There will not be ”two centres of power” and the government and ANC will work smoothly together, the ANC has soothingly told the nation.
Oh really? With the political year hardly begun, there are tensions between the new ANC leadership and President Thabo Mbeki already, most notably over who will be South Africa’s deputy president and over the Scorpions.
In essence the party’s dominant faction is forcing its agenda on the executive and it is doing so, not in the national interest, but to settle scores. Let the ANC factions squabble among themselves in party structures — but for heaven’s sake, leave South Africa out of it.
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka has one or two blots on her record, but in general she has been an effective deputy president and there is no good reason to replace her before the next general election. She has been targeted because she is close to Mbeki and agreed to step into Jacob Zuma’s shoes after he was fired from the Cabinet.
The same applies to the Scorpions unit, which is being punished for daring to take on corruption in high places.
The point is graphically illustrated by a speech that ANC MP and national executive committee member Nyami Booi was to have delivered in Parliament this week and with which, he told the Mail & Guardian, he is entirely comfortable. Summarising the ANC’s case against the Scorpions, it advances not one convincing institutional reason for disbanding it.
Lacing the speech with dishonest rhetorical tricks, Booi claims the Scorpions ignore serious common law crimes like rape and murder. But the unit was not set up for this purpose — its specific mandate was to deal with organised crime and racketeering.
Booi briefly mentions the Scorpions’ high conviction rate, but then contradicts himself by suggesting the unit is responsible for the rise in organised crime in South Africa.
Nothing is said about the police record in this regard, or the Khampepe Commission’s call for the South African Police Service (SAPS) to follow the Scorpions’ model of prosecution-led investigation. He selectively quotes criticisms of the Scorpions by Judge Sisi Khampepe, but ignores the inconvenient fact that the judge was opposed to disbanding the unit.
He conspiratorially links supporters of the Scorpions to ”the market and its media”, when any media practitioner could tell him that they have raised a Chinese wall against journalists and that they are far more difficult to penetrate than the SAPS.
Booi complains of ”aggressive confrontational policing”, suggesting that criminal suspects — VIPs, one assumes — should be treated with kid gloves. And he warns against law enforcers ”conducting themselves above society in a guise for independency”. Who exactly is ”society” here? Successive opinion surveys indicate the broad South African public is deeply concerned about corruption and substantially supports the Scorpions’ work.
He then gives the game away by accusing the Scorpions of ”selective justice” — Zuma’s complaint in repeated affidavits in his numerous court cases.
There is one more highly significant fact. In May Booi himself will appear in the Cape Town regional court on fraud charges related to the Travelgate scandal. Coincidence? You decide.
The Sting: Part 2
The rationale of Khampepe in finding that the Scorpions’ reporting lines needed improvement is sound. And the unit has not been above acting politically. Under Bulelani Ngcuka it probably was too attention-seeking for its own good. But these are not problems unique to South Africa or to agencies of this type. And they are remediable within the law.
The unit’s successes are clear for all to see and we believe it is an agency worth retaining.
Yet it is now spoken of in the same spitting way as the government once referred to the Special Investigative Unit of Judge Willem Heath — as if it is a foreign body grafted on to the democracy.
Surely it is no coincidence that many members of the new executive of the ANC have been investigated by the Scorpions?
There is a new hegemony in the air after Polokwane as some in the ANC punt the view that because the party received well more than 70% of the vote it can rule, not govern. They should be disabused of this notion.
Those who are concerned about the attempt to trample on parliamentary processes in relation to the Scorpions must speak up. If Parliament calls for submissions, make them — not only as organisations, but as individuals too.
We should not sit back with our eyes wide shut.
Democracy is a process, not an event. The Constitution must be a living document, not a piece of paper.