'Political party funding mafias have become as bad as the Guptas were for South Africa and as dangerous as the construction mafia groups are to the country.’ File picture: Dumisani Sibeko/Independent Media Archives
South Africa is drifting into a dangerous period. Wearing large blinkers dished out by politicians and experiencing the relief of having survived a collapsed parliament, its citizens are not fully informed of three huge threats.
The first is the obvious threat of industry mafia groups that have hijacked the economy at every level.
These mafia groups are milking billions from Eskom, Home Affairs, the construction industry, road and rail freight services, water and health services, as well as from the private sector.
I was in Sir Lowry’s Pass Village recently, where the community has waited decades for a high school to be built for their children. I was shown a half-built school, standing abandoned for six months because of corruption.
The second threat is political party funding.
The Western Cape High Court ruling that reinstated the donation limit for political parties and independent candidates at R15 million and the disclosure threshold at R100 000, will not stop the “Guptarisation” of political party funding from being a looming threat.
For anyone willing to believe that people with money always play by the rules, I have two bridges to sell you. There are enough lawyers to help them design ways to buy influence over politicians and political party policies.
Political party funding mafias have become as bad as the Guptas were for South Africa and as dangerous as the construction mafia groups are to the country.
The obvious question is why political party funders are hardly interviewed or scrutinised. They are simply sanitised as being purely benevolent with no intentions of being malfeasant.
Politicians and their political parties across the world have been bought by political party funders.
South Africa is standing knee-deep in this next crisis. By the 2029 national elections, political party funding will be akin to being categorised as a mafia group.
The media still sanitises their benevolence, while not paying attention to the growing concerns about their controlling influence.
The third threat to our democracy is the government of national unity. The GNU is part of the reason why Jacob Zuma and the MK Party are on the rise.
Black concerns about the GNU being a pro-wealth collusion, which maintains the status quo of inequality, are growing.
It reminds me of the reason why Jan Smuts lost the 1924 elections. His South Africa Party was defeated because he poorly managed the hardships faced by post-World War 1 economies and the poverty of white people.
He was defeated by a coalition of the pro-Afrikaner National Party and the South African Labour Party, a socialist party representing the interests of the white working class.
MK is mobilising support as the party of the poor working class. Soon other small parties to the left and right of MK will find their only recourse is to align with or become MK.
While others are busy maligning and demonising the MK Party, the floodgates have opened for the working class to migrate to those who understand their struggles and tap into their minds.
This is an example of the theory that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”. Remember that Nelson Mandela was once framed as the most dangerous terrorist in South Africa.
During his first visit to the USA after his release from prison, he was still designated as a terrorist by the US government.
While South Africa's current trajectory shows favourable outcomes for the currency and the economy, and ministers appear determined to root out the mafia system across their various departments, the system seems incapable of responding to two emerging realities: the emerging political party funding mafia and the shift in political ownership of the poor from the ANC to MK.
On 17 June 1924, Jan Smuts paid the price for his arrogant obsession with the British King, his major funder. The white poor punished him at the polls.
The black poor are waiting for 2029.
* Lorenzo A. Davids.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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