Not a coup against a president, but a coup by a president?

We live in astounding times.

President Jacob Zuma. Picture: Yeshiel Panchia

We have become truly desensitised to scandals by the leadership of the ruling party.

We have come to expect that the frenzied looting of state funds through state-owned enterprises will emerge every single week.

It is an accepted reality.

The amount of evidence emerging that points to an orchestrated strategy to use well-placed ministers in government is so damning that in any normal democracy the head of state would simply not be in a position to fight for his continued political survival.

The wave of civil society sentiment against him would simply be enough to trigger his removal.

It boggles the mind that with so much evidence confirming that a “silent coup” has indeed been effected, we still find ourselves in a position where the president can challenge the damning State of Capture report in court.

Through the arms deal scandal and the Nkandla debacle, we have come to expect that the president has the legal means to always kick for touch when it’s time to own up. And knowing that the wheels of our legal system turn ever so slowly, this strategy has worked amazingly for him, to our collective disadvantage.

We have gone past the stage where the alleged influence of the Gupta family on the affairs of the state can be pointed out as simply being instances that can be counted. We have reached a point where every state institution that has a budget has individuals who have been placed there for the purpose of effecting state capture unhindered.

The capacity of state institutions that had the means to counter the silent coup has been systematically decimated, further pointing to a well-funded and well orchestrated scheme to take over the running of government.

The SA Revenue Service, the National Prosecuting Authority, the Office of the Public Protector and the Hawks are now toothless bodies standing by like the rest of society watching helplessly as this tidal wave of looting continues unabated.

It is no coincidence that the president has faced a second motion of no confidence from within his own ruling party in six months. But the ruling party’s decision-making structures have not been exempt from the effects of the silent coup. In fact, for the coup to work, it had to start there.

That the president can sit in meetings meant to discuss his suitability to continue as head of state is not an oversight, it is as a result of the decimation of the powers of the ANC structures.

The president can threaten not to be “pushed too far” by his detractors – and it is because he has enough individuals beholden to him within the structures of the party who will always support his continued stay in office.

The astounding evidence that has emerged that a sitting president has asked for residency in another country can only mean that the state capture project is so well planned and orchestrated that every eventuality has been planned for.

It will not come as a shock if, at some point, a tell-all book is written by one of the main protagonists in this whole saga that will tell of the intricate planning that went into state capture.

It cannot simply be that this is a haphazard scheme dependent on chance.

The levels of orchestration point to a well-resourced think-tank being behind this silent coup.