Why justice in SA can be mistaken for conspiracy
When Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva surrendered himself to the São Paulo police in April 2018 to commence a 12-year prison sentence following his conviction for corruption and money laundering, he was mobbed by a crowd of supporters in their thousands.
Many decried the nation’s judiciary, claiming a conspiracy to prevent him contesting the 2018 presidential election; a race ultimately won by the far-right and deeply controversial Jair Bolsonaro.
Lula was widely credited with leading a socioeconomic miracle during his presidency, which lifted almost 50-million Brazilians out of poverty through a combination of increased social welfare spending and steady economic growth.
But it appears that he ultimately succumbed to the hubris that has followed political leaders everywhere since time immemorial. In a scenario which will be all too familiar to South Africans, he accepted a beach house as a bribe from an engineering firm doing business with the state, and accepted extensive renovations to his family’s country home as a bribe from two other construction and engineering firms.
Lula’s case is ongoing, and in the two years since his imprisonment he has won a court bid to be released from custody pending his appeal against the charges — though his status as a convicted criminal means that he may no longer contest elections at any level in Brazil.
Former Nelson Mandela Bay municipality councillor Andile Lungisa’s surrender to the authorities this past week has given South Africans a glimpse into a future not unlike that experienced by the people of Brazil, should the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) continue its excellent work and make good on its commitment to make a series of high-profile state-capture arrests before the year is over.
Many in the ANC have attempted to raise Lungisa to the status of a martyr and argue his two-year jail sentence does not fit the crime of hitting a rival councillor over the head with a glass jug during a heated sitting of the house.
What seems to have alarmed politicians on the unethical end of the spectrum — who are generally accustomed to “political solutions” such as light reprimands and “redeployment” for their misdeeds — is that one of their own has had to fully account for his actions. Who, then, will be next?
Lungisa’s fellow politicians are not the only ones, it seems, who would like to push criminal accountability for their peers aside. The people of SA are often similarly eager to excuse the actions of likeable political leaders.
I was dismayed to see the many videos doing the rounds on social media depicting legions of superfans (to borrow the term from Eusebius McKaiser) following, taking selfies with, kissing and hugging Andile Lungisa as he reported to the North End prison in Port Elizabeth to begin serving his sentence for assault.
Some have said Lungisa’s imprisonment is part of the extensive political machinations of President Cyril Ramaphosa, working with a socalled unreformed judiciary. I don’t know about you, but until his arrest I had not heard of Lungisa, and very much doubt he commands enough gravitas to warrant intricate conspiracies at the highest levels of government.
Rather, his conviction represents something so rare in South African politics one can understand why some mistake it for a conspiracy: justice.
Political connections are no longer a guarantee of impunity in our criminal justice system. Instead, we are entering a moment in which we will finally be able to see accountability at work; a moment for which many have been anxiously waiting.
Should the NPA’s processes unfold as planned, the post-conviction playbook of those implicated in state looting will likely be the same as Lungisa’s — assaults on the integrity of the judiciary; claims of a political plot within the governing party to purge certain factions; conspiracy theories about collusion between the media, opposition parties and unnamed third forces; accusations of racism — all will be deployed to give the accused the veneer of childlike innocence.
The question is whether South Africans will allow themselves to be deceived by such squalid shenanigans. We should not allow the processes which will soon unfold to be sullied by the cheap politicking and grandstanding of those politicians who have been convicted of their crimes.
We should think twice before becoming broadcast media fodder for the corrupt, or convenient photographic evidence that they still command throngs of supporters, despite their misdeeds. Let us bring an end to dancing outside of courtrooms for men accused of rape, or “defending with our buttocks” the rogue politicians among us.
Let us put aside the hashtags demanding that the authorities #FreeAndileLungisa and the declarations that we will “kill for” any politician.
Rather let us celebrate the fact that the rebuilding of our criminal justice system may mean that soon we will no longer live in a country in which the administration of the law can be derailed by power and political connections.