Political gangsterism in SA is a clear and present danger

Dealing with this will not be easy.

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government, along a shifting set of networks, some linked to outright criminal actors. Today it expresses itself through a number of political parties, and finds willing collaborators in others.

The gangsterisation of politics is part of a wider normalisation of extortion and other mafia type rackets which are now common in construction, trucking and other businesses. There can be reciprocal and, at times, open support between “business” and political mafias, and we should not forget the attempt by the former Durban mayor, Zandile Gumede, to integrate the Delangokubona Business Forum into municipal contracting processes, or how the gangsterised elements in the trucking industry began the open breakdown in the rule of law that preceded the 2021 riots.

The days when the torture of grassroots activists in police stations after arrests ordered by ward councillors, and their assassination by the izinkabi, happened in a world wholly apart from middle-class life have passed. The middle classes are no longer insulated from the gangsterisation of politics. The systematic diversion of public money into networks of patronage and private enrichment, many well described as mafias, has led to the rapid decay of infrastructure and the collapse of basic services a process first visible in small towns and now evident in many of our cities. The violence endured by grassroots activists for years has now decisively entered the middle-class world. For some years now, whistleblowers, prosecutors, auditors and business people who resist extortion have been at real risk of assassination.