The recent decision by President Cyril Ramaphosa to dismiss Andrew Whitfield, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, has plunged South Africa into a new political quagmire, threatening the stability of the Government of National Unity (GNU).
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A Democratic Alliance (DA) former deputy minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, a certain Mr Andrew Whitfield, desperately wanted to go to the United States. By his own admission, he really wanted to inform the President of the Republic about this pressing desire.
He was only disappointed by his email, which kept buffering. No matter. So pressing was the need, he couldn’t even take the Minister he reported to into confidence, nor share the imperatives of the trip, its objectives and possible outcomes. He just couldn’t wait, period.
His interlocutors in the United States were waiting. His political instincts too, convinced him and his party that the fate of the Republic of South Africa depended on him going to Washington DC, He could not let something so insignificant as breaking established travel protocols deter his resolve!
The sequence of events in these episodes of deception is usually murky, leaving observers to fill in the blanks.
It was a conference or meeting with persons that the President or Parks Tau, Minister of Whitfield’s portfolio, was not aware of. He was summoned to go with haste, or he volunteered. He either paid for himself or the Exchequer subvented his jaunt. Who knows? He may even have been subsidised by his US hosts. All these things are not clear. What is clear, however, is that President Cyril Ramaphosa was so mortified by it that he did the unthinkable. He fired the Deputy Minister.
The aunty, who lords it over the almighty DA, was confused. She was certain that an indecisive President would haw and hew and settle for a meaningless finger-wagging. When fired, the leader of Andrew Whitfield’s party, one John Steenhuisen, issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the President. Reinstate our Andrew or else.
The President did not receive the ultimatum, or so it seems. His TV was switched to a war channel as US President Donald J Trump was taking a victory lap for Operation Midnight Hammer. He was on a country tour teaching his countrymen and countrywomen about “obliteration”.
But South Africa’s comedy is not restricted to politics, or to be sure, to its politicians only. As it has become apparent, no country produces politicians or their version of hilarity as South Africa does. But I digress.
When caught for speeding, every indignant accused South African would never fail to invoke the defence of what-about-ism. They would protest that of all the speeding criminals on South African roads, carelessly disregarding established rules and endangering the lives of so many innocent people, why would the police pick on them, the poor, law-abiding ones, even if speeding? In protest, they would try to exculpate themselves by indicting others.
The leader of the DA needed to be heard over the profusion of press microphones pointed at him as he couldn’t afford not to be heard or, per chance, misunderstood. 48 hours and no more.
The country waited with anticipation. The Republic has not been gripped with so much trepidation, not since the PW Botha 1985 “Rubicon” kerfuffle. At the effluxion of the most dreaded 48-hour ultimatum, the DA revealed their “or else”. For failure to reinstate their Whitfield-on-errand, they would not talk anymore, they said, especially not to South Africans gathered in some colloquium, or something to that effect.
They would not be forced out of the GNU either, the lady capo mused with fury. They would crush the economy, as companies would leave South Africa in droves and the rand would irredeemably collapse.
In that state of enfeeblement, according to this fantasy, Donald Trump or Elon Musk would probably send the Marines. They would quickly bomb the Union Buildings and then force a regime change. That bit is a stretch and entirely contrived. But what is the point of all this deception if not for regime change?
And so far, only the United States can assist in the planning for, and execution of a regime change, whether here or anywhere else they so desire. After the military coup in Bolivia in 2019 that forced Eva Morales out of power, Elon Musk in his infamous tweet, posted that “We will coup whoever we want. Deal with it.”
President Mbeki’s allegory at an interview with Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, puts it more sagaciously. If it is in the national interest of the United States to kill him, they would do so without compunction.
In that vein, if the interests of the DA and the US are the same, much like the interests of the US and Israel are similarly aligned, it would not stretch anyone’s imagination that the aunty’s Doomsday wishes would be Washington’s too. How the US will bring that political dream to pass, only Donald J Trump will tell.
There is no archived memory in post-apartheid South Africa when so many opposition politicians, right-wing extremists and other neo-nazi organisations have dutifully trooped to the US to lobby the same people again and again. Their audience of kindred political persuasion is an eclectic mix of effervescent enthusiasts.
Their pastime includes advocating for the imposition of economic sanctions against South Africa, especially against some political parties and their leaders. And when convenient, facilitate a regime change against the ruling party. Perhaps that is just one wild imagination too far. Perhaps. And for our own comfort, there is probably nothing to worry about. But listening to the honchos who highlight Steenhuisen’s party, their utterances fuel even wilder concerns.
And so Whitfield had to go to the US. And quickly. On the 26th of June, a very historic day in the GNU calendar, the President fired him.
Historians will have a better chance of estimating what really happened at the moment of transition from the Democratic Party to the Democratic Alliance. At that critical moment of their evolution, the transmogrification wiped out whatever vestiges of democratic instincts that remained from the legacy of their Progressive Federal Party forbears. The Alliance has turned into a hodgepodge that accommodates neo nazis who now enjoy pride of place somewhere on YouTube channels.
Steenhuisen came in prepared. His political party was upset. How is it even possible that among so many political wrongdoers, only the DA wrongdoer must be singled out for retribution? Besides, those executive travel protocols only apply to the lesser “others”, or specifically, the ANC. No trip to the US by any DA member should be subjected to ANC protocols, he argued. The President must reinstate Whitfield, and while at it, he must fire two ANC ministers whose identities he was happy to share.
The 48-hour ultimatum clock started ticking. And as they say, South Africans of all hues, whatever that means, were waiting, or rather shivering, biting their nails, waiting for John or Donald, whoever came first.
* Ambassador Bheki Gila is a Barrister-at-Law.
** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, Independent Media, or IOL.