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There are several aspects to the current “state capture” debate.

To start with, there is nothing new about state capture. It has always been the ANC's openly proclaimed, and profoundly unconstitutional, policy to capture the state to promote its own political and ideological interests. According to its Strategy & Tactics documents, a key task of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) after 1994 was

“to strengthen the hold of the democratic movement (i.e. the ANC) over state power, and to transform the state machinery to serve the cause of social transformation (i.e. the NDR): The levers of state power include the legislatures, the executives, the public service, the security forces, the judiciary, parastatals, the public broadcaster, and so on.”

The ANC has diligently pursued this goal and has succeeded in seizing virtually all of the levers of state power with the exception of the Judiciary, the Office of the Public Protector and, perhaps, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).

All the ANC's factions support this process. What now alarms some of them is that important elements of the state have been captured by President Zuma and those who surround him for the promotion of their own personal financial and political objectives - and not those of the ANC.

Issued by FW de Klerk Foundation