Cape Town - The reaction of the so-called experts after the Section 89 independent panel found there is prima facie evidence of serious misconduct against President Cyril Ramaphosa has been shocking, to say the least.
The panel made its findings after foreign currency, hidden inside a sofa at Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala game farm, was stolen.
Following the report being made public, there have been growing calls from political parties for the president to fall on his sword.
According to media reports, Ramaphosa was ready to throw in the towel late last week, but his political handlers in the ANC persuaded him to stay on, saying that if he resigned the party would be thrown to the wolves.
While Ramaphosa has gone to ground since the political fallout last week, his supporters in the ANC, some sections of the media, legal experts and political analysts sympathetic to him have gone on the offensive to convince all and sundry that his departure would be bad for the country and its economy.
Even the private sector, which has been a vociferous critic of corruption, has jumped to defend Ramaphosa on the basis that there is no other ANC leader who will be accepted by the international markets.
Legal experts whose commitment to the Constitution and the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary is beyond reproach, have crawled out of the woodwork to criticise the report produced by some of the finest minds in the legal fraternity.
It is therefore clear the so-called paragons of virtue will speak out against corruption if it is committed by someone they do not like. If the culprit is Ramaphosa and not former president Jacob Zuma, they have all the reasons to tell us why we should look the other way.
These ANC leaders, analysts and members of civil society are not interested in justice, fairness and the rule of law. Someone once said: “If your sense of justice and fairness depends on who is involved and how you feel about them, then you are not interested in justice or fairness.”
He might as well have been talking about Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala scandal.
As a society we should resist the temptation to have permanent friends and permanent enemies.
Perhaps the best thing that has emerged from this political crisis is that we finally get to see that these paragons of virtue also have feet of clay.
Cape Times