On radio this week President Thabo Mbeki described the ANC leadership race as “a model of democracy in motion”. As with many of his lofty pronouncements, no one in South Africa believes him. All the signs are that the ANC is in the grip of a kind of collective madness, in which almost any campaign tactic is seen as justified.
The vilification of candidates and the public backbiting among ANC leaders are not the issue here. That is an internal ANC matter for the party to resolve. For the broader South African public, what is truly alarming is the way that constitutional barriers vital to a functioning democracy are routinely over-ridden by frantic lobbyists who seem to have lost their moral bearings.
The already porous partition between state and party, vital to ensuring that public resources are not abused in sectarian interests, is being comprehensively flattened. In four provinces — reported on in this edition of the Mail & Guardian — campaigners are said to have offered government jobs and even shares in government projects to delegates to the ANC’s looming conference in Polokwane, in exchange for their votes.
One delegate was allegedly told he had been in line for a senior provincial government post until he wore a “disappointing” T-shirt. There are reports that ministers of state have used offers of government patronage in vote-buying drives.
Mbeki was given one hour on SABC radio to field sweetheart questions. (Even if Jacob Zuma is afforded the same opportunity next week, as the SABC has pledged, the fact is that the public broadcaster is being used for internal party campaigning.)
Mbeki tells his ministers, who are paid by taxpayers to serve all South Africans, to clear their diaries and go on the stump for him. Public Service Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi frees her staff to join a pro-Mbeki rally. The litany of abuses goes on.
The constitutionally guaranteed independence of the prosecuting authorities has been sacrificed on the altar of political ambition. There can be no doubt that Mbeki stepped in to sideline prosecutions chief Vusi Pikoli and scotch National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi’s arrest because he feared the potential fallout at the ANC conference.
The pattern continued this week when it was disclosed that the acting head of the National Prosecuting Authority, Mokotedi Mpshe, delayed a decision on whether to prosecute Selebi pending consultations with Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla, who was away in New York.
South Africans should be clear about the grave risk posed by such goings-on. The use of state resources and time to promote private organisations, or worse, individual politicians, is corruption, finish and klaar. That is what is at stake in the Oilgate scandal and in the award of a huge Eskom tender to an ANC front company, reported on by the M&G two weeks ago.
If the government or political leaders are allowed to influence the decisions of the NPA, there is a terrible danger that the prosecutions system will be used to pursue private political vendettas.
ANC leaders bewail the divisions in the party spawned by the leadership race and the need for an internal healing process. But much more is at stake. After Polokwane a more pressing priority will be to heal the wounds inflicted on South Africa’s constitutional order.
Prove the pudding
On Wednesday gang boss Glenn Agliotti walked away from a major drugs charge with a slap on the wrist, relatively speaking. For his part in the shipment of a massive hashish haul, he got a 10-year sentence — wholly suspended on condition he does not commit a similar offence in five years — and a R300 000 fine.
Three accomplices in the same drugs operation were not so lucky when they folded last year and plea-bargained. They got between five-and-a-half and 10 years each, not fully suspended. They had to do real jail time.
It is clear Agliotti was shown leniency because the National Prosecuting Authority regards him as a valuable asset in its attempt to bring police chief Jackie Selebi to court.
For the same reason, even greater leniency was shown to Agliotti’s associate, Clint Nassif, and the three hitmen who ended Brett Kebble’s life. Each of them was given so-called section 204 indemnity, where there is no sentence or conviction at all, provided the judge is convinced at the end of the trial that they testified truthfully against others.
Each of these men, from Agliotti to triggerman Mickey Schultz, is a criminal of the kind best removed from society for a long, long time. Though Agliotti still faces the Kebble murder rap, that is unlikely to remove him from the golf greens he so loves for a significant period.
The NPA, the M&G has said before, has engaged in a “high-stakes prosecutorial gamble” by cutting these deals to nail those higher up the ladder, the top rung of which they believe Selebi occupies.
There is always a danger that prosecutorial obsession will result in deals that do not meet society’s expectation to see justice done.
But it is too early to judge. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating and the tempting last course is the police chief. Only when society sees the full case against Selebi, as appears imminent now, and that case is tested in court, will we know if it was all worth it. We’re watching closely.