Jeff Radebe is emerging as the Essop Pahad of Jacob Zuma’s administration: a bullying fixer who is deployed to push through crude solutions to political obstacles.
Pahad was adept at using the jargon of revolution to manufacture consent. Radebe is the purveyor of a cynical and dangerous populism -- usually couched in the language of transformation -- that serves as cover for efforts to entrench a culture of compliance.
The outcome of the Hlophe matter is testimony to Radebe’s unblushing style of blunt manipulation -- and should be the backdrop against which we should assess the credibility of the Zuma government’s professed commitment to judicial independence and the rule of law.
No sooner had he been appointed as minister of justice than Radebe waded into the Judicial Service Commission, postponing its sitting on the pretext of addressing transformation. Instead, he used the delay to appoint four new members acceptable to the Zuma administration.
Zuma’s candidates seemed to have been chosen based on a shrewd assessment of their susceptibility to manipulation.
Of course we heard nothing about Radebe’s deliberations on transformation. His new team, as predicted, back-pedalled on the decision that Hlophe should face a formal hearing and be cross-examined. Instead there was a “preliminary inquiry” -- initially intended to be behind closed doors -- which allowed Hlophe to put forward his colourful version of events and schmooze his most ambivalent accuser, Judge Chris Jafta.
This gave Radebe the opening to craft Hlophe’s dubious absolution, backed by his three nominees (Dumisa Ntsebeza had earlier appeared for Hlophe and recused himself) and by Marumo Moerane, an advocate whose legal career has been so closely tied to the executive that he could almost be regarded as a civil servant.
It is significant that the only two sitting judges on the panel -- both black -- are understood to have voted for a formal hearing to go ahead.
It is an open question whether Radebe was motivated by a desire to save Hlophe, or whether the Cape judge president merely served as a useful tool for taming and compromising the JSC.
This week Radebe’s skills were on display again as he briefed Parliament’s defence committee as chairperson of the national conventional arms control committee. Radebe rebuked attempts by Democratic Alliance MP David Maynier to elicit detailed explanations about some of our more controversial recent arms deals -- such as the delivery of ammunition to Zimbabwe and the sale of sniper rifles to Syria -- claiming he had provided sufficient information.
“It would not be appropriate to go into every transaction we have authorised and not authorised,” he sniffed. And to back him up there was a chorus of outrage from the ANC at Maynier’s temerity in supposedly jeopardising national security by disclosing some details about the sales. Committee chairperson Mnyamezeli Booi ruled Maynier out of order and, after the meeting, ANC chief whip Mathole Motshekga issued a statement saying he would ask Speaker Max Sisulu to remove Maynier from the committee for illegally obtaining and disclosing classified information.
Rubbish. He was doing his parliamentary duty.
The short resurgence of independence and accountability that occurred during the closing months of the Mbeki era appears to have been smothered -- and Radebe is among the most dangerous of the new mandarins.
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