South Africa

Politics, South Africa

State Capture: ANC to buy time, postpone, delay, defer, defuse, deny, confuse

State Capture: ANC to buy time, postpone, delay, defer, defuse, deny, confuse

The State of Capture report is a defining moment in ANC history. The party has responded with the same delay-and-defer tactics it has displayed in the past. Ultimately, it will suffer in the polls. By GREG NICOLSON.

Nathi Nhleko, wiping sweat off his face while offering a poor attempt at a defence, became a symbol of the ANC’s efforts to defend President Jacob Zuma from the remedial action of Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s Nkandla report.

The Cabinet and the ANC Parliament went to great lengths to protect Zuma from the report’s implications. The police minister conducted his own investigation. There was an ad hoc committee. Madonsela was battered by ANC MPs when she appeared in the House.

They bought time, suspended judgement for some and offered excuses for the loyal. The efforts came to little – the Constitutional Court rubbished the parallel investigations and backed the Public Protector. Yet even after the court found Zuma had “failed to uphold the Constitution”, consequences were few. The ANC accepted the president’s half-hearted apology. He paid back the money owed (with help from a loan that itself came under scrutiny). That has been the end of it.

Zuma survived a rape charge, is yet to appear for 783 counts of fraud, corruption and racketeering, faced no consequences after being named the “Number One” who allowed the Gupta family to land wedding guests at the Waterkloof Air Force Base, a national key point, and continues to lead the country despite his government courting scandal and the economy’s negligent growth.

It’s not surprising he was confident this weekend after the release of State of Capture, which investigated the Gupta family’s influence in appointing Cabinet ministers, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) leaders, and Gupta contracts their businesses were awarded. “I’m not scared of jail. I’ve been to jail during the struggle,” said Zuma in northern KwaZulu-Natal.

On Tuesday, the ANC’s national working committee (NWC), which Zuma sits on, suggested the party would employ the same delay-and-defer tactics used in the past. After noting the ANC’s efforts to combat corruption, Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe dismissed the information Madonsela uncovered and her recommendation that an independent inquiry, with a judge appointed by the chief justice, be established.

The ANC is of the view however that the observations and remedial actions in the State of Capture report are inconclusive and contain no binding findings conferring guilt on any party,” he said.

The report of the Public Protector rather calls for the establishment of a commission of inquiry into allegations of improper relationships and involvement of private interests in the running of the affairs of the state. As a matter of principle, the ANC supports the setting up of a commission of inquiry; however, due regard must be given to the constitutional prescripts that guide the establishment of such commission.”

Madonsela’s investigation emerged after she received three complaints asking her to investigate improper relations between the Gupta family and the running of the state, which she then merged into one investigation. The media and the public dubbed it a state capture investigation.

Mantashe on Tuesday fused two points used to deflect criticism from the ANC. In coalition discussions after the local government elections, the EFF called for an inquiry into the Guptas, he said. Now a “state capture” investigation focuses exclusively on the Gupta family, ignoring others who might have improperly benefited or influenced the state.

He was repeating suggestions the EFF itself is a “third force” bent on “regime change” and tapped into complaints that white-owned, multinational companies have long influenced state decisions, both during apartheid and democracy.

What is happening here, what is at play here?” Mantashe asked.

The question was: Why did a report on specific complaints not include potential other issues of capture? He suggested that the Public Protector showed bias towards the EFF, despite the investigation starting months before the ANC and EFF went into coalition discussions, when the Fighters requested that the state hold a Gupta inquiry.

Before Zuma and his allies hit back at the state capture report, Mantashe and the ANC were more neutral. Last week, the ANC didn’t cast aspersions on the observations or method of the report and said society has “greater clarity of the concerning relationships that those in government and state-owned enterprises interacting with capital and private interests”. Mantashe said the party could not ask Zuma to step down, but he entertained such calls as an appeal to the president’s conscience. In the battle between power and conscience, power clearly wins.

Madonsela, who clearly didn’t trust her successor to finish the report nor Zuma to establish an independent inquiry into issues he is implicated in, left her report open to challenges the ANC was always likely to raise. State of Capture is damning for the Guptas, Zuma, his son Duduzane, as well as a number of ministers and middlemen, but the former Public Protector’s observations are not conclusive findings. Her envisaged inquiry, which would continue the work she couldn’t complete, will be subject to legal argument on whether only the president has the power to establish and set the terms for a commission. The ANC is arguing that the inquiry should be established like all others, by the president.

The ANC, under its current leadership, amid its predilection for paranoia and conspiracy theories, will try to challenge the report on all possible points, using its immense voice to raise questions in public on the veracity of Madonsela’s findings, and supporting legislative and legal interventions to delay her recommendations from being implemented. It would be uncharacteristic not to.

The consequences of employing the tried approach, however, could be problematic in the long term and the likes of Jackson Mthembu, Mathole Motshekga, and a group of ANC veterans, which the NWC has agreed to meet, have pointed out the consequences.

Mthembu and Motshekga have called on the leadership to resign or risk losing future votes, while the veterans have spoken of the need of urgent reform. But who and how many ANC leaders agree?

Even if there’s wide-ranging support for taking action against those implicated in State of Capture, Mantashe on Tuesday spoke about the importance of ANC unity. The party is already divided, has always been a “broad church”, and any action, like when Thabo Mbeki was recalled, Julius Malema expelled, or the Youth League leadership disbanded, could lead to further splits as well as having a significant influence on the ANC’s 2017 elections – a defining issue. But going on the defensive, acting as if eternally under attack, continuing to play a party struggling despite its obvious power and alleged abuses, will take its toll.

After the ANC lost its majority and then lost Johannesburg, former Mayor Parks Tau was adamant that his administration had made strides in improving the city and was the best option going forward. On paper, he suggested, the ANC was clearly the best party to run the city. But the former mayor admitted that national issues and perceptions of the ANC played their part. The ANC lost Johannesburg because citizens don’t trust the brand and don’t trust Zuma. The president appears to have once again got the ANC’s backing to delay accountability for he and his allies, but, ultimately, the party will pay dearly at the polls. DM

Photo: South African President Jacob Zuma (R) greets ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe (L) as he arrives for theopening session of the ruling African National Congress (ANC)’s national general council in Durban, South Africa, 20 September 2010. EPA/JON HRUSA

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