There is by now an almost complete acceptance that South Africa is in the grip of an electricity supply crisis, and that alarm bells are going off in the highest offices of the land – as well they should. 

There is, also, sufficient consensus on the main cause of the electricity crisis – the failure of the state to heed early warnings, and the gradual breakdown of infrastructure. These explanations satisfy, but is there a missing element? Are there other forces at work? Maybe.

One of the likely causes of the crisis may be sabotage, an issue which comes up from time to time (see here, here and here), but it is rarely investigated fully. Maybe it is, or has been, but there certainly is no evidence or public statement about it from the state. We are left then to speculate, as we may. 

To begin with we probably have to ask who would benefit the most from the collapse of the electricity supply. 

Is it disgruntled white people who would like to see the ANC-led government fail? It is not inconceivable. 

Is it disgruntled workers within Eskom? We cannot rule this out. 

What about political opponents; could they be behind the breakdown(s) in power supply? Maybe. 

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The ANC-led government’s main political adversary, and the one that has the most to gain, is the movement that rejects democratic republican government and constitutionality. Such a movement, and its lust for power with all its pecuniary opportunities – concealed behind a fig leaf of “revolution” – would have the most to gain from overthrowing the government, by all and any means necessary.

A perverse two-level game

Radical populists and revolutionary parties play a perverse two-level game, quite different to that of conventional foreign policymaking where policy is made while looking inward and projected outward. In a perverse process, political movements, especially the leader, keep a straight face while “ground forces” engage in subterfuge. 

Such a movement, in other words, has a dual-policy approach to political economy and political processes in the country. Above ground, in public, it would participate in formal political processes, while working underhand to destabilise the state.

In some instances, making enough noise in public spaces helps draw attention away from subterfuge and underhand dealings. It should not be a surprise then when political leaders of authoritarian movements cry wolf, or make up stories of persecution to deflect from their own doings.

Nevertheless, with respect to making nice while engaging in dirty tricks, consider two examples from 20th-century history of autocratic and totalitarian regimes. 

In the first instance, while Benito Mussolini, dressed formally in top hat and coat-tails, was greeted by Italian King Victor Emmanuel III on 28 October 1922, his Blackshirt brigands marched through Rome, intimidating the public. 

The Blackshirts were sometimes presented as unarmed and harmless and the incarnation of valiant Italians. In this duality, there was Mussolini behaving politely and participating in “above-board” processes while his thugs were dealing in underhand tactics by intimidating and scaring the public. The Blackshirts were reaping their just rewards, previously denied to them. 

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The Soviet Union and Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) used the same dual approach; of making nice while causing trouble. While the Soviet Union had formal diplomatic ties with the governments of Western democracies, the CPSU would conduct relations with ideological soulmates within these democracies, and encourage revolution. 

This subterfuge was complex and insidious. It included propaganda and the manipulation of politicians and activists in democratic countries through formal and informal channels, recruiting people whose emotions they manipulated. 

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After Joseph Stalin died, Nikita Khrushchev went to great lengths to establish political and economic relations with Western states, while pursuing military strategic relations with states and liberation movements in the developing world as part of expanding their influence among poor countries.

In 1920s Italy, the fascists would insist on total control over society. Private citizens had to give up their individual needs for the totality, as defined by the state. If then we see political parties in South Africa that would insist that no private citizen would own their property, that banks, mines and industries be controlled by the state, we have echoes of Mussolini’s totalitario. He would explain this as “all within the state, none outside the state, none against the state”.

In a most comprehensive bundle of tactics, the authoritarians, led quite often by charismatic strongmen who thrive on a personalist leadership, degrade democracy politically, while the rank and file destroy institutions and infrastructure. 

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While he was talking nicely (in 1921) Mussolini’s brigands were attacking newspapers and social gatherings that they considered to be enemies. The previous year, on 21 July 1920, their fascist squads destroyed the Rome Office of the left-wing newspaper, Avanti! and when they attacked its Turin headquarters two months later, Avanti! reported that the attackers were mostly Royal Guards, led by a sergeant, together with others in civilian clothes. Police and army officers not only turned a blind eye to fascist attacks, but actively coordinated with them. 

It is not inconceivable, then, that there may be political movements, or fragments, who would “recruit” staff at power plants to sabotage generation and supply, while making nice in legislatures around the country.

Returning to the dualism of fascist participation in society (above board and in the shadows), we can turn to none other than Leon Trotsky who was one of the earliest thinkers to understand just how unique fascism was. Trotsky explained that Italian fascists used a dual strategy of standing in democratic elections, and put on a “respectable face” as a solution to the country’s myriad problems, while building a street-fighting cadre to terrorise its opponents and wage a low-intensity war against “enemies”. 

The strategy was so successful that Mussolini was handed power in 1922, after which the fascists destroyed democracy and crushed any and all opposition.

In South Africa we sit then with power-generating infrastructure that is failing in places, and collapsing in other places. The ruling ANC is the obvious target of criticism, and bears much of the responsibility for the situation the country is in. 

If we look at lessons learnt – from studying the tactics and strategies of anti-democratic or illiberal political movements to sabotage democracy and the provision of public goods and services, and undermine the state – we cannot ignore the possibility that saboteurs and conspirators may have played a role and will continue to do so, until they have power. DM