GARETH VAN ONSELEN: The ANC’s culture of concealment
‘Its internal conspiracies seem true: it is corrupt, it is fundamentally factionalised and it is held hostage to a profound kind of amoral internal politics that protects the incompetent and unethical’
The ANC’s internal political culture is as self-destructive as it is ominous. Antiquated and conspiratorial, the party seems to thrive on subterfuge, suspicion and deception. Political parties the world over have these traits, but in the ANC they are second nature; the consequence of a party that still seems to think it operates in the shadow of some underground revolution, not the glaring light of the Constitution. From the outside, it appears to be a ghastly, amoral place to work. One of the many ways in which this intrigue becomes manifest is concealment. But it is concealment of a special sort. Whatever the issue, it is never fully suppressed, rather merely alluded to, typically in a language as obscure as it is loaded. The quintessential example, as ever with the ANC, is Jacob Zuma’s astoundingly casual statement in November 2016 that, "Those are the thieves and I know they are stealing. I’m just watching them. I know them." That is quite a admission for a sitting president — ...
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