The exposure of the PhalaPhala farm cash-in-furniture theft confirmed what has long been apparent; the anti-corruption and anti-state capture-based narrative New Dawn presidency was always at the risk of collapse unless it defined its own thesis of existence. The character of the governing party is never to be a stakeholder in architectures or systems set up by others, and neither are its alliance partners who have always supported its policy development prowess during and after the anti-apartheid struggle. The governing party has a historical mission of dealing with the national grievance as the fundamental source of many of South Africa's problems, and no antithesis would last in replacing this mission.
The Arthur Frazer grandmaster level chess move, the least common checkmate, and its implicit support by the veterans complex, some sections of the business community, or rather mainstream South African establishment, has intensified the search for an in-ANC alternative that would mark a new beginning for the country. The star that Ramaphosa was is now a subject of how and when should he meet the integrity management mechanism processes of the ANC, and in this case he becomes the second highest ranking officer to enter the accountability ecosystem. What the PhalaPhala scandal has done to the in-ANC succession games, is to make what 'might have to date seemed like an abstract and inchoate challenge to become real, urgent, and perilous'. South Africa has seen the emergence of a civil society consensus on its crisis of 'ethical leadership' and 'accountable government'. The party political system, especially its anchor cushion the proportional representation, is under siege with a constituency-based electoral system being seen as a solution to elevate the individual as a factor in how society ultimately decides on leadership.
The battle for the soul of South Africa has for the past decade, to be exact, and unfortunately so, been fought through a predominating anti-corruption and state capture thesis. The country has shifted from engaging on a thesis of self to becoming a society stuck in a state of flooding its public discourse spaces with what it does not like about itself. Imagining a democratic state has in the process going into the default of being about moving away from rather than advancing towards. The rearview mirror focus has led to many head-on collisions and disruptions to what the founding fathers imagined of a South Africa beyond themselves.
It would seem the design of events towards an end, which in all likelihood includes effecting 'regime change in ideological posture without displacing the liberation movement as the mastermind of its own demise', would have come through a mass purge of the ideological fortified of its leadership. In its early days of launching, the anti-corruption/state capture platform of civil society mobilization, and because of its natural and legitimate appeal, appeared both unchallenged and unassailable. With an academic media complex that became its cheerleader, the sound of the anti-corruption/state capture orchestra overwhelmed any voice that sought to point out the need for restraint where evidence was lacking to draw a conclusion. The silencing of the tweets of reason included the marginalization of those that asked 'what should the depth of the state capture inquiry be?', and to what extent are we prepared to deal with what its aftermath might serve as a Political Dinner for South Africa.
The New Dawn brigade started to believe that its unquestioned primacy over the anti-corruption/state capture narrative allowed it to determine the policy future of South Africa by craftily positioning any alternative to 'right economic thinking' such as RET to be a proxy for corruption/state capture continuation. Wittingly or unwittingly this posture created a 'holier than thou' cohort of new corruption and state capturers whose reach became unprecedented compared to the 'on the billboards 9 wasted years substrate of the predominant and camouflaging narrative'. As the governing party's virtue of being about the people eroded at the altar of comrades being pitted against each other, a sense of national purpose faded and the political center started to be about personalities than principles. Rather than using the post-Zuma, manufactured or otherwise, anti-corruption/state capture social and political capital, as well as the surplus benevolence Ramaphosa amassed in the aftermath of NASREC, to deepen and strengthen a new rules-based, principle-centered, and institutions of leadership anchored democratic order, a triumphalist 'New Dawnist cohort of leaders' let the opportunity wither into a whirlpool of witch hunting safaris.
The anti-corruption narrative promised South Africa a New Dawn, it reasoned the problems of the country were caused by money lost to corruption, it promised a return to the north of 5 growth rates and employment for the youth. It positioned the mismanagement of state-owned entities as reasons they are failing to be at the commanding heights of the economy. As the fog of some myths cleared and the Zondo Commission started to quarantine evidence leading to pointed allegations of corruption, the true exigencies of government started to show cracks not related to corruption/state capture. The energy crisis exposed the crisis of decision-making at the center of government, crime rates began to show the fragility of crime combating agencies, unemployment started to drain the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the social grant system, and pension fund reserves started shrinking at the seams as many started to lose jobs. These all became a convergence of challenges requiring decisive leadership than decisive blaming of the past.
The COVID19 condition of the disaster provided a 'context of semi-martial law' within which strategic interventions could have been made to launch a 'health outcomes driven policy reform process out of which the country could have pressed a lot of reset to constitutional default settings', was also left to wither. It would seem even under COVID19 conditions, the witch hunt was such a focus that the repeat of corruption went on unabated despite the predominant narrative that the New Dawn was about anti-corruption and state capture. The effects of the 'long periods of lockdown' in a context of 'reversing the lucrative security contracts awarded during the focus period of the search for the corrupt and state capturers, remains the opening up of opportunities for scavenging scrap metal dealers that saw an influx of products stolen from unguarded and unused public infrastructures. The informal markets for stolen minerals such as copper grew, and a new political economy which is now policed to continue existing settled in.
In this vortex of confusion, and a legitimate quest to issue the Zondo Commission Report which would help in isolating those that consequence management would then be meted towards, revelations of the PhalaPhala cash became a process compromising and law enforcement energy deflating matter. With the unresolved stories of the in-ANC NASREC presidential funding, including the still mysterious 'sealing of the envelope of names of donors', as well as the perception that ANC Conferences are cash money laundering events, the PhalaPhala cash stories, even if they might be peddling in respect of amounts involved, find credence and credibility out of the context. Whilst the criminal justice system has demonstrated a resolve to work as a collective on their shared interest to ensure prosecution-led investigations that lead to conviction in 'other corruption-linked criminal cases', it has to still demonstrate its without fear or favor with regards to PhalaPhala.
Besides the criminal justice implications of PhalaPhala, there are the issues of leadership contestations in the governing party with interesting scenarios emerging. As the pain of the leadership deficit and the tensions of leadership succession settle into prolonged battles of attrition, new coalitions, with yet dubious interests beyond saving South Africa, within the governing party start to develop and the fragmentation continues. Even if the eldership, as we have seen in the resurgence or resurrection of Mbekite activism, is hard at work to stem the tide, it does not look like its object is to turn the pursued renewal and rebuilding into a broader effort to reestablish the governing party as a reputable institution of leadership. As scenarios are considered in the rebuilding process, there is little evidence that the tradition of consultation and a member-driven organization will emerge a victor, instead, the renewal might consolidate the position of a cognitive elite under whose tutelage the country will be led. Names of would-be successors to Ramaphosa, in the event, the damage to the PhalaPhala farm leads to the inevitable, are being bandied about. There are 'social media' theories that any consideration of the Deputy President as successor to Ramaphosa, might generate sufficient journalist capital to bury the governing party as a credible institution of leadership. As a scenario, there is consensus that it can only happen commensurate with the ANC's risk appetite towards 2024.
This context opens up the race wider, with Dr. Zweli Mkhize, Paul Mashatile, Lindiwe Sisulu, and others even throwing into the raffle Jacob Zuma, Thabo Mbeki, and Kgalema Motlanthe. The last three former presidents represent the clutching of straws, yet possible given the growing credibility deficit of those in leadership. The time for the public to analyze names might have arrived. CUT!!!
🤷🏿♂️We have come FOOL CIRCLE
🤷🏿♂️Let it rain...
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