The ANC’s security state witch-hunt against Emma Powell is a warning to us all

Key topics:ANC brands truth as treason in targeting MP Emma PowellPowell exposed SA's global disgrace; ANC responds with surveillanceState security now silences dissent, not threats, under ANC rule.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.The auditorium doors will open for BNIC#2 on 10 September 2025 in Hermanus. For more information and tickets, click here..By Elliot Koen .One of the most telling signs that a government has lost its legitimacy is when it begins to brand the truth as treason. This week, we witnessed precisely that, as South Africa’s ruling party, that tired, corrupted relic known as the African National Congress, decided that Emma Louise Powell, a sitting Member of Parliament, is now to be treated not as a legislator, but as an enemy of the state. Her crime? Speaking the truth. In Washington. To people who matter. About what South Africa has become under ANC rule: a captured, compromised, disgusting morally bankrupt country masquerading as a constitutional democracy. It is grotesque, but entirely predictable, that after Powell blew the lid off the fact that Mcebisi Jonas, President Ramaphosa’s envoy, was denied Diplomatic Visa entry to the United States, the ANC went into Soviet mode. They summoned the National Security Council. They invoked “classified reports.” They deployed a whisper campaign, dutifully echoed by media foot soldiers at the Sowetan, painting Powell as a rogue operative working against the national interest. This is more than just cynical politics, it is authoritarianism in the ANC’s native tongue. We have come accustomed to this vile behaviour for decades now. The leaked report accuses Powell of organising an “unauthorised trip” to the United States, as if elected Members of Parliament now need a hall pass from Luthuli House to represent the views of millions of South Africans abroad. It claims she spread “disinformation” about the government’s foreign policy, which, for the record, involves open alignment with Iran, Russia, and the world’s most violent terrorist movements like the PFLP, PLO and Hamas, while prosecuting lawfare against democracies like Israel in the Hague. This sort of alignment masquerading as “foreign policy” is quite simply diplomatic self immolation. And it’s Powell who gets targeted? Coincidentally this report from the foot soldiers of Ramaphosa’s media lap dogs have stated that Deputy Minister Andrew Whitfield was fired by “Cupcake” because of this secret report, so secret the Sowetan has seen it. Give me a break. .Read more:.Emma Powell: SA hurtles towards disaster as Cyril’s special US envoy is denied entry.In any functioning democracy, a parliamentarian exposing misconduct or incompetence at the highest levels of state would be celebrated. In South Africa, under the ANC, she is surveilled. Maligned. Her name is dragged through the dirt in newspapers by anonymous “insiders”, the same insiders who’ve kept silent as state coffers are looted, as electricity grids collapse, as police forces fall under the sway of mafias.Let us call this what it is: a political purge by intelligence memo. A regime turning its spy agencies inward against dissenters. A desperate party treating fact-telling as sedition, and shamefully trying to suppress not just speech, but thought. This week, we should all be asking a very serious question: What happens to a democracy when the ruling party uses state security to silence elected opposition MPs? The answer is already here. It stops being a democracy. It becomes a state of quiet tyranny, policed by informants and legitimised by frightened journalists. The kind of place where corruption is endemic, but truth is criminal. The kinds of states that do this are ones like Iran. Emma Powell is not the problem. She is one of the few brave enough to call this country what it is becoming. She exposed the ANC’s disgrace abroad, yes, but it was the ANC who disgraced itself and the ANC cannot stand it. Where are the proud NGOs, sweethearts and saints of South Africa now to pose for photos and offer to stand with her? No doubt they will be silent. One can only ask why this is, and if you're sharp enough, you will figure it out pretty quickly. They hate her not because she lied, but because she told the truth, clearly, unflinchingly, and in a room full of people whose respect the ANC can no longer buy. This campaign against Powell is disgusting. It is vindictive. And above all, it is a warning: that the ANC will sacrifice democracy itself to preserve its monopoly on the narrative, even if the cost is South Africa’s standing in a free world. Those of us still watching from the sidelines should take note. If they can try to crush her for telling the truth, they can come for anyone. This is the point we have reached. A state that once claimed to liberate its people now turns its surveillance apparatus inward, punishing those who dare to speak inconvenient truths. What should concern every South African is not just that intelligence is being gathered, but that it is being directed not at terrorists or foreign threats, but at journalists, parliamentarians, and ordinary citizens who refuse to fall in line. It is political enforcement masquerading as patriotism. The ANC no longer protects the state. It protects itself, and it does so at the expense of every principle this democracy was built upon. Once a government crosses that line, it rarely steps back voluntarily. It must be forced back by the very people it seeks to silence.

The ANC’s security state witch-hunt against Emma Powell is a warning to us all

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