Mkhwebane must now live in the real world

One swallow, so the old saying goes, does not make a summer. So the fact that a perceived Zuma supporter has done a complete about-turn does not necessarily mean that Number 1 and his foot soldiers are in retreat.

Yet, it is worth looking a bit deeper into the decision by Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane to back off from the legal fight she started with the Reserve Bank over its very foundations.

When she announced a far-reaching recommendation that ordered parliament to amend legislation to change the Reserve Bank’s focus, she was belligerent and unapologetic.

Her recommendations seemed to dovetail perfectly with what the Zuma-Gupta-Bell Pottinger axis had been saying about the evils of white monopoly capital and the racist and unfair nature of the banking system.

She did not seem to care when she was accused of overstepping her mandate, or when her report caused turmoil in currency markets and significant stock exchange losses.

But suddenly, as the Reserve Bank went to court to challenge her, Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba also opposed her recommendations.

Finally, Mkhwebane was thrown under the bus by parliament’s speaker, Baleka Mbete, who also challenged her. It is easy to accuse the public protector of incompetence but we think that would be unfair and incorrect.

We think that, all along, she was only carrying out what those who appointed her (the Zuma clique) wanted her to do: act as a stalking horse to see how far they could push their so-called “radical transformation” agenda.

Not very far, as it turned out. No matter how much Zuma’s part of the ANC believes it can defy the power of the markets and still have a working economy afterwards, they now realise that some things are even bigger than their rhetoric.