DA plea due to ‘Cold War cobwebs’
Cold War cobwebs are behind the DA’s request for US secretary of state Antony Blinken and 13 other foreign ministers to send election observers to SA, President Cyril Ramaphosa ’ s security adviser, Sydney Mufamadi, says.
The request was unwarranted because the pre-election security risk analysis by the country ’ s security agencies had not red-flagged any threat to the May 29 polls, Mufamadi told Business Day. He added that the DA’s letter wanted to turn SA into “a cockpit of Cold War rivalries” where smaller countries were forced to be aligned with either Washington or Moscow.
The letter, which was written by DA MP Emma Powell, has angered the SA government and heightened tensions between political parties ahead of the elections. Both the ANC and the MK party, which is backed by former president Jacob Zuma, have accused the DA of attempting to usurp SA ’ s sovereignty.
The letter, which was sent last week, requests international help “to ensure the integrity” of the vote and “safeguard against any attempts to disrupt the democratic process ” .
It comes as relations between Washington and SA have been marked by tensions sparked by Russia ’ s invasion of Ukraine. The US and European governments are on an offensive to rally African governments to oppose the invasion. SA has chosen to remain nonaligned in the matter.
“When someone writes something like this, you know that you are dealing with somebody whose outlook is replete with Cold War cobwebs,” Mufamadi said. “Because they (the DA) have a stake in one little corner of the world known as SA and for some reason have abnormal anxiety about their prospects in the upcoming elections, they seek to whip up Cold War hostilities,” he said.
Powell’s letter cites “an increasing willingness by the
ANC to forge alliances with malign international actors, whose regimes are characterised oppression by ”tyranny, for the plea terror to and the US, France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland and the EU. It is in this context that we now formally request our partners in democracy to engage with consequence in the run-up to the election, ” Powell wrote.
She also cited the emergence of MK as a rival party of the governing ANC as a threat to SA’s democracy. “We are of the view that MK poses a substantive risk to the continued peaceful nature of our political discourse as a nation. The fluid nature of the current political landscape thus presents both significant risks as well as opportunities,” she said.
“We are satisfied that our law enforcement agencies are competent to deal with potential threats that come from people who are making that sort of noise that the MK party is making,” Mufamadi said.