The Austrian-British political philosopher Karl Popper, originator of the notion of the “open society”, wrote that there was one true test of democracy. Would a governing party hand over power without violence after losing an election?
Will Democrats in the US accept a second Donald Trump victory?
Will Maga supporters accept a defeat?
Trump has weaponised the “rigged” or “stolen election” narrative and deploys it whenever he can.
Prepare for blowback come November, one way or another. Will it be 6 January reloaded? Even Elon Musk has predicted “civil war”.
Vladimir Putin has, no doubt, stocked up on popcorn.
Venezuela’s 28 July election was marred by allegations of a “foreign electoral cyberattack” and repression but it put strongman Nicolás Maduro back in power with 51.2% of the vote, with opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia garnering 44.2%.
Maduro’s government has been accused of massive fraud and dozens of people have been killed in post-election protests and violence.
A new era
We pause to acknowledge that the ANC, which governed us for 30 years, accepted the results of the 2024 elections that gave birth to the current government of national unity, the multiparty government, the coalition government, call it what you will.
At his inauguration, President Cyril Ramaphosa described this hybrid as “the beginning of a new era” safeguarding “national unity, peace, stability, inclusive economic growth, non-racialism and non-sexism”.
It is a hugely significant acceptance and speaks to the fading strands of the DNA of the Luthuli/Mandela/Sisulu generation, which still permeates the “ethos” of the ANC, in spite of the party’s capture by the venal Jacob Zuma’s “Pirates of Polokwane”.
Make no mistake, the threat of violence was, and is, ever present in Zuma’s backyard, KwaZulu-Natal (as July 2021 demonstrated).
It is a province awash with guns, assassins, criminal syndicates and construction, taxi and water mafias who all fed off the free-for-all Zuma years.
It is Zuma’s chaotic MK party that has challenged the outcome of the elections and threatened to boycott Parliament.
Extra security was dispatched to the province and a strong police presence during the elections was proof that the authorities remain on high alert.
Zuma’s dynastic project
While Zuma was hoping to straddle both the ANC and his shadow party, MK, he has now found himself expelled from the party he once led.
He is the phantom zombie at the centre of the chaos of his kleptocratic dynastic project. Pitchfork instigator Duduzile Zuma, his daughter, is her father’s enforcer, his paranoid eyes and ears.
If you are looking for an in-depth manifesto of what MK stands for, feel free to consult any of the volumes of the Zondo Commission.
The “real ANC” seems to have been caught by surprise by the level of support for MK that catapulted it into Parliament as the biggest opposition party.
Really? Surprised?
With a man like David Mahlobo, now a deputy minister in Ramaphosa’s Cabinet, in the tent, the stench is bound to permeate more than just his own reputation and career.
Here is a man accused by the Zondo Commission of helping to illegally repurpose the State Security Agency, alongside former director-general Arthur Fraser and other KGB wannabes, to personally and politically benefit one individual, Jacob Zuma.
They went along with Zuma’s unconstitutional proclamation collapsing domestic and foreign security into one department, which was then milked of about R1.5-billion from a secret slush fund between 2012 and 2018 to prop up Zuma.
Mahlobo is a man without a constituency, and politicians like this are beholden to their benefactors. Why is he still around and attending meetings?
It is highly unlikely that Mahlobo, as one of Zuma’s most loyal buttplugs, was unaware of the formation of MK and its behind-the-scenes payoffs.
Under his watch, the State Security Agency initiated countless rogue intelligence projects targeting the media, civil society, students and private individuals.
Say what you will about Cyril Ramaphosa but cometh the moment, cometh the man.
Why the ANC lost
At a recent ANC National Executive Committee meeting, the party’s head of elections, Mdumiseni Ntuli, set out how the ANC lost the elections. According to City Press, it was a searing bit of soul-searching.
The Zuma years corroded everything in the party, including the activism that drives party members to campaign tirelessly without reward. The party was plunged into a life-and-death struggle to syphon off resources and public funds. That was its tunnel vision.
Read more: Party should never have put Zuma’s interests above its own, says ANC elections head
This “counterrevolution” was so determined, the document noted, that snipers were present at Polokwane, where Zuma was elected as ANC president in 2007, just in case he lost. Assassins would have targeted the ANC’s own members “to achieve the leadership changes it wanted”.
Project 2026 for the party has been launched. How it governs now in coalition and whether it respects the rule of law and the Constitution will determine what happens on that not-so-far-off date.
South Africa has turned back from the lip of the volcano many times before. We have done it again. It is a lesson for others. DM
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
