tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/jacob-zuma-8310/articlesJacob Zuma – The Conversation2024-02-22T17:42:08Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2238402024-02-22T17:42:08Z2024-02-22T17:42:08ZTrump is no Navalny, and prosecution in a democracy is a lot different than persecution in Putin’s Russia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577170/original/file-20240221-28-m21taj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=39%2C23%2C5258%2C3510&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A memorial to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny laid in Saint Petersburg on February 16, 2024. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/flowers-lay-next-to-a-picture-of-late-russian-opposition-news-photo/2008317893?adppopup=true">Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/alexei-navalnys-death-what-do-we-know-2024-02-18/">death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny</a>, announced on Feb. 16, 2024, lays bare to the world the costs of political persecutions. Although his cause of death remains unknown, the 47-year-old died while serving a 19-year sentence in a Siberian penal colony.</p>
<p>“Three days ago, Vladimir Putin killed my husband,” <a href="https://youtu.be/wx3vHdFRvMo?si=nnodKFrIZSmX7M_0">said Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya</a>, in a Feb. 19 video. </p>
<p>As an <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/02/16/1231980139/alexei-navalny-who-was-he">anti-corruption activist</a> turned opposition leader, Navalny shone a light on the brutal excesses of President Putin’s regime. Like Navalny, Putin’s political opponents are routinely subjected to sham investigations, detained without due process and often die under suspicious circumstances. Navalny <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/16/chemical-burns-poisoning-prison-alexei-navalny-persecution">survived poisoning in 2020</a>.</p>
<p>Not a week since the death and former President Donald Trump already compared himself <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111958285847100029">favorably to Navalny</a>. “The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country,” Trump wrote on social media. Prosecutors, the courts and his political opponents, including President Joe Biden, were “leading us down a path to destruction” in “slow, steady progression.”</p>
<p>Facing four criminal indictments encompassing 91 felony counts, Trump has often declared that he is the victim of <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4136508-trump-after-jan-6-arraignment-if-you-cant-beat-him-you-persecute-him/">political persecution</a>. His Republican <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/laura-ingraham-trump-america-real-political-prisoner">allies in media</a> <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4477525-navalny-death-underlines-gop-divisions-in-trump-era/">and government</a> parrot this refrain. </p>
<p>Is there merit to Trump’s claim that the U.S. legal system is little more than the puppet of Putin-like machinations, in which courts are hijacked to knock out political rivals? </p>
<p>I am a scholar who studies the <a href="https://theconversation.com/prosecuting-trump-would-inevitably-be-political-and-other-countries-have-had-mixed-success-in-holding-ex-presidents-accountable-174648">prosecutions of political leaders globally</a>. It is true that such prosecutions have become <a href="https://theconversation.com/prosecuting-a-president-is-divisive-and-sometimes-destabilizing-heres-why-many-countries-do-it-anyway-188565">increasingly common</a> in the past two decades. Often, distinguishing good faith proceedings from bad faith “witch hunts” is not a fact-based exercise, especially for the targets of investigations and among their supporters. </p>
<p>But the law and evidence help to elucidate some themes that lead any reasonable observer to categorically differentiate Navalny – and other victims of bona fide maltreatment – from Trump.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577173/original/file-20240221-26-9vysi6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A screenshot of a social media post by Donald Trump that says in part, 'The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577173/original/file-20240221-26-9vysi6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577173/original/file-20240221-26-9vysi6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577173/original/file-20240221-26-9vysi6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577173/original/file-20240221-26-9vysi6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577173/original/file-20240221-26-9vysi6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577173/original/file-20240221-26-9vysi6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577173/original/file-20240221-26-9vysi6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">After Alexei Navalny’s death, Trump compared his situation being prosecuted with the fate of Navalny.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111958285847100029">Screenshot Truth Social</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Insulating justice</h2>
<p>Legitimate prosecutions involve the rule of law applied, without fear or favor, to alleged violators of statutes or constitutional provisions. Persecutions involve the illegitimate use of law against one’s opponents to gain partisan advantage, also called “<a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/lawfare">lawfare</a>.” </p>
<p>Current and former leaders in democracies with a strong rule of law, including the U.S., have little to fear of persecution, even if more are subject to prosecution. </p>
<p>In corruption trials ranging from former <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/01/972453743/former-french-president-sarkozy-found-guilty-of-corruption-sentenced-to-jail">French president Nicolas Sarkozy</a> to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/03/world/middleeast/netanyahu-corruption-charges-israel.html">Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-legal-proceedings-crime-jacob-zuma-africa-5107230f76bb2ada8593a285d2a0e12a">South Africa’s Jacob Zuma</a>, democracies young and old have proved capable of conducting robust investigations, trials and even detentions of leaders, without officials overstepping constitutional restraints or generating cycles of recrimination.</p>
<p>Whether this world-wide uptick in prosecutions is due to an increasing propensity for executives to commit criminal acts, or reflects improved tools for judicial investigations, matters little. In these cases, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/trump-cases-counts-charges-strengths.html">as in Trump’s</a>, there was significant evidence of criminal behavior. To ignore that would have undermined, not upheld, the rule of law.</p>
<p>There are safeguards unique to democracies to ensure the impartial application of law, even to current or former heads of government. Under many common law and civil law systems, judicial members are non-partisan and enjoy <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/basic-principles-independence-judiciary">independence from the political</a> – executive and legislative – branches. </p>
<p>Most democracies allow constitutional review by the courts of executive and legislative actions across different jurisdictions and appellate levels. These reviews guarantee checks and balances between branches but also within the judiciary to prevent any one prosecutor or judge from running amok. </p>
<p>Some prosecutors or judges are elected in the U.S. Criminal indictments can be issued by grand juries, as in Trump’s cases.</p>
<p>Democracies are also self-correcting. In Brazil, then-former president Lula da Silva was tried after leaving office in 2011 <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-10841416">on corruption allegations and subsequently jailed</a>. But the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Luiz-Inacio-Lula-da-Silva">Supreme Court annulled the sentence</a> because they determined a prosecutor in the case demonstrated political bias. Lula was released from prison and won re-election in 2022. </p>
<h2>Advantages to facing prosecution</h2>
<p>Politicians in democracies who are prosecuted will no doubt cry foul and play the victim card. This helps to shore up political muscle, as seen with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/31/monday-briefing-what-does-lulas-victory-mean-for-the-future-of-brazil">Lula’s 2022 victory</a> and <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/">Trump’s 2024 polling among Republicans</a> and <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/2024-new-hampshire-primary-election-results-donald-trump-nikki-haley-hampshir/14355069/">early primary victories</a>.</p>
<p>But for the same reasons, it makes little political sense for their incumbent rivals to weaponize prosecutions. If enough voters think Biden is using prosecutions to sideline Trump, they will surely punish Biden in November. </p>
<p>This is one reason Biden has not spoken about the details of Trump’s cases even as he campaigns against <a href="https://apnews.com/article/democracy-threats-biden-trump-2024-pennsylvania-176e42a3877eaf33160c71d1b73c96cd">Trump as a threat to democracy</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, Lula is <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-lulas-big-tent-pragmatism-won-over-brazil-again-with-a-little-help-from-a-backlash-to-bolsonaro-223141">not commenting</a> about, or intervening in, prosecutors’ investigation of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s alleged involvement in the 2023 insurrection to prevent the transfer of office to Lula.</p>
<p>But prosecutions can certainly become persecutions in settings where the rule of law is weak, democracy has not taken root or an autocratic ruler feels threatened. </p>
<h2>What persecution looks like</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577176/original/file-20240221-24-d93yvv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A police car outside a house." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577176/original/file-20240221-24-d93yvv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577176/original/file-20240221-24-d93yvv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577176/original/file-20240221-24-d93yvv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577176/original/file-20240221-24-d93yvv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577176/original/file-20240221-24-d93yvv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577176/original/file-20240221-24-d93yvv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577176/original/file-20240221-24-d93yvv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A patrol car of the Ugandan police on Jan. 20, 2021, stationed outside the compound of Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine, who was under effective house arrest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/patrol-car-of-the-ugandan-police-is-seen-stationed-outside-news-photo/1230687986?adppopup=true">Sumi Sadurni/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today’s world features many petty tyrants of Putin’s ilk, who use the tools of the state to persecute their perceived enemies. Consider Uganda, the focus of the Oscar-nominated documentary “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21376900/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Bobi Wine: The People’s President</a>,”
which tells the story of Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, known by his stage name “Bobi Wine.” </p>
<p>Wine is a pop star and anti-corruption activist who uses music to rail against the autocratic rule of President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986. </p>
<p>Uganda’s elections have long been marred by <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/01/21/uganda-elections-marred-violence">intimidation, violence and fraud against the opposition</a>. Nonetheless, after winning a seat in parliament, Wine <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/16/956885988/uganda-election-president-yoweri-museveni-declared-winner-as-bobi-wine-alleges-f">ran for president against Museveni in 2021</a>. </p>
<p>Public officials acting at Museveni’s behest <a href="https://abc7ny.com/uganda-bobi-wine-politics/13553858/">targeted Wine and his voters</a> through arbitrary detentions, physical abuse and even attempted assassinations. Unsurprisingly, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/16/956885988/uganda-election-president-yoweri-museveni-declared-winner-as-bobi-wine-alleges-f">Museveni won an unprecedented sixth term in 2021</a>. Wine
has been put under <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/uganda-arrests-40-opposition-supporters-their-leader-arrives-2023-10-06/">house arrest since</a>. </p>
<p>Like Navalny, Wine is the subject of actual political persecution. It is hard to take seriously the contention by Trump and <a href="https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/1758549909974794336?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet">his allies</a> that Trump is similarly a victim. There is simply no evidence that Biden and prosecutors are engaging in lawfare. Even while under arrest on federal, New York and Georgia charges, Trump can campaign freely. </p>
<p>What should trouble Americans are Trump’s repeated threats in the current campaign to do just what he accuses others of doing: “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/05/us/politics/trump-retribution-presidency.html">retribution” against perceived enemies</a> should he prove victorious in 2024. </p>
<p>Whether Trump wins and follows through on promises of lawfare remains to be seen; but if so, that would undoubtedly risk moving the U.S. away from its established rule of law and closer to Russia and Uganda by opening the door for political persecutions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James D. Long does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donald Trump says he’s being politically persecuted, like Russian democracy martyr Alexei Navalny, who died while in a Russian prison on Feb. 16. A scholar says there’s no comparison between the men.James D. Long, Professor of Political Science and Co-founder of the Political Economy Forum, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2215052024-01-26T10:24:19Z2024-01-26T10:24:19ZThe two faces of Jacob Zuma – former South African president campaigns to unseat the ANC he once led. Who supports him and why?<p>Former South African president Jacob Zuma’s political comeback builds on support from marginalised and angry constituencies within or close to the governing African National Congress (ANC). His vengeful but <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67741527">“loyal” rebellion</a> against the ANC resonates with these political constituencies.</p>
<p>In mid-December 2023, Zuma announced that he would be <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-01-09-umkhonto-wesizwe-what-we-know-about-zumas-new-party/">supporting</a> the newly formed <a href="https://mkparty.org.za/">uMkhonto weSizwe Party</a> (MK Party), rather than the ANC, in the <a href="https://www.eisa.org/election-calendar/">upcoming national election</a>. But he would <a href="https://www.enca.com/videos/2024-elections-zuma-ditches-anc-pledges-vote-mk-party">not resign from the ANC</a>. <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/umkhonto-wesizwe-mk">Umkhonto we Sizwe</a> is the name of the ANC’s former guerrilla army. </p>
<p>This latest assault by Zuma on the ANC coincides with the embattled party entering a tough campaigning period for the <a href="https://www.eisa.org/election-calendar/">national and provincial elections</a>, expected between May and August 2024. Zuma is using his new platform to strike at his arch-enemy, President Cyril Ramaphosa, who also heads the ANC. </p>
<p>Zuma, president of the ANC from <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/former-leaders-2/">2007 to 2017</a>, and of South Africa from <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/jacob-gedleyihlekisa-zuma-mr">2009 to early 2018</a>, rose to power controversially, amid allegations of corruption related to the government’s <a href="https://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/1037">1998 procurement of arms</a>. This scandal became the hallmark of his reign, followed by the debilitating <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">state capture and gross misgovernance</a> scandals. </p>
<p>He has used the <a href="https://definitions.uslegal.com/s/stalingrad-defense/">Stalingrad legal strategy</a> – wearing down a plaintiff by challenging their every move – to evade justice. However, he was convicted on a relatively minor charge in July 2021, for defying a court order to appear at a <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">judicial commission into state capture</a>. His subsequent jailing triggered violent protests in which <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-deadly-july-2021-riots-may-recur-if-theres-no-change-186397">about 350 people died</a>. There are fears that further action against Zuma could spark a resurgence. </p>
<h2>Challenging Ramaphosa</h2>
<p>Zuma has portrayed the MK Party as the authentic ANC, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UEzy1ELNgo">not the one led by Ramaphosa</a>. He has been drawing sizeable crowds to the meetings of the new party, provoking the ANC and <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/politics/anc-take-a-chill-pill-on-their-zuma-headache-for-now-20240114">paralysing its strategists</a>. The ANC faces a difficult choice: suspend or expel Zuma and face a backlash; or tolerate him within the ANC, lest he turns disciplinary action against him into martyrdom.</p>
<p>My academic study of South African politics, and the ANC, over three decades provides some insight into why Zuma continues to command support, despite his ruinous tenure. Under his presidency, the state and its organs were <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48980964">captured and repurposed</a> for his benefit and those around him; state organs were disabled and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.18772/12021026451">ANC factional divisions pushed to unprecedented levels</a>. I suggest the reasons people still support him include public unhappiness with the ANC’s performance in government; Zuma’s cunning casting of himself as their similarly suffering saviour; his exploitation of Zulu cultural identity; the shared loss with his faction of status; and exclusion from the ANC’s patronage system. He feeds on the government’s performance failures.</p>
<h2>State of the ANC</h2>
<p>The ANC bears scars of at least two presidential battles: <a href="https://ebin.pub/dominance-and-decline-the-anc-in-the-time-of-zuma-1868148858-9781868148851.html">Zuma versus Mbeki</a>, and then <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.18772/12021026451">Zuma against Ramaphosa</a>. The fights spawned internal enemies, many of them now Zuma disciples <a href="https://web.facebook.com/p/Areta-African-Radical-Economic-Transformation-Alliance-100090796962653/?_rdc=1&_rdr">stirring up support for the MK Party project</a>.</p>
<p>Zuma’s prime target is the Ramaphosa-led ANC with its <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/yes-sa-thuma-mina">Thuma Mina (“Send Me”) campaign</a>, which promised to rebuild the country from the mess Zuma created or exacerbated, guided, according to the text, by values of integrity, equality, solidarity and shared humanity. Zuma <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/i-wont-campaign-for-anc-in-2024-will-vote-mk--jaco">accuses Ramaphosa</a> of being corrupted by <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-monopoly-capital-good-politics-bad-sociology-worse-economics-77338">“white monopoly capital”</a>, and pins his marginalisation from the ANC on having become the victim of a corrupted judiciary. He complains that Ramaphosa introduced practices that are foreign to the ANC’s character. </p>
<p>At the height of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Zuma-Years-South-Africas-Changing/dp/1770220887">Zuma’s tenure</a> as president of South Africa, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jacob-gedleyihlekisa-zuma">2009 to early 2018</a>, he proved himself as the <a href="https://repository.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/handle/10566/491">patriarch of patronage</a>. Tenders were his to dictate. Entire state institutions fell victim. </p>
<p>His attack on the ANC resonates with an activist core that is angry with <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/news/mpumalanga-anc-says-no-no-no-to-anger-classes-20191204">losing the privileged positions they held</a> before Ramaphosa became the party leader in 2017. Some were felled by the Ramaphosa-led ANC’s <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/politics/2024-01-19-no-orders-yet-to-exclude-corruption-suspects-from-anc-candidate-list/">clampdown on corruption</a>. </p>
<p>Zuma also gets support from former ANC provincial and national leaders who have been at the receiving end of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/12/ex-anc-chiefs-zuma-and-magashule-team-up-ahead-of-south-africas-elections#:%7E:text=The%20%E2%80%9CMagashule%20Zuma%20United%20Front">ANC disciplinary action</a>. For them, supporting for Zuma is a way to punish the ANC.</p>
<p>Zuma’s <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/politics/zuma-i-am-a-victim-cyril-is-corrupt-global-powers-want-sa-20221022">portrayal of himself as a victim</a> at the hands of Ramaphosa resonates with many who feel they have been wronged by their organisation. </p>
<p>For the “<a href="https://www.gov.za/news/speeches/tenderpreneurship-stuff-crooked-cadres-fighters-04-sep-2014">tenderpreneurs</a>” – business people who feed off government contracts – <a href="https://www.vryeweekblad.com/en/opinions-and-debate/2023-08-18-anc-has-lost-control-of-its-den-of-thieves/">the taps have been dripping</a> rather than spouting contracts as before. They are set to bond with citizens whose livelihoods dissipate as government policies fade and fail.</p>
<p>Zuma’s <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-10-30-three-polls-show-anc-election-support-is-falling-off-a-cliff/">popular standing</a> coincides with the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-16/zuma-s-popularity-threatens-anc-s-majority-hopes-srf-says">decline in the electoral standing</a> of the ANC. </p>
<h2>State of government</h2>
<p>The ANC of 2024 is weather-worn and has <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-anc-marks-its-112th-year-with-an-eye-on-national-elections-but-its-record-is-patchy-and-future-uncertain-221125">less of a grip on the state’s delivery apparatus</a>. Despite the party’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ramaphosa-scolds-ruling-anc-losing-south-africans-trust-2022-07-29/">claims</a>, there is slim hope for economic growth and jobs that will be sufficient to drive an economic turnaround. </p>
<p>Many have no chance to move beyond a life of social security grants and dependence on the state. </p>
<p>The ANC’s poor performance in government – <a href="https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/statistics-south-africa-quarterly-labour-force-survey-quarter-three-2023-14">high unemployment</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-cant-crack-the-inequality-curse-why-and-what-can-be-done-213132">deep inequality</a>, continuously <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/1_Stock/Events_Institutional/2020/womens_charter_2020/docs/19-02-2021/20210212_Womens_Charter_Review_KZN_19th_of_Feb_afternoon_Session_Final.pdf">rising poverty</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-police-are-losing-the-war-on-crime-heres-how-they-need-to-rethink-their-approach-218048">crime</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africans-are-revolting-against-inept-local-government-why-it-matters-155483">poor and collapsing services</a>, <a href="https://wandilesihlobo.com/2023/01/14/crumbling-basic-infrastructure-limits-south-africas-agriculture-and-tourism-growth-potential/">collapse of public infrastructure</a> – provides fertile soil for the populist and opportunistic former president to reclaim credentials of the ANC’s former armed wing, scavenge on ANC weaknesses and wreak havoc in the party. </p>
<p>The disgruntled communities supporting Zuma also feature <a href="https://irr.org.za/media/articles-authored-by-the-institute/the-dangerous-rise-of-jacob-zumas-private-army">military veterans</a> and <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/political-parties/zumas-tour-de-resistance-first-religious-leaders-then-on-to-anc-home-ground-20240106">religious organisations</a>, largely in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Zuma has had well-attended meetings in other provinces too.</p>
<p>Across all strata of society, there is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/30/south-africa-anc-voter-anger-election">anger with how the ANC has been treating citizens</a>. Many citizens now fail to see the promise of order and definitive economic progress in Ramaphosa’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202010/south-african-economic-reconstruction-and-recovery-plan.pdf">plans and visions</a>.</p>
<h2>Zuma’s KwaZulu-Natal trump card</h2>
<p>The KwaZulu-Natal province <a href="https://www.eisa.org/storage/2023/05/2010-journal-of-african-elections-v9n2-african-national-congress-unprecedented-victory-kwazulu-natal-eisa.pdf">helped sustain national ANC support</a> at a time when the ANC had started declining below its 2004 two-thirds-plus national majority. Without this boost, the ANC would have declined faster and earlier. Zuma’s contribution was in bolstering high-level Zulu cultural presence and political influence in the ANC. He helped make the ANC an organisation where this populous group of South Africans felt they had a political home. Their votes followed. </p>
<p>This helped Zuma build a near-untouchable status in the ANC. It helps explain why ANC leaders would <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/mercury/news/anc-asks-zuma-to-join-kkelection-campaign-3cafacb6-cbfa-4f19-8aba-9f6d10506046">go hat in the hand to his Nkandla homestead</a> requesting his help in election campaigning, after the end of his party presidency.</p>
<p>Zuma, in 2024 campaign rallies, <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2024-01-18-jacob-zuma-calls-for-more-power-for-amakhosi-and-takes-a-dig-at-ramaphosa/">promises traditional leaders (amakhosi)</a> the status of sovereign authorities with executive powers. This idea, he well knows, is at odds with the country’s constitutional democracy. Yet it endears him to traditionalists who do not feel at home in a multiparty, competitive democracy. </p>
<h2>Hedging bets</h2>
<p>Zuma’s new model of resistance – voting for an ANC-derivative party against the ANC (while remaining within its ranks) – appeals to many discontented citizens and traditional communities. It arrives at a time when many South Africans, and in particular ANC followers, feel multiparty democracy and its governance have <a href="https://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/democracy-not-so-sweet-any-more-say-south-africans/">not worked for them</a>.</p>
<p>Zuma operates on the belief that he will be the hero of this struggle. If electoral politics does not satisfy the discontented citizens, and anger and rebellion prevail, he has already shown that he is an effective apostle of the alternative track of non-electoral politics. He offers the full repertoire of protest and rebellion associated with the ANC, a former liberation movement, now party, which survives but battles to reconnect with the hearts and minds of citizens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221505/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Booysen is affiliated with the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic reflection, a non-profit think tank. She writes this analysis in her capacity as author, analyst, and Emeritus Professor, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. </span></em></p>Jacob Zuma claims that his new political home, the Umkhonto we Sizwe Party, is the authentic ANC, not the one led by President Cyril Ramaphosa.Susan Booysen, Visiting Professor and Professor Emeritus, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2204732024-01-11T15:54:30Z2024-01-11T15:54:30ZSouth Africa’s new intelligence bill is meant to stem abuses – what’s good and bad about it<p>When South Africa became a constitutional democracy <a href="https://www.britannica.com/question/How-did-apartheid-end">in 1994</a>, it replaced its apartheid-era intelligence apparatus with a new one aimed at serving the country’s new democratic dispensation. However, the regime of former president Jacob Zuma, 2009-2018, deviated from this path. It <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">abused</a> the intelligence services to serve his political and allegdly corrupt ends. Now the country is taking steps to remedy the situation.</p>
<p>In November 2023, the presidency published the <a href="https://pmg.org.za/bill/1197/">General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill</a>. It proposes overhauling the civilian intelligence agency, the <a href="http://www.ssa.gov.za/">State Security Agency</a>, to address the <a href="https://www.saflii.org/images/state-capture-commission-report-part-5-vol1.pdf">abuses</a>.</p>
<p>The bill is extremely broad in scope. It intends to amend 12 laws – including the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/act39of1994.pdf">main</a> <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/a65-020.pdf">intelligence</a> <a href="https://static.pmg.org.za/docs/120224oversight_0.PDF">laws</a> of the democratic era. </p>
<p>Parliament has set itself a <a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/38063/">1 March deadline</a> to complete work on the bill before it dissolves for the national election expected between <a href="https://www.elections.org.za/pw/elections/whats-new-in-the-2024-elections-electoral-amendment-act">May and August</a>. </p>
<p>I have researched intelligence and surveillance for over a decade and also served on the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">2018 High Level Review Panel on the State Security Agency</a>.</p>
<p>In my view, some of the proposals in the bill risk replacing the old abuses with new ones. The bill seeks to broaden intelligence powers drastically but fails to address <a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/38207/">longstanding weaknesses in their oversight</a>. </p>
<h2>Ending abuse</h2>
<p>The bill is meant to respond to major criticisms of the State Security Agency during Zuma’s presidency. The critics include the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">High Level Review Panel</a> and the <a href="https://www.saflii.org/images/state-capture-commission-report-part-5-vol1.pdf">Commission of Inquiry into State Capture</a>. </p>
<p>The main criticism of the panel appointed by Zuma’s successor Cyril Ramaphosa in 2018 was that under Zuma, the executive <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">repurposed</a> the agency to keep him in power, along with his supporters and others dependent on his patronage. In 2009, he merged the erstwhile domestic intelligence agency, the National Intelligence Agency, and the foreign agency, the <a href="https://www.ssa.gov.za/AboutUs/Branches">South African Secret Service</a>, by <a href="https://www.defenceweb.co.za/security/national-security/ssa-takes-shape-legislation-to-follow/">presidential proclamation</a>, to centralise intelligence. This made it easier for his regime to control intelligence to achieve nefarious ends. The state capture commission made <a href="https://www.saflii.org/images/state-capture-commission-report-part-5-vol1.pdf">similar findings</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-surveillance-law-is-changing-but-citizens-privacy-is-still-at-risk-214508">South Africa’s surveillance law is changing but citizens’ privacy is still at risk</a>
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<p>The most important proposal in the bill is to abolish the <a href="https://nationalgovernment.co.za/units/view/42/state-security-agency-ssa">State Security Agency</a>. It is to be replaced by two separate agencies: one for foreign intelligence, and the other for domestic. The proposed new South African Intelligence Service (foreign) and the South African Intelligence Agency (domestic) will have separate mandates.</p>
<p>Abolishing the State Security Agency would be an important step towards accountability, as set out in the 1994 <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/white-papers/intelligence-white-paper-01-jan-1995#:%7E:text=The%20goal%20of%20this%20White,relevant%2C%20credible%20and%20reliable%20intelligence.">White Paper on Intelligence</a>. </p>
<p>The proposed names of the envisioned new agencies have symbolic importance. They suggest a shift away from a focus on state security, or protection of those in positions of power. Instead, it puts the focus back on human security. This is the protection of broader society, as <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/white-papers/intelligence-white-paper-01-jan-1995#:%7E:text=The%20goal%20of%20this%20White,relevant%2C%20credible%20and%20reliable%20intelligence.">required</a> by the 1994 White Paper.</p>
<h2>The dangers of over-broad definitions</h2>
<p>However, the new mandates given to the two new agencies, and the definitions they rely on, are so broad that abuse of their powerful spying capabilities is almost a foregone conclusion.</p>
<p>The bill says the new agencies will be responsible for collecting and analysing intelligence relating to threats or potential threats to national security in accordance with <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/constitution/chp11.html#:%7E:text=198.,to%20seek%20a%20better%20life.">the constitution</a>.</p>
<p>The bill defines national security as</p>
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<p>the capabilities, measures and activities of the state to pursue or advance any threat, any potential threat, any opportunity, any potential opportunity or the security of the Republic and its people …</p>
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<p>This definition is extremely expansive. It allows the intelligence services to undertake any activity that could advance South Africa’s interests. This is regardless of whether there are actual national security threats. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-intelligence-watchdog-is-failing-civil-society-how-to-restore-its-credibility-195121">South Africa's intelligence watchdog is failing civil society. How to restore its credibility</a>
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<p>This creates the potential for overlap with the mandates of other state entities. However, unlike these, the intelligence agencies will be able to work secretly, using their extremely invasive <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2013-06-21-00-spy-wars-south-africa-is-not-innocent/">surveillance</a> <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-07-28-the-awful-state-of-lawful-interception-in-sa-part-two-surveillance-technology-thats-above-the-law/">capabilities</a>.</p>
<p>Such capabilities should only be used in exceptional circumstances when the country is under legitimate threat. To normalise their use in everyday government functions threatens democracy.</p>
<p>Intelligence overreach has happened elsewhere. Governments are increasingly requiring intelligence agencies to ensure that policymakers enjoy <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/national-security-surveillance-in-southern-africa-9780755640225/">decision advantages</a> in a range of areas. These include bolstering trade advantages over other countries.</p>
<p>For example, whistleblower <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance">Edward Snowden’s</a> leaks of classified US and UK intelligence documents showed how the countries misused broad interpretations of national security to engage in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/25907502">industrial espionage</a>.</p>
<p>The UK government used its powerful <a href="https://www.gchq.gov.uk/">signals intelligence capability</a> to <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2016/12/08/british-spying-tentacles-reach-across-africa-s-heads-of-states-and-business-leaders_5045668_3212.html">spy on</a> African politicians, diplomats and business people during trade negotiations. These abuses mean intelligence mandates should be narrowed and state intelligence power should be reduced.</p>
<h2>Human security definition of national security</h2>
<p>The State Security Agency used its presentation to parliament on the bill to seek broad mandates. Its <a href="https://pmg.org.za/files/231129Presentation_of_GILAB_Final.pptx">presentation</a> says it seeks to give effect to the national security principles in <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/constitution/chp11.html#:%7E:text=198.,to%20seek%20a%20better%20life.">section 198</a> of the constitution. The section states that:</p>
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<p>national security must reflect the resolve of South Africans, as individuals and as a nation, to live as equals, to live in peace and harmony, to be free from fear and want and to seek a better life.</p>
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<p>This principle is actually based on the human security definition of national security. The <a href="https://www.un.org/en/ga/">United Nations General Assembly</a> calls this freedom from fear and freedom from want. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/surveillance-laws-are-failing-to-protect-privacy-rights-what-we-found-in-six-african-countries-170373">Surveillance laws are failing to protect privacy rights: what we found in six African countries</a>
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<p>In its broadest sense, human security protects individuals from a wide range of threats and addresses their underlying drivers. These include <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231962570_Critical_Human_Security_Studies">poverty, underdevelopment and deprivation</a>. State security, on the other hand, is about protecting the state from threats. </p>
<p>If social issues are <a href="https://www.libraryofsocialscience.com/assets/pdf/Waever-Securitization.pdf">securitised</a> – or treated as national security issues requiring intervention by the state’s security services – it becomes difficult to distinguish the work of these agencies from the social welfare arms of the state.</p>
<h2>What needs to happen</h2>
<p>International relations scholar Neil MacFarlane and political scientist Yuen Foong Khong <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000147585">suggested</a> in 2006 that it was possible to address this conundrum by maintaining the focus on broader society as the entity that needs protection, rather than the state. </p>
<p>Legislators need to take a <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000147585">similar approach</a> when debating the bill. They should narrow the focus of the envisaged two new agencies to domestic and foreign threats of organised violence against society, such as genocide or terrorism. By doing so, they would still be recognising the best of what human security has to offer as an intelligence doctrine, while providing a much more appropriate focus for civilian intelligence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220473/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Duncan receives funding from the British Academy and is a director of Intelwatch, a non-governmental organisation devoted to strengthening democratic oversight of state and private intelligence. </span></em></p>The bill seeks greater intelligence powers but neglects oversight.Jane Duncan, Professor of Digital Society, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2189662023-12-12T09:12:23Z2023-12-12T09:12:23ZSouth Africa’s foreign policy under Ramaphosa has seen diplomatic tools being used to provide leadership as global power relations shift<p>Leadership plays a critical role in diplomacy. What quality of leadership does South Africa need if it’s to secure its international interests?</p>
<p>This is a question my colleagues and I have had the opportunity to reflect on in researching and writing about foreign policy since the late 1980s.</p>
<p>Presidents <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/nelson-rolihlahla-mandela">Nelson Mandela</a> and <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/former-president-thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki">Thabo Mbeki</a> displayed <a href="https://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/85/Strategic%20Review/Vol36(2)/04-le-pere-pp-31-56.zp39575.pdf">assertive African and global south leadership</a>. Their successor, Jacob Zuma, did much to reverse the country’s international moral standing. </p>
<p>In our view, the current president, <a href="https://www.dpme.gov.za/about/Pages/President-Cyril-Ramaphosa.aspx">Cyril Ramaphosa</a>, is restoring the country’s standing and role as a global moral leader. He has done so in an environment in which seismic changes are taking place in the balance of power between the world’s largest nations.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa’s messages, and tone of delivery, suggest an assertive southern leader who understands how the world works. He’s not afraid to challenge the dominant narrative and is prepared to put global south demands on the table.</p>
<p>In his speech on Africa Day on 25 May 2023, Ramaphosa <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-africa-day-celebrations#:%7E:text=There%20can%20be%20no%20better,are%20optimistic%20about%20our%20future.">said</a>:</p>
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<p>We are … witnessing Africa being dragged into conflicts far beyond our own borders. Some countries, including our own, are being threatened with penalties for pursuing an independent foreign policy and for adopting a position of non-alignment. South Africa has not been and will not be drawn into a contest between global powers. We will maintain our position on the peaceful resolution of conflict wherever those conflicts occur.</p>
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<p>In a similar assertive tone, at a Financing for Development Summit in New York in September 2023, he <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/reform-international-financial-architecture-president-ramaphosa">said</a>:</p>
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<p>… at a time when solidarity was needed most, agreed international commitments were not honoured. Principles such as common but differentiated responsibilities are not being respected. Four decades since the right to development was established by the United Nations as a human right, the failure to act on commitments to support development is deepening the divide between the global north and south.</p>
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<p>These statements reflect Ramaphosa’s shrewd reading of a fundamental shift in the global balance of forces. Over the past year it is this that has informed his assertiveness in foreign policy matters. As a result, we argue, he has used the tools of diplomacy to lead Africa and the global south to shape the architecture of a new world order currently being forged.</p>
<h2>Facing a complex world</h2>
<p>However, Ramaphosa and his administration’s ability to advance South Africa‘s interests globally has became much more complex because of rising geopolitical tensions. </p>
<p>In particular, Russia’s invasion of <a href="https://www.hrw.org/tag/russia-ukraine-war">Ukraine in February 2022</a> brought into sharp relief the longstanding tense relationship between Russia seeking recognition as a recovering superpower and the west’s pursuit of containment. </p>
<p>The conflagration has serious consequences for the world at large, including Africa, already struggling with food and energy insecurities. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-and-russia-president-cyril-ramaphosas-foreign-policy-explained-198430">South Africa and Russia: President Cyril Ramaphosa's foreign policy explained</a>
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<p>Under these conditions, Pretoria struggled to formulate a clear position. It initially condemned the Russian intervention in Ukraine. It later took a <a href="https://www.dirco.gov.za/south-african-government-calls-for-a-peaceful-resolution-of-the-escalating-conflict-between-the-russian-federation-and-ukraine/">more neutral position</a> – “<a href="https://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-comments/2023/the-state-of-non-alignment-in-south-africas-foreign-policy/">non-alignment</a>”. </p>
<p>Yet it became clear that Ramaphosa was reading a fundamental shift in the global balance of forces. One of his responses was to <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/statement-president-cyril-ramaphosa-78th-session-united-nations-general-assembly-united-nations%2C-new-york">call for reform of the UN Security Council</a>. </p>
<p>He also led an eclectic assembly of African leaders on a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-russia-ukraine-peace-mission-what-can-it-achieve-206201">peace mission</a>” to Ukraine and Russia. It was initially scorned by pro-western commentators. The benefits of the initiative for Africa are becoming apparent, particularly in <a href="https://www.ips-journal.eu/topics/foreign-and-security-policy/peace-african-style-6936/">enhancing food security</a>.</p>
<p>But the turning point in Ramaphosa’s increasingly assertive foreign policy conduct came with the hosting of the <a href="https://brics2023.gov.za/">15th Brics Summit</a> in South Africa in August. His government succeeded in hosting, chairing and steering the group to new levels of cooperation. Ramaphosa’s congenial personality played no small role in the successes.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/address-president-cyril-ramaphosa-outcomes-15th-brics-summit%2C-union-buildings%2C-tshwane">Achievements</a> include facilitating new trade relations between Africa and Brics, strengthening the <a href="https://www.ndb.int/">New Development Bank</a>, and forging an agreement to <a href="https://theconversation.com/brics-expansion-six-more-nations-are-set-to-join-what-theyre-buying-into-212200">expand membership</a> to make Brics more inclusive.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-foreign-policy-new-paper-sets-the-scene-but-falls-short-on-specifics-188253">South Africa's foreign policy: new paper sets the scene, but falls short on specifics</a>
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<p>These breakthroughs are not to be underestimated. Reshaping the global order opens the space for an emboldened global south to co-determine the future.</p>
<p>His seeming over-dependence on consultation, seen by many as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosas-famous-negotiating-skills-have-failed-him-heres-why-130393">liability</a>, stands him in good stead. Because he is comfortable with exercising soft power, he speaks boldly at international meetings. It has also given him the ability to position South Africa prominently, and on the right side of history, on the tragedy in Gaza, <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/opening-remarks-president-cyril-ramaphosa-extraordinary-joint-meeting-brics-leaders-and-leaders-invited-brics-members-situation-middle-east">seeking peace, not war</a>. </p>
<h2>Criticism and scepticism</h2>
<p>Some foreign policy practitioners and scholars are sceptical of Ramaphosa as a foreign policy leader. An entire volume of the respectable <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/south-african-foreign-policy-review-volume-4">South African Foreign Policy Review</a> is dedicated to this theme – the decline of South Africa’s global moral standing. </p>
<p>Many commentators, including some from the <a href="https://www.thebrenthurstfoundation.org/">Brenthurst Foundation</a> think-tank, view South African foreign policy through domestic lenses, coloured by their aversion to the African National Congress which Ramaphosa leads and which runs the country. </p>
<p>From this perspective they are quick to denounce South African foreign policy decision-makers as <a href="https://bridgebooks.co.za/products/good-bad-ugly">lacking awareness of the objective of international relations and diplomacy</a>. The minister of foreign affairs, <a href="https://www.dirco.gov.za/dr-grace-naledi-mandisa-pandor/">Naledi Pandor</a>, in particular, <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-11-07-pandor-calls-for-immediate-ceasefire-in-gaza-and-an-end-to-israels-collective-punishment-on-all-palestinians/">has attracted scorn</a>. In her case, it could be as a result of her <a href="https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/minister-naledi-pandor-ongoing-israeli-palestinian-conflict-07-nov-2023">outspoken position</a> on the Israel-Palestine conflict.</p>
<p>To understand the tough judgments made of the government’s foreign policy it’s useful to look at them against the backdrop of domestic politics. Domestic politics and foreign affairs are interwoven. What happens at home affects a country’s global standing. </p>
<p>In African foreign policy analytical circles, there is a <a href="https://www.rienner.com/title/African_Foreign_Policies_Power_and_Process">belief</a> that a weak president embraces international crises as it redirects the attention from failures at home.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa is indeed embattled on the home front. He was meant to put a stop to <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">years of abuse</a> and <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">high corruption</a> under his predecessor, Jacob Zuma, and <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2021-08-12-political-platitudes-unpacking-ramaphosas-real-battle-in-aftermath-of-zondo-commission-testimony/">repair the damage</a> he caused. </p>
<p>Euphoria and unreserved support for a “reformist” president turned into <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/7/22/ex-president-mbeki-rebukes-ramaphosa-predicts-sas-arab-spring">disappointment and cynicism</a> as his efforts at “house cleaning” got bogged down <a href="https://witspress.co.za/page/detail/State-Capture-in-South-Africa/?k=9781776148318">in the intricacies of power play</a> in the ANC.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/aziz-pahad-the-unassuming-south-african-diplomat-who-skilfully-mediated-crises-in-africa-and-beyond-214648">Aziz Pahad: the unassuming South African diplomat who skilfully mediated crises in Africa, and beyond</a>
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<p>Nevertheless, we would argue that if Ramaphosa survives the forces of disruption at home as his ruling party <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-12-07-anc-veteran-of-60-years-mavuso-msimang-painfully-severs-ties-tenders-devastating-resignation/">decomposes</a>, he will surely be counted among those who read global events, understood that there was a need for a stronger voice from the global south, and acted to make it happen.</p>
<p>He should also be remembered for breathing new life into the <a href="https://au.int/en/about/vision">vision of the African Union</a>: an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the global arena.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218966/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthoni van Nieuwkerk is affiliated with Umlambo Foundation.</span></em></p>President Cyril Ramaphosa’s messages, and tone of delivery, suggest an assertive leader representing the interests of the global south.Anthoni van Nieuwkerk, Professor of International and Diplomacy Studies, Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2146482023-09-29T15:56:49Z2023-09-29T15:56:49ZAziz Pahad: the unassuming South African diplomat who skilfully mediated crises in Africa, and beyond<p><a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/funeral-category-2-honour-mr-aziz-pahad-29-sep-2023-0000">Aziz Goolam Pahad</a>, who has died at the age of 82, was a South African anti-apartheid activist, politician and deputy minister of foreign affairs in the post-1994 government. </p>
<p>Together with a small group of foreign policy analysts, I worked with Aziz over the span of 30 years, shaping the post-apartheid South African government’s approach to international relations and its foreign policy. We spent countless hours debating foreign affairs and the numerous crises and challenges government had to face as a relative “newcomer” in continental African and global affairs. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/aziz-goolam-pahad#:%7E:text=Aziz%20Pahad%20was%20born%20on,University%20of%20the%20Witwatersrand%2C%20Johannesburg.">Aziz</a> was generous with giving his time to formulate positions that would allow for the unlocking of a crisis. He remained open to intellectual challenges throughout his career. He was a keen participant in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10220461.2015.1090912">academic research projects</a> dealing with <a href="https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/items/eb0f44d3-a550-4740-8db1-6463330b0f82">foreign policy</a>.</p>
<p>He made a monumental contribution to the struggle against apartheid and colonial oppression in South Africa, the continent and the Middle East. And he contributed significantly to the development and execution of a progressive African-centred foreign policy doctrine. Sadly, towards the end of his career as a diplomat he witnessed the <a href="https://www.pulp.up.ac.za/images/pulp/books/edited_collections/foreign_policy/SA%20Foreign%20Policy%20Book%20Chapter%201.pdf">slow decline</a> of South Africa’s <a href="https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/suedafrika/18180.pdf">stature and influence</a> in global affairs. </p>
<h2>The Mandela and Mbeki years</h2>
<p>Under presidents <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/nelson-mandela-presidency-1994-1999">Nelson Mandela</a> (1994-1999) and <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/former-president-thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki">Thabo Mbeki</a> (1999-2008), South African diplomats who’d sharpened their skills during many years of exile became sought-after as facilitators and mediators. Under their guidance Africa converted the Organisation of African Unity into the African Union, and reset relations with the international community via the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. </p>
<p>South African diplomats were articulate and visible in the corridors of the United Nations and in gatherings such as the Group of 7, Group of 20 and the Non-Aligned Movement. They were able to advance Africa’s quest for peace and development. In Africa, political and security crises, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Burundi, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3518768">were given attention</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-and-russia-president-cyril-ramaphosas-foreign-policy-explained-198430">South Africa and Russia: President Cyril Ramaphosa's foreign policy explained</a>
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<p>However this “golden era” of South Africa’s foreign policy, as fellow scholar Chris Landsberg calls it, was unable to withstand the corroding effects of foreign meddling in African affairs. Neither could it withstand the <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">grand corruption</a> which reached its apogee in South Africa under former president <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">Jacob Zuma</a> (May 2009 - February 2018). </p>
<h2>Preparatory years</h2>
<p>Aziz was born <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/aziz-goolam-pahad">on 25 December 1940</a> in the former Transvaal, the current North West province in South Africa. His parents were <a href="https://theconversation.com/essop-pahad-a-diligent-communist-driven-by-an-optimistic-vision-of-a-non-racial-south-africa-210413">Amina and Goolam Pahad</a>, activists in the Transvaal Indian Congress, a political organisation established in the early 1900s by Mahatma Gandhi and others. The congress became involved in the broader anti-apartheid struggle in later years. His elder brother, Essop, also became an activist. Essop passed away <a href="https://theconversation.com/essop-pahad-a-diligent-communist-driven-by-an-optimistic-vision-of-a-non-racial-south-africa-210413">in July</a>.</p>
<p>In 1963, Aziz completed a degree in sociology and Afrikaans at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. As an activist, he was served with a <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/aziz-goolam-pahad">banning order</a> and arrested on several occasions. After the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/rivonia-trial-1963-1964">Rivonia Trial</a> from 1963 to 1964, in which ten leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) were tried for sabotage designed to overthrow the apartheid system of racial oppression, he and Essop left South Africa and went into exile.</p>
<p>Aziz spent some time in Angola and Zimbabwe but lived mostly in London. He completed a master’s degree in politics and international relations <a href="https://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/61351">at the University of Sussex</a>. He worked full-time for the exiled ANC and supported the development of the <a href="https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/anti-apartheid-struggle-south-africa-1912-1992/">Anti-Apartheid Movement</a>.</p>
<p>Even before his return to South Africa in 1990, he contributed to the transition from apartheid to democracy, a role well described in his book <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Insurgent_Diplomat_Civil_Talks_or_Civil.html?id=mbR9BAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Insurgent Diplomat: Civil Talks or Civil War?</a>. </p>
<p>Aziz worked closely with Thabo Mbeki, at the time head of the exiled ANC’s international relations department, and a small team of academics in formulating the ANC’s position on foreign policy. The <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/anc_foreign_policy_perspective_in_a_democratic_south_africa.pdf">paper</a> formed part of preparations by the ANC and its <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03161.htm">alliance partners</a>, the <a href="https://www.sacp.org.za/">South African Communist Party</a> and the <a href="http://www.cosatu.org.za/">Congress of South African Trade Unions</a>, for governing the country. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-foreign-policy-new-paper-sets-the-scene-but-falls-short-on-specifics-188253">South Africa's foreign policy: new paper sets the scene, but falls short on specifics</a>
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<p>The foreign policy paper provided a broad roadmap for diplomats post-apartheid. It eventually shaped government’s more formal foreign policy of 2011, entitled Building a Better World: The Diplomacy of Ubuntu. In the mid-1990s, Aziz was instrumental in the establishment, with support from the German government, of an ANC-aligned think-tank called the <a href="http://www.globaldialoguefoundation.org/">Foundation of Global Dialogue</a>, run by foreign policy expert and academic <a href="https://www.africanbookscollective.com/authors-editors/garth-le-pere">Garth le Pere</a> and myself. It lives on as the <a href="https://igd.org.za/">Institute of Global Dialogue</a>, based at the University of South Africa.</p>
<h2>Role in government</h2>
<p>Following the victory of the ANC in South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994, Aziz was elected to parliament. From there, he was appointed by President Mandela as deputy minister of foreign affairs. He was re-elected to parliament in 1999 and 2004, and kept his position as <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/aziz-goolam-hoosein-pahad-mr-0">deputy minister of foreign affairs </a> throughout the Mandela and Mbeki presidencies. </p>
<p>Holding the post for 14 years meant that he was able to create and nurture a wide network of political, academic and diplomatic connections. This enabled him to play an unassuming but key mediating and facilitation role dealing with major crises on the continent and beyond.</p>
<p>But Aziz also showed his activist roots when he <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/war-can-be-averted-says-pahad-101327">spoke out against</a> the American-led <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Iraq-War">invasion of Iraq in 2003</a> and the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/everyone-says-the-libya-intervention-was-a-failure-theyre-wrong/">Nato-led invasion</a> of Libya and assassination of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. He supported the <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/president-mourns-passing-former-deputy-minister-foreign-affairs-aziz-pahad">Palestinian struggle</a> for recognition over many decades.</p>
<p>Aziz resigned from government and parliament in 2008, shortly after Mbeki was removed as president of the ANC <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2007-12-18-zuma-is-new-anc-president/">in 2007</a>.</p>
<h2>The ‘diplomat-scholar’</h2>
<p>In retirement, Aziz remained active as a “diplomat-scholar”. He played a prominent role, with his brother Essop, in a small but influential think-tank, the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConcernedAfricansForum/">Concerned Africans Forum</a>. In 2015 he headed the short-lived South African Council on International Relations.</p>
<p>The council was established by the government as a body of experts and a sounding board for senior decision-makers. However, its semi-autonomous identity brought it into conflict with the ruling party’s foreign affairs structures. Politicians allowed it to wither away. </p>
<p>In 2018 the administration of President Cyril Ramaphosa asked Aziz to lead a commission of experts <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-04-17-pahad-panel-missteps-noted-but-no-overhaul-of-sa-foreign-policy-on-the-cards/">to review South Africa’s international relations</a>. In a sad repeat of the council’s demise, the commission was never given a proper hearing and its value remains untapped.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-time-south-africas-foreign-policy-was-driven-by-ideas-again-50407">Why it's time South Africa's foreign policy was driven by ideas (again)</a>
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<p>This is perhaps illustrative of the reality of policy-making in dynamic settings such as South Africa’s foreign affairs. The essence of Aziz’s contribution to a progressive African-oriented worldview was ultimately ignored by the foreign policy mandarins. </p>
<p>The country will miss having a “diplomat-scholar” of his calibre to turn to for sage advice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214648/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthoni van Nieuwkerk is affiliated with Umlambo Foundation.</span></em></p>South Africa will miss having a “diplomat-scholar” of his calibre to turn to for sage advice.Anthoni van Nieuwkerk, Professor of International and Diplomacy Studies, Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2135862023-09-14T18:02:01Z2023-09-14T18:02:01ZSouth Africa’s court system has been abused by powerful people: five ways to stop it<p>After a battle of about four years to secure the removal of South Africa’s public protector, Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane, the country’s parliament finally delivered the coup de grace in early September. Parliamentarians voted <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/committee-section-194-enquiry">to impeach her</a> just a month before her term was due to end. President Cyril Ramaphosa subsequently <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/president-ramaphosa-removes-advocate-mkhwebane-office">removed her from office</a>. </p>
<p>Some of the public protector’s troubles landed up <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2023/25media.pdf">in court</a>, with numerous <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2019/29.html">judgments</a> going against her.</p>
<p>But why did it take so long? And what lessons can be learnt from the drawn-out process that sapped resources (financial and other) and left a key institution, the <a href="https://www.pprotect.org/">Office of the Public Protector</a>, unable to thoroughly exercise its duties as a constitutionally established institution to protect democracy? The office has the power to investigate, report on and remedy improper conduct in all state affairs. </p>
<p>The reason it took so long is that Mkhwebane used a strategy that’s referred to as the <a href="https://definitions.uslegal.com/s/stalingrad-defense/">Stalingrad defence</a>. This involves wearing down the plaintiff by tenaciously fighting anything by whatever means possible and appealing every judgment made. The approach is named after the city in the then Soviet Union which was besieged by the Germans in the second world war. The Soviet forces held off the Germans for five months. Although this was achieved at great human cost, it bought Moscow time.</p>
<p>The public protector isn’t the first to have turned to this tactic to ward off the legal – or other – consequences of their actions. The other high profile example in South Africa is the former president Jacob Zuma’s <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-06-10-zumas-stalingrad-defence-disintegrates-after-judges-quash-latest-legal-gambit-in-scathing-judgment/">19-year battle</a> to avoid a case being heard around allegations of bribery.</p>
<p>How can this strategy of <a href="https://bregmans.co.za/2022/03/25/dealing-with-a-vexatious-litigant/#:%7E:text=In%20such%20circumstances%2C%20the%20Vexatious,legal%20proceedings%20against%20another%20person.">vexatious litigation</a> be allowed to continue unabated? Who should be held accountable for this waste of money, resources and time? It is not only, in these instances, the former president and former public protector who are to blame. They were aided and abetted in their abuse of the law by contentious lawyers, over-cautious parliamentarians and judges lacking courage.</p>
<p>A public outcry ensued when a member of parliament claimed that the costs of all the hopeless or useless legal challenges by the advocate to prevent her removal amounted to R160 million (almost US$8.5 million) in total. How can things be allowed to escalate to this extent? </p>
<p>Drawing on my almost three decades of legal experience, I have identified five possible ways to reduce the chances of rich and powerful people abusing the court system and wasting precious resources.</p>
<h2>The players</h2>
<p>Former Constitutional Court Justice Edwin Cameron recently <a href="https://www.capetalk.co.za/articles/422425/justice-edwin-cameron-on-zuma-and-art-of-the-stalingrad-defence-tactic">identified</a> four parties who are to blame: unscrupulous clients and lawyers, the professional association now called the <a href="https://lpc.org.za/">Legal Practice Council</a>, and lastly judges themselves.</p>
<p>I agree that each of these groups has something to answer for. </p>
<p><strong>Unscrupulous clients:</strong> Powerful politicians show no concern about dipping into the public coffers to pay for the legal games they play. While the constitution protects the right to be defended in section 34, the principle and value of equality under and before the law is as important. But I would argue that those who have the backing of the state have a massive advantage over ordinary citizens.</p>
<p><strong>Unscrupulous lawyers:</strong> There have been numerous instances of lawyers using delaying tactics and flouting court procedures. </p>
<p><strong>The <a href="https://lpc.org.za/">Legal Practice Council</a>:</strong> Judge Cameron <a href="https://www.capetalk.co.za/articles/422425/justice-edwin-cameron-on-zuma-and-art-of-the-stalingrad-defence-tactic.">stated </a> that</p>
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<p>it has displayed lax oversight and is not asking for explanations as to why lawyers are adopting these delaying practices.</p>
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<p>No high profile action has been taken against lawyers who facilitate vexatious litigation.</p>
<p><strong>The judges:</strong> This is probably the most contentious claim. Yet there have been instances when a judge has appeared to be blind to the fact that <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/when-judges-dont-understand-the-stalingrad-defence">certain tactics were being used cynically</a>. </p>
<p>In my view this could be because <a href="https://mg.co.za/politics/2021-02-17-malema-shores-up-zumas-attack-on-the-judiciary/">unprecedented attacks</a> on the judiciary in recent years are paying off. They are leading to over-cautious and overly deferent judgments that err on the side of the other branches of government in what is a clear misunderstanding of the principle of separation of powers.</p>
<h2>What needs to be done</h2>
<p>While protecting the rights of the litigants, it’s also necessary to rein in the abuse. </p>
<p>This can be done in several ways.</p>
<p>Firstly, the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/branches/stateattorney.html">State Attorney</a> should determine guidelines for what is – or is not – permissible and what the state will – and will not – fund. </p>
<p>Secondly, as part of these guidelines the State Attorney may refuse to fund any legal costs in a matter where the court has awarded costs against the public official who is litigating. Such a ruling by a court follows when the court has determined that the litigation was so obviously without sound basis in fact or in law that it must be characterised as “abuse of court process” and or even “vexatious”. </p>
<p>A cost order by a court generally requires the offending litigant to pay a relatively minor percentage of the costs. A more forceful measure would be for the State Attorney to refuse to pay all or part of the balance of the cost order where the offending litigant is a public official and has been found to have abused the court and its processes.</p>
<p>Thirdly, punitive cost orders could be used by the courts to make litigants feel the financial burden of their misuse of the legal system. If a court wants to show its displeasure about a defendant’s conduct during a trial, it may order the defendant to pay attorney and client costs, which are punitive. </p>
<p>Fourthly, measures could be taken to protect journalists and human rights defenders against <a href="https://www.schindlers.co.za/news/a-south-african-perspective-on-slapp-suits/">SLAPP</a> cases. SLAPP suits (strategic litigation against public participation) are used by wealthy litigants and their legal teams to financially and emotionally exhaust opponents, regardless of the merits of their cause. In July, the European Parliament <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20230904IPR04620/media-freedom-act-protecting-editorial-decisions-from-political-interference">adopted</a> a range of measures to protect journalists and human rights defenders against such cases.</p>
<p>Fifth, there’s the possibility of imposing personal cost orders against legal representatives to <a href="https://www.derebus.org.za/liability-for-refunds-of-legal-fees-disbursements-or-personal-costs-orders/">penalise their errant behaviour</a>. </p>
<p>Courts have awarded these orders for gross negligence or intentional misconduct on the part of legal practitioners including abuse of process and the dilatory and obstructive conduct of legal practitioners. Examples of intentional conduct that have been sanctioned includes conduct that results in an abuse of process, litigating recklessly, <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/just-in-court-finds-mpofu-sought-to-mislead-it-in-ramaphosa-private-prosecution-litigation-20230912">misleading the court</a>, dilatory tactics, pursuing a hopeless case, and frivolous and vexatious litigation.</p>
<p>Liability for punitive cost orders against vexatious litigants or costs out of legal practitioners’ pockets would surely make them think twice before using Stalingrad strategies and malicious SLAPP suits.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-pienaar-10275549/?originalSubdomain=za">Advocate Gary Pienaar</a>, senior research manager in the Developmental, Capable and Ethical State research division at the HSRC, contributed to this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213586/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Narnia Bohler-Muller receives funding from government and independent funders for her research projects at the Human Sciences Research Council.
She was shortlisted for the position of Public Protector in the year that Adv Busi Mkhwebane was appointed.</span></em></p>Awarding punitive costs against legal practitioners would make them think twice about facilitating delaying tactics and malicious lawsuits.Narnia Bohler-Muller, Divisional Executive, Developmental, Capable and Ethical State research division, Human Sciences Research CouncilLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2113592023-08-11T09:59:21Z2023-08-11T09:59:21ZZuma prison case casts doubt on South Africa’s medical parole law<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542153/original/file-20230810-24-d1htt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former South African president Jacob Zuma in court over corruption charges in 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nic Botha/Pool/AFP via Getty Images </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Constitutional Court <a href="https://hsf.org.za/litigation/cases/the-helen-suzman-foundation-v-national-commissioner-of-correctional-services-and-others-case-no-2021-46468/judgments/09-cc-order-13072023.pdf">order</a> relating to a case involving former President Jacob Zuma has illuminated some of the flaws in the law governing medical parole in South Africa. This is despite <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/35277rg9739gon323.pdf">amendments in 2012</a> to ensure equality before the law, uphold offenders’ rights to dignity and healthcare when they suffer from serious physical health problems.</p>
<p>Zuma’s case has cast doubts upon the efficacy of the law in achieving these objectives. In short, his parole tested the buoyancy of the law in facilitating the medical release of offenders without political or other interference. He eventually <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/decision-national-commissioner-mr-makgothi-samuel-thobakgale-incarceration-term-mr-zuma-11">returned to jail</a> on the morning of 11 August, but was immediately <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/zuma-will-not-serve-the-remainder-of-his-sentence-due-to-remission-process/">released on remission of sentence</a>. </p>
<p>The Constitutional Court rejected the Department of Correctional Services’ application for leave to appeal against the 2022 <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZASCA/2022/159.html">judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA)</a>. The SCA had found that Zuma was unlawfully granted medical parole against the advice of the Medical Parole Advisory Board. </p>
<p>Zuma (81) was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment for contempt of court after he failed to comply with the Constitutional Court’s order requiring him to appear before the <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">State Capture Commission</a>, which probed mass corruption on his watch. Less than two months after his admission to prison, he was released on medical parole.</p>
<p>The NGOs, <a href="https://hsf.org.za/news/press-releases/press-release-gauteng-high-court-hands-down-judgment-in-mr-zumas-medical-parole-case">Helen Suzman Foundation</a>, <a href="https://afriforum.co.za/en/">AfriForum</a>, and the opposition Democratic Alliance brought separate urgent applications to the High Court to have the parole decision declared unlawful. The foundation also wanted Zuma to serve the full term of his sentence in prison, and that his time on medical parole not be counted as time served. For convenience, all three applications were heard together. </p>
<p>The High Court in Pretoria <a href="https://hsf.org.za/mailer-downloads/judgment-cn-2021-45997-cn-2021-46468-cn-2021-46701-15-dec-2021-matojane-j.pdf">ruled </a> in 2021 that Zuma was indeed granted medical parole unlawfully, as the Medical Parole Advisory Board did not recommend it in his case because he was not terminally ill as required by the law. He was therefore to return to prison. And the time he was out of prison on medical parole should not have been counted as time served. The correctional services department appealed against the High Court’s order to the Supreme Court of Appeal, which dismissed the appeal.</p>
<p>It, however, also ruled that the question of whether or not the time Zuma spent on unlawful medical parole should count towards his time served must be determined by the correctional services department. The department applied to the Constitutional Court for leave to appeal against the supreme court’s judgement. The apex court rejected this application. The judgement of the appeal court must therefore be enforced and Zuma would have to return to prison. </p>
<p>Medical parole in South Africa is governed by <a href="http://www.dcs.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/CORRECTIONAL-SERVICES-ACT-111-of-1998.pdf#page=62">Section 79</a> of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/a111-98.pdf">Correctional Services Act</a>, together with Regulation 29A of the Correctional Services <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/35277rg9739gon323.pdf#page=55">Regulations</a>. </p>
<p>Zuma’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58454726">release on medical grounds</a> in September 2021 highlighted at least three potentially fatal flaws in these laws. The first and second flaws relate to the role of the Medical Parole Advisory Board and the Commissioner of Correctional Services, respectively. The third defect concerns the question of what ought to be done about the time an offender spent outside prison if he was unlawfully granted medical parole. </p>
<p>As a law academic with a research interest in <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NIuc0vQAAAAJ&hl=en">correctional issues</a>, I have tracked developments in this area of the law. I believe that section 79 of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/a111-98.pdf">Correctional Services Act</a> is open to political manipulation. In the main, the powers and functions of the Medical Parole Advisory Board require elaboration. Additionally, the principle that medical parole can only be considered by the commissioner if the board has confirmed the illness or incapacity of the offender, and if the correctional facility cannot provide the appropriate care, must be expressly included in the law.</p>
<h2>The process and gaps in law</h2>
<p>A medical parole application must be accompanied by a medical report which recommends placement on medical parole. This report must be submitted to the <a href="https://repository.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10566/518/AlbertusMedicalParole2012.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y">Medical Parole Advisory Board</a>. The board comprises ten medical practitioners, who must provide an independent medical report to the commissioner. </p>
<p>In this regard their role is clear. They must <a href="http://www.dcs.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/CORRECTIONAL-SERVICES-ACT-111-of-1998.pdf#page=62">determine</a> if an </p>
<blockquote>
<p>offender is suffering from a terminal disease or condition or if such offender is rendered physically incapacitated as a result of injury, disease or illness so as to severely limit daily activity or inmate self-care. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>If the board finds that an offender is not terminally ill or incapacitated, as was the case with Zuma, that ought to be the end of the matter as the main requirement for medical parole does not exist. It is the absence of a statement to this effect in section 79, which may leads to exploitation.</p>
<p>Where the Medical Parole Advisory Board finds that an offender is terminally ill or incapacitated, this does not mean that medical parole must automatically be granted. The correctional regulations require the board to make a recommendation, on the “appropriateness to grant medical parole in accordance with section 79” and <a href="http://www.dcs.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Correctional-Services-Regulations-2004-as-amended-on-25-April-2012.pdf#page=53">Regulation 29A (7)</a> of the correctional services department.</p>
<p>It’s not clear what “appropriateness” means. And it must be remembered that offenders ought not to be released <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S1682-58532020000400001&lng=en">due to ill health only</a>. If an offender can be cared for in a dignified manner in prison, he should not be released. However, section 79 does not make this clear.</p>
<p>Logically, the board is in a position to decide the medical aspects of an application and to guide the commissioner on the care and conditions which are consistent with optimising the quality of life of offenders. The commissioner should then consider whether the prison facility has the means to follow such guidance in caring for an offender.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the law does not require the board to offer such guidance. Nor does it require the commissioner to determine if the means to care for an offender exist in the prison. These gaps in the law are exacerbated by the omission to specify whether the commissioner has the power to ignore the recommendation of the board, as in Zuma’s application.</p>
<p>Furthermore, section 79 tasks the commissioner with determining the risk of re-offending and if appropriate care is available in the community to which the offender will be released. If afforded medical guidance regarding the necessities to care for the offender, the determination of the availability of appropriate care may not be too onerous. </p>
<p>The same can, however, not be said about determining the risk of re-offending. Section 79 provides a list of factors in assessing such risk. These factors, among other things, include the offence(s), sentencing remarks of the court and the criminal past of an offender. While they may all seem relevant in assessing future criminality, there is no indication as to how they should be weighed up. This is a task which should involve clinical evaluations by <a href="https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/predicting-risk-future-dangerousness/2012-06">forensic psychiatrists</a>, but the legislation does not require this.</p>
<h2>Unfortunate omission</h2>
<p>The weaknesses in section 79 may explain the <a href="http://jics.dcs.gov.za/jics/?page_id=142">low number</a> of successful medical parole applications in recent years. For example, if an offender is lawfully released on medical parole, but their health improves or even if they are cured, they cannot be forced to <a href="https://etd.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/handle/11394/7577">return</a> to prison. </p>
<p>Contrarily, if an offender was unlawfully released on medical parole, they must return to prison to serve their time, as became clear in Zuma’s case. However, the question of whether the time spent outside prison on unlawful medical parole should be regarded as time served, still looms. </p>
<p>It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court of Appeal referred this question back to the Department of Correctional Services – the very department that flagrantly violated the law. In this regard the High Court’s finding that it has the power to enforce the sentence term should have been confirmed by the SCA to ensure equality before the law.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211359/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chesne Albertus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If an offender is lawfully released on medical parole, but their health improves or even if they are cured, they cannot be forced to return to prison.Chesne Albertus, Senior Lecturer in Criminal Justice and Procedure, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2104132023-07-26T14:31:46Z2023-07-26T14:31:46ZEssop Pahad: a diligent communist driven by an optimistic vision of a non-racial South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539332/original/file-20230725-17-w2ef8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Essop Pahad was a confidant of former president Thabo Mbeki.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bongani Mnguni/Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The death of South African freedom struggle stalwart <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/essop-goolam-pahad-mr">Essop Pahad</a> (84) <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2023-07-06-essop-pahad-close-confidant-of-thabo-mbeki-dies-aged-84/">on 6 July 2023</a> prompted <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/opinions/analysis/tribute-chirpy-and-thoughtful-essop-pahads-legacy-will-forever-be-remembered-in-sas-history-20230706">tributes</a> from his former comrades. There were also less respectful obituaries referring to him as Thabo Mbeki’s “<a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/obituaries/obituary-essop-pahad-mbekis-consigliere-would-fight-you-intellectually-too-20230707">consiglieri</a>”, because of his role as the former president’s “right-hand man”.</p>
<p>Any examination of Pahad’s full political record will take you back to the heroic phases of South Africa’s liberation history, when prospects for a democratic South African government seemed very remote. As a teenager in the 1950s he was busy in the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress. This was the equivalent of the youth league of the liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC), for Indian South Africans. In those days, reflecting apartheid’s distinctions, even radical resistance to it was racially differentiated.</p>
<p>He was one of a small group of activists who, in the 1950s and early 1960s, made a decisive contribution in pulling the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv03445/04lv03446/05lv03465.htm">Congress Alliance</a> – a front of organisations allied to the ANC – leftwards, and encouraging an optimistic vision of a future non-racial South Africa.</p>
<p>In my own <a href="https://jacana.co.za/product/red-road-to-freedom/">research</a> on the South African Communist Party’s history, groups like the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress were game-changers. They were influential despite their small organised followings. Understanding Pahad’s political ascent helps to illuminate the history of the South African left and the wider liberation movement in which it immersed itself. He belonged to a political network constituted as much by friendships as shared ideas.</p>
<p>At the congress’s annual general meeting in 1958 he proposed a resolution on sport. Sadly, that is all the meeting’s agenda tells us. I’d like to think it was about cricket and its segregation, a key preoccupation for young Indian activists at that time, for Pahad was a lifelong cricket fan.</p>
<p>In old age he was a regular visitor to the Long Room at the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/wanderers-cricket-stadium-johannesburg">Wanderers Cricket Stadium</a> in Johannesburg, one reward for becoming a notable that he would enjoy. As a student at Sussex University between 1965 and 1970, he once organised a party for the visiting West Indian test side. Inheriting a family ethic of generous hospitality, he provided such a warm reception for the visitors that the following day they were <a href="http://cricmash.com/society-and-politics/mbeki-pahad-and-the-1966-west-indians">so badly hungover they lost their match</a>.</p>
<h2>The early years</h2>
<p>Pahad’s childhood was politically configured. His parents Goolam and Amina Pahad belonged to the group that directed the Indian congresses in the mid-1940s into confrontation with a government seeking to dispossess Indian landowners. Goolam was a successful businessman and he owned property in <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/destruction-sophiatown">Sophiatown</a>. Pahad employed ANC leader <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/sisulu-walter-1912-2003/">Walter Sisulu</a>, supporting his efforts to become an estate agent.</p>
<p>Through Sisulu, the Pahads became friendly with the angry young men who would become ANC leaders in 1949, often providing them with food and a place to sleep so they could avoid late <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/pass-laws-south-africa-1800-1994">night pass law</a> arrests for being in town after the curfew.</p>
<p>Even without guests, the Pahads’ apartment would have been crowded. Goolam and Amina Pahad had moved to the inner city of Johannesburg shortly after Essop’s birth in 1939 in <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/essop-goolam-pahad">Schweitzer-Reneke</a>, in today’s North West province. They wanted good schooling for their five sons.</p>
<p>Both Essop and his younger brother <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/aziz-goolam-hoosein-pahad-mr-0">Aziz</a> did well enough to obtain entry to the University of the Witwatersrand. This was despite or perhaps because of their participation in one of the Congress Alliance-sponsored “Cultural Clubs” that were set to protest the introduction of the inferior <a href="https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/anc-protest-bantu-education-act/">Bantu Education</a> for the black majority.</p>
<p>The clandestine Communist Party’s key theoretician <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/michael-alan-harmel-posthumous">Michael Harmel</a> led the club that they joined. Perhaps through his agency, Pahad joined the party. The Transvaal Indian Youth Congress was led by party members and its political affiliations were very evident in its journal, New Youth. Pahad remained politically animated as a university student, joining the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress’ executive.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-communists-have-shaped-south-africas-history-over-100-years-165556">How communists have shaped South Africa's history over 100 years</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>In mid-1962 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/safricas-once-exiled-anti-apartheid-veteran-essop-pahad-dies-84-2023-07-06/">he was arrested</a> for trying to organise a strike, a contribution to the ANC’s continuing effort to secure a national constitutional convention. By this time he had formed a friendship with <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki-mr-0">Thabo Mbeki</a>, whom he got to know after they met at the Rand Youth Club, a key assembly point for activists, sponsored by Sisulu. Mbeki was then staying in Johannesburg, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/thabo-mbeki-1942-timeline">completing his A-levels through correspondence</a> after expulsion from Lovedale College for leading a class boycott.</p>
<h2>Exile years</h2>
<p>Pahad’s friendship with Mbeki deepened when he joined him in Britain after his departure from South Africa in 1964, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/safricas-once-exiled-anti-apartheid-veteran-essop-pahad-dies-84-2023-07-06/">prompted by a banning order</a>. Mbeki was enrolled at Sussex University and he persuaded Pahad to register. Pahad would complete <a href="https://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/61351">an MA and a doctorate at Sussex </a> between 1965 and 1971, producing a workmanlike dissertation about the South African Indian Congresses.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539515/original/file-20230726-27-pmd1te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539515/original/file-20230726-27-pmd1te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539515/original/file-20230726-27-pmd1te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539515/original/file-20230726-27-pmd1te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539515/original/file-20230726-27-pmd1te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539515/original/file-20230726-27-pmd1te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539515/original/file-20230726-27-pmd1te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Essop Pahad addresses a protest meeting in Amsterdam in 1985.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sepia Times/Universal Images Group/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mbeki also <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/opinions/columnists/guestcolumn/excerpt-while-thabo-mbeki-moved-quietly-essop-pahad-would-stand-up-and-shout-20230707">introduced him to Meg Shorrock</a>, whom he married in 1966. That year with Mbeki he helped establish a non-racial ANC Youth and Student Section. He was immersed in campus student politics as well as organising Vietnam solidarity events. He spent a year in 1973 at the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02426/05lv02626.htm">Institute of Social Sciences</a> in Moscow.</p>
<p>Pahad’s most conspicuous activity during his exile was his deployment in Prague at the <a href="https://www.servantleader.co.za/essop">World Marxist Review</a>; acknowledgement by the Communist Party of his status as a reliable theoretician. He and Meg lived in Prague between 1975 and 1985, and their two daughters were born there, attending Czech schools. I interviewed them in 2018 because I was exploring the South African Communist Party’s Czech connections.</p>
<p>The Pahads remembered a happy period of their life. They found plenty to admire in post-Prague Spring Czechoslovakia, though they both perceived that the Czech party had lost public support. Back in London, Pahad would work closely with Mbeki, acting as an intermediary in the discreet diplomacy that Mbeki was conducting with South African officials and businessmen.</p>
<h2>Right-hand man</h2>
<p>Pahad would return to South Africa in 1990 following the unbanning of the liberation movements, making a new home for his family in Johannesburg. Unlike Mbeki, Pahad remained a communist. One view of his continuing affiliation is that he remained in the party at Mbeki’s behest to watch over its internal affairs, but there is no reason to doubt his continuing commitment to communism. At that time Mbeki’s future succession to the presidency was uncertain and the party was one key constituency. But it is true that Pahad’s subsequent political career would be defined by his status as Mbeki’s trusted friend, his best man as it were, a function he actually performed at Mbeki’s wedding <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/pahad-gives-his-perspective-418057">in 1974</a>.</p>
<p>So, during the <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/nelson-rolihlahla-mandela">presidency of Nelson Mandela</a> (10 May 1994-16 June 1999) he served as Mbeki’s “parliamentary counsellor”. He was essentially responsible for keeping the ANC House of Assembly caucus in order, and after Mbeki’s accession to the presidency, Pahad became a <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/essop-goolam-pahad-mr">minister in the president’s office</a>. </p>
<p>These were not posts that would define him as a policymaker. Rather his reputation as a member of government was as an “enforcer” quelling rebellion. “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/sep/23/mbeki.southafrica">Who the fuck do you think you are, questioning the integrity of the government, the ministers and the president?</a>”,
he admonished the ANC members of the Select Committee on Public Accounts who wanted a full inquiry into the corrupt 1999 <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4006895">multi-billion-rand arms contract</a>.</p>
<p>Subsequently he was a vigorous defender of Mbeki’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-mbekis-character-and-his-aids-denialism-are-intimately-linked-54766">positions on HIV and Aids</a>. Pahad himself believed that Mbeki was unfairly characterised as an Aids “denialist”.</p>
<h2>Diligent</h2>
<p>When Pahad was given a job, he did it efficiently. He surprised even his critics with the diligence with which he supported the offices placed under his authority as minister, for example urging municipalities to “mainstream” disability rights. </p>
<p>Characteristically loyal, he resigned when Mbeki was displaced <a href="https://www.gcis.gov.za/content/newsroom/events/pahad-briefs-media-cabinet-resignations-24-sep-08">in 2008</a>.</p>
<p>In retirement he presided over the <a href="http://www.sadet.co.za/">South African Democratic Education Trust</a>, the incubator of a remarkably non-partisan multi-volume history of the liberation struggle, founded his own journal, <a href="https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/The_Thinker/about/editorialTeam">The Thinker</a>, and remained actively engaged on the editorial board of <a href="https://print.media.co.za/new-age/">New Age</a>, the newspaper funded by the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-22513410">Gupta family</a>, which stands accused of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-itll-take-for-the-guptas-to-face-corruption-charges-in-south-africa-184952">orchestrating industrial scale corruption</a> under former president Jacob Zuma.</p>
<p>He had <a href="https://amabhungane.org/stories/guptaleaks-how-ajay-gupta-was-trusted-with-crafting-sas-global-image/">invited Ajay Gupta</a> to join the International Marketing Council in 2000, an appointment that he subsequently regretted. He may have had other personal regrets but unlike many of his comrades, he rarely spoke about his own political journey. </p>
<p>His life had its own integrity, defined by fixed loyalties and enduring friendships; not such a bad epitaph.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210413/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Lodge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When Essop Pahad was given a job, he did it efficiently. He surprised even his critics with his diligence.Tom Lodge, Emeritus Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of LimerickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2023662023-03-28T15:28:33Z2023-03-28T15:28:33ZPaul Mashatile, South Africa’s new deputy president, has a critical task: to bring back a sense of stability<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517666/original/file-20230327-20-x9uext.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paul Mashatile, the deputy president of South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a recent <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/statement-president-cyril-ramaphosa-changes-national-executive">cabinet reshuffle</a> President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed Paul Mashatile, the deputy president of South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), as the country’s deputy president. The tradition in the ANC since democracy in 1994 has been for its elected deputy president to ascend first to the deputy presidency of the country, and eventually to become head of state. So Mashatile, an <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-has-a-new-deputy-president-in-paul-mashatile-what-he-brings-to-the-table-200089">experienced politician</a>, may also be destined for top office.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa’s cabinet reshuffle took place in a climate of growing <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-has-been-warned-that-it-faces-an-arab-spring-so-what-are-the-chances-187634">restlessness</a> across the nation about the many failures of the state, high levels of corruption and <a href="https://theconversation.com/link-between-crime-and-politics-in-south-africa-raises-concerns-about-criminal-gangs-taking-over-198160">organised crime</a>. </p>
<p>As a political scientist and researcher on security governance matters, I have been considering the role Mashatile could play in responding to the security crisis. </p>
<p>He will serve on two cabinet structures that are crucial to safety and security in the country. Through this he could contribute to rebuilding <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africans-have-low-trust-in-their-police-heres-why-178821">trust</a> that the public has lost in the law enforcement and criminal justice system. </p>
<h2>Justice, crime prevention and security</h2>
<p>One of Mashatile’s <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2023-03-14-ramaphosa-appoints-mashatile-to-chair-cabinet-security-cluster/">tasks</a> is to chair the <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/resource_centre/publications/naidoo_makananisa_integrated_presentation.pdf">Justice, Crime Prevention and Security</a> cabinet committee. This committee coordinates the work of the ministers who are collectively charged with ensuring safety and stability in the country. During the devastating <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-deadly-july-2021-riots-may-recur-if-theres-no-change-186397">July 2021 unrest</a>, the ministers contradicted each other. They also failed to show a united front against the violence that engulfed several provinces, particularly KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.</p>
<p>With deft leadership, Mashatile can assist Ramaphosa to address the legacy of poorly coordinated security services. The former minister in the presidency, <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/politics/security-cluster-needs-unity-gungubele-20220730">Mondli Gungubele</a>, acknowledged this problem on the anniversary of the deadly July 2021 riots. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-has-a-new-deputy-president-in-paul-mashatile-what-he-brings-to-the-table-200089">South Africa has a new deputy president in Paul Mashatile: what he brings to the table</a>
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<p>The Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster was among several cabinet “clusters” established during former president Thabo Mbeki’s tenure. This has cemented a tradition of intergovernmental cooperation ever since. It oversees the work of the following core ministries and departments:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>police</p></li>
<li><p>state security</p></li>
<li><p>justice and correctional services </p></li>
<li><p>home affairs</p></li>
<li><p>defence and military veterans</p></li>
<li><p>finance.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Mashatile will have to contend with a labyrinth of structures responsible for safety. The operational work of the cluster is coordinated by the directors-general of these departments through the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (<a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/national-joint-operational-and-intelligence-structure-natjoints-0700-update-20-mar-2023">NATJOINTS</a>). </p>
<p>While the NATJOINTS operates at national level, its activities are decentralised to provincial structures (<a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/all-hands-on-deck-w-cape-saps-sandf-metro-police-on-high-alert-amid-planned-national-shutdown-20230319">PROVJOINTs</a>). They coordinate security operations at a provincial level. They work with municipal law enforcement and emergency services, and advise the provincial governments on measures they are taking to keep the public safe. </p>
<h2>The National Security Council</h2>
<p>Mashatile will also serve on the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/notices/2020/20200310-gg42482proc13-COnstitution-NSC.pdf">National Security Council</a>, which is chaired by the president.</p>
<p>The entity is mandated to coordinate a <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-03-01-sas-proposed-national-security-strategy-more-hot-air-or-a-potential-democratic-opening/">national security strategy</a>. It also oversees the annual formulation of a budget and priorities by the country’s <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-01-27-the-ssa-can-improve-but-misconceptions-about-the-role-of-intelligence-services-need-to-be-cleared-up/">intelligence services</a>. It is responsible for coordinating the work of the security services, law enforcement agencies and relevant organs of state to ensure national security. In addition, it receives coordinated, integrated intelligence assessments from the national security structures, and mandates these structures to attend to matters of national security as required.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-strategic-leadership-to-weather-its-storms-its-presidents-have-not-been-up-to-the-task-194296">South Africa needs strategic leadership to weather its storms. Its presidents have not been up to the task</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There is a significant <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/notices/2020/20200310-gg42482proc13-COnstitution-NSC.pdf">overlap of the membership</a> of the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster of ministers, and the National Security Council. Besides the president and deputy president, the council includes all the ministers who are part of the Police, State Security and Justice cabinet committee, as well as the ministers of home affairs, defence and military veterans, international relations, and cooperative governance and traditional affairs. </p>
<h2>How Mashatile could bring stability</h2>
<p>Ramaphosa has entrusted important functions to his deputy. This suggests a level of confidence and cooperation between the two men, rather than a <a href="https://sundayworld.co.za/news/politics/block-mashatile-ramaphosa-warned/">rivalry</a>. Neither can afford to let the ANC fail in government, as this would augur badly for its <a href="https://www.biznews.com/thought-leaders/2023/02/09/anc-crisis-polls-steep-loss-support-elections">prospects</a> in the 2024 general elections. </p>
<p>Mashatile should prioritise getting a few key systems in place. The visibility and effectiveness of the police in day-to-day policing must improve. He must oversee strategies to combat organised crime, which is strangling so many areas of public life. He must also work to secure the resources to implement the recommendations of the <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">Zondo Commission on state capture</a>. </p>
<p>With confidence in the state <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/migrated/files/publications/Dispatches/ad474-south_africans_trust_in_institutions_reaches_new_low-afrobarometer-20aug21.pdf">as low as it is</a>, and the public deeply traumatised by high levels of <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-02-09-sona-2023-sas-soaring-murder-rate-underscores-need-for-ramaphosa-to-ensure-better-leadership-in-policing/">violent crime</a>, Mashatile must put in extra effort to boost public confidence in the justice, crime prevention and security sector. </p>
<p>He can do this by listening to what key stakeholders have to say about the security of the country. Young people bear the brunt of the epidemic of violence – physical and structural. Attending to their security and <a href="https://theconversation.com/idle-and-frustrated-young-south-africans-speak-about-the-need-for-recreational-facilities-176921">wellbeing</a> is crucial for the country’s future.</p>
<p>He also needs to be more strategically visible than his predecessor, David Mabuza, who <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/government/david-mabuza-the-man-from-mpumalanga-who-quit-as-deputy-president-before-some-argue-ever-starting-20230304">resigned</a> from the position. Mabuza’s job description was almost identical to that of Mashatile’s. Yet he <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/ramaphosa-urged-to-appoint-a-competent-deputy-president/">left office with many questioning</a> if he had made any impact. </p>
<h2>New broom</h2>
<p>Mashatile could be the new broom that sweeps clean. Ramaphosa’s apparent confidence in him suggests that he has some latitude to do so. </p>
<p>It is said the job of a deputy president, in practically any country, is <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2021-01-20/what-does-the-vice-president-do">waiting</a> to replace the president. While Mashatile waits in the wings, he has the opportunity to make a difference and make South Africa a more secure place for the public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202366/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sandy Africa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mashatile could be the new broom that sweeps clean. Ramaphosa’s apparent confidence in him suggests that he has some latitude to do so.Sandy Africa, Associate Professor, Political Sciences, and Deputy Dean Teaching and Learning (Humanities), University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2025282023-03-28T09:52:54Z2023-03-28T09:52:54ZICC arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin: a king-size dilemma for South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517651/original/file-20230327-27-lar6a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa and Vladimir Putin at the first Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi, Russia, in 2019.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photos: GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The International Criminal Court (ICC) <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-ukraine-icc-judges-issue-arrest-warrants-against-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin-and">has issued an international arrest warrant</a> for Russian president Vladimir Putin for alleged war crimes regarding the unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia. Such acts are war crimes under two articles of the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/RS-Eng.pdf">Rome Statute</a>, which established the court.</p>
<p>ICC arrest warrants against <a href="https://theconversation.com/putin-and-the-icc-history-shows-just-how-hard-it-is-to-bring-a-head-of-state-to-justice-202247">sitting heads of state are rare</a>. </p>
<p>Putin faces arrest if he sets foot in any of the <a href="https://asp.icc-cpi.int/states-parties">123 signatory states</a> to the statute. Of these, 33 are African states. The issue could come to a head in August when South Africa is set to host the 15th summit of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) bloc in <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-9-mar-2023-0000#:%7E:text=South%20Africa%20is%20chairing%20the,22%20to%2024%20August%202023">Durban</a>.</p>
<p>As the head of a member state Putin has been invited to attend. But as a member of the court, South Africa is obliged under Article 86 of the ICC statute and <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/2002-027.pdf">domestic law</a> to cooperate fully by arresting the Russian president. </p>
<p>This is not the first time the country has faced such a dilemma. </p>
<p>In 2015 Sudanese president <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33125108">Omar Al Bashir visited the country</a> to attend a summit of <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/25th-african-union-summit-7-15-jun#:%7E:text=South%20Africa%20is%20hosting%20the,5%20June">African Union heads of state</a>. In terms of South Africa’s ICC obligations, it was obliged to arrest Al Bashir, who had been <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/albashir">indicted</a> for violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law in Sudan’s Darfur region. The government, then under the presidency of Jacob Zuma, refused to arrest him, <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/clutching-at-straws-sas-reasons-for-not-arresting-al-bashir">citing immunity from prosecution for sitting heads of state under international law</a>.</p>
<p>The arrest warrant for Putin has put President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government between a rock and a hard place. Complying with its domestic and international obligations by executing the arrest warrant would alienate Russia. This would have bilateral consequences – the country is still considered a friend by the ruling African National Congress based on the Soviet Union’s support during the struggle against apartheid – as well as ramifications within the BRICS, given <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/20/europe/xi-putin-china-russia-visit-monday-intl-hnk/index.html">Moscow’s strong ties with Beijing</a>. </p>
<p>It is not unreasonable to argue that Ramaphosa’s government would want to tread carefully to avoid any such tensions. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-essential-reads-on-russia-africa-relations-187568">Five essential reads on Russia-Africa relations</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>On the other hand, welcoming Putin, thus <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/south-africas-indulgence-of-putin-is-unsustainable/2023/02/03/e0b461b8-a381-11ed-8b47-9863fda8e494_story.html">underscoring South Africa’s independent foreign policy</a>, would see the country lose international credibility. </p>
<p>One likely effect is that South Africa might lose preferential trade terms. For example, it could jeopardise its treatment of exports to the US under the <a href="https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/trade-development/preference-programs/african-growth-and-opportunity-act-agoa">African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)</a>. AGOA has been used recently as a punishing tool against Ethiopia, The Gambia and Mali for “unconstitutional change in governments” and <a href="https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2022/january/us-terminates-agoa-trade-preference-program-ethiopia-mali-and-guinea">“gross violations of internationally recognised human rights</a>”.</p>
<p>Importantly, <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/opinion/2023-03-16-francois-fouche-trading-down-south-africas-game-of-russian-roulette/">South Africa’s trade with the US far exceeds that with Russia</a>.</p>
<h2>The dilemma</h2>
<p>When the Zuma administration refused to arrest Al Bashir, it landed the government in judicial hot water. South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZASCA/2016/17.html">found</a> that it had violated both international and domestic law.</p>
<p>Following the ruling of the Supreme Court of Appeal, Zuma’s government notified the United Nations secretary general of its intention <a href="https://www.pgaction.org/news/stand-against-impunity-south-africa.html">to withdraw from the Rome Statute</a>. This ill advised move was challenged in the High Court in Pretoria. It <a href="https://hsf.org.za/publications/hsf-briefs/withdrawal-from-icc-high-court-judgment">ruled</a> that the notice of withdrawal was unconstitutional due to the absence of prior parliamentary approval. Consequently, the government <a href="https://www.pgaction.org/ilhr/rome-statute/south-africa.html">“withdrew from the withdrawal”</a>.</p>
<p>In 2017, the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/court-record/icc-02/05-01/09-302">ICC found</a> that South Africa had failed in its obligations under the Rome Statute towards the court by not arresting and surrendering Al Bashir. The court, however, decided not to pursue the matter further for <a href="https://theconversation.com/icc-ruling-on-south-africa-and-al-bashir-pragmatism-wins-the-day-81500">pragmatic reasons</a>. It also reasoned that to refer South Africa to the United Nations Security Council for noncompliance <a href="https://www.southernafricalitigationcentre.org/2017/07/07/news-release-icc-finding-on-south-africas-non-compliance-falls-short/">“would not be an effective way to foster future cooperation”</a>.</p>
<p>In the event that Putin attended the upcoming BRICS summit and Ramaphosa’s government did not arrest him, it would mean that South Africa was flouting domestic legislation as well as its own constitution. Article 165 (5) of the country’s <a href="https://www.concourt.org.za/images/phocadownload/the_text/Slimline-Constitution-Web-Version.pdf">constitution</a> makes it clear that the government is bound by court orders and decisions. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/al-bashir-what-the-law-says-about-south-africas-duties-43498">Al-Bashir: what the law says about South Africa's duties</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>How should South Africa respond to the dilemma?</p>
<p>At present the government’s response is not clear. On the one hand, Ramaphosa’s spokesperson <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africa-aware-legal-obligations-regarding-putin-visit-2023-03-19/">said</a> that the country was aware of its obligations to arrest Putin and surrender him to the ICC. </p>
<p>On the other hand, Naledi Pandor, the foreign relations minister, confirmed the <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2023-03-23-russias-vladimir-putin-invited-to-attend-brics-summit-in-sa-pandor-confirms/">invitation to Putin to attend the BRICS meeting</a>. She noted that cabinet would have to decide on how to respond in view of the ICC warrant.</p>
<p>The government would want to balance its ICC obligations, domestic responsibilities and its historically friendly relations with Russia carefully. Unless it is hellbent on defying its own court decisions and laws, there are options available to avoid another round of international condemnation, and that would help it avoid potential court battles by civil society for noncompliance with the country’s own laws and court decisions. </p>
<h2>Options</h2>
<p>Firstly, South Africa should continue to extend an invitation for Russia to attend the summit. But, through diplomatic channels, request that the Russian delegation be led by its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. Lavrov has in essence become the face of Russia on the <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-foreign-minister-sergei-lavrov-western-leaders-militarize-southeast-asia-asean-g20-bali-indonesia/">international stage</a> since the start of the war in Ukraine. </p>
<p>Secondly, during the COVID pandemic, it became clear that physical presence at international gatherings for heads of states could be substituted with virtual attendance. The UN General Assembly set a good benchmark for this when heads of state <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/20/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-unga-summit">submitted video statements due to pandemic restrictions</a>. Putin could attend the BRICS summit virtually. </p>
<p>The need to sign summit documentation by the heads of state is not an impediment to virtual attendance. Putin can sign the documents electronically or after the summit, if a non-electronic signature is required.</p>
<p>The ball is now in the South African government’s court. The hope is that it makes the right decision, one which is in the best interests of the country and its people – not Russia or the likes of the US, especially as neither major power is a signatory to the ICC’s statute. Neither should prescribe to South Africa what it should decide. </p>
<p>Most importantly, the government must not trample on its own laws and court decisions. Compliance with the constitution must be the priority. Making a decision that is in the interests of South Africa and its people would also provide guidance to the other 32 African ICC signatory states, should they ever be faced with a similar dilemma in the future.</p>
<p><em>This article was co-authored with Sasha-Lee Stephanie Afrika (LLD), Attorney of the High Court of South Africa and former lecturer at Stellenbosch University and University of Johannesburg.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202528/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The government must not trample on its own laws and court decisions. Compliance with the constitution must be the priority.Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann, Professor in Law and Co-Convener National Security Hub (University of Canberra) and Research Fellow (adjunct) - The Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa, Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University- NATO Fellow Asia-Pacific, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1989022023-02-28T13:57:40Z2023-02-28T13:57:40ZGod and politics in South Africa: the ruling ANC’s winning strategy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510292/original/file-20230215-18-eroxa0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pastors pray for former South African president and ANC leader Jacob Zuma.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rajesh Jantilal/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Religion shapes some of the most controversial decisions that governments need to make: access to abortion, same-sex marriage, the death penalty and the legal status of sex work. Indeed, it is likely that most voters across the world consider religion to be essential to their lives. </p>
<p>Yet research on religion and political parties remains surprisingly inexact. </p>
<p>Much of the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09637494.2022.2048489?journalCode=crss20">research</a> to date has been waylaid by the wrong question: is a political party fundamentally religious or secular? Yet the “essence” of a party resists definition. Is it its manifesto, rhetoric, membership or leadership? What if these contradict each other? What would it mean if religion was integral to officially secular parties?</p>
<p>The difficulty of this approach is clear when considering a party like the <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/">African National Congress (ANC)</a>, which has governed South Africa since 1994. From one angle, it is obviously not a religious party: it remains committed to a secular state and many of its policies (such as those on <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/the-ancs-approach-to-abortion--bathabile-dlamini">abortion</a> and <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2006-11-14-samesex-bill-gets-parliament-goahead/">civil unions</a>) have been <a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/27434/">criticised</a> by religious groups.</p>
<p>Yet the ANC is also religious in important senses. In most of the country, you would struggle to find an ANC meeting that did not start and end with a prayer. Nearly all leaders in the past century have been devout. For many supporters, religion is the water in which the ANC swims. </p>
<p>Rather than asking whether a party is religious, we should look at how it engages with religion. I examined the issue in a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057070.2022.2136820">recent article</a>. I sought to describe how contemporary parliamentary parties in South Africa had engaged with religion throughout their history, and how academics had analysed this.</p>
<p>It’s possible to learn a great deal about a political party by looking at how it uses religion. My study identified a consistent political strategy: the mix of religious rhetoric and a secular policy agenda by the ANC over the past century.</p>
<p>This strategy has been popular with the party, which has won every national election with a margin of at least <a href="https://results.elections.org.za/dashboards/npe/app/dashboard.html">34 percentage points</a> ahead of the second-largest party. It’s a strategy that works in countries that have the unusual combination of religious electorates and secular governments, such as <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/religious-authority-and-state-africa">Kenya and Senegal</a>.</p>
<p>Rather than being a <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-07-06-south-africas-creeping-christian-conservatism/">threat to secular democracy</a>, religious rhetoric may be important for ensuring a largely religious electorate feels politically at home in a secular state. </p>
<h2>Religion and political parties in South Africa</h2>
<p>My review of academic publications on religion and political parties in South Africa looked at three sets of rules governing party members: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>informal rules (such as what you can say at public events) </p></li>
<li><p>party rules (such as disciplinary codes and who makes decisions) </p></li>
<li><p>the kind of laws proposed by the party. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>I distinguished between the religious or secular emphasis in each of these, and noted whether this emphasis was inclusive of other beliefs. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africans-are-prone-to-falling-for-charlatans-in-the-church-112879">Why South Africans are prone to falling for charlatans in the church</a>
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<p>The framework offered three key insights. </p>
<p>First, political parties engage with religion with nuance and ambiguity. This applies elsewhere in the world too: <a href="https://www.akparti.org.tr/en">Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi</a> in Turkey, for example, relies on a religious electorate for support. Yet it must navigate an officially and sometimes militantly secular state. However, in contrast to South Africa’s major political parties, it <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230106703_9">manages this tension</a> by insisting that it is an inclusive and non-religious party in its rhetoric, while simultaneously pursuing laws that privilege Sunni Islam.</p>
<p>Second, the ANC sometimes uses religious rhetoric while pursuing secular laws and party rules – a combination it has used for <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rise-African-Nationalism-South-Africa/dp/0520018109">most of its history</a>. </p>
<p>Third, this nuance might be important to voters in South Africa. Parties that pursue policies underpinned by religion do very poorly in elections. An example of this is the <a href="https://www.acdp.org.za/">African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP)</a>, which claims to offer policies based on the Bible.</p>
<p>About 78% of South Africans identified as Christian <a href="https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/catalog/611">in 2016</a>. While estimates vary significantly, between <a href="https://theotherfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/ProgPrudes_Report_d5.pdf">45%</a> and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/04/15/executive-summary-islam-and-christianity-in-sub-saharan-africa/">74%</a> report being “very” or “highly religious”, and 76% <a href="https://theotherfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/ProgPrudes_Report_d5.pdf">agree that</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>God’s laws about abortion, pornography and marriage must be strictly followed before it is too late.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The ANC and religion</h2>
<p>Christianity has been important to the ANC’s values and practices since the party’s <a href="https://jacana.co.za/product/the-founders-the-origins-of-the-african-national-congress-and-the-struggle-for-democracy/">beginning in 1912</a>. In 1949, for example, it called for an annual <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rise-African-Nationalism-South-Africa/dp/0520018109">day of prayer</a> to remember</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Christ who is the Champion of Freedom.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many regions in the country that participated most actively in the 1952 <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/defiance-campaign-1952">Defiance Campaign</a>, a large non-violent campaign of civil disobedience against apartheid, were led by <a href="https://jacana.co.za/product/from-protest-to-challenge-volume-2-hope-and-challenge-1935-1952/">local churches</a>. ANC president Albert Luthuli, who led the organisation from 1952 to 1967, was <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10282580902876514">famously vocal</a> about his religious convictions. This was also true of most presidents of the ANC before him, including <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/823310">Reverend John Langalibalele Dube</a> and <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.4102/hts.v74i1.4844">Reverend Zaccheus Richard Mahabane</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-the-anc-survive-the-end-of-south-africas-heroic-epoch-57256">Can the ANC survive the end of South Africa's heroic epoch?</a>
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</p>
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<p>Yet the ANC has also always been an <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-insists-its-still-a-political-vanguard-this-is-what-ails-democracy-in-south-africa-141938">ideologically diverse organisation</a>. It has included followers of other religions, communists, traditionalists and <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/502.html">Garveyites</a> who advocated transnational black nationalism. </p>
<p>In the 1960s the religious rhetoric of the ANC became more ambivalent. Within the context of the Cold War, the organisation worked more closely with the South African Communist Party and increasingly <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253332318/from-protest-to-challenge-volume-5/">espoused</a> a Marxist-Leninist ideology.</p>
<p>Yet even so, ANC president <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-anc-is-celebrating-the-year-of-or-tambo-who-was-he-85838">Oliver Tambo</a>, who led the ANC in exile <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/oliver-reginald-kaizana-%E2%80%9Cor%E2%80%9D-tambo-posthumous">from 1967 to 1991</a>, continued to publicly espouse the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/we-must-take-sides">unbroken link</a> between the ANC and the church. </p>
<p>The ANC would call for days of prayer, establish a department of religion, publicly affirm liberation theology and issue joint communiqués with churches.
In the early 1990s, the ANC <a href="https://www.amazon.com/State-Secularism-Religion-Tradition-Democracy/dp/1776140575">advocated a secular state</a> in constitutional negotiations with the ruling <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Party-political-party-South-Africa">National Party</a>. Yet even in the 1994 election, the message was mixed. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520273085/wild-religion">ANC advertisements featured religious leaders</a> who argued that the manifesto that best represented “gospel values” was that of the ANC. Conversely, the ANC also promised improved access to abortion: a policy criticised by religious leaders. </p>
<p>This mix of secular laws and religious rhetoric extended into the post-apartheid era. Former ANC president Jacob Zuma’s <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15570274.2020.1753992">frequent references to religion</a>, for example, invited concern about the ANC’s “<a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-07-06-south-africas-creeping-christian-conservatism/">creeping Christian conservatism</a>”, while the party began exploring <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/650537/new-laws-to-decriminalise-sex-work-in-south-africa/">decriminalising sex work</a>. </p>
<h2>Religion and politics</h2>
<p>Perhaps the combination of religious rhetoric and secular laws is a winning electoral strategy. After all, parties that advocate religious laws have surprisingly little support from voters: the <a href="https://www.acdp.org.za/">ACDP</a> and <a href="https://www.aljama.co.za/">Al Jama-Ah</a>, a Muslim political party, have at most won <a href="https://www.eisa.org/wep/souresults2004.htm">1.6% (in 2004)</a> and <a href="https://results.elections.org.za/dashboards/npe/app/dashboard.html">0.18% (in 2019)</a> of the national vote, respectively. At their best, the ACDP has been the seventh-largest party and Al Jama-Ah the 14th. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/christians-in-nigeria-feel-under-attack-why-its-a-complicated-story-186853">Christians in Nigeria feel under attack: why it's a complicated story</a>
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<p>Conversely, parties that advocate secular laws but shy away from religious rhetoric, such as the main opposition Democratic Alliance, have also failed to win popular support, especially in rural areas. Of course, many other reasons contribute to this too. </p>
<p>In short, we can learn much about a political party by looking at how it uses religion. The ANC may have a winning strategy in its combination of religious rhetoric and a secular policy agenda.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Jeffery-Schwikkard receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in the United Kingdom through the London Interdisciplinary Social Science Doctoral Training Programme. He is a member of the African National Congress but he does not receive any funding or renumeration from the ANC or represent the ANC in any capacity. </span></em></p>Perhaps the combination of religious rhetoric and secular laws is a winning electoral strategy.David Jeffery-Schwikkard, PhD Candidate (Theology and Religious Studies), King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2003862023-02-24T11:29:29Z2023-02-24T11:29:29ZSouth Africa’s intelligence agency needs speedy reform - or it must be shut down<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512012/original/file-20230223-2271-8qc43o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mondli Gungubele, former minister in the Presidency, was in charge of intelligence.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Siyabulela Duga/GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/intelligence-white-paper">civilian intelligence service</a>, the State Security Agency, is a broken institution. It is meant to provide intelligence to forewarn the country about national security threats. </p>
<p>Powerful individuals aligned to former president <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">Jacob Zuma</a>, presumably at his behest, repurposed the institution to help him maintain his grip on <a href="http://www.saflii.org/images/state-capture-commission-report-part-5-vol1.pdf">power</a>. It was one of many institutions that were repurposed for improper personal or political gain during his tenure (May 2009 to February 2018): a process that has become known as <a href="http://www.saflii.org/images/state-capture-commission-report-part-5-vol1.pdf">state capture</a>. </p>
<p>His successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa, <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2022/10/24/ramaphosa-vows-to-overhaul-ssa-as-per-zondo-commission-recommendations">promised</a> in 2022 to reform the agency so it would serve its original mission. He committed to returning it to the pre-2009 era of having separate domestic and foreign branches, each led by its own director-general. </p>
<p>This decision is a major positive development. The Zuma administration <a href="http://www.saflii.org/images/state-capture-commission-report-part-5-vol1.pdf">merged the two branches</a> and abused the centralised model to protect the president from criticism. </p>
<p>Dismantling this architecture of abuse is happening too slowly, however, with no transitional plan having been announced publicly. Such a plan should include appointing interim heads for the domestic and foreign branches, rather than relying on people in acting positions. The government’s underestimation of the time needed to restructure the intelligence agency could have potentially serious, even dangerous, consequences. </p>
<h2>What went wrong</h2>
<p>The government under Zuma established the State Security Agency in 2009 as an <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/merger-of-spy-agencies-led-to-cabinet-ministers-giving-ssa-operatives-illegal-instructions-20210915">amalgamation</a> of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Intelligence_Agency_(South_Africa)">National Intelligence Agency</a>, the domestic intelligence service, and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Secret_Service">South African Secret Service</a>, the foreign service.</p>
<p>At that stage, the directors general and other intelligence entities <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LCm2Ds5V0I">reported directly</a> to the Minister of Intelligence. A coordinating mechanism ensured overall coherence. But in 2021 Ramaphosa <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/ramaphosa-does-away-with-intelligence-ministry-ssa-to-report-directly-to-him-20210805">dissolved</a> the ministry. The agency now reports to the Minister in the Presidency.</p>
<p>The intelligence agency during the Zuma era concentrated too much power in one entity, specifically a super director-general. Hence, it took very little to capture the entire entity for abusive purposes. Officials loyal to the former president used this merged structure to turn the agency into a <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency-9-mar-2019-0000">protective service</a> for him and those close to him politically.</p>
<p>Testimony before the state capture commission showed how the agency’s resources were <a href="http://www.saflii.org/images/state-capture-commission-report-part-5-vol1.pdf">used</a> to improve the fortunes of the governing African National Congress under Zuma’s leadership, by providing his supporters with resources to campaign on his behalf. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/zumas-abuse-of-south-africas-spy-agency-underscores-need-for-strong-civilian-oversight-154439">Zuma's abuse of South Africa's spy agency underscores need for strong civilian oversight</a>
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<p>Despite his administration’s stated objective of integrating the two services, they continued to operate on separate tracks. In fact, the merger <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency-9-mar-2019-0000">eroded</a> the very essence of the intelligence mandate – of forewarning the state of national security threats. The failure of intelligence ahead of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-deadly-july-2021-riots-may-recur-if-theres-no-change-186397">July 2021 riots</a> is a glaring example.</p>
<p>During the Zuma years, the focus on protecting the president led to the intelligence agency <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency-9-mar-2019-0000">prioritising</a> domestic intelligence by spying on citizens at the expense of foreign intelligence. Officials with ill intent also undermined the agency’s intelligence gathering <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency-9-mar-2019-0000">capacity</a>.</p>
<h2>The plan to fix it</h2>
<p>Following Ramaphosa’s promises, then Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele had <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/minister-mondli-gungubele-state-nation-address-debate-14-feb-2023-0000">committed the presidency</a> to ongoing reforms.</p>
<p>He highlighted the unbundling into foreign and domestic branches. This was one of the key recommendations of the 2018 High-Level Review Panel on the State Security Agency’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency-9-mar-2019-0000">report</a>. </p>
<p>This would be done through an intelligence laws amendment bill that the intelligence agency intends to introduce to parliament by the end of the current financial year.</p>
<p>This was not the first time Gungubele had made this promise. He did so in May 2022, <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/address-minister-presidency-responsible-state-security%2C-mondli-gungubele%2C-occasion-2022-23-budget-vote-debate%2C-parliament%2C-cape-town">saying</a> that the bill had been finalised and would be submitted to parliament in September of that year. So it should surprise no one if the new timeline isn’t followed once again.</p>
<p>A new bill should ensure that the new heads of domestic and foreign intelligence have more discretionary power, reducing the power of the director-general. Doing so should make it more likely that this person will confine themselves to an oversight role rather than becoming involved in operational matters.</p>
<h2>The problem with the plan</h2>
<p>The fact that the State Security Agency has been absorbed into the presidency – which is also <a href="https://salaamedia.com/2023/02/19/analysis-ramaphosa-is-building-a-super-presidency-while-ministers-sit-at-home/">accumulating</a> other government entities and functions – could be a gift to any president intent on repeating the abuses of the Zuma administration.</p>
<p>One of the biggest dangers is a delay in appointing leaders of the domestic and foreign intelligence branches. They need direction. The head of the foreign branch was <a href="https://www.defenceweb.co.za/security/national-security/mcbride-suspended-as-ssa-foreign-branch-head/">suspended</a> in July 2021 and the head of the domestic branch <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/ssa-without-a-head-of-domestic-intelligence-after-mahlodi-sam-muofhe-leaves-20210804">left</a> after his contract expired at the end of the same month.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-provides-fertile-ground-for-funders-of-terrorism-heres-why-194282">South Africa provides fertile ground for funders of terrorism. Here's why</a>
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<p>The agency told me that they cannot appoint permanent heads until the bill to restructure the agency becomes a law, and its disestablishment is complete.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/b25a-2011-130416a.pdf">2011 bill</a> that established the amalgamated agency took <a href="https://pmg.org.za/bill/184/">20 months</a> to be signed into law. It would make sense to have a transitional plan, appointing individuals on two-year contracts.</p>
<p>The Zuma administration was characterised by many <a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/perspective/2013archive/zumathekingofacting.html">acting appointments</a> in key positions across government, including the State Security Agency and the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/zuma-to-appoint-npa-head-by-end-of-august-20150429">National Prosecuting Authority</a>. Relying so heavily on acting appointments weakened the government structures, to enable state capture.</p>
<p>People in acting positions are unable to take strong positions as they lack the security of tenure to do so. But the domestic and foreign branches need strong positions to safeguard South Africa’s security and stability.</p>
<h2>Why this matters</h2>
<p>The result of an intelligence service that is not fit for purpose is that the country is vulnerable to security threats from within and without. South Africans are living with the disastrous consequences – such as <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-09-21-south-africas-organised-crime-climbs-to-italys-levels-racing-past-mexico-somalia-and-libya/">rising organised crime</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sandton-terror-alert-time-for-south-africa-to-improve-its-intelligence-sharing-channels-with-the-us-194542">Sandton terror alert: time for South Africa to improve its intelligence sharing channels with the US</a>
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<p>Going back to separate foreign and domestic services is the last chance civilian intelligence has to re-establish its credibility. </p>
<p>The current round of restructuring the State Security Agency cannot fail. If it does it will have to be shut down and restarted from scratch. </p>
<p>The South American country Colombia did just that. In 2011, the government there <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/americas/colombias-troubled-intelligence-agency-shuttered/2011/11/28/gIQA7mnzTO_story.html">shut down</a> the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), after it went rogue and engaged in criminal activities under the guise of fighting the war on drugs. </p>
<p>Unless the Ramaphosa administration expedites the State Security Agency’s restructuring, then the Colombian option will be the only one that makes sense for the agency. </p>
<p>*This story has been updated to reflect that Mondli Gungubele has since been appointed as Communications Minister in the SA cabinet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200386/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span><a href="mailto:jane.duncan@glasgow.ac.uk">jane.duncan@glasgow.ac.uk</a> receives funding from the British Academy and Luminate.</span></em></p>Having an intelligence service that is not fit for purpose means the country is vulnerable to security threats from within and outside the country.Jane Duncan, Professor of Digital Society, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2000892023-02-19T06:41:20Z2023-02-19T06:41:20ZSouth Africa has a new deputy president in Paul Mashatile: what he brings to the table<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510840/original/file-20230217-364-wwl3re.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paul Mashatile was voted ANC deputy president in December 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Deaan Vivier/Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa has a new deputy president in Paul Shipokosa Mashatile, the deputy president of the governing African National Congress (ANC). He’ll replace the incumbent, David Mabuza, who announced he would <a href="https://www.capetownetc.com/news/david-mabuza-confirms-his-resignation-as-deputy-president/">step down</a>. </p>
<p>Who is Mashatile and what does he bring to the position?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/paul-shipokosa-mashatile">Mashatile</a> (61) is a veteran politician from the ANC, the party that has governed South Africa since democracy in 1994. He has occupied a dizzying array of posts and portfolios during his climb to the top.</p>
<p>Mashatile has been continuously in party or state posts for 29 years. Though he battled with the ANC’s parlous financial plight before 2023 as treasurer, overall his track record is a creditable performance.</p>
<p>He brings gravitas to whichever post he occupies. Mashatile holds <a href="https://www.vukuzenzele.gov.za/book/export/html/734">a postgraduate diploma</a> in Economic Principles from the University of London. He demonstrates competence and diligence in whatever post he holds. If anyone can, he will bring visibility to the office of deputy president.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-strategic-leadership-to-weather-its-storms-its-presidents-have-not-been-up-to-the-task-194296">South Africa needs strategic leadership to weather its storms. Its presidents have not been up to the task</a>
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<p>A strong incumbent can shape the role, although it is partially dependent on the president’s actions. The deputy president’s role as the leader of government business in parliament also has much potential for wielding power and attracting publicity.</p>
<h2>Political activism</h2>
<p>Mashatile’s commitment to political activism started as a schoolboy in the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/congress-south-african-students-cosas">Congress of South African Students</a>, an ANC-allied organisation for high school pupils. He later became the first president of the Alexandra Youth Congress, also allied to the ANC. He represented the organisation at the launch in 1983 of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/united-democratic-front-udf">United Democratic Front</a>, which provided a political home for “Charterists” while the ANC was still banned. The term refers to exponents of the <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/the-freedom-charter-2/">Freedom Charter</a>, the blueprint for free, democratic South Africa adopted by the ANC and allies in 1955. </p>
<p>Mashatile was detained without trial throughout the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/states-emergency-south-africa-1960s-and-1980s">1985-1989 states of emergency</a>. These were the core years of President PW Botha’s repression during the closing years of a crumbling apartheid era. After the <a href="https://theconversation.com/fw-de-klerk-made-a-speech-31-years-ago-that-ended-apartheid-why-he-did-it-130803">1990 unbanning</a> of the ANC, the South African Communist Party (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Communist-Party-of-South-Africa">SACP</a>), the <a href="https://pac.org.za/">Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania</a> and other liberation movements, Mashatile helped reestablish both the ANC and the SACP <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/paul-mashatile/">in the Johannesburg region</a>. (Almost uniquely in the world, these two political parties permit dual membership in each other.)</p>
<p>During the 1990s Mashatile rose to become <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/paul-mashatile/">provincial secretary</a> of the ANC in Gauteng province, and provincial chair during the 2000s. </p>
<h2>Role in government</h2>
<p>In 1994 he was elected as a member of the provincial legislature and leader of the house in Gauteng. He became in turn a member of the executive committee for transport and public works, next for safety and security, then human settlements, then finance and economic affairs. For 2008-2009 he became the fourth premier of Gauteng.</p>
<p>From 2010 to 2016 he was a member of parliament, when he served as <a href="https://www.vukuzenzele.gov.za/meet-paul-mashatile-minister-arts-and-culture">minister of arts and culture</a>. </p>
<p>He became an opponent of then South African president Jacob Zuma’s alleged corruption. In 2017 he was elected as <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/anc-deputy-president-paul-shipokosa-mashatile/">treasurer-general of the ANC</a>, and added to that in 2022 the role of <a href="https://www.enca.com/news/mashatile-steps-anc-secretary-general-role">acting secretary-general</a>. At the ANC’s 2022 national elective congress, he was elected by a sizeable majority as deputy president of the ANC.</p>
<p>So Paul Mashatile is in pole position to be appointed as the next deputy president of South Africa. Being a decade younger than President Cyril Ramaphosa, he is also well positioned to compete to succeed him in five years’ time.</p>
<p>There are no substantiated charges against him of corruption – a <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/opinions/voices/cyril-ramaphosa-the-anc-is-accused-number-one-for-corruption-20200823">serious problem in the ANC</a>. Critics are fond of loose talk that he was a member of the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2007-08-31-mashatile-and-the-alex-mafia/">“Alex mafia”</a>, an informal network of political activists and business people from <a href="https://web.mit.edu/urbanupgrading/upgrading/case-examples/overview-africa/alexandra-township.html">Alexandra</a>, north of Johannesburg. But the <a href="https://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/integrity-has-its-own-champion/">Gauteng integrity commissioner</a>, Jules Browde, cleared him of any improprieties. The Gauteng integrity commissioner is the only provincial post with a corruption-busting mandate.</p>
<p>Similarly, he was cleared of any wrong-doing concerning his alleged misuse of a government credit card. Allegations that he was involved in stealing one billion rand (now worth about US$55 million) for the <a href="http://thehda.co.za/pdf/uploads/multimedia/gau_alexandra_rev_gov.pdf">Alexandra renewal project</a> were exposed as smears – <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/mashatile-recalls-no-knowledge-of-corruption-during-impementation-of-alex-project-20191119">no budget was ever allocated to that proposal</a>.</p>
<h2>Deputy presidency</h2>
<p>The deputy presidency has become invisible during <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/deputy-president-david-mabuza%3A-profile">David Mabuza’s five years in office</a>. Neither good news nor bad news has emanated from it. This raises the debate about what function the deputy presidency fulfils.</p>
<p>Historically, the role of a deputy president was to be on standby in case a president died or was otherwise removed from his post. But the time has long gone when governments would pay the expenses of such an office solely for it to be a spare tyre. </p>
<p>In 1961, the US president John Kennedy gave his vice-president Lyndon Johnson the portfolio to <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/lyndon-b-johnson-forgotten-champion-of-the-space-race">oversee</a> the high-profile National Aeronautics & Space Administration, a tradition continued ever since by both Democrat and Republican presidents.</p>
<p>In South Africa, presidents have flexibly varied the job description of the deputy president around the strengths of the incumbent, or the current needs of the presidency. As deputy president, former president <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/frederik-willem-de-klerk">FW de Klerk</a> symbolised that his political constituency would not be entirely marginalised from state power after 1994. Thabo Mbeki functioned as de facto prime minister during Nelson Mandela’s presidency, <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-strategic-leadership-to-weather-its-storms-its-presidents-have-not-been-up-to-the-task-194296">seeing to the day-to-day running of government</a>. </p>
<p>Mabuza’s last-minute delivery of the winning margin of votes to Ramaphosa at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-ramaphosa-wont-be-able-to-deliver-the-three-urgent-fixes-south-africa-needs-89402">ANC’s 2017 elective conference</a> clearly demanded a prestigious reward, so the deputy presidency became his.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-moral-leaders-not-those-in-pursuit-of-selfish-gain-76244">South Africa needs moral leaders, not those in pursuit of selfish gain</a>
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<p>Ramaphosa’s concentration of power in a bloated presidency means that his deputy president could conceivably be tasked with any portfolio. Mashatile’s disposition will serve him well in any role. He does not have the <a href="https://theconversation.com/rule-of-law-in-south-africa-protects-even-those-who-scorn-it-175533">outbursts</a> of ANC tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu, nor the <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/trending/mbalulas-tweet-is-it-funny-or-foul-20230214">over-the-top</a> <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/news/fikile-mbalula-rules-twitter-streets-for-second-year-in-a-row-ac65a2fd-39d4-4670-9e24-6cc49e081d26">internet flamboyance</a> of party secretary-general Fikile Mbalula. He will be well aware that his performance in his next post will be crucial to his chances for the culmination of his political career – as president of the country.</p>
<p><em>Updated to reflect Mashatile’s appointment as deputy president.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200089/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is an ANC member, but writes this article in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>The veteran liberation struggle activist brings gravitas to every position he occupies.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1992192023-02-08T11:00:18Z2023-02-08T11:00:18ZState capture in South Africa: time to think differently about redress and recovering the stolen loot<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508584/original/file-20230207-13-4il90j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Matshela Koko, former acting group CEO of Eskom, testifies at the state capture commission in 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Luba Lesolle/ Gallo Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africans are plunged into darkness daily by <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-12-12-dark-dumb-and-dangerous-inside-south-africas-perfect-electrical-storm/">rolling power cuts</a>. These are a stark reminder of the destruction that years of state capture wreaked on Eskom, the state-owned <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/judicial-commission-inquiry-state-capture-report-part-4-volume-4-29-apr-2022-0000">power utility</a>. </p>
<p>Eskom’s inability to meet the energy needs of citizens and the economy is now the undeniable example of how state capture made parastatals and other state institutions ineffective. The country urgently needs action to recover the stolen funds and fix the economy. </p>
<p>So far, President Cyril Ramaphosa has offered only a few general targets, and outcomes have been dissatisfying. For example, the “<a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/address-president-cyril-ramaphosa-response-state-capture-commission-report%2C-union-buildings%2C-tshwane">total of R2.9 billion</a>” that he said law enforcement agencies have recovered is only a small fraction of the estimated <a href="https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/state-capture-scorecard-r500bn-looted-zero-assets-recovered/">R500 billion</a> stolen through state capture. Impunity lies at the root of this mess.</p>
<p>The culture of impunity has lingered since the presidency of <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">Jacob Zuma</a>. If it is to be replaced with a new era of integrity and accountability, a lot more needs to be done. But what, and how exactly?</p>
<p>In my <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/full/10.2989/CCR.2022.0001">paper</a> I answer this question by proposing a workable, constitutionally congruent plan. I lay the foundations for a new anti-corruption redress system which would help government to recover the money and restore dignity to the people of South Africa.</p>
<p>The starting point in my argument is that the constitutional <a href="https://civicsacademy.co.za/what-is-the-separation-of-powers/">separation of powers</a> – the division of state authority and core functions – includes a fourth branch of state. It’s best described as the “integrity and accountability branch” and it should include the <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/full/10.2989/CCR.2022.0001">prosecuting authority</a>. </p>
<p>When the special role of the prosecuting authority is thus understood, prosecutorial policy can be harnessed to begin recovering the illegal profits of state capture. This should start urgently – pending the necessary legislative intervention – with the use of the internationally recognised redress tool, the non-trial resolution. This tool can be adjusted to fit the South African constitutional context.</p>
<h2>Non-trial resolutions reimagined</h2>
<p>Non-trial resolutions are mechanisms to resolve corruption cases without the need for a full criminal trial. Criminal trials entail an onerous burden of proof, “beyond reasonable doubt”. They also tend to be protracted and costly to run. Economic corruption cases are especially difficult to prosecute, given the complex nature of the fraud, which tends to cross international borders. </p>
<p>Non-trial resolutions take various forms and are used <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/treaties/UNCAC/WorkingGroups/workinggroup2/2021-September-6-10/CAC-COSP-WG.2-2021-CRP.1.pdf">extensively internationally</a>. They include a plea bargain, a deferred prosecution agreement, a non-prosecution agreement and a more <a href="https://assets-global.website-files.com/5e0bd9edab846816e263d633/5f15e0a4a35dd9b7abd817b1_FACTI%20BP6%20Foreign%20bribery.pdf">informal declination to prosecute</a> (for example, by way of letter).</p>
<p>To ensure localised fit and legitimacy, these instruments should collectively be termed “anti-corruption redress” mechanisms. In my <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/full/10.2989/CCR.2022.0001">article</a>, I explain how and why it would be constitutional to start concluding such non-trial resolutions with state capture offenders pending the legislative introduction of the anti-corruption redress system I propose. </p>
<p>For now, prosecutorial policy (for example, by way of directives) could be issued to make use of a potentially valuable section of the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/1998-032.pdf">National Prosecuting Authority Act, 1998</a>: section 38. It allows the prosecuting authority to use specialists (such as forensic and legal experts) in “specific cases”. </p>
<p>State capture is surely a “specific case” deserving special attention. Section 38 could thus be used to conclude deferred prosecution agreements, or other types of anti-corruption redress agreements. These would be concluded with people or entities who report their illegal profits themselves, or who are identified by whistle-blowers. This way, money can start flowing back into the public purse sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>These agreements would set out the redress deliverables (such as paying back the money back by a certain date and rehabilitating the pillaged entity) and other rights and obligations of the parties. At this stage, no penalties for wrongdoing should be imposed – that needs legislative backing because the law presumes innocence.</p>
<p>But, to reiterate, recouping the ill-gotten profits of state capture can start (via prosecutorial policy). This component of my proposal is inspired by former Constitutional Court judge Johan Froneman’s formulation of the “no profit, no loss principle” in the <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2015/7hoa.pdf">2014 case of All Pay 2</a>. </p>
<p>The nub of this principle is that although penalties cannot be imposed without the proper application of the law, public accountability means that there is no right to profits unlawfully gained. The Zondo Commission <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/site/information/reports">reports</a> provide details of who gained illegally.</p>
<h2>Legislative reform</h2>
<p>While the disgorgement (surrender) of the illegal profits gets underway as described above, the foundations can be laid for more comprehensive legislative reform. This is the third component of my proposal. I suggest that the country doesn’t need entirely new legislation on non-trial resolutions as suggested in the <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/site/files/announcements/673/OCR_version_-_State_Capture_Commission_Report_Part_1_Vol_I.pdf">Zondo reports</a>. </p>
<p>Rather, it should simply amend section 38 of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/national-prosecuting-authority-act#:%7E:text=The%20National%20Prosecuting%20Authority%20Act,provide%20for%20matters%20connected%20therewith">National Prosecuting Authority Act, 1998</a> to introduce the fully fledged anti-corruption redress system. As part of this system, there would be an anti-corruption redress body – perhaps a commission as a subset of the prosecuting authority’s existing <a href="https://www.npa.gov.za/specialised-commercial-crime-unit">Specialised Commercial Crimes Unit</a>. It would need to be staffed with the right mix of experts. Cases would be determined on the lower civil standard of proof: “a balance of probabilities”. </p>
<p>The legislative intervention should provide for administrative fines (basically civil monetary penalties). These should be a percentage of the unlawful benefit the party gained from the corrupt deal. Administrative fines are already used in the country’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/competition-act-guidelines-determination-administrative-penalties-prohibited-practices-17">competition</a> and <a href="https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Fourie-M-SAJELP-Paper-June-2009-Final.pdf">environmental</a> law regimes. They can improve deterrence and enhance redress. </p>
<p>The proposed commission would determine the appropriate redress measures in a given case. It would weigh factors in the “redress balance” such as the extent of the harm, repeat offending, willingness to make reparations and good faith. So, for example, there might be an agreement to defer (delay) criminal prosecution if the offender displays good faith, cooperates and meets all repayment (and other reparation) obligations. The findings of the commission would be <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/full/10.2989/CCR.2022.0001">open to review by a tribunal of record</a> – much like the competition tribunal.</p>
<p>In conclusion, the proposed anti-corruption redress system is fundamentally about the right mix of retributive and restorative justice to restore the dignity of the people of South Africa. It would help rebuild public trust in government, reduce impunity and usher in an era of enhanced integrity and accountability. Now is the time to make this happen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199219/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lauren Kohn received funding from the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust for her Doctoral Project. </span></em></p>The culture of impunity that has lingered since the presidency of Jacob Zuma has to give way to a new era of integrity and accountability.Lauren Kohn, Scholar & Legal Expert: Administrative & Constitutional Law, Department of Public Law (UCT); Attorney of the High Court of SA; Young Research Fellow (UCT); Founder: www.SALegalAdvice.co.za, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1984302023-02-01T12:36:54Z2023-02-01T12:36:54ZSouth Africa and Russia: President Cyril Ramaphosa’s foreign policy explained<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507115/original/file-20230130-6879-11w5zo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa. </span> </figcaption></figure><p>January was a busy diplomatic month for South Africa. The country <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/russias-lavrov-visits-ally-south-africa-amid-western-rivalry-2023-01-23/">hosted</a> Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and US treasury secretary <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/us-treasury-secretary-yellen-meet-president-ramaphosa-south-africa-trip-2023-01-24/">Janet Yellen</a>. Josep Borrell, vice-president of the European Commission, was also <a href="https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/media-advisory-high-representative-josep-borrell-travels-south-africa-and-botswana_en">in town</a>.</p>
<p>The biggest talking point, though, has been Lavrov’s visit, which met with criticism in the west. Similarly, the South African-Russian-Chinese joint maritime exercise, <a href="https://www.defenceweb.co.za/sea/sea-sea/sandf-on-ex-mosi/">Operation Mosi</a>, scheduled for February off the South African Indian Ocean coast. Critics have slammed South Africa’s hosting of the war games in the light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-orders-military-operations-ukraine-demands-kyiv-forces-surrender-2022-02-24/">in February 2022</a>. </p>
<p>South Africa has been reticent to criticise Russia openly for invading Ukraine. The country <a href="https://theconversation.com/african-countries-showed-disunity-in-un-votes-on-russia-south-africas-role-was-pivotal-180799">abstained during each vote</a> criticising Russia at the United Nations. Some have read this as tacit support of Russia.</p>
<p>The visits and South Africa’s position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have put the spotlight on the country’s foreign policy.</p>
<p>I follow, study and have published extensively on South Africa’s foreign policy. In a recent publication, <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/south-african-foreign-policy-review-volume-4">Ramaphosa and a New Dawn for South African Foreign Policy</a>, my co-editors and I point out that South Africa’s voting pattern in these instances should be read in the context of its <a href="https://pmg.org.za/briefing/28596/">declared foreign policy</a> under the stewardship of President Cyril Ramaphosa. </p>
<p>Like his predecessors, Ramaphosa’s policy encompasses at least five principles:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>pan-Africanism </p></li>
<li><p>South-South solidarity </p></li>
<li><p>non-alignment </p></li>
<li><p>independence </p></li>
<li><p>progressive internationalism. The governing ANC <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/anc-npc-discussion-document-on-foreign-policy">defines</a> this as</p></li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<p>an approach to global relations anchored in the pursuit of global solidarity, social justice, common development and human security, etc. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Evolution of South Africa’s foreign policy</h2>
<p>In the era of Nelson Mandela, the first president of democratic South Africa, the country, once a pariah state, returned to the international community. Under him, the country saw a significant increase in its <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.10520/EJC88112">bilateral and multilateral relations</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/history-may-explain-south-africas-refusal-to-condemn-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-178657">History may explain South Africa's refusal to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine</a>
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<p>It enjoyed global goodwill and Mandela was recognised for his <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-russian-visit-says-about-south-africas-commitment-to-human-rights-in-the-world-188993">outspoken views</a> on international human rights abuses. His involvement in conflict resolution efforts in, for example, <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/07/22/mandela-indonesia-and-liberation-timor-leste.html">Timor Leste</a> (East Timor) and Africa also received <a href="https://www.un.org/en/exhibits/page/building-legacy-nelson-mandela">international acclaim</a>. The UN declared 18 July <a href="https://www.un.org/en/events/mandeladay/">Nelson Mandela International Day</a>. </p>
<p>Mandela’s tenure was followed by the aspirational era of President Thabo Mbeki’s <a href="https://journals.co.za/journal/aa.afren">African renaissance</a>. Mbeki’s foreign policy aspired to reposition Africa as a global force as well as to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330614094_Mbeki_on_African_Renaissance_a_vehicle_for_Africa_development">rekindle</a> pan-Africanism and African unity.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man wearing a suit and tie shakes hands with a woman wearing a dress." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507113/original/file-20230130-14-p18rp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507113/original/file-20230130-14-p18rp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507113/original/file-20230130-14-p18rp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507113/original/file-20230130-14-p18rp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507113/original/file-20230130-14-p18rp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507113/original/file-20230130-14-p18rp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507113/original/file-20230130-14-p18rp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, (left), with South African foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, in Pretoria on 23 January 23.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Phill Magakoe/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His successor <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26976626#metadata_info_tab_contents">Jacob Zuma’s era</a> could be described as indigenisation of South Africa’s foreign policy, driven by the values of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-archbishop-tutus-ubuntu-credo-teaches-the-world-about-justice-and-harmony-84730">ubuntu</a> (humanness). In giving effect to ubuntu – equality, peace and cooperation – as a foreign policy principle, South Africa gravitated towards the global south, rather than just Africa. Yet the continent remained a focus of South Africa’s foreign policy.</p>
<h2>Ramaphosa’s foreign policy</h2>
<p>South Africa’s <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/south-african-foreign-policy-review-volume-4">foreign policy</a> under President Cyril Ramaphosa has shifted to a strong emphasis on economic diplomacy. This is joined by a commitment to <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/National-Policy-Conference-2017-International-Relations.pdf">“progressive internationalism”</a>.</p>
<p>Progressive internationalism formed the basis for South Africa’s vocal position on UN reform, global equity and ending the dominance of the global north. The global north could view this as challenging to its hegemonic power and dominance in the UN. </p>
<p>This has challenged South Africa’s declared foreign policy principles. It maintains strong economic and political relations with the global north. But it also maintains strong relations with the global south (including Cuba, Venezuela and Russia). For this, it has been <a href="https://gga.org/south-africas-foreign-policy-decisions-ambiguous-or-misunderstood/#:%7E:text=South%20Africa%20has%20been%20criticised,means%20deployment%20is%20more%20rapid">criticised</a> by the west.</p>
<p>South Africa’s quest for global status in line with its declared foreign policy principles continues under Ramaphosa. It has adopted several roles to achieve this: balancer, spoiler and good international citizenship. </p>
<p>As a balancer, it has attempted to rationalise its relations with both the north and south in accordance with the principles of non-alignment and independence. As a spoiler, it has failed to condemn, for example, China for its poor human rights record, claiming it is an internal Chinese matter. This could be read as an expression of its south-south solidarity with China. Its role as a good international citizen has made it an approachable international actor. It has promoted the rule of international law and upholding international norms. This speaks to its progressive internationalism principle.</p>
<h2>At home and abroad</h2>
<p>The Ramaphosa era set off in 2018 with less emphasis on foreign policy. But by the time the COVID pandemic broke out <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30211-7/fulltext">in December 2019</a>, his foreign policy really came to the fore as he led both the South African and African pandemic responses.</p>
<p>South Africa has been attempting to capitalise on the geostrategic changes in the balance of forces on the world stage. Blatant realpolitik has returned. During the past year, for example, the country has conducted joint multilateral military exercises with several states, most notably with France (<a href="https://www.defenceweb.co.za/featured/ex-oxide-2022-will-be-west-coast-based/">Operation Oxide</a>), a permanent member of the UN Security Council.</p>
<p>South Africa’s soft diplomacy has <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2020-09-22-jerusalemadancechallenge-south-africas-display-of-soft-power-amid-covid-19/">made some inroads</a> at UN agencies and through its cultural diplomacy. But this has not necessarily resulted in material gains – such as more leadership in multilateral organisations.</p>
<p>Moreover, its gravitation towards strong non-western military powers such as Russia, China and India has met with western disappointment. Its foreign policy position of solidarity, independence, non-alignment and <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/remarks-president-cyril-ramaphosa-south-african-heads-mission-conference-7-apr-2022-0000">progressive internationalism</a> has not translated into material foreign policy benefits either, such as increased foreign direct investment as envisaged by Ramaphosa’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/remarks-president-cyril-ramaphosa-south-african-heads-mission-conference-7-apr-2022-0000">economic diplomacy</a>.</p>
<p>Trade with states such as China, Turkey, Russia and India has <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2022/06/20/cyril-ramaphosa-brics-partnership-has-great-value-for-south-africa">increased</a>. But it is not enough as the country requires massive investment to update infrastructure and start new development projects in line with Ramaphosa’s vision of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-new-dawn-should-be-built-on-evidence-based-policy-118129">“new dawn” </a> for South Africa.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man and a woman smile for the camera while sitting. Miniature South African and America flags are on the table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507110/original/file-20230130-14-90njg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507110/original/file-20230130-14-90njg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507110/original/file-20230130-14-90njg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507110/original/file-20230130-14-90njg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507110/original/file-20230130-14-90njg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507110/original/file-20230130-14-90njg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507110/original/file-20230130-14-90njg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South African finance minister, Enoch Godongwana, meets his American counterpart, Janet Yellen, in Pretoria on 26 January.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The post-pandemic international political economy has also adversely affected the country. This has been amplified by the <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bloomberg/news/2022-08-05-donor-fatigue-could-mean-starvation-for-900000-in-west-africa/">economic impact of the Ukraine crisis </a>. Massive Western financial commitments are <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022/12/10/council-adopts-18-billion-assistance-to-ukraine/#:%7E:text=The%20Council%20reached%20agreement%20on,its%20possible%20adoption%20next%20week">directed towards Ukraine</a>. This leaves South Africa in a vulnerable economic position as it <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/DT.ODA.ODAT.CD?locations=ZA">needs foreign development assistance</a>.</p>
<h2>Looking forward</h2>
<p>As our South African Foreign Policy Review volume 4 has shown, Ramaphosa’s “new dawn” <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/south-african-foreign-policy-review-volume-4">has been deferred</a>. This as his party and government jump from crisis to crisis. This kind of instability often seeps into the diplomatic landscape. Investors are aware of the investment risks posed by <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">state capture</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-power-crisis-five-essential-reads-187111">power</a> crises.</p>
<p>Globally, the age of soft power has somewhat waned since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. South Africa needs to be proactive – not only reactive – to emerging international geostrategic conditions. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-in-africa-can-it-offer-an-alternative-to-the-us-and-china-117764">Russia in Africa: can it offer an alternative to the US and China?</a>
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<p>Besides its current leadership of the <a href="https://infobrics.org/">BRICS bloc</a> (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), the country needs to be bolder. It should, for example, campaign for a fourth term <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13533312.2022.2144250?journalCode=finp20">on the UN Security Council</a>, and for leadership in multilateral organisations. In these, it can actively achieve its foreign policy objectives in support of the country’s national interests.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198430/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo-Ansie van Wyk has taught at the Diplomatic Academy of the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation. </span></em></p>South Africa’s foreign policy under Ramaphosa emphasises economic diplomacy and ‘progressive internationalism’, which promotes global equity and ending the dominance of the global north.Jo-Ansie van Wyk, Professor in International Politics, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1966732022-12-15T14:46:13Z2022-12-15T14:46:13ZIs South Africa better off with or without Cyril Ramaphosa?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501305/original/file-20221215-17-13xluz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C57%2C974%2C621&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Cyril Ramaphosa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Cyril Ramaphosa came to the helm of South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC) <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-cyril-ramaphosa-a-profile-of-the-new-leader-of-south-africa-89456">in 2017</a> on an anti-corruption, or anti-state capture, platform. The ANC’s 54th elective conference gave him a mandate of renewing the party, and simultaneously reversing the <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">state capture</a> phenomenon that had characterised much of the country 10 years under his predecessor Jacob Zuma. </p>
<p>But, now, he himself has been caught up in controversy over the theft of thousands of American dollars allegedly kept in contravention of foreign exchange rules at his <a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosa-scandal-looks-set-to-intensify-the-ancs-slide-ushering-in-a-new-era-of-politics-185719">Phala Phala farm</a> in Limpopo in 2020. He also allegedly failed to properly report the theft to the police.</p>
<p>This sparked an attempt to have him impeached for allegedly violating the country’s constitution. But, the ANC’s overwhelming majority in parliament saw the impeachment motion being <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/politics/drama-defiance-retraction-mps-back-ramaphosa-against-impeachment-20221213">defeated</a>.</p>
<p>This has led to many to ask whether the country would be better off with or without Ramaphosa. </p>
<p>This is not an easy question. But it is one that has been on the minds of many in the country since the eruption <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2022-06-01-arthur-fraser-lays-criminal-charges-against-ramaphosa-says-he-stole-4m/">in June</a> of the Phala Phala scandal.</p>
<p>Given that South Africa runs a party political system at a national level, Ramaphosa emerges through the organisational culture of the governing ANC. The party, specifically its successive leadership after the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2007-12-18-zuma-is-new-anc-president/">2007 Polokwane conference</a>, has presided over the weakening of state institutions and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-capture-in-south-africa-how-the-rot-set-in-and-how-the-project-was-rumbled-176481">general collapse of state capacity</a>.</p>
<p>These have had eroded social cohesion in South African society as seen by accelerated levels of <a href="https://theconversation.com/pandemic-underscores-gross-inequalities-in-south-africa-and-the-need-to-fix-them-135070">inequality</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/xenophobia-is-on-the-rise-in-south-africa-scholars-weigh-in-on-the-migrant-question-181288">xenophobia</a> and ethnic chauvinism. To ask, therefore, whether South Africa would better off with or without Ramaphosa is to also ask whether the country would be better off without the ANC.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anc-in-crisis-south-africas-governing-party-is-fighting-to-stay-relevant-5-essential-reads-196580">ANC in crisis: South Africa's governing party is fighting to stay relevant - 5 essential reads</a>
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<p>For a period the ANC <a href="https://www.eisa.org/wep/sou1994results1.htm">represented</a> the aspirations of many black people in reversing the political and economic design of colonialism and apartheid. To this extent, it can be said to have encompassed the South African nation. But it has become too inward-looking, at the expense of the development aspirations of the nation <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-insists-its-still-a-political-vanguard-this-is-what-ails-democracy-in-south-africa-141938">it claims to lead</a>. </p>
<p>Interestingly Ramaphosa straddles these transitions of the ANC. At the beginning of the democratic dispensation in 1994, as a trade unionist, he was an important architect of the country’s constitutional framework. But, now as president of both the party and the republic, he’s embroiled in a scandal over his private business interests. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-insists-its-still-a-political-vanguard-this-is-what-ails-democracy-in-south-africa-141938">The ANC insists it's still a political vanguard: this is what ails democracy in South Africa</a>
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<p>Its an untenable position to be in given the anti-corruption ticket that catapulted him to the helm of the party. </p>
<p>I’ve been researching and observing the ANC and its governance performance over 15 years. My view on these questions is that given the organisational culture that comes with the ANC, and its impact on both government and on South African society, the country would indeed be better off without Ramaphosa. This is regardless of his <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2022/12/02/ramaphosa-s-ability-to-fight-corruption-now-questionable-corruption-watch">anti-corruption campaign</a> which has, in any case, been <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-president-cyril-ramaphosas-credibility-has-been-dented-putting-his-reform-agenda-in-jeopardy-189802">weakened by Phala Phala</a>. </p>
<h2>Of Phala Phala and the ANC</h2>
<p>Given that the Phala Phala matter weakens his anti-corruption campaign, the party can either save the president, as it did when it <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africas-parliament-debate-ramaphosa-farmgate-report-2022-12-13/">voted this week against tabling</a> the report of the parliamentary panel on Phala Phala for discussion. Or, it can hang him out to dry, thus beginning a series of events that weakens the electoral fortunes of the party altogether. </p>
<p>The decision to save him is, of course, premised on the idea that the South African “nation” is inseparable from the ANC. And that equally, the ANC is inseparable from the state. These assumptions increasingly don’t hold true in the country. Voters, especially in urban South Africa, are <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2022-07-29-if-the-anc-becomes-a-rural-party-it-will-be-the-end-of-the-anc-makwetla/">diversifying their votes</a>.</p>
<p>I agree with the Director of the New South Institute, Ivor Chipkin when <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2022-12-04-phala-phala-is-not-a-crisis-for-south-africa-it-is-a-crisis-for-cyril-ramaphosa-and-the-anc/">he says:</a>.</p>
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<p>the ANC is not the nation…the party is not the state {and} institution matter more than individuals.</p>
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<p>It has become increasingly clear that the country needs to start thinking of life without the ANC in charge. And that coalitions, albeit unstable in the immediate run, might be desirable to avoid the cliff edge that South Africa stands on.</p>
<h2>Looking forward</h2>
<p>I think that the ANC will continue to be a strong political force in the foreseeable future, even though it has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/world/africa/south-africa-election.html">weakened in successive election</a> at local, provincial and national level. </p>
<p>There are now real prospects that the party will poll just above 50% needed to form a national government in 2024. This puts the prospect of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-stable-national-coalition-government-in-south-africa-possible-but-only-if-elites-put-countrys-interests-first-193828">national coalition government</a> within view. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-the-anc-survive-the-end-of-south-africas-heroic-epoch-57256">Can the ANC survive the end of South Africa's heroic epoch?</a>
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<p>The ANC should now show leadership by providing the necessary architecture – including new laws and regulations – to manage coalitions so that they can serve the country well. </p>
<p>This would complement the recent amendment of the Electoral Act enabling independent candidates to run for elections at national and <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/cabinet-approves-law-to-allow-independent-candidates-to-contest-as-mps-and-mpls-f8f496d7-39c0-4733-8f71-dfaea11c2a8f">provincial level</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, this possibility is not without its weakness: legislative access or easier entry for independent candidates to contest elections is a zero-sum game for the ANC. But the development of South Africa requires, not the renewal of the ANC, but the enablement of coalitions. </p>
<p>Coalitions are a necessary part of diversifying South Africa’s political culture. This is not about bringing contestation for its own sake, but to find a party political culture that aligns with the country’s constitutional framework. </p>
<p>The future of South Africa hangs in the balance. The country can either continue on its current downward spiral, with a <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/598212/young-people-plan-to-leave-south-africa-as-brain-drain-concerns-grow/">growing brain drain</a>, or it can change direction to upward development trajectory. </p>
<p>Either way, this is about much more than the ANC. </p>
<p>Too much time has been spent discussing the societal spill overs from the party’s organisational and <a href="https://theconversation.com/vacuum-of-ideas-at-anc-policy-conference-bodes-ill-for-south-africas-governing-party-188259">intellectual problems</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196673/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thapelo Tselapedi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It has become increasingly clear that the country needs to start thinking of life without Ramaphosa - and the ANC - in charge.Thapelo Tselapedi, Politics lecturer, Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1960552022-12-08T13:04:08Z2022-12-08T13:04:08ZJanusz Walus parole: South Africa’s constitutional court was right - but failed the sensitivity test<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499534/original/file-20221207-11743-v1gh9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protests outside the constitutional court at its decision to grant parole to Chris Hani's killer, Janusz Walus.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fani Mahuntsi/Gallo Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On 21 November 2022 the Constitutional Court of South Africa <a href="https://collections.concourt.org.za/bitstream/id/62084/%5bJudgment%5d%20CCT%20221-21%20Janusz%20Jakub%20Walus%20v%20Minister%20of%20Justice%20and%20Corre....pdf">ordered</a> the release on parole of Janusz Walus, the Polish national who <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-63700284">assassinated Chris Hani on 10 April 1993</a>. Hani was the secretary-general of the South African Communist Party, and one of the leading anti-apartheid stalwarts. The court’s decision, understandably, caused outrage, anger and controversy in the country, in particular for <a href="https://www.enca.com/news/watch-outrage-over-hani-killers-release">the Hani family</a>. </p>
<p>Hani’s assassination nearly caused the country to descend into civil war. But this was averted. Walus subsequently received the death penalty. The dawn of democracy in the country in 1994, and the subsequent <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/1995/3.html">abolition of the death penalty in South Africa</a>, saw his death sentence commuted to <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2022/11/22/south-africa-janusz-walus-killer-of-anti-apartheid-leader-chris-hani-to-be-released-on-par//">life in prison</a> in 2000.</p>
<p>As fate would have it, a decision by <a href="https://www.supremecourtofappeal.org.za/index.php/component/jdownloads/send/38-judgments-2022/3920-national-commissioner-of-correctional-services-and-another-v-democratic-alliance-and-others-with-south-african-institute-of-race-relations-intervening-as-amicus-curiae-33-2022-2022-zasca-159-21-november-2022?Itemid=0">the Supreme Court of Appeal</a> revoked the medical parole of Jacob Zuma, the third democratically elected president, on the same day as the Walus decision. Zuma had been sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment <a href="https://cdn.24.co.za/files/Cms/General/d/11313/b8ee947ddd3e4a79a0cc5dcfa6f4abfd.pdf">for contempt of court</a> by the Constitutional Court – the same court which now ordered Walus’ release. This added more controversy to an already tense situation. </p>
<p>Unlike Walus, who killed a prominent anti-apartheid hero, and whose release has been considered a threat to political stability in the country all these years, Zuma is considered a liberation struggle hero by millions in the country. There was <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-deadly-july-2021-riots-may-recur-if-theres-no-change-186397">deadly unrest in July 2021</a> after he was jailed.</p>
<p>Against this background, we argue that the Constitutional Court’s decision to release Walus was legally sound. But it could have done a better job of communicating its decision sensitively.</p>
<p>These two opposing parole decisions have the potential to result in societal instability caused by those who feel – understandably – aggrieved by both decisions.</p>
<h2>Zuma and Walus parole decisions</h2>
<p>The decisions have also created wrong perceptions of the fairness of the application of the law. The Constitutional Court has been accused of being an <a href="https://twitter.com/EFFSouthAfrica/status/1594707886336352257/photo/1">“instrument that reinforces white supremacy”</a>. A <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/saturday-star/news/janusz-walus-parole-is-justice-served-after-three-decades-behind-bars-27f76ac4-0aa8-4b40-bdd7-2db6d1a530df">poll</a> by the national television channel Newzroom Afrika found that 41.8% of the people surveyed felt that Walus’ release was “a great injustice” and 32.7% felt that “the family were let down”. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2022-11-21-sending-zuma-back-to-jail-serves-no-rehabilitation-purpose-eff/">A number of arguments</a> question the rationality of the Supreme Court judgement on Zuma. Some wondered what purpose it would serve to send an 80-year-old man back to jail. Others argued that it would be good for the stability of the country if he were sent back to jail because Zuma had blatantly ignored the legitimacy of South Africa’s justice system. He had ignored a court order to testify at the Zondo inquiry into corruption and state capture during his presidency and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africas-top-court-says-ex-leader-zuma-contempt-absences-2021-06-29/">was sentenced to 15 months in prison</a>. </p>
<p>Furthermore, all those South Africans who revere Zuma might reason that his medical parole should not have been revoked as his offence was much less egregious than Walus’ crime.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Walus, whose crime nearly derailed negotiations on democracy, benefits not once but twice from South Africa’s democratic dispensation. Firstly, his death sentence was commuted because the constitution grants everyone the right to life. Secondly, he walks free because the courts uphold the rule of law above anything. </p>
<p>It’s clear from reading the Constitutional Court judgement that the court meticulously applied South African law that regulates parole for offenders – the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/a111-98.pdf">Correctional Services Act 111</a> of 1998, the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201505/act-8-1959.pdf">Correctional Services Act 8 of 1959</a> (dealing with people who were sentenced before the new parole dispensation became effective) and the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/1977-051.pdf">Criminal Procedure Act 51</a> of 1977. </p>
<p>Law professor Jamil Mujuzi has aptly explained <a href="https://theconversation.com/janusz-walus-and-parole-for-prisoners-serving-life-sentences-in-south-africa-the-weaknesses-of-the-courts-decision-195403?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1669831920">South Africa’s parole system for prisoners serving a life sentence</a>. The relevant legislation fully adheres to the internationally recognised principle that criminal law is not retroactive.</p>
<p>In adhering so closely to the parole laws, the Constitutional Court has demonstrated that applying the rule of law is its main concern. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/janusz-walus-and-parole-for-prisoners-serving-life-sentences-in-south-africa-the-weaknesses-of-the-courts-decision-195403">Janusz Walus and parole for prisoners serving life sentences in South Africa: the weaknesses of the court's decision</a>
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<p><a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/general-council-of-the-bar-calls-on-south-africans-to-respect-rule-of-law-amid-outcry-over-ruling-to-free-hani-killer-janusz-walus-on-parole-193110c9-976a-48e9-9c23-bca55ca031e0">All South Africans</a> should agree that the rule of law should always prevail in the courts. Any deviation could have had wide repercussions for the application of the law.</p>
<h2>What the Constitutional Court could have done differently</h2>
<p>However, the court could have communicated its reasons in a more compassionate way. As Arthur Dobrin, Professor Emeritus of University Studies, Hofstra University, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/am-i-right/201108/why-the-law-cant-do-without-compassion">wrote</a>:</p>
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<p>Law is rooted in ethics and the impetus for ethics is empathy. </p>
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<p>In order to speak to the public and serve society, the courts have to show compassion. This might have made the impact of the decision feel less extreme to those who feel that justice was not served. </p>
<p>In line with the age-old proverb that <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1326348/">justice is blind</a>, judges in the democratic world tend to apply the law without fear or favour or allowing any emotions which could potentially cloud their judgements. This maxim ensures that the law is applied in an impartial way.</p>
<p>Some situations, however, require judges to give more attention to the potential societal consequences of their decisions. These situations require judges to show a sense of <a href="https://scholarship.law.uc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1166&context=uclr">empathy during adjudication</a>.</p>
<p>It can safely, and with respect, be argued that all 11 members of the Constitutional Court knew that a decision to release Walus on parole would be very painful to millions of South Africans. Thus, the court should have prepared better and more empathetic ways to communicate the reasons for its decision, as many South Africans are not well versed in the law. </p>
<p>It could have explained more simply the laws applicable to Walus’ position and the reasons why he qualified for parole. </p>
<p>This would have given the public a much clearer understanding of how the court came to its decision, and what considerations it had given to public opinion.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the court could have allowed the Hani family a more visible platform through a victim impact statement. This would have stated their position on the granting of the parole. The statement could have been made part of the main judgement. </p>
<p>As argued by Wits University honorary professor <a href="https://obiter.mandela.ac.za/article/view/12327">Monde Makiwane</a>, it is long overdue for South Africa to embrace victim impact statements in its criminal justice system. </p>
<p>Even though the Hani family would not have agreed with the court, at least the public would have seen that everything was done to get the family involved. Perception can have real impact and greater involvement of the family might have softened the blow.</p>
<p><em>This article was co-authored with Sasha-Lee Stephanie Afrika (LLD), Attorney of the High Court of South Africa and former lecturer at Stellenbosch University and University of Johannesburg.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196055/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The court should have given the public a much clearer understanding of how it came to its decision, and what consideration it had given to public opinion.Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann, Professor in Law and Co-Convener National Security Hub (University of Canberra) and Research Fellow (adjunct) - The Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa, Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University- NATO Fellow Asia-Pacific, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1959492022-12-07T14:39:13Z2022-12-07T14:39:13ZWhat is RET and what does it want? The Radical Economic Transformation faction in South Africa explained<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499500/original/file-20221207-3544-nqjswm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Loyalists of the ANC's Radical Economic Transformation (RET) at the Olive Convention Centre in Durban. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rajesh Jantilal/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been standard for some years, in any analysis of South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), to refer to the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2022-01-11-the-ret-faction-wants-total-control-of-everything-in-the-state-and-society-as-an-end-in-itself/">“radical economic transformation”</a> (RET) faction. Yet, there has been little serious analysis of what it is. </p>
<p>The RET is difficult to define. It has no clear shape, leadership, membership, rules or policies. It is rather an aggregation of the aggrieved and aspirant within the ANC, linked by a set of broadly shared attitudes towards the state and power. Nor, in conventional terms, is the faction particularly “radical”. The “economic transformation” it seeks is the displacement of white racial domination, rather than the overturn of capitalism.</p>
<p>Despite its vagueness, the RET has become central to the contemporary ANC. It is destined to remain a powerful bloc within the party, and under President Cyril Ramaphosa, a constant constraint on his leadership and any effort to reform the economy and promote clean governance. For that reason, it needs to be understood.</p>
<h2>Growth and composition</h2>
<p>Its origins lie in the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/zuma-like-a-tsunami-wave-20050307">“tsunami wave”</a> which led to the defeat of Thabo Mbeki as ANC president <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2007-12-18-zuma-is-new-anc-president/">in 2007 by Jacob Zuma</a>, followed by Zuma’s elevation as state president in 2009. During Zuma’s presidency (<a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/jacob-gedleyihlekisa-zuma-mr">9 May 2009 – 14 February 2018</a>), the RET faction overlapped heavily with his support base, which was drawn heavily from KwaZulu-Natal, his home province. Yet it was also closely aligned to ANC heavyweights in the other provinces, notably those dominated by the then <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/news/anc-suspensions-death-of-the-premier-league-9492a864-f3f0-4792-a94a-7c6a9080a0e6">“premier league”</a> – provincial premiers in three mainly rural provinces Mpumalanga, Free State and North West. Simultaneously it drew heavily on the support of black business lobbies doing business with the state, notably at provincial and local government levels. </p>
<p>By implication, the RET faction was often implicated in the corrupt practices referred to as <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/state-capture-report-public-protector-14-october-2016">“state capture”</a>. Yet there was more to it than that. While various “Indian” business people who were tied to Zuma, especially in KwaZulu-Natal, were on the periphery of the RET, the faction itself was largely Africanist politically, protesting a continuation of white power under a veil of democracy.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/factionalism-and-corruption-could-kill-the-anc-unless-it-kills-both-first-116924">Factionalism and corruption could kill the ANC -- unless it kills both first</a>
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<p>The faction also drew energy from black professionals fighting against what they depicted as white domination of their professional spheres, and the radical black student lobbies which emerged during the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvmd84n8?turn_away=true">“RhodesMustFall”</a> and <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/south-africa-student-protests-explained/">“Fees must fall”</a> protest waves of the late Zuma period. </p>
<p>By the time of the <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/anc54-breaking-ramaphosa-elected-anc-president-12453127">December 2017 ANC elective conference</a>, the RET faction was strongly anti-Cyril Ramaphosa and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-ramaphosas-victory-mean-for-south-africas-economy-89420">pro-Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma</a> in the race for the ANC presidency. The narrowness of Dlamini-Zuma’s defeat has provided it with a strong oppositional presence within the ANC during the Ramaphosa presidency, hampering his efforts at reform. </p>
<h2>Understanding the RET faction</h2>
<p>If it is difficult to pin down who belongs to the RET, it is equally difficult to define what they want. Nonetheless, four broad themes emerge.</p>
<p>First, the motive behind the faction seems to be black economic empowerment, but not the empowerment originally envisaged by Thabo Mbeki with its carefully regulated industrial charters <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40283176#metadata_info_tab_contents">and targets</a>. The RET version was a generalised insistence that the state machinery (government departments, provincial and local administrations, and state-owned enterprises) be leveraged to allocate contracts to black businesses. </p>
<p>This is justified by attacks upon <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-monopoly-capital-good-politics-bad-sociology-worse-economics-77338">“white monopoly capital”</a>, arguing that the South African economy has changed very little since democracy in 1994, and that white business is covertly determined upon maintaining white power. </p>
<p>The second thrust, closely related to the first, is a generalised attack on the constitutional settlement of 1994-96. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-wrong-to-blame-south-africas-woes-on-mandelas-compromises-96062">“Mandela compromise”</a> is criticised as having done little to ease the poverty and unemployment of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/economic-policy-remains-hotly-contested-in-south-africa-this-detailed-history-shows-why-138378">black population</a>.</p>
<p>The RET is highly ambivalent about the constitution’s defence of property rights but has little respect for the other laws, rules and regulations which the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">constitution</a> puts in place. By implication, the judiciary is regarded as suspect, as its function is to <a href="https://theconversation.com/rule-of-law-in-south-africa-protects-even-those-who-scorn-it-175533">see that the constitution is enforced</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-the-anc-survive-the-end-of-south-africas-heroic-epoch-57256">Can the ANC survive the end of South Africa's heroic epoch?</a>
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<p>Third, an overlap with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which depicts itself as <a href="https://blackopinion.co.za/2019/12/30/the-effs-%EF%BB%BFmarxist-leninist-fanonist-thought-as-founded-by-mngxitama/">Marxist-Leninist-Fanonist</a>, sees the RET faction driving the call for the state to extend its right to the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-05-31-expropriation-without-compensation-anc-eff-toenadering-on-state-land-custodianship-its-all-about-the-politics/">compulsory expropriation of land</a>. The impetus comes from the fact that, despite the government’s programme of land reform, a hugely disproportionate amount of land suitable for agriculture remains in <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201802/landauditreport13feb2018.pdf">white hands</a>. The faction, like the EFF, appears to admire the Zimbabwean land reforms of the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14725843.2022.2032591?journalCode=cafi20">early 2000s</a>, which saw mass expropriation of white farms, but rarely advocates this openly.</p>
<p>Fourth, the RET faction is a strong supporter of state enterprises. Although the faction would not object to the transfer of state enterprises into black hands, privatisation is feared as likely to result in acquisition of state businesses by white companies. </p>
<p>In any case, the RET faction is heavily embedded within the state owned enterprises. Their operatives allocate valuable contracts to black <a href="https://www.gov.za/tenderpreneurship-stuff-crooked-cadres-fighters">“tenderpreneurs”</a> – business people who feed on government contracts. By implication, it is opposed to all versions of “structural reform” touted by the Ramaphosa government and lobbies attached to “big business”.</p>
<h2>What the RET faction wants</h2>
<p>Trying to work out precisely what the RET faction wants is difficult because it has <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/the-ret-manifesto">no agreed manifesto</a>. However, three problems stand out:</p>
<p>First, it remains unclear what the RET faction would put in place of the existing constitution. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-insists-its-still-a-political-vanguard-this-is-what-ails-democracy-in-south-africa-141938">The ANC insists it's still a political vanguard: this is what ails democracy in South Africa</a>
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<p>Should the constitution be reworked, and if so, how? What are the specific flaws in the constitution as it stands? For the moment, all we are left with are generalised attacks on the judiciary for individual judgements the RET dislikes, demands for changes of the expropriation clause in the constitution, and so on.</p>
<p>Second, the RET faction has no general plan for land reform. Crucially, it ignores the increasing domination of agriculture by <a href="https://theconversation.com/land-reform-in-south-africa-is-failing-ignoring-the-realities-of-rural-life-plays-a-part-190452">huge agri-businesses</a>.</p>
<p>These mega-firms are hugely complex operations. It is one thing to expropriate small white farms; quite another to engage in a battle with huge corporations which probably incorporate foreign as well as local ownership. And what would happen to food production if the state were to take them over?</p>
<p>Third, it is common knowledge that South Africa’s parastatals are failing. <a href="https://mybroadband.co.za/news/investing/461772-eskoms-failure-in-four-charts.html">Eskom</a>, the power utility, can’t deliver enough electricity and is burdened by <a href="https://mg.co.za/business/2022-10-26-mtbs-government-to-take-a-chunk-of-eskoms-debt/">unpayable debt</a>. <a href="https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/transnet-decline-inside-business-big-battle-for-private-rail-20221129">Transnet</a>, the transport parastatal, is in chaos, unable to maintain infrastructure needed for business to operate efficiently. The public railway system is a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60202570">shambles</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-oldest-surviving-party-the-anc-has-an-achilles-heel-its-broken-branch-structure-150210">Africa's oldest surviving party – the ANC – has an Achilles heel: its broken branch structure</a>
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<p>South African Airways, the national airline, has collapsed financially and is being propped up by <a href="https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/the-days-of-bailouts-are-gone-saa-to-start-flying-ahead-of-takatso-deal-20210922">state funding</a>. The Post Office is <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2022-10-05-ag-highlights-sapo-mess-as-it-faces-collapse/">unable to deliver the post</a>. The reasons for these failures are many, ranging from the ANC’s systematic undervaluation of technical ability to run complex operations, its <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">political deployment strategy</a>, and the mass looting of state bodies that took place <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-state-capture-commission-nears-its-end-after-four-years-was-it-worth-it-182898">under Zuma</a>. </p>
<p>Turnaround strategies have failed. The difficult question for the RET (and the ANC at large) is: if not privatisation, then what?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195949/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite its vagueness, the RET has become central to the contemporary ANC. It is destined to remain a powerful bloc within the party, and a constant constraint on Ramaphosa leadership.Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1951212022-11-30T10:23:35Z2022-11-30T10:23:35ZSouth Africa’s intelligence watchdog is failing civil society. How to restore its credibility<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497634/original/file-20221128-24-9qqv73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In October, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa and his cabinet <a href="https://www.stateofthenation.gov.za/assets/downloads/State%20Capture%20Commission%20Response.pdf">committed</a> to a range of reforms to the country’s intelligence services. He based these reforms on <a href="http://www.saflii.org/images/state-capture-commission-report-part-5-vol1.pdf">recommendations</a> made by the judicial commission of inquiry into state capture.</p>
<p>The reforms include strengthening the <a href="https://static.pmg.org.za/docs/120224oversight_0.PDF">office</a> of the inspector general of intelligence. The office’s task is to monitor the crime intelligence division of the <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/about/stratframework/annual_report/2008_2009/7_prg4_crime_intelligence.pdf">police</a>, the <a href="https://www.ssa.gov.za/">State Security Agency</a>, and the intelligence division of the <a href="https://sadf.info/MiliaryIntelligenceIntroduction.html">national defence force</a>. </p>
<p>The president has since <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/president-appoints-mr-imtiaz-fazel-inspector-general-intelligence">appointed</a> a new inspector general, Imtiaz Fazel, for five years. This could be a fresh start for this office after <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-01-23-state-intelligence-mess-how-the-sa-spy-watchdogs-teeth-have-been-pulled/">years of controversies</a> over its ineffectiveness as a spy watchdog.</p>
<p>I have researched intelligence and surveillance for over a decade and also served on the 2018 <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">High Level Review Panel on the State Security Agency</a>. The agency is supposed to alert the country to potential threats to national security.</p>
<p>In my view, the new inspector general needs to act urgently to restore the credibility of the office. This includes resolving a range of civil society complaints about alleged intelligence abuses. </p>
<h2>Structural problems</h2>
<p>The office was <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/committee-members-parliament-and-inspectors-general-intelligence-act">set up</a> through the 1994 Intelligence Services Oversight Act and had structural problems from the start. It lacks resources and independence. Also, a lot depends on the incumbent’s determination to hold the spy agencies to account. </p>
<p>As the previous inspector general, <a href="https://www.saiga.co.za/saiga/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Prof-Dr-Dintwe.pdf">Setlhomamaru Dintwe</a>, <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/site/files/transcript/409/Day_393_-_2021-05-12.pdf">admitted</a> at the state capture commission, the office could have done more to investigate the abuses <a href="http://www.saflii.org/images/state-capture-commission-report-part-5-vol1.pdf">aired</a> at the commission, within the available resources and powers.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/sandton-terror-alert-time-for-south-africa-to-improve-its-intelligence-sharing-channels-with-the-us-194542">Sandton terror alert: time for South Africa to improve its intelligence sharing channels with the US</a>
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<p>Had the office made findings on civil society complaints into suspected surveillance and interference with their activities, and acted on them, the agency might not have descended so far under <a href="https://theconversation.com/zondo-commissions-report-on-south-africas-intelligence-agency-is-important-but-flawed-186582">former president Jacob Zuma</a>. Some of these complaints are summarised below. </p>
<h2>Litany of abuses</h2>
<p>One example of an unsatisfactory investigation involves former journalist Tom Nkosi. <a href="https://www.r2k.org.za/wp-content/uploads/R2K-Surveillance-of-Journalists-Report-2018-web.pdf#page=27">He complained in 2015</a> to the inspector general that David Mabuza, the former premier of Mpumalanga province and now deputy president, had told him that the agency was spying on journalists. This claim appeared to be confirmed by the agency’s spokesperson.</p>
<p>Nkosi asked the inspector general to investigate whether he was under unlawful surveillance. Seven years later, Nkosi said he had not received a formal response. He insisted to me that he still wanted accountability. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.southernafricalitigationcentre.org/">Southern African Litigation Centre</a>, an NGO that provides legal advice on human rights, and the <a href="https://www.r2k.org.za/">Right2Know Campaign</a> also wrote several letters to the inspector general’s office between 2015 and 2016. They also met the office.</p>
<p>In the words of Right2Know in a 2017 letter to the inspector general, these letters were about </p>
<blockquote>
<p>growing evidence that the national security apparatus of South Africa has adopted an increasingly hostile approach towards civil society organisations that legitimately challenge the decisions of the executive.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Right2Know requested an investigation into these matters, as well as incidents suggesting monitoring and harassment of civil society by intelligence operatives. It also asked the inspector general to investigate whether the spy agencies were intercepting the communications of its key members and supporters. This request remained unresolved. In a letter dated 2018, through its attorneys, the Legal Resources Centre, Right2Know expressed concern about the inadequacies of the investigation. </p>
<p>The Legal Resources Centre says it has not heard anything further from the inspector general on this aspect of the complaint.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/zondo-commissions-report-on-south-africas-intelligence-agency-is-important-but-flawed-186582">Zondo Commission's report on South Africa's intelligence agency is important but flawed</a>
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<p>Mark Heywood, from the public interest law centre Section 27, also requested an investigation into a <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2015-06-23-when-attacking-ngos-the-government-is-rendering-the-poor-invisible/">media report</a> that security cluster ministers were probing five civil society organisations. This was after the Southern African Litigation Centre <a href="https://www.southernafricalitigationcentre.org/2016/11/18/south-africasudan-case-challenging-the-states-failure-to-implement-the-icc-arrest-warrant-for-sudanese-president-al-bashir/">took the government to court</a> for failing to arrest then-president of Sudan Omar al-Bashir, who had an International Criminal Court arrest warrant on him.</p>
<p>The media report <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2015-06-23-when-attacking-ngos-the-government-is-rendering-the-poor-invisible/">quoted</a> an ANC source stating that these organisations were fronts for western powers meddling in domestic affairs. Despite assurances that the inspector general had investigated the matter, Heywood and the Southern African Litigation Centre say they are still waiting for a formal response.</p>
<h2>Substantial complaints</h2>
<p>There are very real risks of people burdening the inspector general with paranoid, ill-founded complaints that they are being spied on. But the civil society complaints were substantial.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">High-Level Review Panel</a> found that the State Security Agency’s “special operations unit” had put Right2Know and other civil society organisations, such as Greenpeace Africa, under surveillance. It had also planted agents in these organisations masquerading as activists. </p>
<p>The state capture commission has also declassified a <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-07-01-civil-society-organisations-release-boast-report-demand-accountability-for-rogue-spying/">“boast report”</a> detailing the special operations unit’s <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/580662166/Boast-Report#fullscreen&from_embed">successes</a> in monitoring and infiltrating civil society.</p>
<p>According to civil society complainants, the inspector general’s office often gave them verbal reports, but failed to follow through with formal findings. </p>
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<p>As a matter of principle, findings should be made public. Secrecy cannot be used to hide illegality. The most effective inspector general so far, Xolile Ngcakani (2004 to 2009), set a limited precedent when he released a <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/424117688/Executive-Summary-of-the-final-report-on-the-findings-of-an-investigation-into-the-legality-of-the-surveillance-operations-carried-out-by-the-NIA-on">summary of findings</a> on abuses in the then National Intelligence Agency in 2006.</p>
<p>If Fazel is going to make any mark as the new inspector general, he will have to confront the fact that the office has been failing civil society and, ultimately, South Africa. This failure could provide space for corrupt elements to repeat their abuses of the spy agencies. The agencies could, once again, become a threat to the very national security they are meant to protect.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195121/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Duncan receives funding from the Open Society Foundation and Luminate.</span></em></p>The spy watchdog needs to make its findings on complaints against the country’s intelligence agencies public as a matter of principle.Jane Duncan, Professor of Digital Society, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1953902022-11-25T21:26:17Z2022-11-25T21:26:17ZHow to impeach a president: Ramaphosa case puts new rules to the test in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497400/original/file-20221125-14071-mujdhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cyril Ramaphosa</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Xabiso Mkhabela/Xinhua via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/news/atm-welcomes-impeachment-process-against-ramaphosa-98e69a75-5a82-4f79-9063-9b98cdf5fd1f">faces possible impeachment</a> in the country’s parliament over the illegal stashing of thousands of US dollars at his farm <a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosa-scandal-looks-set-to-intensify-the-ancs-slide-ushering-in-a-new-era-of-politics-185719">in 2020</a>. This is not the first time there’s been a threat of impeachment of a president in post-democratic South Africa. His scandal-prone predecessor, Jacob Zuma, <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/south-african-president-jacob-zuma-defeats-impeachment-vote-1339127">survived an impeachment vote in 2017</a> over the illegal use of public money to renovate his private residence. There is, however, a difference in the process being followed this time. It is the first since parliament adopted rules to guide the process for the impeachment of a president in 2018, following a Constitutional Court <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2017/47.html">judgment</a>. Richard Calland explains.</em></p>
<h2>First steps</h2>
<p>This is the first time a process of a motion being tabled and an independent panel being established has been used. That alone makes it a very significant moment. How the panel interprets and then applies “the law” will set an important precedent. It may be subject to judicial review, especially if the panel finds that there is insufficient evidence for the impeachment process to proceed to a full parliamentary inquiry. </p>
<p>The process is triggered when a party with parliamentary representation tables a motion in the National Assembly requesting impeachment.</p>
<p>In this instance, this was done by a small party with <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/national-assembly">only two seats</a>, the African Transformation Movement (<a href="https://www.pa.org.za/organisation/atm/">ATM</a>), in terms of section 89 of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996">constitution</a>. </p>
<p>Section 89 is one of two parliamentary routes by which a sitting president (or their government) can be removed from office. The other is in terms of section 102 of the constitution, which is a vote of no confidence – a purely political, and, therefore, subjective matter. Several such motions of no confidence were tabled against Jacob Zuma, but he survived them all, as the ruling <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/African-National-Congress">African National Congress</a> whip held the line. </p>
<p>Section 89 contains three specific grounds for “impeachment” (although the section does not use the word). The National Assembly may remove the president from office (with a supporting vote of at least two thirds of its members), only when the president: </p>
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<li><p>has committed a serious violation of the constitution or law </p></li>
<li><p>has committed serious misconduct </p></li>
<li><p>or suffers from an inability to perform the functions of office. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The fact that this is a parliamentary process, triggered by a particular section 89 motion, and that it requires an objective test to be met, is of very great significance because it requires that an evidence-based finding be made in relation to one or other of the three grounds. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-11-22-house-approves-rules-on-impeaching-a-president/">new rules</a> now provide for a two-stage process to establish whether such evidence exists to justify the removal of the president from office. </p>
<p>The first step is that after the motion has been tabled in parliament, the National Assembly must set up a panel to conduct a “preliminary enquiry relating to a motion proposing a section 89 enquiry.”</p>
<p>The underlying purpose of the panel is to prevent spurious or vexatious impeachment attempts to proceed without any proper evidential basis. </p>
<p>Accordingly, the panel must be composed of “three fit and proper, competent, experienced and respected South Africans, which may include a judge, and who collectively possess the necessary legal competence and experience.” </p>
<p>Parties represented in parliament can nominate people to serve on the panel, whereafter the Speaker of the National Assembly makes the appointment. In this case, the Speaker has appointed former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo as the chair.</p>
<p>The motion tabled by the African Transformation Movement seeking Ramaphosa’s impeachment, as leading law reporter Franny Rabkin <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/opinion-and-analysis/insight/2022-11-20-an-impeachment-case-to-answer-for-phala-phala-saga/">has pointed out</a>, provides tramlines within which the panel must stay when performing its mandate. This limits the evidence and the allegations that the panel is authorised to consider. </p>
<p>The motion is relatively limited in its target area. It confines itself to the specifics of the mysterious theft of money at Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm, and his immediate response to the theft. </p>
<p>Hence, <a href="https://www.concourt.org.za/index.php/judges/former-judges/11-former-judges/66-chief-justice-sandile-ngcobo">Ngcobo</a> is likely to be fastidious with regard to confining the panel’s deliberations. Any evidence or allegation relating to a matter not rooted in the original motion is likely to be disregarded. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosa-scandal-looks-set-to-intensify-the-ancs-slide-ushering-in-a-new-era-of-politics-185719">Ramaphosa scandal looks set to intensify the ANC's slide, ushering in a new era of politics</a>
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<p>The panel’s overriding legal responsibility is <em>not</em> to determine whether there is a “prima facie” case – meaning that “at face value” there would appear to be a case to answer. Rather, it is whether there is “sufficient evidence” of one or other of the three grounds for removal from office set out in section 89. </p>
<p>In this case, the third ground – incapacity – does not arise. Instead, the question for the panel is whether there is sufficient evidence of serious misconduct or a serious violation of the law. </p>
<p>The word “serious” here is very significant. If Ramaphosa has broken the law or behaved inappropriately or unwisely in his response to the theft, that will not be enough to meet the test, unless it is “serious”. </p>
<h2>A high bar</h2>
<p>It seems to me that the test of “sufficient evidence” is a subtle but qualitatively higher one than “prima facie”, because the panel is required to consider the evidence presented by the African Transformation Movement and then the president’s response, and to make a finding. </p>
<p>In turn, this means that the chair of the panel and his two colleagues face a rather tricky task because the rules place severe limits on the scope of their investigation. </p>
<p>What the rules say is “in considering the matter” <a href="https://pmg.org.za/tabled-committee-report/3467/">the panel</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>may, in its sole discretion, afford any member an opportunity to place relevant written or recorded information before it within a specific timeframe.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is clear that the panel has done this, and that the African Transformation Movement, at least, has responded by placing what they claim is <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/news/atm-to-supplement-its-impeachment-motion-4c57ac76-3f6e-41f0-9419-700c7d0b31a2">further evidence</a> before the panel. But unless it is relevant to the motion, and falls within the tramlines that it set, the other, extraneous evidence will and should be disregarded by the panel. </p>
<p>Having sought evidence from members of parliament – this being a parliamentary process – the panel has also been required to give the president an opportunity to respond. This may explain the delay in the panel concluding its work and the need for a two week extension to <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/news/phala-phala-deadline-extended-november-2022/">30 November</a>. </p>
<p>After that date, parliament has rightly <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/press-releases/national-assembly-consider-independent-panel-report-6-december">postponed rising for the year</a> so that the panel’s report can be debated in early December. </p>
<p>The report is required to make findings and provide reasons for its conclusion, but it can only do so based on the written evidence adduced before it. </p>
<h2>Implications</h2>
<p>Given the threshold test that the rules establish for the performance of its mandate, it is more likely than not that the panel will determine that there is not sufficient evidence. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-president-cyril-ramaphosas-credibility-has-been-dented-putting-his-reform-agenda-in-jeopardy-189802">South African president Cyril Ramaphosa’s credibility has been dented, putting his reform agenda in jeopardy</a>
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<p>Even then, the words the panel uses will be weighed heavily in the balance politically. At the very least, a lot more information is going to be in the public domain about the curious events of that February night in 2020 at the president’s farm, and how he handled the matter.</p>
<p>It could have enormous implications, not just for Ramaphosa’s immediate political future and as well as his long-term legacy, but for constitutional accountability in South Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195390/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Calland is employed by the University of Cape Town, is a member of the Advisory Council for the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, and is a partner in political risk consultancy The Paternoster Group. </span></em></p>The new process of impeachment requires an objective test to be met.Richard Calland, Associate Professor in Public Law, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1942962022-11-17T14:11:11Z2022-11-17T14:11:11ZSouth Africa needs strategic leadership to weather its storms. Its presidents have not been up to the task<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495594/original/file-20221116-22-xqzgnr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C37%2C1778%2C1197&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's democratic era presidents, Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Kgalema Motlanthe, Jacob Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penguin Random House South Africa</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa is in a state of crisis. Its current reality is necessarily shaped by historical events, not least the outcomes of the political settlement process that led to the end of apartheid <a href="https://www.britannica.com/question/How-did-apartheid-end">in 1994</a>.</p>
<p>Unlike other countries in southern Africa, where political independence came after gruesome liberation wars, the leaders of the African National Congress (<a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/">ANC</a>), which led the liberation struggle and has been the governing party since 1994 – alongside other political and social movements – managed to negotiate a transition to democracy. There were many “wins”, including assent to the election of a majority-led government and the enactment of policies that would ensure broad-based <a href="http://www.thedtic.gov.za/financial-and-non-financial-support/b-bbee/broad-based-black-economic-empowerment/">economic transformation</a>.</p>
<p>This transition may be seen as a point in history where the nation navigated one of its greatest crises. But its current leadership is confronted with multiple challenges. These range from <a href="https://databankfiles.worldbank.org/data/download/poverty/33EF03BB-9722-4AE2-ABC7-AA2972D68AFE/Global_POVEQ_ZAF.pdf">extreme poverty</a> and high <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0211/Media%20release%20QLFS%20Q2%202022.pdf">unemployment</a> to the severe undermining of democratic institutions by <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">corruption and state capture</a>. </p>
<p>These “wicked problems” are so difficult and complex that there is no single, silver-bullet answer. There is only a range of clumsy solutions, all of which are imperfect. The policy-making puzzle, therefore, is as much about recognising the nature of the problem as seeking to mitigate risks. </p>
<p>Our new <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/presidents-mandela-ramaphosa-leadership-age-crisis/9781776095940">book</a>, The Presidents: From Mandela to Ramaphosa, Leadership in an Age of Crisis, assessed the leadership of South Africa’s five post-apartheid presidents – <a href="https://www.eisa.org/wep/souoverview8.htm">Nelson Mandela</a>, <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/former-president-thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki">Thabo Mbeki</a>, <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/node/111">Kgalema Motlanthe</a>, <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">Jacob Zuma</a> and <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-cyril-ramaphosa%3A-profile">Cyril Ramaphosa</a>. We wanted to see what lessons can be learned, especially in relation to their strategic abilities. Strategy is one of the critical leadership attributes necessary to cope with the strong headwinds that leaders often encounter.</p>
<p>We concluded that there has been a shortage of truly strategic leadership in South Africa in this period, with a few exceptions. Thus, the country has been unable to grapple with the underlying structural problems that are the fundamental cause of its socio-economic precarity. </p>
<h2>Strategic thinking</h2>
<p>What do we mean by “strategy”? Here we defer to former UK member of parliament and now (UK) Times columnist <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/profile/matthew-parris?page=1">Matthew Parris</a>. He says,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>although the meaning has become diluted through promiscuous and often inappropriate use … strategy remains the best word we have for expressing attempts to think about actions in advance, in the light of our goals and capacities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many leaders, governments and organisations confuse planning with strategy. So this is an apt consideration to keep in mind: have South Africa’s post-1994 presidents addressed the fundamental question of what is wrong with the society and its economy, in a strategic way? </p>
<p>Here’s how the country’s five post-apartheid presidents have fared on strategy.</p>
<h2>Five different styles</h2>
<p>Mandela, the first president of a democratic South Africa, made big strategic choices – not necessarily the right ones, but certainly ones that were befitting of the times. </p>
<p>A primary strategy choice faced Mandela at the very advent of the democratic era. He opted for national reconciliation as his political motif. It was strategic in the sense that the alternative was to drive a strong transformational agenda without seeking to get the powerful and privileged white minority on board. </p>
<p>Crudely put, he could have opted for redemption and even revenge, rather than reconciliation. </p>
<p>This was accompanied by a deep personal commitment to the rule of law and constitutionalism. He used his presidential power to drive that message and execute that strategy, leaving the detail of management of policy and government to his number two, Thabo Mbeki.</p>
<p>The transition from his government’s Reconstruction and Development Programme (<a href="https://www.gov.za/faq/finance-business/where-do-i-get-copy-reconstruction-and-development-programme-rdp">RDP</a>) to the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (<a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/growth-employment-and-redistribution-macroeconomic-strategy-south-africa-gear">GEAR</a>) macroeconomic strategy is another debatable case in point. </p>
<p>The RDP was the ANC government-in-waiting’s flagship programme for socio-economic transformation. It was an essentially Keynesian public investment-focused plan for improving public services such as housing, healthcare and electricity to the black majority. The shift to GEAR was deeply contested. Left-of-centre commentators and players within the broader ANC-led alliance saw it as a neo-liberal approach to fiscal and monetary policy that would constrain the government’s ability to drive redistribution of wealth and opportunity. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495318/original/file-20221115-16-v7q0ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495318/original/file-20221115-16-v7q0ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495318/original/file-20221115-16-v7q0ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495318/original/file-20221115-16-v7q0ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495318/original/file-20221115-16-v7q0ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495318/original/file-20221115-16-v7q0ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495318/original/file-20221115-16-v7q0ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>When his turn came as president (1999-2008), Mbeki strove to step up to the strategic standards that Mandela had set. His <a href="https://theconversation.com/mbekis-dream-of-africas-renaissance-belied-south-africas-schizophrenia-58311">vision for Africa</a>, in which Africans would take control of their destiny, was strategic. So was his determination to confront the <a href="http://www.dirco.gov.za/docs/speeches/1998/mbek0529.htm">“two nations”</a> problem – one prosperous and white, the other poor and black. </p>
<p>The shift to GEAR was executed with strategic purpose and an iron fist. There were negative consequences, especially in the long term. But few, if any, big strategic choices can be win-win; there will invariably be a downside. The question is whether the leader understands and then confronts the dilemma, and in doing so can articulate the upside and recognise its intrinsic value, one that justifies the downside. </p>
<p>Mbeki was a flawed visionary. His legacy is scarred by his inexplicable <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-mbekis-character-and-his-aids-denialism-are-intimately-linked-54766">lack of judgment on HIV/AIDS</a>, and his stubborn refusal to accept that his government should provide antiretroviral treatment. </p>
<p>Motlanthe, who succeeded him, in his modest way, also recognised the strategic imperative of his short, caretaker time as president – (<a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/former-president-kgalema-motlanthe">25 September 2008 to 9 May 2009</a>): to consolidate authority in democratic government and to stabilise an unstable body politic in the context of the palace coup that had taken place within the ANC. </p>
<p>Even Zuma, his successor, in his own mendacious and deviously self-serving way, had strategic intent: to <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">capture the state</a> for venal personal gain. He executed it with a ruthless sense of purpose.</p>
<p>Current president Cyril Ramaphosa appears to be the least strategic of them all. His failure to grasp the strategic nettles inhibits his presidency. On issues such as the transition away from coal, the government stake in state-owned enterprises or the need for a basic income grant, Ramaphosa has dithered, seeking to wait until sufficient consensus has formed or putting in place cumbersome consultation processes, before reaching a clear decision. </p>
<p>He gets things done; he gets there in the end, but his design and use of process is that of a master tactician, not a strategist. He has not risen to the leadership heights required by the gravity of the historical moment. This requires leadership that would unshackle government from the congealing embrace of the ruling ANC and its fractious factions. A leader who would rise above the daily throng to inspire ordinary citizens with a compelling narrative of hope and change, underpinned by iron determination to take brave decisions and to execute them with a sense of purpose and urgent expedition. </p>
<h2>Circling the problem</h2>
<p>The crises that confronted these five presidents have been very different, with varying levels of intensity and composition. Each has faced big challenges, that could inevitably not be resolved only by their executive office. Undoubtedly, part of strategic and visionary leadership is the ability to identify existing and potential allies who are willing to invest what is required to drive a transformative agenda. </p>
<p>All have responded to “what went wrong”. But, because of limitations to their strategic leadership, none has fully met the challenge of confronting “what is wrong” head-on. Their ability to address the question of “what is wrong” has been constrained by the very real demands to put out fires, and keeping the boat afloat without an eye on the navigation system. And where they have focused on navigating the rough seas to get to the destination of a more equal, inclusive South Africa, the vessels of governance with a mandate to steward these transitions have not always delivered.</p>
<p>Mandela, Mbeki and now Ramaphosa have circled the problem (while Zuma weakened the state’s capability). But perhaps because it is such a wicked problem, and the structural difficulties run so deep, they have failed to define a strategic course that would confront the underlying structural conditions, consigning South Africa to an uncertain and worrisome future. </p>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from the authors’ <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/presidents-mandela-ramaphosa-leadership-age-crisis/9781776095940">new book</a> The Presidents: From Mandela to Ramaphosa, Leadership in an Age of Crisis</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194296/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Calland is employed by the University of Cape Town, is a Fellow of the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, is a partner of political risk consultancy The Paternoster Group, and serves as a member of the Advisory Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC).
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mabel Dzinouya Sithole is employed by the University of Cape Town, contributes regularly to policy advocacy with the Southern African Liaison Office, and other civil society organisations in the region. She advises organisations such as the Ford Foundation on the design of leadership development programmes in Africa and across the globe. </span></em></p>Mandela, the first president of a democratic South Africa, made big strategic choices – not necessarily the right ones, but certainly ones that were befitting of the times.Richard Calland, Associate Professor in Public Law, University of Cape TownMabel Dzinouya Sithole, Programme Officer - Building Bridges, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1902762022-09-08T15:35:10Z2022-09-08T15:35:10ZSouth Africa’s Jacob Zuma is taking a top reporter to court. The verdict could affect journalists’ rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483516/original/file-20220908-9455-64ycem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former South African president Jacob Zuma appearing in the Pietermaritzburg High Court in 2020 on charges of corruption.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Kim Ludbrook/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African journalism organisations this week <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/3191443/sanef-zuma-private-prosecution-media-freedom/">rallied around</a> well-known journalist Karyn Maughan when former president Jacob Zuma initiated <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/breaking-zuma-charges-downer-news24-journalist-in-private-prosecution-over-medical-records-20220906">a private prosecution against her</a>.</p>
<p>Zuma faces <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/jacob-zuma-corruption-charges-south-africa-president-arms-deal-a8291826.html">16 counts of corruption</a> for taking a monthly payment of US$34,000 from French arms firm Thales while he was deputy president from 1999 and later president from 2009 to 2018. Thales was involved in South Africa’s massive arms purchase deal during that period.</p>
<p>Zuma had originally <a href="https://mg.co.za/news/2022-09-06-npa-supports-billy-downer-as-zuma-serves-summons/">laid charges</a> against the prosecutor in his corruption case, Billy Downer, for giving a medical certificate from the investigation to Maughan. When the police declined to prosecute Downer, Zuma initiated a case against both him and Maughan for disclosing the information.</p>
<p>Zuma’s supporters jumped on Maughan <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/other/ntsiki-slams-racist-journo-karyn-maughan-amid-zuma-legal-saga/ar-AA11AzXa?li=BBqfP3n">on social media</a>, lashing her – with some racist and misogynist language - for allegedly exposing Zuma’s medical records. </p>
<p>But the South African National Editors’ Forum <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/3191443/sanef-zuma-private-prosecution-media-freedom/">expressed</a> “disgust” at the serving of summons on Maughan. </p>
<p>It was “a clear case of intimidation solely intended to silence Maughan” as
the information “was of public record and not confidential”.</p>
<p>My own organisation, the Campaign for Free Expression, <a href="https://www.biznews.com/undictated/2022/09/07/karyn-maughan-private-prosecution">said</a> Zuma had “a pattern
of taking legal action against his media critics in an attempt to stifle scrutiny and criticism and to divert attention from and delay his own prosecution.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It should be seen for what it is: an attempt to make it risky for journalists to scrutinise him, and discourage critical journalism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Maughan’s case will be interesting and important, and is likely to go all the way to the Constitutional Court. It will test a journalist’s right to publish court material in the public interest.</p>
<p>What is at stake is more than her innocence or guilt: it is whether South Africans have an open court in which reporters can gather information, canvass all the parties and report freely on proceedings. And whether we can have swift justice and not allow for endless delays.</p>
<h2>What the law says</h2>
<p>The law is clear: it is illegal to disclose information that the prosecutor has as part of the investigation without permission of the office of the National Director of Public Prosecutions. It appears that Downer, without the necessary permission, told his colleagues to give the documents to Maughan under embargo, as they were due to be tabled in court and become part of the public record.</p>
<p>Maughan argues that she only published them after they were tabled in court, that neither party had applied for them to be sealed and there was nothing particularly sensitive about them. It was only a medical certificate, not his private records. </p>
<p>What she was doing was routine court reporting: getting information from the parties to the dispute, and publishing them in the public interest.</p>
<p>Why then has it caused such a rumpus? It is because of Zuma’s long use of what
has been called a Stalingrad defence: slow down proceedings and wear down the
other side by appealing every unfavourable ruling and using whatever other means possible to delay proceedings and divert attention from the core case.
So far, this has worked in his favour. Started in 2005, the case is still in its early stages. Now he is trying to have prosecutor Downer dismissed and is lashing out at the media at the same time.</p>
<p>But the courts and much of the public have grown tired of it. His supporters cheer him on, portraying him as a hapless victim of persecution and political conspiracy. And the courts under close scrutiny have to be meticulous to ensure that his rights are respected, even when this causes undue delay.</p>
<p>Zuma is trying to disrupt the process and to harass and intimidate prosecutors and journalists. He did not raise the matter with the media house that published her work, nor did he take her to the Press Council, the body that oversees journalism ethics.</p>
<p>He chose to label her a criminal who belongs in prison. A private prosecution against a journalist covering a person’s court case is unheard of in South Africa.</p>
<p>He is attempting to turn the contestation of a court hearing into an all-out war and chill those who pursue justice against him. He is trying to put the justice system and the media on trial, rather than himself.</p>
<p>The action against Maughan says more about Zuma and his lawyers than it does
about Maughan. It shows a contempt for democratic and court processes, as well as for journalists and their role in ensuring court cases are public, open events.</p>
<p>It demonstrates his willingness to attack whoever is in his way in his attempt to delay and divert attention from his own case. It reveals his capacity – Trump-like – to portray himself as the constant victim of conspiracies. That is why the community of journalists has rallied to Maughan’s defence. </p>
<p>The fight is not just to protect her, but to defend an open justice system, in which reporters play a key role.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190276/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anton Harber is a member of the SA National Editors' Forum (Sanef) and executive director of the Campaign for Free Expression.</span></em></p>Former South African president Zuma is trying to turn the contestation of a court hearing into an all-out war and chill those who pursue justice against him.Anton Harber, Caxton Professor of Journalism, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1895672022-08-30T13:44:25Z2022-08-30T13:44:25ZCorruption in South Africa: new book sets out how ruling ANC lost the battle<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481758/original/file-20220830-8742-ye9g6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">ANC supporters show support for corruption accused and suspended party secretary general Ace Magashule outside court in Bleomfontein.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Conrad Bornman</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the greatest benefits of South Africa’s democracy is freedom of speech and publication. Mpumelelo Mkhabela’s book, <a href="https://www.nb.co.za/en/view-book/?id=9780624091226">The Enemy Within</a>, is the latest in a cascade of publications over the last decade that record corruption and theft by leading politicians in the country’s ruling party.</p>
<p>In all too many countries in Africa and Asia a book like this would result in its author’s detention, censorship of the book, persecution of the publishers and printers, and harassment of bookshops that sold it. </p>
<p>South Africa is among a select group of democracies that permit such exposés. Books that have explored the deepening levels of corruption in the country include <a href="https://www.scribd.com/book/377308470/How-to-Steal-a-City-The-Battle-for-Nelson-Mandela-Bay-an-Inside-Account">How to Steal a City</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/How-Steal-Country-Capture-Future/dp/1785903616">How to Steal a Country</a>, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/gangster-state-unravelling-ace-magashule%E2%80%99s-web-capture/9781776093748">Gangster State</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/After-Party-Corruption-Africas-Uncertain/dp/1844676277">After the Party</a>. </p>
<p>The Enemy Within takes readers through a series of well-publicised corruption scandals. It argues that the African National Congress (ANC) lost the fight against corruption by tolerating corrupt practices, failing to hold the corrupt to account, and going as far as to shield them. The ANC has governed South Africa since the formal end of apartheid in 1994.</p>
<h2>Corruption scandals</h2>
<p>Mkhabela, a former newspaper editor, considers the ANC’s first big test of ethics – which it failed – was in 1996 when it expelled cabinet minister <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02426/05lv02516.htm">Bantu Holomisa</a> from the party. The reason was that he’d stated publicly that ANC cabinet minister <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/stella-margaret-nomzamo-sigcau">Stella Sigcau</a> had earlier in her career accepted a bribe.</p>
<p>The book then goes through other prominent cases of corruption. The scandals include the looting of VBS mutual bank, which involved “theft, abuse of power, robbing of the elderly, and even murder” (four members of the South African Municipal Workers’ Union were killed). (p.41)</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whistleblowers-in-south-africa-have-some-protection-but-gaps-need-fixing-183992">Whistleblowers in South Africa have some protection but gaps need fixing</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>There was the rare imprisonment of an ANC MP – Tony Yengeni, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/20/rorycarroll">in 2003</a>, for fraud and corruption. There was also the theft of public funds intended for a memorial service for Nelson Mandela. Then came the procurement by transport parastatal Transnet of locomotives that were too tall to be used on most of the country’s railway lines.</p>
<p>Jacob Zuma, then president, dismantled the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301275880_Countering_corruption_in_South_Africa_The_rise_and_fall_of_the_Scorpions_and_Hawks">Scorpions</a> police unit, which specialised in priority crimes. Public funds were misused for his private residence. The company <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/bosasa-group">Bosasa</a> allegedly greased the palms of ANC politicians in return for huge contracts with the prisons department. After a wave of Zuma appointments to the <a href="https://www.npa.gov.za/">National Prosecuting Authority</a>, the book says, the authority</p>
<blockquote>
<p>was clearly dancing to the tune of top ANC politicians. (p.123) </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The case of Jackie Selebi, the erstwhile head of police, shows two ANC failings. Mkhabela reminds readers of the lack of condemnation from the ANC when Selebi was convicted of corruption <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/world/africa/jackie-selebi-south-african-police-head-convicted-in-corruption-case-dies-at-64.html">in 2010</a>.</p>
<p>To this I would add a second point about cadre deployment: Selebi had no training or on the job experience in policing. Had he been kept in diplomatic postings, scandals would almost certainly never had occurred. </p>
<p>The ANC appears blind to this obvious point.</p>
<p>The robbing of funds for a Mandela memorial service reveals another surprising truth. These municipal funds had initially been earmarked to subsidise poor families (p.74) who could not afford municipal services such as water and electricity. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481757/original/file-20220830-18781-109am8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481757/original/file-20220830-18781-109am8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481757/original/file-20220830-18781-109am8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481757/original/file-20220830-18781-109am8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481757/original/file-20220830-18781-109am8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481757/original/file-20220830-18781-109am8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481757/original/file-20220830-18781-109am8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Most politicians would consider that invaluable for their subsequent electioneering. But politicians diverted or stole the funds. In short, so extreme was their personal greed that it even undermined their efficacy as politicians.</p>
<p>In summarising widespread corporate collusion with corruption, Mkhabela notes that companies hide bribes under the “cost of business” item in their balance sheets. (p.63) </p>
<p>Then there is the pattern of assassinations. </p>
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<p>Anyone who threatens to expose tender corruption risks being eliminated by hired hitmen. In some instances, once caught and convicted, the hitmen are even looked after in prison (p.67)</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>ANC leaders</h2>
<p>South Africa had</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a toxic mix of old money, businessmen eager to win favours from politicians, and political leaders ready to tackle anyone who dared make corruption claims against the party. (p.21)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>None of the ANC’s leaders have behaved well. Even Nelson Mandela, who pressed for the dismissal of Holomisa and asked the leader of the South African Communist Party, Jeremy Cronin, to write a leaflet denigrating him. </p>
<p>Mkhabela notes that Thabo Mbeki, as president, was conflicted: he deplored corruption. But he regarded every exposé as a white racist attack. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-corruption-in-south-africa-is-deeply-rooted-in-the-countrys-past-and-why-that-matters-144973">How corruption in South Africa is deeply rooted in the country’s past and why that matters</a>
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<p>Mbeki signed up South Africa to the <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA18172733_182">Southern African Development Community Protocol against Corruption</a>, the <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/brussels/UN_Convention_Against_Corruption.pdf">UN Convention against Corruption</a>, and the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/corruption/oecdantibriberyconvention.htm">OECD Anti-Bribery Convention</a>. </p>
<p>Also to his credit, Mbeki set up autonomous institutions against corruption that survived his own efforts to undermine them. It would require major exertions on the part of Zuma, who succeeded Mbeki as president, to dismantle them. (p.55)</p>
<p>Zuma had to emasculate the prosecution authority to avoid being prosecuted himself; he had to undermine the South African Revenue Service to prevent being sued for unpaid tax. These allowed a host of the corrupt to capture the state.</p>
<p>The rebuilding of these institutions has taken the whole of Cyril Ramaphosa’s presidency to date.</p>
<p>But Mkhabela misses one pertinent point. Mbeki oversaw massive pay rises for the top posts in politics, the bureaucracy including the municipalities, and the parastatals. This hugely raised the stakes in ANC political battles. Mbeki never reproached Smuts Ngonyama, then the ANC’s spokesperson, for his widely quoted comment</p>
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<p>I did not struggle (in the liberation movement) to be poor.</p>
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<p>In his conclusions Mkhabela says:</p>
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<p>The incentives and rewards for being corrupt for the politically connected far outweigh the risks of being caught in the act. (p.198) </p>
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<p>But he ends by noting that corruption generates pushback from the public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189567/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is a member of the African National Congress,. but writes this review in his professional capacity as political scientist.</span></em></p>To his credit, former South African president Thabo Mbeki set up anti-corruption institutions that survived his own efforts to erode them.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1877062022-08-28T08:06:40Z2022-08-28T08:06:40ZSouth Africa has a plan to make its public service professional. It’s time to act on it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480412/original/file-20220822-76834-icpinc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cyril Ramaphosa made the creation of a capable, ethical public service a primary focus when he came to power in 2018. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A professional, efficient and effective public service is key to a government’s ability to deliver on its mandate. That’s why <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">South Africa’s constitution</a> requires that the public service be institutionalised as a profession. Appointments must be based on merit and public servants are supposed to be honest, neutral and fair. </p>
<p>Such a public service is a distinctive feature of modern democracy. It means the government bureaucracy is not tied to an incumbent political party. It remains in place no matter which party is in power, and is non-partisan. Administration can continue when political power changes hands.</p>
<p>A professional public service optimises state efficiency by embracing meritocracy. </p>
<p>This means employing only the brightest, best qualified and most competent personnel, with a strong ethical orientation. It requires that civil servants perform their duties with diligence, care and empathy.</p>
<p>South Africa’s <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng-10.pdf">constitution</a> is emphatic about this. It even establishes the Public Service Commission as the custodian of professionalism. </p>
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<p>There shall be an efficient, non-partisan, career-oriented public service broadly representative of the South African community functioning on a basis of fairness and which shall serve all members of the public in an unbiased and impartial manner…</p>
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<p>Almost 30 years into democracy, the country hasn’t got there yet. </p>
<p>Two key initiatives to build state capability through professionalisation of the public service are under way. One is the <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Bills/2021/B16_2021_Public_Administration_Laws_General_Amendment_Bill/B16_2021_Public_Administration_Laws_General_Amendment_Bill.pdf">Public Service Act Amendment Bill</a>, which is before parliament. The other is the draft <a href="http://www.psc.gov.za/documents/reports/2015/PUBLIC_SERVICE_COMMISSION_AMENDMENT_BILL.pdf">Public Service Commission Bill</a>, which is yet to be tabled.</p>
<p>The Public Service Amendment Bill devolves administrative powers to the directors-general, who are the heads of government departments. The powers apply to the human resources management and organisation of their departments. The bill aligns these powers with the directors-general’s financial responsibilities outlined in the <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.za/legislation/pfma/act.pdf">Public Finance Management Act</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution-republic-south-africa-rationalisation-public-administration-replacement-laws#:%7E:text=The%20Public%20Service%20Act%2C%201994,service%2C%20and%20matters%20connected%20therewith.">Public Service Act</a>, which this bill seeks to amend, assigns the administrative powers to the ministers. Yet the Public Finance Management Act places the management of public finances on the directors-general. </p>
<p>These contradictions <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02589340701715505">cause conflicts</a> between ministers and directors-general. The bill seeks to end these. </p>
<p>The Public Service Commission Bill extends the commission’s mandate to cover local government as well as national and provincial public entities <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.za/legislation/pfma/public%20entities/2019-05-24%20Public%20institutions%20Sch%201-3D.pdf">covered by the Public Finance Management Act</a>. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fixing-local-government-in-south-africa-needs-political-solutions-not-technical-ones-161004">Fixing local government in South Africa needs political solutions, not technical ones</a>
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<p>These bills are long overdue. They will give effect to a <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/national-implementation-framework-towards-professionalisation-public-service-comments">framework</a> that was gazetted in 2020 for public comment, and has benefited from wide consultation.</p>
<p>The framework should not be allowed to fall away. It seeks to follow through with the intentions of the constitution and the 2012 <a href="https://www.gov.za/issues/national-development-plan-2030">National Development Plan</a>. The plan is the country’s long-range blueprint for socioeconomic transformation.</p>
<h2>The history</h2>
<p>At the end of apartheid in 1994, the public service was bloated and inefficient. The bureaucracy had to be dismantled to mirror the country’s demographics. That basically meant appointing more black people to key positions. </p>
<p>This was also important to avoid the sabotage of the democratic project by apartheid-era officialdom, which the governing African National Congress (ANC) <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0020852310381204">inherited</a>.</p>
<p>But the need to transform was misapplied in a way that hampered efforts to make professionalism and meritocracy the guiding norms for a career public service. Without them, transformation became insidious. This was especially so during former president Jacob Zuma’s <a href="http://47zhcvti0ul2ftip9rxo9fj9.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Betrayal-of-the-Promise-25052017.pdf">state capture era</a> <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">(May 2009-February 2018)</a>. </p>
<p>In practice, the terms of directors-general, who are the administrative heads of government departments, are tied to those of ministers, who are their political heads. The bureaucrats are almost always replaced when a new minister is appointed or if there are <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/breaking-human-settlements-dg-to-be-transferred-following-mediation-process-with-minister-20220611">conflicts between them</a>. </p>
<p>This is one reason for the high turnover of directors-general – <a href="https://www.nationalplanningcommission.org.za/assets/Documents/NDP%20REVIEW.pdf#page=55">between 24 and 48 months</a>. Institutional memory is lost and <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/archives/citypress/the-high-cost-of-revolving-dg-syndrome-20150430">state capacity weakened</a>. </p>
<p>Despite all this, the post-apartheid state has spawned pockets of excellence in institutional capability. Key among these is the South African Revenue Service. Its success at professionalisation, as evidenced by regularly beating revenue collection targets, became a <a href="https://mg.co.za/opinion/2022-07-06-sars-compliance-and-the-lost-opportunity-to-build-trust/">Harvard University case study</a>. It was also <a href="https://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/epdf/10.1596/978-1-4648-0768-8">cited by the World Bank</a> for its lessons on institutional reforms and public sector governance. </p>
<p>The agency attracted top talent. Professionalism and integrity became the fundamentals of its institution. This was possible as it was given autonomy from the public sector bargaining forum. It could negotiate wages with employees directly.</p>
<p>Its successes were not used as a model for the entire public service, though. Instead, the agency was <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/sites/default/files/SARS%20Commission%20Final%20Report.pdf">nearly run down</a> during Zuma’s tenure. It is in the process of <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-capture-eroded-institutions-in-south-africa-how-the-revenue-service-is-rebuilding-itself-187891">being rebuilt</a>.</p>
<p>In 2012, the government adopted the <a href="https://www.gov.za/issues/national-development-plan-2030">National Development Plan</a>. It underscored the need to make the public service professional.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-fix-south-africas-dysfunctional-state-ditch-its-colonial-heritage-99087">To fix South Africa's dysfunctional state, ditch its colonial heritage</a>
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<p>In 2014, the constitution’s prescription of the values and principles governing public administration were written into legislation – the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201501/38374gon1054act11of2014.pdf">Public Administration Management Act</a>. </p>
<p>The Public Service Act Amendment Bill and the Public Service Commission Bill are key to giving effect to the government’s efforts to <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/national-implementation-framework-towards-professionalisation-public-service-comments">institutionalise professionalisation of the public service</a>. </p>
<p>These critically important interventions are yet to be concluded and signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa. </p>
<h2>Building state capacity</h2>
<p>Reeling from the aftermath of COVID, coupled with the energy crisis, and amid the surging socioeconomic challenges of <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=12075">poverty</a>, <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0211/Media%20release%20QLFS%20Q2%202022.pdf">unemployment</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/pandemic-underscores-gross-inequalities-in-south-africa-and-the-need-to-fix-them-135070">inequality</a>, it has never been more urgent to build state capacity.</p>
<p>The amendment bills need to be expedited. They are important to put the national framework in place for the professionalisation of the public service. Some of the framework’s proposals do not require legislative amendments, new policies, regulations, or ministerial directives. </p>
<p>Of critical importance, the framework proposes ditching <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">deployment practices</a> – placing party loyalists in key government positions. These practices served their purpose in the earlier days of democracy.</p>
<p>As the late anti-apartheid activist and economist Ben Turok <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-06-25-public-servants-should-be-employed-not-deployed/">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>public servants should be employed, not deployed… they should have security of tenure, and… the public service should be independent and not subject to the whims of individual politicians.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187706/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mashupye Herbert Maserumule receives funding from National Research Foundation. He is a member of the National Planning Commission</span></em></p>Almost 30 years into democracy, South Africa still hasn’t ensured the jobs of senior public servants are not tied to the tenure of government ministers.Mashupye Herbert Maserumule, Professor of Public Affairs, Tshwane University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1889932022-08-23T11:17:35Z2022-08-23T11:17:35ZWhat Russian visit says about South Africa’s commitment to human rights in the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480391/original/file-20220822-73022-52sowx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thandi Modise, South Africa's defence minister.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michal Fludra/NurPhoto via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s foreign policy is aimed at contributing to democracy, human rights and <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/final-draft-white-paper-sa-foreign-policy.pdf">justice in the world</a>. Yet its conduct often suits autocrats and despots. This is why defence minister Thandi Modise’s recent attendance at the <a href="https://eng.mil.ru/en/mcis/index.htm">10th Moscow Conference on International Security</a> has sparked criticism. </p>
<p>The basic objectives of the conference are to share practical ideas and explore solutions on matters of global security. But Russian president Vladimir Putin’s swipe at the US and the <a href="https://www.nato.int/">North Atlantic Treaty Organisation</a> in his <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69166">welcoming address</a> revealed an ideological underpinning. He accused them of “creating aggressive military-political unions” to maintain western hegemony.</p>
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<p>Their hegemony means stagnation for the rest of the world and for the entire civilisation; it means obscurantism, cancellation of culture, and neoliberal totalitarianism.</p>
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<p>South Africa’s stance towards Russia <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-08-15-thandi-modise-at-russian-security-conference-shows-solidarity-with-occupiers-and-aggressors/">in recent months</a> has come under severe criticism. Pretoria initially supported calls for Russia to <a href="http://www.dirco.gov.za/docs/2022/ukra0224.htm">withdraw from Ukraine</a>, only to <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2022/08/02/how-do-global-south-politics-of-non-alignment-and-solidarity-explain-south-africas-position-on-ukraine/">retract</a> shortly thereafter. </p>
<p>Some critics object to the mere act of South Africa attending a military conference organised by <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-08-15-flying-circus-thandi-modises-shocking-trip-to-russian-security-conference/?fbclid=IwAR3ywPnPzFWaBO2uIpj1NGpYTWQJXX8dd9eNL3Ts79Ym95y_Qv2%203-dLG2-8">an aggressive, imperialist Russia</a>. </p>
<p>Some feel Pretoria is – as in the past – <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-08-15-flying-circus-thandi-modises-shocking-trip-to-russian-security-conference/?fbclid=IwAR3ywPnPzFWaBO2uIpj1NGpYTWQJXX8dd9eNL3Ts79Ym95y_Qv2%203-dLG2-8">flip-flopping</a> on its official commitment to promoting human rights globally.</p>
<p>Modise <a href="https://www.defenceweb.co.za/featured/thandi-modise-visits-russia-for-moscow-conference-on-international-security/?fbclid=IwAR2Ryqc22UKqKnqNMbtVTz13V1G0T66POwAYoIEvmT8WTNS9tX_9pdbqJAI">defended her participation</a> as part of “an international peace crusade”. She said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>we will emerge from this conference stronger and more united in our determination to continue building a peaceful world. </p>
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<p>The question is whether South Africa is once again turning a blind eye – even giving legitimacy – to a great injustice, for political expediency. </p>
<p>The country’s official foreign policy is explicitly guided by <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/final-draft-white-paper-sa-foreign-policy.pdf">ubuntu</a> (humanness) –</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the idea that we affirm our humanity when we affirm the humanity of others.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Inconsistency and ambiguity</h2>
<p>Since 1994 during the Mandela and Mbeki eras, the country has contributed to the reform of continental institutions. It has mediated for peace and stability, and promoted democracy in conflict-ridden countries. </p>
<p>For example, in 1995, former president Nelson Mandela issued a <a href="https://archive.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/za-com-mr-s-1576">hard-hitting statement</a> after the Nigerian government executed environmental activist and writer <a href="https://www.goldmanprize.org/recipient/ken-saro-wiwa/">Ken Saro-Wiwa</a>. This underscored a foreign policy informed by human rights.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-foreign-policy-new-paper-sets-the-scene-but-falls-short-on-specifics-188253">South Africa's foreign policy: new paper sets the scene, but falls short on specifics</a>
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<p>In fact, South Africa’s contributions to the development of Africa’s foreign policy realm earned it the status of a <a href="https://issafrica.org/research/policy-brief/is-south-africa-a-norm-entrepreneur-in-africa">“norm entrepreneur”</a>. That means it set the norms for moral and principled international engagement and interventions on the continent.</p>
<p>But in the second term of the Mbeki era, foreign policy analysts posed serious questions about the country’s willingness to uphold the values of democracy and human rights in its foreign policy. The country has become less principled in its approach to world affairs. There have been <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10220461.2012.670381">inconsistencies and ambiguities</a>, specifically when it is expected to stand up for human rights. </p>
<p>An example was former president Thabo Mbeki’s <a href="https://www.saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/16-Dlamini.pdf">quiet diplomacy towards Zimbabwe</a> since 2000. His refusal to speak out against atrocities during the Robert Mugabe era in favour of fruitless secret meetings was one such example. For many observers this was puzzling, coming from the continent’s most celebrated democracy. It became a source of domestic concern, global scepticism and outspoken criticism.</p>
<p>Later, under Mbeki’s successor, Jacob Zuma, the Libya conundrum in 2011 stood out. South Africa, then <a href="http://www.dirco.gov.za/department/unsc/index.html">a non-permanent member</a> of the UN Security Council, voted for a <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2011/sc10200.doc.htm">ban</a> on all flights over Libya to protect civilians from attacks by the Libyan air force. </p>
<p>Yet, soon after it was the implemented, Pretoria <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10220461.2012.670381">backtracked</a>. It appealed to international role-players to respect the territorial integrity of Libya. This dented South Africa’s credibility.</p>
<p>The country had to be goaded into <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10220461.2012.670381">accepting a no-fly zone</a>, based on <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/about-responsibility-to-protect.shtml">The Responsibility to Protect principle</a>, to stop the Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi from bombing his own population from the air. </p>
<p>Another controversy was sparked when, in 2015, Zuma hosted the <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/25th-african-union-summit-7-15-jun">African Union summit in Johannesburg</a>. It was attended by then Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir, who had been declared a “wanted war criminal” by the International Criminal Court for <a href="https://hmh.org/library/research/genocide-in-darfur-guide/">genocide in Darfur</a>. Zuma’s government failed to arrest him <a href="https://theconversation.com/al-bashir-what-the-law-says-about-south-africas-duties-43498">despite a court order</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-foreign-policy-has-been-at-sixes-and-sevens-heres-why-70089">South Africa's foreign policy has been at sixes and sevens – here's why</a>
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<p>Zuma even accepted Al-Bashir’s invitation for him to visit Sudan. It was a clear indication that the Zuma government was willing to ignore gross <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2015-09-04-zuma-shows-disdain-for-human-rights-by-meeting-al-bashir-da/">human rights violations</a>.</p>
<p>Currently, the South African government is <a href="https://theconversation.com/african-countries-showed-disunity-in-un-votes-on-russia-south-africas-role-was-pivotal-180799">not prepared to condemn</a> Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine.</p>
<h2>New hope for norm entrepreneurship</h2>
<p>The Mbeki and Zuma eras were characterised by an unwillingness to confront authoritarian regimes and human rights abuses. Be it in Sudan, Zimbabwe and Eswatini, or further afield in Myanmar, Syria, China and North Korea. </p>
<p>When Cyril Ramaphosa became president <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/5/22/south-africas-parliament-elects-cyril-ramaphosa-as-president">in 2018</a>, it was hoped he would restore South Africa’s status as a champion for peace and democracy globally. He came to office with good international relations credentials, having helped <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-president-cyril-ramaphosa-can-help-resolve-the-gaza-crisis-97871">craft the UN’s Responsibility to Protect principle</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, countries in the global south cannot be expected to automatically <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2022/08/02/how-do-global-south-politics-of-non-alignment-and-solidarity-explain-south-africas-position-on-ukraine/">fall in line with western expectations</a> on world issues.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-human-rights-should-guide-responses-to-the-global-pandemic-147225">Why human rights should guide responses to the global pandemic</a>
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<p>But, South Africa’s refusal to condemn Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, and Modise’s visit to Moscow, make one thing clear once again. It is that South Africa’s foreign policy behaviour is not what was <a href="https://www.defenceweb.co.za/featured/thandi-modise-visits-russia-for-moscow-conference-on-international-security/?fbclid=IwAR2Ryqc22UKqKnqNMbtVTz13V1G0T66POwAYoIEvmT8WTNS9tX_9pd%20bqJAI">expected of the country</a> as an international and regional norm entrepreneur.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188993/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Theo Neethling receives funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>South Africa’s foreign policy is supposed to be guided by the principle of ubuntu (humanness), so a visit to an aggressor is hard to explain.Theo Neethling, Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Studies and Governance, University of the Free StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.