The mysterious references last week to a possible coup d’état in South Africa by minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni were not so much alarming as confusing.
Having raised the issue (“One of the risks is the risk of a coup d’état”), she seemed to have a particular coup attempt in mind (“We have identified it and put measures [in place] to mitigate against it”). Then, apparently realising the road she was going down, she assured us: “There will not be anyone attempting to do a coup in South Africa … not that there are not people planning.”
Who might have the capacity to stage a military coup in South Africa? We have a small standing army, whose infantry component is ageing and increasingly unfit. There is no money for recruitment, training or exercises for our rapidly shrinking reserve forces. Our air force and navy can barely get a plane in the air or put a ship to sea.
A coup d’état literally means “a strike against the state” and usage of the term usually assumes a sudden, violent and unlawful seizure of power. It is difficult to see how this could happen here.
Using the term more loosely, however, bloodless factional coups are not unknown in political parties. We have already had two of those in democratic South Africa, when the ANC “recalled” Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma before their presidential terms were up.
Was this perhaps what the minister was referring to?
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