Around 2020/21, at the height of Covid-19, as it became increasingly evident that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s so-called New Dawn was another corruption-riddled era of ANC misrule, something else was happening in the national discourse.
People accused of being involved in state capture just years before, together with their supporters, became increasingly brazen in attempts to delegitimise the very existence of the phenomenon under former president Jacob Zuma.
Some of those who were arrested and charged conveniently positioned themselves as victims of a political witch-hunt by the state to serve the interests of political opponents and to divert public attention from the failures of Ramaphosa’s administration.
There is no question that Ramaphosa’s government has continued the scourge of corruption, by different players and manifestations, that we saw under his predecessor.
And for that, South Africans must hold him and his lieutenants accountable.
But we must never accept any suggestion that a co-ordinated capture of state organs for the enrichment of the Guptas and their friends never happened under the eye, and with the active support, of Jacob Zuma.
It is against this background that many South Africans rightly characterise the election to parliament of the likes of Brian Molefe and Siyabonga Gama, who led corrupted state enterprises, as a consolidation of compromised individuals under the MK Party.
In any society, political narratives are contested. It is par for the course.
The state capture debate is one such for SA.
The National Prosecuting Authority’s failure to secure convictions in high-profile cases so far fuels the debate in favour of the corrupt.
Still, we must reject attempts to whitewash our recent history.
We must never allow for compromised politicians to deny that the hollowing out of our state institutions, the looting of our public resources, the circumventing of our laws, fictitious transactions and the hounding out of competent and ethical professionals from the state – happened.
All these things happened under the watchful eye, even participation, of those who today rebrand themselves as champions of economic transformation.
The MK Party has every right to pick whom it wants to represent it in parliament, including criminally accused persons.
But we must not participate in the disingenuous sanitisation of the dodgy characters it has chosen to reward with public power.
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Image: SANDILE NDLOVU
Around 2020/21, at the height of Covid-19, as it became increasingly evident that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s so-called New Dawn was another corruption-riddled era of ANC misrule, something else was happening in the national discourse.
People accused of being involved in state capture just years before, together with their supporters, became increasingly brazen in attempts to delegitimise the very existence of the phenomenon under former president Jacob Zuma.
Some of those who were arrested and charged conveniently positioned themselves as victims of a political witch-hunt by the state to serve the interests of political opponents and to divert public attention from the failures of Ramaphosa’s administration.
There is no question that Ramaphosa’s government has continued the scourge of corruption, by different players and manifestations, that we saw under his predecessor.
And for that, South Africans must hold him and his lieutenants accountable.
But we must never accept any suggestion that a co-ordinated capture of state organs for the enrichment of the Guptas and their friends never happened under the eye, and with the active support, of Jacob Zuma.
It is against this background that many South Africans rightly characterise the election to parliament of the likes of Brian Molefe and Siyabonga Gama, who led corrupted state enterprises, as a consolidation of compromised individuals under the MK Party.
In any society, political narratives are contested. It is par for the course.
The state capture debate is one such for SA.
The National Prosecuting Authority’s failure to secure convictions in high-profile cases so far fuels the debate in favour of the corrupt.
Still, we must reject attempts to whitewash our recent history.
We must never allow for compromised politicians to deny that the hollowing out of our state institutions, the looting of our public resources, the circumventing of our laws, fictitious transactions and the hounding out of competent and ethical professionals from the state – happened.
All these things happened under the watchful eye, even participation, of those who today rebrand themselves as champions of economic transformation.
The MK Party has every right to pick whom it wants to represent it in parliament, including criminally accused persons.
But we must not participate in the disingenuous sanitisation of the dodgy characters it has chosen to reward with public power.
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