Damn, we could almost smell that New Dawn.

For about a week, it looked like one of the biggest heads in South African politics was on the chopping block, when David Mabuza’s swearing-in as a Member of Parliament was delayed.

This led to much speculation that he wouldn’t be named President Cyril Ramaphosa’s deputy president, with the ANC’s integrity commission (I know, it’s a laugh) investigating some of his past actions.

This would have been a good place to start.

Sadly, with Mabuza sworn in as an MP yesterday, he seems locked in to become Ramaphosa’s understudy once more. That hasn’t served the rand very well, with this below from Business Day:

When David Mabuza appeared to rule himself out of being re-appointed as deputy president last week, the rand gained. And now that he seems set to be re-appointed to the post, the currency is heading for its biggest one-day drop in more than two months…

“Investors worry that Ramaphosa will not be able to root out corruption from the top echelons of the government as promised, endangering his reform agenda,” said Per Hammarlund, the Stockholm-based chief emerging-market strategist at SEB. The rand could reverse declines if Mabuza shows commitment to reform measures, he said…

“Buy the rumor and sell the fact is in full effect right now,” said Wichard Cilliers, a trader at TreasuryOne Ltd. in Johannesburg. “It’s putting the rand under pressure because investors thought there was a chance that the cabinet would be cleaner. But we need to see the official news about Mabuza, the real deal about what his role will be.”

Right, so just the idea of him becoming deputy president caused the rand to suffer.

If you want to know exactly what that ANC integrity commission’s report said about Mabuza, the Sowetan has you covered, but it appears that the commission was both toothless and wilfully incompetent.

Sadly, this Zapiro cartoon from last week hasn’t aged well:

All of this leads us back to the same question we faced last week – why did Mabuza refuse to be sworn in, and what does this mean for his longer-term future?

The Daily Maverick’s Stephen Grootes with his thoughts:

The search for the real reasons behind Mabuza’s manoeuvres of the last few days has occupied many column inches and talk radio time. This is not surprising; it was so unexpected, and so strange a stratagem that many relied on Mabuza’s past history of successful political calculation politics to decipher his motives…

It’s hard to see what he has gained in the process…

It may be that he might have somehow shown President Cyril Ramaphosa that he still has ways of placing boundaries around his behaviour, that he cannot be taken for granted. But that seems unlikely, considering the lengths to which he has gone over the last few days.

Whilst we may never know what’s been happening behind the scenes, the real bad news has been laid bare for all to see. New Dawn, increased accountability, delayed:

Consider the evidence: again and again this issue has come up, with promise after election promise from people in the party that they will finally hold leaders to account. It is these promises and a result of the party’s own concern (as expressed in discussion documents before conferences) that the Integrity Commission was established in the first place.

And now, someone about whom claims have floated for many many years has appeared to have been cleared by this process, within days and without a proper process followed.

This is the damage that has been wrought by years and years of the party using the slogan “innocent until proven guilty”, and ignoring the concept of a higher standard when applied to office bearers. For that, it only has itself to blame.

If only the voters of this country would actually hold the ANC accountable.

Grootes goes on to state that he doesn’t believe that the actions of the past few days will help Mabuza become president one day, a position he seems pretty keen on, because his image remains tarnished.

Didn’t stop a certain Jacob Zuma, though, did it?

I’ll consider forgiving Ramaphosa for a Mabuza deputy presidency only if he kicks Bathabile Dlamini to the curb.

Please, that farce cannot continue.

[sources:busday&dailymav]