FACED WITH EFF THREATS, CELE’S POLICE GO AWOL

e shouldn’t be surprised by the fascist threats of Julius Malema’s EFF history suggests this is about as unexpected as a prosecutorial bungle in our criminal courts.

And yet, the flagrant disregard for the law and the outright threats to fundamental rights

retain their power to shock. As does the impunity with which South Africa’s most thuggish political party is allowed to act by our notional law enforcement authorities.

The latest in the party’s particular brand of coercion is the threat made against small businesses and factories that remain open during the national shutdown on Monday. Last week, a video emerged of EFF lackeys warning business owners over a loudspeaker: “We are saying to you, close down all your businesses to avoid the looting. Close down all your shops to avoid the looting. Close down all your factories to avoid the looting.”

We’ve seen this show before. Just last year, Malema himself forced his way into three restaurants in Joburg’s Mall of Africa to audit the ratio of local to foreign employees. Though this drew some anguished hand-wringing from the labour department, that didn’t stop him from threatening to take his “inspections” to farms, security companies and the hospitality sector.

Yet the party has been indulged by the government and the corporate sector alike.

In December 2018, for example, Vodacom committed to engage with the EFF despite party members vandalising its stores, after a journalism awards evening where Malema and Floyd Shivambu were pictured in a presentation by Corruption Watch chair Mavuso Msimang alongside the caption: “Abusers of democracy”. And no-one is likely to forget how, at the EFF’s instigation, 37 Clicks

Wstores were vandalised over a racist advert for hair brand Tresemmé. So what will be done about this latest round of extortion? Precious little, in all likelihood. Last week, the police warned that lawlessness “will not be tolerated” and violent action will be met with criminal sanction. Yet the truth is, law enforcement “tolerates” this sort of thing with a mulish determination matched only by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s “confidence” in police minister Bheki Cele.

And this isn’t limited to the EFF’s lawbreaking. Take the public service strike. In a ruling on Monday, the labour appeal court was scathing about the police’s failure to act in the face of criminal behaviour.

“It has become commonplace for the [police] to walk away from scenes of criminal behaviour in a strike context, calling it a private or civil matter,” the court said. “Criminal conduct is neither.”

Health minister Joe Phaahla has been equally critical, pointing out how the police have sat on their hands when faced with obvious lawlessness, claiming they can’t act without a court order.

Yet in this case, there was an interdict in place never mind that the police don’t need a court order to act in the first place.

Phaahla says four patients have died as a result of the strike, during which members of the National Education, Health & Allied Workers’ Union have blockaded hospitals.

With members of the South African Policing Union set to join the strike on Monday or, ostensibly, just those who aren’t considered essential you’d be forgiven for thinking nothing will change.

This would be the time for Cele, so favoured by the president, to actually act; to show some leadership. Sadly, experience shows that the man in the hat will do neither.