South Africa on the Road to One Party Kleptocracy: ANC ready to Disband Anti-Corruption Police

It's come to my attention that the recent ANC conference which elected Jacob Zuma as its leader also decided to disband the Scorpions anti-corruption force. The Scorpions report to the state prosecution service and stand aside from the police as a special force to fight corruption and illegality in high places. It was something that made South Africa different from a large number of countries in rest of the continent, a country where government is under the law and where government serves the nation instead of looting the nation. Zuma himself was investigated for corruption due to Scorpion actions, but was cleared. Since then he"s been cleared of rape and corruption charges but continues to be investigated for corruption. Jacob Zuma who has now been appointed President of South Africa in waiting, since the leader of the ANC is guaranteed to win the state post. Zuma has been elected head of the ANC in a mood of resentment that wealth is held by whites. Underlying this is disappointment that the benefits of economic growth have not been widely felt. A creeping process is underway of transferring economic assets to ANC connected business people in the name of social justice. These are the wrong solutions to some real problems. The problems are been taken up to feed a mood of resentment and the feeling that no law or ethics restrains the urge for rectification.

South Africa and Africa do not need a growing state monopoly party system in Sotuh Africa, especially not in the mood of resentment and of immunity for the popular champion of the moment. It needs a split in the ANC to allow genuine political competition. It is widely acknowledged that the ANC has a social democratic wing and a more radical wing round the Communist Party of South Africa and the trade unions. South Africa needs these wings to evolve into parties competing for power with each other, instead of competing with each other within the ANC on how to carve up state patronage. The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, is a worthy liberal party rooted in white parliamanetary opposition to Apartheid, but it looks stuck as the party of white voters and Cape coloureds. Waiting for it to acquire larger Black support 's likely to be slow process. The ANC as a movement of liberation should have split into parties sooner, a movement of liberation that becomes government is particularly likely to regard opposition to its policies and to the privileges of its movement as anti-liberation. We see this in practice when we see this disturbing move to eliminate the Scorpions. What next in the search to eliminate constraints on the ANC?