Now inching past six months into the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry and five months into the ad hoc committee to investigate allegations made by Lt General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, which has since concluded its business, one thing has become clear: there is an overlooked and dangerous class in South African politics that uses both political officials and criminal syndicates to gain access to opportunities and wealth.
These political entrepreneurs use their relationships with elected officials and their connections to local thugs and gangs to position themselves so that they become invaluable to both. Their value to politicians is that they can do their dirty work, for example, assassinating competitors, threatening and bribing dissenting individuals and groups, facilitating payments for clandestine relationships and activities, laundering ill-gotten money and covering up scandals.
On the other hand, they provide established criminal networks with access to and leverage within government institutions, particularly law enforcement and intelligence agencies. This facilitates protection for their other criminal activities and increased opportunities for blackmail and extortion of state officials.
Political entrepreneurs, while integrated and integral to both sides, are in the unique position in which they are neither accountable to an electoral constituency nor the ground soldiers pulling triggers and exchanging envelopes.
Central to the definition of “entrepreneurs” is their absorption of risk, which is exactly the value that political entrepreneurs provide for both sides. Some of the risks associated with this role include exposure, accountability, prosecution, delegitimisation and imprisonment.
Under the dual veil of invisibility and notoriety, political entrepreneurs traverse a terrain where their mythology precedes them: they are well-connected, dangerous, effective and seemingly guaranteed impunity.
Patrimonialism — which views state resources as instruments to be used for personal gain on the basis of interpersonal relations and loyalties — is the form of government that facilitates the value and success of political entrepreneurs.
Becoming a political entrepreneur is not something that one trains or studies for; rather, it emerges when individuals recognise that they can monetise their networks and relationships by acting as intermediaries across a wide range of illicit services.
So, why should we care about these entrepreneurial figures? They are doing exactly what ANC National Chairperson Gwede Mantashe implored South Africans to do: use their personal gifts and skills to pull themselves out of poverty through entrepreneurial endeavours rather than rely on the state for their livelihoods.
The problem is linked to the necessarily clandestine nature of political entrepreneurs’ existence, relationships and activities.
First, violence appears to be their primary language.
Second, illegality is what draws together the majority of their dealings with both officials and criminals.
Third, they render the representative function of elected officials defunct, as political entrepreneurs — not citizens — become the determinants of key governance matters, for example, the distribution of resources and the disbandment of task teams.
Fourth, they plunder state resources by diverting them away from constitutionally mandated responsibilities, such as access to healthcare, for personal gain.
Fifth, as they operate in the shadows, they escape all forms of accountability, delegitimising and undermining both the rule of law and the criminal justice system.
Sixth, they embolden violence and criminal activity, as offenders feel protected by their invisibility to, or protection from, the state.
All this suggests that the work of political entrepreneurs has seriously derailed the South African democratic project.
In his State of the Nation address, President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged that “organised crime is now the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and our economic development”.
The president’s statement, read in context, provides evidence of why the class of political entrepreneurs will continue largely uninhibited in South Africa. For one, the political aspects of their influence and work remain underemphasised in favour of the criminal aspects.
If you listen to the president, the threat we are dealing with is purely a criminal one, enacted by criminals. The institutions that are meant to address this are law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
But evidence emerging from both the commission and the ad hoc committee shows that the work of political entrepreneurs has largely been facilitated by the infiltration of these same institutions.
Thus, prosecuting criminals without exposing the political relationships that made their crimes possible is likely to result in a situation in which the players change but the game remains the same.
In conclusion, how the story of South Africa’s democracy unfolds cannot be separated from how citizens and state institutions reckon with this class of political actor — the political entrepreneur.
Moshibudi Motimele is a lecturer in political studies and governance at the University of the Free State. She co-edited the Agenda special issue titled “The Intimacies of Pandemics” and recently published the book – “Wondering Hands and Spirited Ink: Snapshots into the Black Public Humanities“
Now inching past six months into the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry and five months into the ad hoc committee to investigate allegations made by Lt General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, which has since concluded its business, one thing has become clear: there is an overlooked and dangerous class in South African politics that uses both political officials
