Fikile-Ntsikilelo Moya
I have heard and read how last week’s Constitutional Court hearing on the powers of the public protector was evidence of just how robust our constitutional democracy is.
I must say that I take a half-empty glass view of the development. For me, it is like expecting a woman to praise the criminal justice system and the Domestic Violence Act because the man who battered her has been arrested and is going through the processes of determining her guilt.
It is fantastic to have a Constitutional Court to arbitrate on disputed interpretations of the intentions of the crafters of the constitution.
Last week was not about that.
We know this because President Jacob Zuma’s lawyer, advocate Jeremy Gauntlett, immediately conceded to the court that the matters that had necessitated the need for the court were baseless.
“We say we accept that the president is required to carry out remedial action. The public protector’s report has to be complied with,” Gauntlett told the court.
What happened in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, last week was evidence of just how sycophancy and a false belief that whether something is right or wrong can be determined by how many say so, can sink a nation.
We got a glimpse of how majoritarian fundamentalism can take a people to a path of ruin and self-destruction.
We witnessed what a sequel to the tale of the Emperor’s new clothes – a story of a vain king who has surrounded himself with praise singers and instead got duped by conmen exploiting his vanity and the toadying of those around him – would have turned out if Hans Christian Anderson was a Hollywood movie maker.
To seek to praise President Zuma for doing what he should have done in the first place is itself a form of sycophancy.
The president had the duty to defend the dignity of the office of the public protector even if he did not like the person in the office. He failed.
Instead, he allowed for praise singers to think of the Public Protector’s Office as a public lavatory. I feel no pity that it was the toadies who ended up down the cesspit. I hope the darkness and the smell there will open the eyes of future brown-nosers.
Who among us would praise the addict for “listening” if after being cornered, he finally went to rehab? Who among us would think progressive if a violent tormentor of his own family finally went for anger management classes?
Since lackeys love clutching at straws, I have to state the obvious, which is that I do not mean that President Zuma is an addict, nor do I suggest that he is prone to violent anger.
I am not suggesting that President Zuma must fall. He is duly and democratically elected to be in his position. Twice the electorate has put to power a party that made no secret that it would have him as a head of state if elected, and twice the party won landslide elections.
I am, however, saying that like all adults, let alone heads of state, he must take responsibility for his actions and omissions.
The party that deployed him has told all and sundry that they told him to seek a court review if he did not like the public protector’s recommendations.
He ignored them, they say.
Senior party leaders tell us that the first time they found out we had a new finance minister called David van Rooyen was when the media told them so. As with the public protector’s findings regarding his Nkandla homestead, the president eventually climbed down. At a high cost in both cases.
Billions of rand were wiped off the country’s bonds and securities because of the president’s apparent failure to apply his mind.
Then again, this might be a big ask, considering that he did not take the ANC leadership collective into his confidence and seek their input when making the decision to sack Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister. That Nene was being freed to be available for an important post at the Brics Bank now feels like a convenient afterthought because, at the time of writing, the bank was still to announce Nene, two months after his sacking.
Who knows how many more millions of rand were spent on lawyers arguing in the Constitutional Court; film-makers showing just how a swimming pool can be a security feature.
And all that for President Zuma to stand up in court – through his lawyer – and say the public protector was right after all.
South Africans must not get desensitised to abuse of power, waste or abuse of public funds.
We must not make being outraged by how those elected to govern do what they were sent out to do.
When we do, we will oil the wheels of the vehicle that will take us to being a failed state.
We will have played a role in the liquidation of our democracy.