The year 2016 was memorable in SA politics, ushering in coalition governments across metros. Political conditions were fraught, with former president Jacob Zuma’s relationship with the Guptas under scrutiny.
The election date of August 3 was proclaimed by Des van Rooyen, the local government minister at the time. He had been shifted into the post after an eventful four-day stint in the second most powerful cabinet post: finance minister.
While Van Rooyen’s stay in finance was short, he spent seven days in a row at the compound of his new bosses, the Guptas, and it took just four hours for him to start feeding them information after stepping through the Treasury doors.
Investigators for the state capture inquiry, chaired by former chief justice Raymond Zondo, found these tantalising titbits as they unravelled SA’s biggest corruption scandal since 1994, for which not a single senior politician was convicted.
They found that a highly confidential presentation intended for the cabinet, compiled by respected former treasury director-general Lungisa Fuzile and handed to Van Rooyen, magically found its way to Gupta lieutenants Salim Essa and Eric Wood. Van Rooyen’s “advisers”, Ian Whitley and Mohamed Bobat, were hand-picked by the Guptas.
It was a nine-point plan to revive the SA economy — with a breakdown of departmental plans — including information on economic opportunities in SA and Africa, a breakdown of government spending, sensitive information on state-owned companies, the impact of rating decisions on the economy, corruption and perceptions of it, and information on beneficiation and mining.
Van Rooyen is now back in parliament for Zuma’s MK party. He was not the only senior leader to hand the Guptas confidential cabinet information. Former communications minister Faith Muthambi also gave them a confidential cabinet memo. She remains an ANC national executive committee member.
After the August 3 election, the EFF’s Julius Malema, back then at the forefront of the pushback against the Zuma administration in parliament, briefed journalists on a hill in Alexandra, announcing that the party would enter formal coalitions with the ANC or the DA, but would vote to keep Zuma’s ANC out at all costs.
The result was the DA taking control of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay. The marriage, while provocative against the ANC, ended in tears for the DA, whose local representatives were constantly at the mercy of the EFF.
The government of national unity (GNU) is similar in many ways: convenient and rational, but risky and fleeting for all involved. The ANC held a media briefing this week to proclaim itself as the continued epicentre of SA politics in the face of polls indicating a collapse in its support.
Senior leaders are beginning to speak out, to prepare their base. Malusi Gigaba, the Beau Brummell of state capture, argued in an interview with the Sunday Times that the GNU tie-up with the DA was a mistake.
Less controversial and more rational personalities among the party’s top brass are outwardly supporting the alternative: Northern Cape premier Zamani Saul pontificated on social media about an ANC-MK-EFF tie-up victoriously swelling support for the “left” axis to 62%.
It is inexplicable how Zuma’s MK can be described as a “leftist” formation, but Saul went on to say this axis combined could amend the property clause in the constitution to boost expropriation without compensation and introduce “radical measures to alleviate poverty”.
This Frankensteinian marriage of convenience — and not unprecedented internal renewal and reform — is where the ANC’s heart is. Even the GNU is a fleeting arrangement in preparation for the end game: the regrouping of ANC factions from the EFF and MK with the current membership base.
The ANC’s big problem is that this “left axis” embodies its own worst excesses, and while it may provide a temporary reprieve, it will be short-lived. The left axis will simply prolong the agony and inflict perhaps irreparable damage to SA’s young democracy as it hurtles towards finality — the ANC’s ultimate demise.
• Marrian is Business Day editor at large.
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