‘Don’t be paranoid, be wary’
The State Security Agency said it had not picked up credible threats about election interference
‘Be vigilant but don’t be paranoid,” was the warning sounded by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s national security adviser and former safety and security minister, Sydney Mufamadi.
It follows Ramaphosa’s recent statements of a possible “regime change” agenda as a result of the South Africa’s victory in the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
In an interview with the Mail & Guardian on the country’s security, Mufamadi cautioned that although South Africa had risen to its stature as a conduit for peace talks in the world, its position would “earn” it “enemies”.
Mufamadi crafted a high level panel report on the dire state of the State Security Agency (SSA) in 2018.
Last week, Ramaphosa said South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ — which found that it was plausible that Israel’s actions could amount to genocidal acts and ordered it to prevent such harm to Palestinians in Gaza — could lead to attempts at “regime change” in the country.
“The fightback may also focus on our domestic politics and our electoral outcomes in order to pursue the regime change agenda,” Ramaphosa said at the governing ANC’S national executive committee meeting in Boksburg, Gauteng, on Tuesday.
Mufamadi said: “When you do things, such as we do, you must know that the world watches and people have preferences all over the world of one kind or another. And people may go to the extent of feeling that they have a preference on who should ascend to office, in the aftermath of those elections.
“But there is a principle which must be held sacrosanct by everybody, namely, that you must respect the sovereign right of the people of a country to elect their own leaders to elect and give the mandate to a party of their choice. And so I’m saying if you’ve got a preference of who should ascend in a country which is not yours, your preference must end up just being an aspiration. You must do nothing that amounts to an interference.”
Mufamadi added that countries at times find it difficult to set the tone about the need to comply with the rules-based system.
“As we do things, we also unwittingly earn enemies,” Mufumadi said.
“So, I’m saying sometimes leaders will talk to the people and advance that hypothesis. But there are also times when [what] they will be advancing [is] more than just a hypothesis. Because people sitting in positions of responsibility sometimes do get information that you and I don’t always get.”
Mufamadi added that Ramaphosa’s warning may not be based on concrete evidence but rather based on a hypothesis.
“So you and I do not know what it is. But I think we may also not want to take the warning lightly. But we should not be paranoid about it either. Vigilance is something that any nation cannot lower its guard about. But as I say, don’t also be paranoid about it. You know the people we went up against.”
Mufamadi added that South Africa was looking to create a world in which the value of diplomacy is appreciated, and demonstrating that diplomacy can yield solutions to problems that look impossible to solve.
In a recent interview with Bloomberg News, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, minister in the presidency responsible for state security, said the country has beefed up the SSA and placed it on high alert amid concerns about the possible fallout over the government’s decision to take legal action against Israel to try to end its war in Gaza. Ntshavheni added that the government had consulted the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) on possible threats to the upcoming elections.
Ntshaveni had not, however, responded to questions from the M&G by the time of going to print.
Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said Ramaphosa was being responsible by cautioning the country of possible threats.
“We’ve already seen a pattern of misinformation around this matter. And so what the president was cautioning about was not necessarily completely out of place, or impossible,” Magwenya said.
Several SSA sources told the Mail & Guardian that the agency had not picked up or received intelligence about the possible influencing of this year’s elections.
But a highly placed SSA member said because state security was now under the authority of the presidency, agents in the unit had to take Ramaphosa’s “regime change” warnings seriously.
“It took many of us off-guard because we have been monitoring possible influencing of the elections but have not picked up any credible threats.”
Another SSA member said: “We will also be monitoring social media
sites to intercept any possible disinformation and fake news campaigns aimed at influencing the South African electorate, such as was the case in the US in 2016.”
The agent was alluding to the FBI’S investigation into America’s elections, when Donald Trump became president.
Arrest warrants were issued for 12 Russian military intelligence officers, who allegedly influenced the US elections through, among other acts, spreading of propaganda aimed at discrediting Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump.
The IEC’S deputy chief electoral officer, Masego Sheburi, said it did not have the “capacity” to monitor fake news on social media, but would rely on the public flagging possible disinformation for it to act. “If we try to monitor [disinformation and propaganda], we could get ourselves in trouble.”
But, Sheburi added, the IEC had set up a “repository of party information” so that if a political organisation’s advertisement or message was doctored, the commission would pick it up and immediately alert the public.
“But it is a voluntary exercise. If we do not have adverts from a party, we will not be able to compare.”
On working with the SSA, Sheburi said: “The State Security [Agency] has a role in securing the sovereign. If they give us information that indicates a vulnerability in some of our systems, by all means, we will look at those.”
He stressed that no SSA member would be involved with the commission’s IT systems, saying these had to remain independent. Sheburi said the country’s election systems were not at risk of being hacked because South Africa voted and counted ballots manually at the voting station, with party agents and external observers present.
Mufumadi said the process of holding elections demands that security be at the required level.
“[Y]ou don’t attend to security preparations because you were at the ICJ. You do that because, intrinsically, the process of holding elections demands that your security must be kept up to the required level. So that’s what we do all the time. I’m sure there is nothing we will do from the point of view of security that we would not do if we had not gone to the ICJ.”
South Africa’s relationship with the US went through a turbulent period last year following allegations that South Africa had sold arms to Russia.
South Africa has maintained its non-aligned position on Russia’s war on Ukraine, but this stance resulted in Washington putting pressure on Pretoria to condemn President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of war against Ukraine.
South Africa’s position in the US’S African Growth and Opportunity Act was temporarily at risk as a result of this fallout.
Mufamadi, who led a delegation to Washington to calm the storm between the two countries, said the government had recalibrated its relations with the US.
He however added that the US was walking a tightrope in its support for Israel.
“On one hand it is supporting Israel’s right to defend itself but it is not showing the same vehemence about the need for Israel to do so within the ambit of international humanitarian law.”
Given South Africa’s experience with apartheid and bringing it to an end, the country had something of value to share with the Israeli government.
He added that Israel could not “bypass Hamas and get a solution to the problem they have right now”.
“They must ask us. The National Party thought they could bypass us and stabilise South Africa. They couldn’t,” Mufumadi said, adding that the US has continued with its failed strategic attempts in its relationship with the Middle East.
“The system ought to have institutional memory to say, we can’t repeat yesterday’s mistakes. Hamas is very much part of the political and social repertoire of Palestine. You have to come to terms with that reality.”
Asked whether the South African government has had discussions with Hamas, Mufamadi said: “Despite the fact that we don’t have a historical relationship with Hamas, it’s unimaginable that if we want to talk to Hamas, Hamas will refuse to talk to us.”
‘We have been monitoring … influencing … but have not picked up any credible threats’