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Reports today suggest that President Zuma will this week suspend National Police Commissioner Bheki Cele for his role in the SAPS lease deals saga.

This is a step in the right direction, and should be welcomed.

But we are mindful that Bheki Cele has emerged as a political opponent of the President in the run-up to the Mangaung Conference. This reminds us of the time when former President Mbeki fired President Zuma as his Deputy in the run-up to the Polokwane Conference.

We said then that President Mbeki had done the right thing for the wrong reasons. I sincerely hope that President Zuma is suspending Bheki Cele for the right reasons.

There is a simple way of telling whether this suspension is because of a new-found commitment to political accountability, or whether it amounts to selectively purging a political opponent. If President Zuma takes the same action against Minister of Public Works Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde, then we might be convinced that his motives in suspending Bheki Cele are sound.

After all, it was Minister Mahlangu-Nkabinde who, along with Commissioner Cele, was found by the Public Protector to have acted unlawfully and improperly in the procurement of the two dubious SAPS lease deals.

In her report into the deals, Public Protector Adv. Thuli Madonsela explicitly recommended that President Zuma take action against the Minister of Public Works. Not only was the minister unwilling to cooperate with Adv. Madonsela’s investigation, but she reinstated the two controversial lease deals despite independent legal opinions which stated that doing so would be illegal.

This is the President’s opportunity to prove that he places the public interest above his own political interest. Let’s see if he passes this crucial test of his Presidency.