Why is the speaker surprised?

There’s a chance that there are South Africans who are sympathetic to National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula’s cries of trial and persecution by the media over the allegations that she took bribes worth millions of rands from a contractor in her department.

The reason people might be sympathetic is because voters really have short memories.

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This is not the first time the allegations have been made and they are certainly not the only allegations against her.

And most importantly, the way the ruling party has allowed her to survive the allegations over the years goes to the heart of their woes at the polling stations.

If the ANC does indeed dip below the 50% mark in the 29 May national elections, they will only have themselves to blame.

The two main areas that voters will judge the party on will be service delivery (alternatively failure to govern effectively) and corruption (their failure to take accountability when their leaders steal and abuse taxpayers’ money).

On the latter, the party ignored the very early signs of impropriety way back in the late ’90s, until the rot had spread so much that it has now become almost impossible for it to supply a simple list of 400 individuals to parliament without including the names of individuals who have had corruption allegations levelled against them at some point during their leadership journey.

Bantu Holomisa of the United Democratic Movement first made allegations of corruption against high-ranking ANC leaders when he was still a member of the ANC national executive.

At the time, he alleged that Stella Sigcau and Thabo Mbeki had received bribes from late hotel magnate Sol Kerzner. He made these allegations at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the ANC’s response at the time?

Close ranks behind their leaders and promptly expelled Holomisa from the party. Too bad they did not show corruption the same door they showed Holomisa because that would have probably ensured they swerved away from the edge of the precipice they’re hurtling toward right now.

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So, should the speaker be thrown to the wolves to show they care about alleged corruption? The nature of the ANC and how they have responded to alleged corruption in the past will not allow it to come out strongly and ask for Mapisa-Nqakula to clear her name before she stands for any position in the elections or return to parliament.

All the ANC has done is to tell the country it has referred the matter to its own integrity commission which, the country knows, is often ignored.

It needs to be pointed out that the allegations about which the speaker is alleging a trial by the media are not new.

Holomisa, who would surely have been the conscience of the ANC had he been allowed to stay, first released a letter detailing the allegations three years ago. Nothing came of it at the time… as is always the case.

The difference this time around is that the contractor spoke to the media herself. If the speaker really wanted to avoid a trial by the media, she would have acted on the initial allegations.

When the country is convinced that the authorities choose not to act against senior government leaders, their only recourse becomes news media outlets.

This not a new phenomenon. Former US president Richard Nixon was toppled by media leaks. Apartheid, in a big way, was defeated because the media always put a spotlight on abuses of power.