GOVERNING PARTY
AUBREY MATSHIQI: Seeds of corruption sown long time ago
Whenever a thing seems at its zenith, you may be sure its destruction has already started. So it was with the triumvirate. It towered above the landscape of politics like some granite monolith. Yet it had weaknesses that none could see and that were only to be revealed with time. These words are from a work of fiction from which I have quoted before, a novel about ancient Rome. Robert Harris wrote Dictator and it chronicles the last 15 years of Cicero’s life, as well as the political circumstances under which Caesar eclipsed the other two members of the triumvirate, Pompey and Crassus, to become the dictator of Rome.Back to our novel, Dictator. In September 2008, the power of the Zuma coalition was at its zenith and he was invincible. This is what facilitated the bloodless coup that resulted in Thabo Mbeki resigning as head of state in September 2008. I suppose it can be argued that the seeds of Mbeki’s destruction were planted when his position seemed unassailable. As we ponder the...
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