NATASHA MARRIAN: Surprising what the prospect of ANC election loss can do

Over the past two weeks, four senior ANC leaders have spoken out against suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu’s move to disband the political killings task team.

The disbandment of the team unleashed the fury of senior SA Police Service bosses and culminated in two committees tasked with untangling the rot, involving drug cartels, political interference and dirty cops.

It is astonishing what the prospect of electoral loss can accomplish.

For more than a decade, the ANC sheltered and coddled a president and his allies, who hopped from one scandal to the next, effectively destroying its own standing in society.

From the R250m upgrades to former president Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla private residence, which included the laughable “fire pool”, to his “friends”, the Guptas, landing their wedding guests at the Waterkloof Air Force Base, the ANC became notorious for defending the indefensible. The same former president repaid the party’s indulgence of his criminal conduct by plunging a jagged blade through its support in a crucial province, KwaZulu-Natal, by forming a splinter party and snatching away nearly 20 percentage points in electoral support.

This is why it makes no sense for the party to throw its weight behind leaders implicated in corruption scandals, but there are now early signs that the ANC has learnt its lesson.

Mchunu has the misfortune of being a test case for the ANC’s newfound resolve in dissociating itself from errant leaders, with four senior leaders speaking out under oath in parliament against his move to disband the political killings task team.

Retired former police minister Bheki Cele was the first in the witness box before parliament’s ad hoc committee probing allegations by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi. Cele said he was “taken aback” when he saw the letter disbanding the team and he disagreed with the way it was dissolved.

It was established by the president via an inter-ministerial committee and should have been dissolved the same way. Mchunu’s letter disbanding the team was simply “unprocedural and wrong”. He also said it was wrong for the minister to “instruct” the national police commissioner to disband the team.

Both Mchunu’s deputies, Cassel Mathale and Polly Boshielo, said they thought the news of the disbandment of the task team was “fake” when they first heard it. Mathale was coy in his response, but his meaning was unmistakable ― he said the disbandment could have been handled “differently”. Boshielo felt the minister had “broken protocol” in disbanding the team.

Mchunu’s successor, Firoz Cachalia, this week testified that he did not understand the rationale behind disbanding the team, that it functioned well and that the problem of political killings remained and was set to deepen given the upcoming local government elections. Cachalia said the move “made no sense” to him.

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, speaking in Mpumalanga at the weekend, acknowledged the damage corruption has done to the ANC, emphasising that members should stand firm against it.

“The people who are stealing while misrepresenting our organisation, even if it is your friends, you must say ‘not in our name’. We have reached a stage where we must not only tell the truth to one another, but we must be firm,” he said.

There are also attempts to scout for alternative candidates to replace party president Cyril Ramaphosa in 2027 whose reputations are not tainted by corruption allegations or questions over the source of their lavish lifestyle, as is the case with deputy president Paul Mashatile, the front-runner in the race for the party presidency.

The party’s stance toward Mchunu may be genuine or factionally driven, but it marks a break from its past conduct, where it embraced and sheltered those accused of wrongdoing.

It is still difficult, however, to understand why Ramaphosa has not axed Mchunu but has him languishing on special leave at the taxpayers’ expense.

In effect, it is one step forward, two steps back for the ANC, which explains why it is battling to reverse its electoral freefall.