The spectacular self-immolation of Police Minister Senzo Mchunu

THERE are many ways a politician can end their career.

- JOVIAL RANTAO

A sex scandal. A corruption conviction. A spectacular policy failure. But Senzo Mchunu has chosen a path far more excruciating: death by a thousand self-inflicted wounds, delivered live on national television, with millions watching him tie the noose, kick away the chair, and then helpfully explain why gravity is actually quite misunderstood.Welcome to the Madlanga Commission, where South Africa’s suspended police minister has been treating us to a masterclass in political self-destruction so comprehensive, so thoroughly executed, that one almost has to admire the commitment to the craft.

There is something profoundly tragic about watching Mchunu sink deeper into political estrangement — not because his adversaries outplayed him, but because those entrusted to guide him seem unable to read the national mood. His advisors have built an echo chamber so thick that the lie has been repeated until it now sounds like the truth.

You see the same pattern unfolding before the Madlanga Commission, where South Africans, exhausted, disillusioned and increasingly unforgiving, are demanding honesty, accountability and an end to the ANC’s endless shenanigans. The public has grown weary of corruption dressed up as governance.

Mchunu’s performance is textbook ANC circa 2024 — that peculiar vintage of brittling arrogance marinated in the conviction that absolutely anything can be explained away if you just use enough words.

Never mind that voters brutally punished the party at the polls. Never mind that only a marriage of convenience with smaller parties keeps them clinging to power like barnacles on a sinking ship. The comrades still have their blue lights, still lap up luxury on the public dime, and still regard ordinary citizens as simpletons who should gratefully accept whatever nonsensical explanations are tossed their way.