Drew Forrest tries to disguise his animus towards Tony Leon and the Democratic Alliance behind the mask of the objective political analyst, but a careful reading of his comment always unmasks it for the anti-DA agitprop it is. His latest offering, “The DA’s Harksen morass” (May 31), is no exception. It lays bare his failure to research the facts and relies on innuendo, shifty rhetoric and outright dishonesty in its desperation to smear Leon and his party.
Forrest says that the DA has responded “like any other political party in a tight spot” to allegations made by Jurgen Harksen that he gave money to the party in the Western Cape and to Gerald Morkel personally. According to Forrest, “The message is that if the DA ever takes national power, it will do exactly as it says others should not.”
Really?
First, the DA reacted to the allegations within 72 hours by setting up an internal commission of inquiry, a response Forrest describes as “low-key”. He follows this up with a sentence of breathtaking deviousness: “If there were sighs of relief at the inquiryis inability to pin anything on Morkel and Leon Markowitz … they were to be short-lived.” (Emphasis added.) Which sighs of relief? Forrest cleverly implies that they were there, but has no evidence of them, and so covers himself with the word “if”.
In any event, as Forrest well knew, and as the party has repeatedly emphasised, the commission’s interim report was made on the basis of limited evidence. Two key witnesses were unavailable — one was having surgery. That, after all, is why it was an interim report. By the time this article is published, the commission will have delivered its substantive report. I suggest Forrest reserve his judgement until he has studied it carefully.
Second, in the wake of Harksen?s allegations to the Desai commission, the DA has opened its books, and Messrs Morkel and Markowitz have opened theirs, to a forensic audit by the firm Ernst & Young in an effort to get to the truth. The New National Party and the African National Congress, on the other hand, refuse to open theirs, even though both are alleged to have received money from Harksen.
Forrest suggests that the DA should “at least” have suspended Morkel on the basis of allegations made by Harksen before the Desai commission of inquiry.
At least, Forrest should have a passing familiarity with South Africa’s administrative law and must surely have read Judge Deon van Zyl’s judgement in the matter of Peter Marais v the Democratic Alliance. He knows that the DA could not have suspended Morkel on the basis of untested allegations, however weighty Forrest may think they are, because it is simply unlawful to do so.
Forrest further suggests that the DA’s criticisms of the Desai commission and Judge Desai are unfounded.
First, the commission was set up by the government of the Western Cape with the express purpose of damaging its political opposition, a Robert Mugabe-like abuse of state power if ever there was one. If Forrest believes that it was set up because Messrs Marais and Ebrahim Rasool developed a sudden fetish for the truth he probably also believes in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy.
Second, Marais’s expansion of the commission’s terms of reference to allow it to investigate the Harksen allegations is a further abuse of state power. Even so, the terms as amended do not actually provide for an investigation into the DA. (Has Forrest even read them?)
Third, Judge Desai is on record saying, “It is not in our terms of reference to determine whether any money was given to the DA” but then proceeded himself to lead Harksen into alleging that Leon knew about his alleged donation. Did Forrest read the relevant sections of the transcript before he wrote his piece? If he did, then he is wilfully misrepresenting the truth. If he did not, then he is simply revealing his incompetence and prejudice.
Fourth, Judge Desai is a personal friend of both Minister of Transport Abdullah Omar and Rasool, and it should be obvious even to Forrest that he is therefore an inappropriate choice to head a commission mandated to investigate his friends’ political opponents.
But Forrest’s dishonesty reaches its zenith in his smearing of Leon. When he lacks hard facts, he falls back on the shiftiest rhetorical sleight of hand.
First he implies that Harksen claimed to have “many” contacts with Leon when he knows Harksen did nothing of the sort. Then he suggests that the party’s “blustering” defence of Leon (that is, the party’s outright rebuttal of Harksen’s allegation) “leaves the impression that [Leon] knew more than he is letting on”, as if that “impression” is universal rather than a personal response informed by his own prejudice. And then he sinks to asking suggestive questions like, “Can he really have been unaware that Harksen’s lawyer, Paul Katzeff, represented Morkel in a key party-related court case last year?” ignoring that the case in question was between Morkel and the NNP and that the DA had no part in it.
Needless to say, Forrest offers not a shred of evidence to support all this innuendo, but then he is not a man to let the facts get in his way.
Forrest says that Harksen “may be the ultimate wide boy”. Forrest himself is certainly the journalistic equivalent of the ultimate wide boy. Because while he does not have to like the DA or its leader, as a journalist he does have an obligation to deal in the facts and make at attempt at fair comment. His laziness, incompetence and bias are a disgrace to a paper that used to be the best news read in the country.
James Selfe MP is the chairperson of the federal council of the DA