‘Good’ guys seal the ANC’s fate

During the so-called nine wasted years of state capture, when its organs were hollowed out for the sole purpose of ensuring the looters of state funds could do so without hindrance, it was the silence of the good guys in the ruling party that was most astounding.

In fact they didn’t only keep quiet, they actively protected then president Jacob Zuma by closing ranks and seeing him through up to 10 motions of no confidence brought by the opposition.

The man who did the most to ensure the ruling party never voted to remove a president who had shown he didn’t care much for the constitution was Gwede Mantashe.

The affable Mantashe, who was secretary-general of the ruling party through all Zuma’s years in the presidency, was always at pains to paint a coherent picture of why they could not allow the ruling party’s members of parliament to side with the opposition in voting Zuma out.

He went as far as using war analogies, likening Zuma to an army general at war: “ANC MPs voting the president out would be like soldiers abandoning their top general at war.”

The only thing he did not explain back then was that this particular army general was abusing his power. It never made sense that Mantashe, Cyril Ramaphosa, Zweli Mkhize and many others kept quiet or defended the rot. The latest and last part of the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture report has just shed some light on that when it recommended that Mantashe be investigated for possible criminal acts in the Bosasa matter.

ALSO READ: Nasrec 2: Where is the next ANC’s elective conference going to be held?

The commission has found that Mantashe accepted free security upgrades at his properties from the company that was as much in the centre of state capture as the infamous Gupta brothers. Sure, the report does not say Mantashe is guilty of corruption, and as he himself says “there is no prima facie corruption case against me”.

There was a time when even just the mention of Mantashe in a report such as this one would have sent shock waves through political corridors. Not any more.

South Africans have seen it all.

They’ve come to accept that former minister of social services Bathabile Dlamini was not making a Freudian slip when she said on national television: “All of us in the (national executive committee) have our smaller-nyana skeletons and we don’t want to take out all the skeletons because hell will break loose.”

It was a statement of fact. Mantashe’s refusal to step aside is based on his own party’s requirement that there be a court case against an individual before they can step aside from their position. What Mantashe doesn’t realise is that his refusal erodes whatever little confidence some people had that the remaining “good” ANC leaders will act with a little bit of integrity.

President Ramaphosa is said to be building superstructures around himself, both in the ANC and in government, to save himself and the ANC in the 2024 national elections. He needs to realise that it is not structures but the people in the structures that give voters confidence to the voters.

Do those people have skeletons in their cupboards that will make them tolerate corruption for as long they did during the nine wasted years? The “good” guys are helping put the final nail in the ANC’s coffin.