POINT OF ORDER
TIM COHEN: There’s gold in them thar mounds of Gupta mails
How important is the trove of e-mails from the Gupta family and their associates that were leaked to news organisations over the past few weeks? I ask because I sense a level of Gupta-fatigue in SA’s body politic. Most informed South Africans, opposition political parties, activist groups and even the ANC had made up their minds long ago about what has been happening. So the e-mails, as shocking as they may be, are confirmatory rather than revelatory. The consequences of the rampant political corruption have also very obviously changed the mood of voters. Opinion polls and the results of recent by-elections confirm that voter disillusionment with the ANC is running at levels not even dreamt of only a few years ago. I’m convinced that if an election were held today under President Jacob Zuma’s leadership, the ANC would lose.But in other ways, the e-mail disclosures change things utterly. First, they provide a first-hand, granular record, neatly time-stamped, that can be correlated wi...
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