On the face of it, it might seem innocent that the 'deal' between Ramaphosa and Commissioner Sithole is peripheral to the unfolding succession tensions engulfing the African National Congress in the year of its most consequential elective conference. Outside the purview of many, Sithole is in the turbulent centre of how the state security cluster might be a 'koevoet' come December 2022. The release of the third Zondo Commission report is poised to have explosive and prosecutable cases that require a differently calibrated crime investigation posture from the SAPS as the primal centre of crime fighting. The legitimacy of the anti-corruption drive campaign defining a Ramaphosa Presidency requires a SAPS that will make corruption a pure criminal matter and dislodge it from the cesspool of politics it has landed itself.
In fact, that SAPS and the security cluster is at the center of the in-ANC succession storm should not be surprising at all. The core basis of the Polokwane change of guard 'tsunami' was an accusation that the then President and/or National Executive was using state organs to fight political battles. The accusation itself meant the 'new guard', and once it had taken over, would be obligated to institute a reform process whose outcome must be the opposite of the other; only in whose interest that is what society had to find out.
In the Polokwane and post-2009 presidential term, the Directorate of Priority Crimes, the Scorpions, was reintegrated into the SAPS architecture, and its prosecution-led capability was in the process compromised, the crime intelligence unit of SAPS received attention and deployee beefing up, and we know what happened. For instance, the political fights against the now in-civil society organisations and opposition complex led anti-corruption campaign would tacitly be fought through organs of state that created procedural advantages for litigation against those charged to be difficult. It was within the security cluster, and notably SAPS, that the disconnect between the Polokwane triumphalist 'radical transformation' of society delusions and the ongoing realities of in-ANC led corruption realities could be seen in starkest terms.
To society, a recalibrated SAPS, interestingly with its current minister as the then commissioner, and a 'repurposed directorate of priority crime now called the Hawks, as well as the reduced undergirding prowess of SARS, represented a grand strategy to cover-up an otherwise run-away state led corruption, now within a context of political elite capture. It would be the bravery of the office of the Public Protector, as an institution formed to protect democracy, that kept the loud noises on corruption at the right decibels.
The ping-pong appointments and noises thereof, of persons as Commissioner of Police, Head of Hawks, Head of SSA, Head of SAPS Crime Intelligence, and Head of NPA has convincingly made the security cluster a key component of a prerogative state run within party political norms and standards society has not assented to. The adoption of an integrity management mechanism anchored on the relationship a member would have or have had will law enforcement agencies by the ANC, and is determining on who stands for elections into its NEC and Top Six, has made the professional power of those with the investigative and prosecution power to be more procedurally political.
The evidence of SAPS at the hearings about the 'July insurrection' in KZN in the aftermath of the post-Zuma arrest is an interesting area to observe in relation to the operational importance of Police Commissioners during politics fracturing incidents such as these. The Marikana episode is not in a far distance to draw further lessons, so is the Jacky Selebi expose', the Vusi Mavimbela early release, the Shiwe Nyanda resignation as Chief of Army, and other peripheral looking activities of Gibson Njenje and others, in the run up to the Polokwane Conference. The march to the December Conference of the ANC with a turnover rate of senior members of the security cluster can only be a sign of a democracy in conflict with itself, and its epicentre of political power has firmly become a subject of intelligence operations necessitating the panic we observing.
If we factor in the emerging, albeit scanty, evidence of collusion by politicians with criminal syndicates emerging out of the Mamelodi and other townships as a factor in the determination of ANC branch leadership, and by default delegates to conferences, the law enforcement prowess of the state as managed by those vulnerable to political power to preside over government is structurally compromised. The growing influence of the criminal element over appointments in the 'criminal justice cluster' might have not only reached gangster state levels, but rendered all appointments into such positions overtly political.
The golden handshake of Commissioner Sithole, plausible as it is been presented to be, and resolving to the Politics and Administration stand off awe have been exposed to in SAPS, cannot be dismissed as not being related to the 'similar to Polokwane' succession political storms. South Africa might again be in an episode where the governing party has as running candidates for its President men, and potentially even women, that are charged and having unresolved skirmishes with the law. We have been through this path before, the pressure to 'deliver' exerted on the NPA's Batohi, as manifest in the surprising efficiency at filling strategic vacancies, is already much heat in the system that the political balance of power may again result in case withdrawals that might be careerist in character. CUT!!!
🤷🏿♂️A ndzo ti obozevela bakithi, maybe a hi nchumo!!!
🤷🏿♂️Swa bologo, mpfampfarhutani yi!
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