By Deon de Lange
No amount of public pressure will save the Scorpions, and only the voters can decide next year if they disagreed with the ANC's decision to disband the doomed elite police unit.
This is the unequivocal message from ANC MPs Maggie Sotyu and Yunus Carrim, chairmen of the portfolio committees on safety and justice respectively.
Sotyu on Wednesday reacted angrily to media reports about the public backlash that has met the ruling party's national conference decision to dissolve the Scorpions.
'To what extent do they represent the majority?' But she agreed that the vast majority of petitions say the same thing: do not close the Scorpions.
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She said a final decision to kill off this popular crime-fighting unit was already taken, and the only influence the public has was to contribute towards the process of finalising legislation on the demise of the Scorpions and the creation of the new unit.
She was supported by Carrim, who challenged voters to punish the ANC at the polls next year if they did not support the decision on the Scorpions.
He accused the "mass media and certain political parties" of making this a "far bigger issue than it is for the rank and file of our population".
He also cast aspersions on those who are taking part in the campaign to save the Scorpions by implying that only whites were involved.
'The Scorpions are going to be dissolved' This, despite the fact that a broad range of opposition parties were campaigning for the retention of the unit.
Carrim said those petitions that simply expressed opposition to the ANC's decision "are not helpful" and he dismissed as "misleading" a number of recent polls indicating overwhelming public support for the retention of the unit in its current form.
He said the decision to disband the Scorpions was taken by more than 4 000 ANC delegates who represented "about 750 000 ANC members" and an electorate base of millions of voters.
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