Molefe’s anointment lays bare the rot in our electoral system

BRIAN Molefe this week practically sneaked into parliament through a back door. Even initial news reports said he was “reportedly” sworn in by the speaker of parliament, Baleka Mbete. In other words, they didn’t see him taking the oath. He was sworn in in secret.

The people involved in this episode acted as though they knew that what they were doing was not kosher. Everything was hush-hush. They seemed on their guard and suspicious. It was as if the public had no right to know. But then these are the people who jammed parliament’s signal and put up a ring of steel around the National Assembly.

What’s intriguing is why Molefe is walking into this ditch with his eyes open. Why are you doing this to yourself, smarty-pants? Is Jacob Zuma worth all that trouble? It’s like committing hara-kiri in broad daylight.

We know the Guptas are your friends. You told us so. The last person to brag about his powerful friends was Jackie Selebi and that didn’t end too well. Finish and klaar.

I’m sure rumours that Molefe is Zuma’s malleable weapon in his battle with Pravin Gordhan are a figment of somebody’s fertile imaginings. Surely Molefe cannot be that stupid.

Something of a celebrity MP, Molefe arrives in parliament with a monkey on his back. He was last seen wailing into his handkerchief a few months before chucking it in at Eskom.

He was sore because former public protector Thuli Madonsela, in her state capture report, had made him to look like he was a bad boy, cavorting with the Guptas. He resigned, ostensibly to clear his name.

The fact that he has resurfaced with such indecent haste, without or before removing the stain on his person, is indicative of the dire state the ANC and parliament are in.

The ANC’s conduct is no surprise, though. We’re long past caring about its moral compass. A party that chooses a moral invalid as its leader cannot be trusted to act in an ethical fashion.

But that crookedness has rubbed off or been imposed on parliament. Now, apparently, you do not have to be upstanding to grace its hallowed halls as a so-called honourable member. Words have lost their meaning.

Let’s not be too hard on Molefe, though. It’s tough at the trough. The manner of his elevation to parliament may be dodgy or unacceptable, but he and the ANC have done nothing wrong in this instance. Not in terms of the law. It is the done thing. All political parties do it all the time.

The reason we’re alarmed is probably because Molefe’s star power has drawn attention to the issue.

The problem is our electoral system. It’s a scam, a fraud, a racket, a lottery, putty in the hands of du- plicitous politicians to use to suit their designs, good or bad.

In fact, to call it an electoral system is a misnomer. Nobody gets elected here. It is a system designed to suit the desires and pleasures of those in power. A beauty contest, if you like. If they like you, you’re in; if they don’t, you’re out and you stay out.

The fact that somebody can be parachuted into parliament without even a show of hands by local party members or a chat over a cup of tea with the local chairman should be of great concern to all who want to see accountability in our politics. There’s not a semblance, not even a pretence, of democracy.

To call such a person a public representative is a mischaracterisation, another misnomer that has found its way into our lexicon.

Molefe’s anointment has left pandemonium in its wake, with branches noisily laying claim to his membership and others professing never to have met the man.

It’s a joke. There should be something against such madness in our fine constitution.

There’s evidence that the need to look into the appropriateness of our electoral laws is beginning to percolate through to the inner recesses of the ANC. A paper prepared for the ANC consultative conference in December calls for a complete review of the system.

Written by Omry Makgoale, a former Umkhonto weSizwe commander and prisoner at Quatro in Angola, it argues that party branches, the fulcrum of democracy within the organisation, have been rendered ineffective.

“Instead of being lively and active, with the power to select MPs, our branches have no function except to campaign at election time. This has left them open to capture by tenderpreneurs and careerists who conform to the wishes of Luthuli House,” he writes.

The entire ANC, Makgoale argues, has thus been captured.

ANC leaders, he says, are not held individually accountable to voters, but to the leadership, who have the power to dispense favours.

He says there’s a need for a discussion throughout the organisation on how best to combine the need for representivity with individual accountability.

The ANC will certainly have bigger fish to fry at its December meeting, but it would do well to also give electoral reform serious consideration.