When you have decided to make it your life’s work to swim with sharks, is it wise, shortly before you dive in, to allow someone to massage you with fish guts and human blood? I don't know. Clearly Mmusi Maimane doesn’t either.

As great whites (and some much less impressive whites) begin to circle, following the trail of political lifeblood seeping out of the hole in Maimane’s reputation, his supporters are treading water hard. If he accepted a car sponsored by Steinhoff, they insist, it was before anyone knew that Steinhoff was crooked, and besides, it wasn’t a personal gift but more of a general freebie tossed into the communal DA pool of goodies...

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