that will have even graver implications for the ruling party. At the time,
there were enough allegations of misconduct for the ANC to at least
consider axing him, yet the party chose to look the other way. The fact
that Magashule and other high-profile people have managed to escape
censure for their alleged crimes for so long leads me to a disturbing
conclusion: what we have witnessed since at least 2009 is not the work
of mere ‘criminal elements’ within the ANC, but rather the effect of the
outright criminalisation of the party as a whole.
In this regard, Gangster State is at once a book about Ace Magashule
and the political organisation to which he belongs. The simple fact of
the matter is that Zuma, Magashule and others were able to do so
much damage to the ANC and the country because the party failed to
stop them.
Can all of this still be turned around? I believe so, but by this I mean
the country, not the ANC. The ruling party’s appointment of its very
own ‘secretary-gangster’ to a position as visible and important as the
one Magashule now occupies can be seen as a broad endorsement of
criminality. If Magashule did indeed ‘steal’ the position, the ANC’s
failure to deal with this only further supports my argument. The party’s
chronic inability to stem the criminalisation of its internal leadership
structures will one day be viewed as a key reason for the ANC’s final
implosion.
‘The measure of a man is what he does with power’ – Plato