The following is the second extract from my book, Rule Breakers: How the 2024 election campaign changed South Africa forever, published by Protea. The first extract, Turning up the volume: Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma and democratic SA’s most consequential election, was published last Sunday. This extract examines the build-up to the DA’s “moonshot pact” initiative.
“President Cyril Ramaphosa has approved the remission of nonviolent offenders in South Africa. Obviously, a question will arise whether former President Zuma will benefit from this decision or not. Indeed, he is one of the beneficiaries.”
It was 11 August 2023 and Ronald Lamola, minister of justice and correctional services, was speaking to the media. President Ramaphosa had just announced the remission of the jail sentences of more than 9 000 convicted criminals – one of them being Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma. It’s rare to be able to precisely pinpoint an error of political judgement of fateful proportions, but this decision of Ramaphosa’s government is a notable exception.
This decision, coming a month after Zuma’s failure in the Constitutional Court to avoid returning to prison, led to another brief spike in support for the political forces that would eventually become MK four months later. The rise in support for Zuma again was short-lived, rising from 8,8% on 10 August to 13% three days later, but settling again on 8,6% on 17 August – another reminder of the political potential of Zuma and his allies, but at this stage unsupported by a party that could make such gains sustainable. The true impact, though, of Zuma’s release would only be felt much closer to election day. And Zuma’s counterstrike would almost prove fatal to the ANC.
Although crime would remain important for much of the campaign, August would be the last month to see the issue maintain essentially full intensity as an issue of public priority. In addition to the release of thousands of criminals by the ANC government, additional crime stories broke through the sound barrier, ensuring the issue, as part of the shifting politics heading into an election campaign, remained firmly and vividly front of mind.
First, there was the matter of Major General Feroz Khan, the deputy national commissioner at Crime Intelligence and head of counterintelligence, attending the EFF’s gala event and associating with dubious figures at the party’s tenth anniversary celebration at Emperor’s Palace on 27 July 2023 (where ticket prices exceeded R100 000 per seat).
The senior cop was seated at the same table as self-confessed tobacco smuggler Adriano Mazzotti and his business partner Mohammadh Sayed. As soon as Khan’s presence at the event became public, it raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest and ethical breaches, as SAPS members are prohibited by law from any affiliation with political parties. Speaking to Newzroom Afrika, on 31 July, Tebogo Khaas, chair of Public Interest South Africa (PISA), described Khan’s attendance as “shameful” and “offensive”, calling out the inappropriate nature of a senior police officer fraternising with individuals linked to criminal activities.
Khan’s explanation of his presence to News24 further complicated the situation. He claimed he attended the event to observe and not to endorse any political activities. Yet, his friendship with Sayed and his seating arrangement next to Mazzotti added to the controversy. It was further revealed that Khan’s ticket was purchased by Sayed, contradicting his claim that he was on official duty.
Pieter Groenewald argued that his presence undermined public trust in law enforcement and raised questions about the impartiality of the police force. Groenewald specifically pointed out the irony of a top police official sitting with individuals implicated in criminal activities, such as Mazzotti, while South Africa struggled with high crime rates. Following requests from parties like the DA, National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola initiated an internal investigation to determine if Khan had violated any regulations by attending the EFF event. While coverage of the story broke and peaked on 29 July 2023, momentum of it continued into August, adding to the sustained public interest in the issue of crime.
Another spate of illegal mining incidents, this time in Riverlea in Johannesburg, added to the national escalation in the importance of crime. On 1 August, eNCA reported on the killings of five people in late July in violent confrontations between competing gangs of illegal miners. Residents unhappy with the inability of the government to bring the criminal mining activities under control erupted in public anger, forcing Bheki Cele to visit the area in an attempt to address concerns. In cavalier fashion, the police minister undertook to change the situation in Riverlea within 24 hours. However, the Tactical Response Team units supposedly part of Cele’s rapid turnaround failed to make their presence felt as immediately as promised.
Despite footage emerging of alleged illegal miners being arrested in the area, residents, like those of Diepsloot, were unimpressed by the government’s attempts. eNCA reported that only six limpwristed arrests were made despite Cele’s supposed intervention plans. Further eNCA footage showed illegal miners simply running away from police officers, recolouring as farce what the ANC government had intended as force. As an immediate result, the ANC’s support levels, having taken a knock in July, struggled below 40% for the first week of August.
In Cape Town, another law-and-order crisis confronted the government. From 3 to 10 August 2023, a taxi strike hit the city and its DA government. The strike, organised and initiated by the South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO), started with a six-day suspension of taxi activities in protest of the implementation of the National Land Transport Act and the impoundment of minibus taxis by the Cape Town government on 2 August. SANTACO argued that taxi drivers were unfairly targeted, demanding the release of impounded vehicles without fines and seeking resolution of other long-standing issues.
By 8 August, in a stunningly partisan move, ANC national transport minister Sindisiwe Chikunga sided with the strikers and called for the release of impounded taxis. She went further, accusing the city of inciting the strike by incorrect application of law. JP Smith, MMC for safety and security, hit back: “Minister Chikunga, why are you trying to incite further violence by making false statements?” On whether Cape Town had erred in law enforcement when impounding the taxis, Smith doubled down on his confrontational stance. “Please can the public help us,” he said, “whoever is closest to the minister, lean over and explain to her very slowly. ‘No minibus taxi has ever been impounded within Cape Town because of a by-law. Never. Taxis have only been impounded under her National Land Transport Act. It’s her Act. From 2009. If it is illegal, how come she only decided this today? After 14 years.’”
DA heavy-hitters in the Western Cape added pressure on SANTACO and, indirectly, the ANC who, in the person of the transport minister, had positioned themselves on the side of the strikers. “The poor are suffering the most due to this strike and each day that it drags on is a major setback to them. The impact has been devastating on them and our economy,” premier Alan Winde said. Provincial minister for education, David Maynier, added that “SANTACO’s minibus taxi strike is destroying teaching and learning in the Western Cape. Our children need to be in class learning, and SANTACO is stopping this from happening.” Tertuis Simmers, Maynier’s cabinet colleague in the infrastructure portfolio, took aim at Bheki Cele: “ANC minister of police, Bheki Cele, attends a meeting with the taxi industry. A violent strike follows immediately. All the usual suspects are on the bandwagon – numerous RET factions, the EFF, political has-beens, and politicians continuously biting in the dust of DA progress.”
The violent taxi strike, unleashing a wave of criminality and concern over crime due to the spreading of videos and photos of bodies, burnt vehicles and children bleeding after stonings, concluded on 10 August after late-night negotiations between Cape Town and SANTACO, where the latter, left with little room to manoeuvre, agreed to the city’s terms.
The strike was dirty, damaging, deadly – and political. Yet, the taxi confrontation in Cape Town was by no means the only political test in the form of strike action that the DA had to face in August. On 26 July, Cilliers Brink faced yet another crisis in the capital city under the DA-led coalition.
The municipal workers’ strike in Tshwane followed the coalition government’s announcement that there would be no salary increases in the budget year due to budgetary constraints. The workers, represented by the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU), demanded a 5,4% salary increase, which was part of a previously agreed three-year wage deal signed in 2021. The city claimed it could not afford the increase, citing low revenue collection and financial difficulties, including debts to service providers like Eskom and Rand Water. The city, which refused to negotiate with SAMWU, maintained it did not have the R600 million required for the agreement and had unsuccessfully applied to the South African Local Government Bargaining Council (SALGBC) for an exemption.
The strike escalated as protests turned violent, with reports of municipal vehicles being set on fire and intimidation of employees who attempted to work.
In a truly bizarre and sinister development, SAMWU members went as far as discussing, via WhatsApp, a plan to kidnap Brink’s wife. The militant spirit and antagonism towards the mayor led one SAMWU member to say: “The only thing to do comrades is to fight, close all the municipal offices until we are under administration, then we will get all our money. Brink is so stubborn, we can all see that he will never give us our money.”
A decisive moment in shifting public opinion on the strike firmly in favour of Brink and the city was the shooting on 13 August of a city employee on a callout to attend to a service delivery problem in the northern suburb of Montana. The SAMWU strike would continue until November 2023, ending broadly in favour of the DA-led coalition. Brink and his government seemed to gain the moral high ground of the strike in the latter half of August, particularly following violent disruptions by SAMWU-aligned interests. From dipping below 20% on 11 August, the party’s standing rose in the wake of both the end of the largely unsuccessful SANTACO strike in Cape Town and the violent escalation of the SAMWU strike in Tshwane.
The twin crises in two cities with prominent DA mayors was an incredibly dangerous moment for the party. Yet, thanks to the solid mayoral showings by Hill-Lewis and Brink amidst crisis and confrontation with markedly pro-ANC interests, the DA’s support increased in the first two weeks of August, topping 25% from 4 to 10 August. (For June 2023, the party had averaged a respectable support level of 22%. For July, this had slipped to 21%.) So deftly had two of the party’s young leaders dealt with heavily loaded hostility in Pretoria and Cape Town that the party actually gained support over the first two weeks of August. The party’s leaders in its flagship cities of both sole DA governance and DA-led coalition governance had done enough to keep things steady at a crucial moment for the party at a national level. Had Hill-Lewis and Brink failed in the first half of August to face and face down dangerous ANC-aligned opponents, had the two city governments capitulated or lost control to violence and criminality with distinct political undertones, the 17 August official launch of Steenhuisen’s “moonshot pact” would have taken place in the context of a DA on the back foot. With a solid start to August, and a quarter of South Africans supporting the party, the DA leader launched his coalition project with the wind at his back.
* Rule Breakers: How the 2024 election campaign changed South Africa forever is available in bookshops and online.
If you like what you have just read, support the Daily Friend