the unguent of flattery is irresistible.

Nor has the Democratic Alliance’s mostly levelheaded leader Helen Zille proved immune to the siren song of courtiers who accord her a saintliness to rival Mother Theresa — a Mother Theresa on steroids. Zille increasingly reacts to criticism as if it is a personal affront.

These Vaseline-tongued flatterers eager to advance their own careers soon cause the abandonment of good intentions. In the cut-throat of politics an inner ring of unflinching loyalists seems a logical survival mechanism.

But it brings one to another immutable law of politics. Sycophants trim their sails to prevailing winds; they have the innate loyalty of sewer rats.

Former president Thabo Mbeki was notorious for his coterie of bootlickers. Their ready acquiescence with his bizarre theories on HIV/Aids led to many deaths, while their pandering to his political insecurity undermined the Constitution.

Much good it did him in the long run. When his ship started listing, the rats migrated to the Zuma vessel, telling tales about their former master in order to ingratiate themselves with the new one.

A sad example of this is Simelane’s snivelling explanation of why he was such a useless director general of justice during the Mbeki era. Simelane had been lambasted by the Frene Ginwala Inquiry.

Ginwala found that Simelane’s evidence “left much to be desired … that his testimony was contradictory and without basis in fact and law”. Simelane’s conduct was such that the Public Service Commission recommended a disciplinary inquiry — which was promptly quashed.

Lifelong ANC stalwart Ginwala’s terse comment on his recent appointment is that her opinion of Simelane remains “unchanged”.

Simelane is too dim to realise that he does himself no favours with his own explanation of his shenanigans. Cravenly eager to ingratiate himself with Zuma, Simelane’s excuse is that he had only done “what Mbeki’s office asked” him to do.

According to the Sunday Independent, Simelane even produced for Zuma correspondence with Mbeki’s legal adviser to prove that he was “just a pawn” and that Ginwala’s criticisms had been based on submissions “imposed on him” by Mbeki’s office.

So, to the already obvious flaws of intellectual ineptness and lack of legal nous, one can now add a lack of integrity and backbone. Oh, and almost universal derision from the legal community. This hardly adds up to the attributes one would hope for from a new national head of public prosecutions.

This is to ignore what Zuma wants from his deployment. He wants a biddable man or woman. He wants someone who has proved their credentials for a crucial national office by a willingness to debase that office to serve a presidential agenda.

Which makes Simelane an outstanding candidate for being a Zuma lackey. Zuma’s only concern should be Simelane jumping ship when the wheel of political fortune again starts turning, as it inevitably one day will.