Kitchen open for the power-hungry

f South Africans could ever be accused of thinking philosophically about politics, they would probably best be defined as Manichaean — prone to simplistically dividing everything into good or evil. There are no shades of grey in this uncomplicated world — just light or dark, love or hate, cops or robbers.

For much of SA’s history, it was easy to take this view. After all, the National Party’s apartheid policy was so obviously immoral that it was inevitable that those opposed to it were instantly classifiable as virtuous. It was uncontroversial.

This attitude extended into the writing of our constitution, which gave the president great and — as we know now — excessive powers to appoint heads of key institutions.

Perhaps it was naive, but as former constitutional court justice Zak Yacoob admitted recently, the notion that an ANC president of the country (as Nelson Mandela was) could be corrupt was just not contemplated.

But that was a time of heady idealism. Elsewhere in the world, more mature democracies have, over the years, tended to develop political cultures more pragmatically Machiavellian — consistent with the understanding that a politician is a politician, when all is said and done.

In SA, the real political contest is not between parties, because the ANC is so dominant, but within the ruling party itself.

Once we understand that, we tend to leap to identify the ANC’s “good guys” and its “bad guys”. So, we decide that President Jacob Zuma and his backers are “bad”, because of Nkandla, the Guptas, the spy tapes . . . we could go on. Conversely, it follows that those who have publicly criticised Zuma must necessarily be “good”.

All it takes to determine a path of moral virtue is to decide who is in which camp.

Many in the country who apply this thinking believed that ANC secretarygeneral Gwede Mantashe was on side of the angels when he called a few weeks back for those who’d experienced the influence of the Gupta family to come forward.

Mantashe was seen as embarking on gathering evidence which would ultimately lead to Zuma’s position becoming untenable.

IThis illusion was rudely shattered when Mantashe revealed that actually, his “state capture” probe had gone exactly nowhere. Despite numerous people publicly testifying to the terrifying influence of the Gupta family in the country’s government, Mantashe claims there was not enough evidence to take further action. As it happened, only one person, former government communications boss Themba Maseko, made a formal written statement about the interference of the Guptas in state institutions. In all, eight people told Mantashe’s inquiry about their experience.

But the excuse that all there was to go on was Maseko’s lone written statement is far too coy: Mantashe indisputably knew the reality was far wider than that. After all, no less a person than deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas had made a public statement that he had been offered a promotion by the Guptas. So too did Vytjie Mentor.

For Mantashe to bizarrely exclude their public testimony from his “probe” is tantamount to declaring them liars. So much for Mantashe’s declaration that he’d protect Jonas and get to the bottom of these claims. He says now that if you have a problem, go to the police — a route of resolution likely to go absolutely nowhere, considering the police department falls under Zuma’s firepool defender-in-chief Nathi Nhleko.

If Mantashe ever was one of the “good guys”, he has surely been smoothly outmanoeuvred by his boss. This collapsed “inquiry” smacks of yet another convoluted effort to protect the last remnants of honour the president might still have. Mantashe has been sent packing, his influence in the party now heavily diminished.

But perhaps the crumbled “state capture” probe should reinforce that, when it comes to politics, the Manichaean lines of good and evil weren’t a particularly illuminating construct in the first place. After all, the ANC of today is a modern political party in which there aren’t really good guys and bad guys, but more of a ceaseless jockeying between certain individuals and groups for position.

Crucially, now that even one of the supposed “good guys” has been unable to ensure accountability, the floodgates will surely have opened.