MATHATHA TSEDU | ANC’s implosion could be the least of Cyril’s worries

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ExpandThe ANC doesn’t have the luxury of going repressive, says the writer. Picture: Reuters/Esa Alexander Story audio is generated using AI

The elections here and in the US were consequential. Here, the major question is not how well some of the upstart parties fared in our now money-dominated elections. The big question is whether the ANC can turn the tide.

The history of post-colonial countries in Africa shows that from 20 to 30 years after decolonisation the liberating parties lose support — for a variety of reasons which are not important here today. Whether it is Frelimo in Mozambique, the MPLA in Angola, Zanu-PF in Zimbabwe, Chama Chama Mapinduzi in Tanzania or Unip in Zambia, support evaporated.

Except for Unip, which has been reduced to a shell, the others have held on to power through repression. The ANC doesn’t have the luxury of going repressive; it won’t work here. That horse has bolted.

If they had wanted to do it, they should have tried it instead of going the GNU route. And hence the question, can the phoenix defy the trend and gravity and rise?

In the US, the big issue was not Abdul El-Sayed as the first Muslim senator, nor the many black men and women generally who now populate the Senate, the House of Representatives and the governors’ mansions.

It was instead Mississippi, that Deep South state that came to symbolise the brutality of slavery. This is where karma came to haunt one Cindy Hyde-Smith, a sitting Republican senator and Trump acolyte who had in 2022 blocked the nomination of district attorney Scott Colom to the position of district judge in Mississippi.

Colom defeated her in the Senate race, becoming the first black senator from Mississippi voted for by the electorate.

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s feigned surprise and shock at Mkhwanazi’s revelations was also an act

Hyde-Smith was quoted as saying in 2018 that if there was a lynching, she would be in the front seat. She had been so confident of winning that she held a victory celebration on the night of the elections and told a cheering crowd that she had stopped Colom in 2022 from becoming a judge and they had stopped him from becoming a senator.

Talk of jumping the gun. Colom’s victory is sweet justice for the many Americans, young and old, who were killed in that state as they tried to register blacks to vote following the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves.

At home, the Madlanga soapie returned with Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala trying his best to make us all believe that the white brick of pure cocaine shown on a video he shared while shopping for good prices was some mineral. He must think we are stupid.

It was, however, his assertion that large chunks of the affidavit he had signed — “without reading” — and which would have seen him get a total prison term of eight years instead of 12, were the work of Dylan Perumal’s cabal at the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (Idac). Matlala said the affidavit was tailored to ensure the arrests of senior police officers, including Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.

The bombshell of the week came from Ntandazo Sifolo, acting co-ordinator of the National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee, who told us that Mkhwanazi’s July 6 media conference that led to the Madlanga commission was not a solo act but a collective fightback by a section of the security services who wanted to save the country from the cartels of the likes of Matlala.

He said if they had not done so, “the country would be gone”. Mkhwanazi, it turns out, was a mere frontman, the gunslinger prepared to take the bullet if necessary. That was not all. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s feigned surprise and shock at Mkhwanazi’s revelations was also an act. He had been briefed at least a week earlier and knew of the press conference before jetting out to Brazil, where his first reaction came from.

He knew, Sifolo basically said, that police minister Senzo Mchunu was allegedly working in cahoots with the inspector-general of intelligence, Idac and dubious characters such as the Patricia Mashales of this world to pave the way for a takeover of the police and then the state.

Ramaphosa didn’t fire Mchunu then; he still hasn’t fired him. What is it that Mchunu has on the president that makes him behave so strangely? What is it that makes the taxpayer pay two police ministers for more than a year with no end in sight? Are there secrets arising from the sealed CR17 financial records where Mchunu was the main fundraiser and running mate? What is it?

Until Mchunu goes, or an acceptable explanation is given, that question will haunt Ramaphosa even more than the implosion of the ANC under his watch.

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