Forget the step-aside rule, what we need are prosecutions

Now that the ANC’s election candidates lists are out there, it can be said with confidence that many of those exposed as having played roles — big and small — in the state capture project are not going to pay the ultimate political price for their wrongdoing.

Despite gallant efforts by members of the party’s integrity committee as well as veterans such as Mavuso Msimang, leaders with serious corruption allegations against them will return to the National Assembly this winter to take an oath, pledging fidelity to the constitution and the rule of law.

After years of heated debates and remonstrations over the so-called step-aside rule, it turns out that its opponents should not have worried at all because, in implementation, it has proven itself to be a blunt instrument for the purpose of rooting out the rotten apples from the ranks of the ruling party.

This ought not to be a surprise. On its own, the rule was never going to be a panacea to the cancer of corruption that has ravaged the leadership ranks of the ANC and the government.

The party has long moved miles away from its original position, which was supposed to be a radical break with the practice of standing by an accused on the grounds that they had the right to be treated as “innocent until proven guilty”. This original position argued that once a leader faced serious accusations, they had to voluntarily step down from their positions until they were able to clear their name.

But after much argument about the fairness of this approach, especially in a political atmosphere characterised by plenty of back-stabbing and plotting against opponents, the original proponents of step-aside agreed to walk back some of what they were proposing.

Now a politician will have to be charged in a court of law for them to be obliged to step down from office. Those who fail to do so can be removed or suspended by the party.

While this approach is generally fair, as it protects individuals from being unfairly removed from their positions on mere rumour and other spurious grounds, it will only be effective if the country’s law-enforcement services, and the criminal justice system as a whole, actually work properly.

Since the beginning of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s “New Dawn ”— a period that promised “renewal” and an end to political impunity for the corrupt — there have been a series of high-profile corruption scandals that have not been acted upon by the authorities.

This makes law enforcement agencies, and the justice system in general, open to accusations of political manipulation and siding with certain factions of the political and business elite.

In the long run, this erodes the public’s confidence in the system and calls into question the credibility of the claims — most undoubtedly accurate — made against those said to be corrupt. What, for instance, are we to make of the many Covid epidemic-related corruption scandals — in which scores of politicians, government officials and business personalities were implicated — that have now disappeared from the radar without anyone being charged?

In many of these cases the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) did its job by freezing assets and approaching the courts to seize whatever were deemed to be the proceeds of a crime. But where were the other law enforcement agencies to ensure that those involved were prosecuted?

As a result we have ended up with a long list of individuals who are referred to as “having been fingered in corruption” without actually being charged. Is it fair to exclude such individuals in any democratic process aimed at choosing the country’s next leaders when law enforcement agencies act as if they are not sure whether they have cases against them or not?

The situation is made worse in those instances where a politician’s alleged corruption only comes to the spotlight, and there are promises of imminent arrests, ahead of major elective conferences where they are expected to run for positions. Once that conference is over, and the politician has either withdrawn or failed to make the cut, the accusations suddenly melt away with no-one talking of “imminent arrests” anymore. The examples are plenty.

All of this undermines and discredits the battle against corruption, as it leads to citizens believing that all the exposés by investigative journalists, statements by whistleblowers and investigations by hard-working police officers are merely part of a “political game” where opponents hope to win by throwing mud at each other.

If the battle is to be won it will take more than political parties adopting the step-aside rule; it will require that the Hawks and all other agencies assigned to carry out this task do so with the urgency and seriousness required.

Otherwise we are at the mercy of a voluntary and flawed party process whose outcome is often dependent on whether the accused is aligned with the right faction or not at the time.