Creeping normalisation of corruption

Every time I am asked to compare the travails facing the US currently and the 10-year political nightmare faced by SA under Jacob Zuma, I trot out one answer.

My stock answer is this: the US can withstand a poor and even malevolent presidency because its institutions are old, entrenched and very strong.

SA nearly collapsed under Zuma because its institutions, built up over just the past 25 years, are relatively young, fragile and a work in progress.

They could not hold a strong, malevolent and cunning leader like Zuma to account.

Many collapsed under his Machiavellian manipulation.

For the first time ever, this week I began to wonder how true this entire premise and my answers are.

The reason is Donald Trump, the president of the US.

The more I observe his actions and his trajectory the more I worry that he may be more powerful than even the hundreds-year-old American system.

Why? How can this be? It’s not the big things.

It’s not his flirtation with the despotic North Koreans or the Russians.

It’s not the trampling of immigrant rights and the turning away from what we have been told are the American values of openness and fairness.

All these are huge and are of concern.

It’s the small matter of corruption.

This past few weeks, Trump has been under immense pressure.

Democrats have finally found their backbones and are seeking his impeachment.

Scandals about the Ukraine and Turkey have engulfed his administration.

Yet, last Thursday, in the the middle of the impeachment inquiry, Trump’s acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney announced that the G7 Summit will be held at Trump’s club, the Doral, next year.

Just stop and think about that.

The US is not just a country. It’s virtually the entire continent that is North America.

The president of the US could have chosen from thousands of picturesque and safe venues for the summit.

He chose his own club, the Trump National Doral.

Mulvaney told reporters that Trump chose the Doral because his officials had considered hotels throughout the facility country, for and this concluded”that meeting . the Doral was “by far and away, far and away, the best physical

“It’s almost like they built this facility to host this type of event,” Mulvaney said.

Imagine if Cyril Ramaphosa hosted heads of state - who pay a fee for these things - at his farm in Limpopo.

Imagine if Paul Kagame hosted visiting dignitaries at his private pad somewhere in Rwanda.

Imagine if Uhuru Kenyatta directed private business to his personal farm or other properties.

There is a word for this sort of thing.

It’s called corruption. Corruption is when you abuse your position to enrich yourself.

Corruption is when the leaders of the G7 countries arrive at Doral next year and hug and smile and wave and say nothing.

This is how corruption is normalised.

This is how it becomes just another part of the system.

One of the greats of South African politics is the late great ANC polymath, Kader Asmal.

Asmal had the memory of an elephant, the soul of a Mandela and the mind of an Einstein.

When the ANC was (unjustly) trying to get rid of Bantu Holomisa, who had exposed one of his Cabinet comrades for corruption back in 1997, Asmal said the ANC had to ensure that justice was not only done, but was seen to be done.

And that is what is at the heart of what’s happening in the US now.

It is not even the corruption itself, it is the miasma of corruption that hangs over the entire thing and now engulfs the presidency.

Any sensible leader would have walked away from this entire charade before it even came to their desk.

Trump’s office says he is not directing money to his own businesses.

Mulvaney pointed out that Trump “has no interest in profit from being here”.

That may be so.

Yet, the truth is that right now there is a corrupt politician somewhere who, when confronted with evidence of them lining their pockets with taxpayer cash, will happily point at Trump and say: “But look at what the president of the US did….”

This latest episode adds on to the long list of what, under Trump, the US is prepared to tolerate domestically and on the world stage.

For example, the US tolerated and even seemed to justify the murder of newspaper columnist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Arabia.

Dictators everywhere will be doing the same.

It is at times like these that the institutions should hold leaders to account.

Yet, as Trump’s steamroller trundles through America, no institution seems able to contain him.

The institutions are collapsing under his relentless assault.

The consequences could be dire.