Oh, How I wish I could be a fly on the wall of the innermost recesses of political power in SA.

I say this because of the paradox of living in a formal and open democracy which exists within an informally closed political culture.

This paradox is as old as the invention of political parties. While political parties were established to perform an aggregative function in the political system, in reality they became tools to manipulate the citizenry for the benefit of the party elite.

Thus citizens could formally have the right to vote without any authority over those whom they voted into office. To paraphrase Mahmood Mamdani we became loud citizens because of the vote but pretty ineffective subjects because of this lack of political authority.

Thus for many years liberal good governance and reform movements in the US could howl protestations about corruption in Chicago and New York. The political party bosses could not, however, be bothered because of the dominance which they had established over the electoral system.

Party bosses obtained this dominance by establishing an informal political machine that consisted of middle-ranking political managers who could be relied on to turn out the vote for the party at election time.

The incentive for the party managers was the patronage they received through jobs and contracts. Party managers in turn deprived communities of services if they did not vote for the party.

Violence also became a tool for ensuring voter co-operation.

Despite formal protestations against corruption, the reality is that corruption became the informal means of ensuring political survival for the party elite.

This led to what I would describe as contemptuous corruption. By that I mean a corruption that springs from the arrogance of power, from a sense of unassailability and invincibility, from the knowledge that "you can see me but you can't touch me".

Democracy in that sense becomes nothing more than a mirage or a ghost that continually mocks efforts to achieve transparency.

This is what is exasperating about the corruption relating to the arms deal. As citizens we can howl all we want about this wasteful expenditure but as subjects there is politically nothing we can do to stop it.

Within a mere 10 years we have become what the Indian scholar Partha Chatterjee would call "empirical objects of government policy, not citizens who participate in the sovereignty of the state".

Sadly, the only recourse we really have in challenging government policies on issues such as HIV/AIDS and the arms procurement deal is in the courts. This is profoundly antipolitical and antidemocratic.

Now with Bulelani Ngcuka's decision not to prosecute Deputy President Jacob Zuma, doubts are being raised as to whether the formal legal system is itself beyond the informal reach of the political machine.

Then again, though, the confusion about Ngcuka's decision reflects the bifurcation that exists between a formally open political system and a closed political culture.

Ngcuka's decision is surprising to those who believe that there is some integrity left in our formal legal system beyond the reach of the political machine. The decision is, however, not surprising to those who are suspicious of informal machinations.

The former have suggested that Ngcuka is simply biding his time, and will charge Zuma once he has his lined up witnesses lined up and once the Schabir Shaik matter has been concluded. The latter suggest political pressure was put on Ngcuka to close this matter because of the ramifications it would have for the African National Congress (ANC) going into the next election, or because of the power that Zuma has, or because it might expose corruption within the ANC itself.

It may well be that both explanations have some validity in them, that the formal and the informal sources of authority are at play here. The paradox could be resolved by Ngcuka charging Zuma after the elections.

Politically, the party machine would have informally got rid of Zuma, and Ngcuka would have maintained his integrity as a lawyer and hopefully also that of our formal judicial system.

But surely this whole embarrassing saga for our nation would have been avoided if the ANC had adopted a more open, even informal, political culture that would be consistent with the formal precepts of our democracy. At the very least there would have been more deliberations on this insidious arms deal.

Someone suggested to me that what the ANC needs now is an introspective process of "purification". I could not think of a better suggestion for the ANC's informal political culture, given the dominant role the organisation is still likely to play in our formal political system. Our democracy depends on it, our very integrity as a people depends on it.

Mangcu is executive director of the Steve Biko Foundation.

With acknowledgement to Mangcu and the Business Day.