SA becoming a country of parallel states

The continuing breakdown of the rule of law, the uncontrolled corruption and the collapse of public service delivery without holding culprits accountable are undermining the authority of the state and sparking the formation of parallel and competing “states” outside the control of the central state.

All of these parallel states in competition with SA’s official national, provincial and municipal states further fragment and erode the capacity and coherence of the country’s already crumbling official central, provincial and local government states.

These parallel states range from no-go zones where local strongmen rule, organised or spontaneous groups taking the law into their own hands, and some gated communities forming their own private, but legal, self-sufficient “states” providing all-inclusive “public services”.

Parts of the South African state have also gone rogue; either national departments, provinces or local municipalities. Elements of the police, army and intelligence services also operate outside the law, like little states following their own rules.

They break laws, use violence against citizens and cannot be bothered to provide the public services they are constitutionally mandated to do.

Elements of the governing ANC in many provinces and localities have also become parallel states, challenging the ANC and government leadership and constitutional rules, meting out justice, making appointments and gifting tenders.

Some opposition parties are now also beginning to increasingly operate as parallel states, following their own rules, not abiding by constitutional rules.

Pockets of many rural areas have turned into parallel states, where either traditional kings, chiefs or leaders have turned these areas into their quasistates, which run parallel to SA’s constitutional state.

Organised criminal groups are in some cases also operating as parallel states, meting out their own justice, providing “services” and employment.