The ANC's reaction to inquiries into the arms deal is not surprising considering its steady centralisation of power  

The decision by South Africa's Parliament in November last year to launch an investigation into the R43-billion arms deal was seen by some as evidence that Parliament was finally flexing its constitutional muscles.  

One prescient political commentator noted that "we always knew it would take a while for day-to-day political behaviour to catch up with the Constitution's aspirations".

In the new year, however, the African National Congress leadership acted ruthlessly to limit the scope of the inquiry. President Thabo Mbeki announced that the special investigative unit, headed by Judge Willem Heath, would be excluded from the investigation. Mbeki justified this decision by labelling Heath "ungovernable."  

Last week the head of the ANC component of the public accounts committee, and a prime mover behind the investigation, was demoted. Announcing this decision the party's chief whip, Tony Yengeni, said the ANC members of the committee would now operate under the guidance of the party leadership: "In our system, no ANC member has a free vote."  

As the party leadership sends in the tanks to crush the inquiry, Parliament's decision to investigate the arms deal has come to resemble more Prague spring than velvet revolution. The response of much of the press and civil society has been one of bewilderment - our Constitution's noble aspirations have proved to be little more than parchment barriers in the face of such blatant abuses of power.  

Yet Mbeki's intervention should not have been entirely unexpected. Although the consequences are only now becoming visibly apparent, the ANC leadership has been steadily accumulating and centralising power over a number of years.  

The origins of this "power creep" can be traced back to 1997, when the ANC passed a resolution at its national conference reaffirming the Leninist doctrine of "democratic centralism" as a guiding principle of the movement. In terms of this doctrine, all state institutions were to be brought under party control and all party organs (including ANC caucuses in the legislatures) were placed under the "supervision and direction" of the central party structure, the national executive committee (NEC).  

Although "debate and discussion" was permitted beforehand, once the NEC reached a decision "iron discipline" was to prevail and party members were obliged to "abide by, defend and implement" that decision.  

To give practical effect to this doctrine the work of overseeing, promoting and selecting ANC cadres was concentrated in one body, the national deployment committee.  

The ANC politburo, the national working committee (NWC), was given the final say over the "deployment" and "redeployment" of ANC members to both party positions (such as in the legislatures) and to state institutions.  

Following the 1999 election the NWC decided who would fill the positions of speaker and heads of committees and then sent their decision to Parliament to rubber-stamp.  

The effect of this policy was to shift real authority from constitutional structures (such as Parliament) to those of the party.

Thus, although ANC MPs were obliged by the Constitution to ensure that the executive accounted to Parliament, they were, in terms of the ANC constitution, "answerable and accountable" to the party leadership.  

James Madison famously wrote that in order for the separation of powers to function effectively "ambition must be made to counteract ambition". With its iron grip over the careers of ANC cadres, the party leadership ensured that ambition counteracted independence. Not surprisingly, party authority has generally prevailed over constitutional obligation.  

The ANC's fusion of party and state meant that the arms procurement process was conducted without many of the basic checks and balances provided by an independent civil service.  

The chief of acquisitions was an ANC cadre, and many of the state institutions that might have provided some oversight - such as the intelligence and prosecution services - had been placed under party control. Companies partly owned by senior members of Umkonto we Sizwe received a disproportionate share of the sub-contracts, and there are suggestions that other ANC politicians may have improperly benefited.  

Thus, because the arms deal resembles, in crucial areas, an all-ANC affair, any evidence of wrongdoing would in all likelihood severely embarrass the ruling party.  

Perhaps what is most surprising then about Parliament's probe into the arms deal is that it was allowed to happen in the first place. There are probably a number of reasons for this failure to politically manage the process from the beginning: The Office of the Auditor General, which submitted a report calling for further investigation, is one of the few state institutions outside of party control; the public accounts committee is headed by an opposition (Inkatha Freedom Party) MP and contained some of the last few independent-minded ANC MPs; Deputy President Jacob Zuma was (for some reason) supportive; and the ANC caucus was opposed to corruption in arms deals in a vague kind of way.  

The push by the party leadership to effectively reverse Parliament's decision is a demonstration of the awesome powers Mbeki has accumulated. Once the NWC decided and the NEC directed that Heath should be excluded, iron discipline prevailed and ANC MPs (including Zuma) defended and implemented that decision, even though they had supported his inclusion a few months before.  

The NWC control over deployments allowed them to remove Andrew Feinstein as head of the ANC study group on public accounts, and to pack the committee with more "disciplined" party cadres.  

Although the ANC has broken the independence of many institutions before, this is the first time it has been challenged by the bulk of the media, and has consequently had to expend serious political capital. By comparison the ANC's illegal sacking of the registrar and deputy registrar of the Medicines Control Council - for refusing to allow the testing of Virodene - provoked minimal critical comment.  

Yet despite the fact that Mbeki's intervention is a logical and predictable consequence of democratic centralism, many commentators have persisted with the view that his actions can be ascribed to "poor public relations", bad luck or inferior advice.  

Until people realise that such abuse of power is the direct result of the unfettered accumulation of power they will be continue to be startled by the actions of the ruling party.  

With acknowledgement to Tony Leon and the Mail and Guardian.