By voting against a third term for Thabo Mbeki as party president, the ANC delegates at Polokwane arrested South Africa's gradual drift towards tyranny. A ruling elite which had come to believe that it would (and should) be in power for perpetuity was suddenly and unceremoniously booted from office. Delegates told journalists thaft they were voting for change because didn't want "another Mugabe."

Yet having jumped out of the frying pan, South Africa has now tumbled into the fire. During his campaign, Zuma's supporters complained about the abuse of the state apparatus by the Mbeki-ites. As far as the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO) was concerned they had a legitimate point in one sense.

Mbeki's influence over the prosecution service lay in his ability to protect certain favoured individuals from investigation - including most of the key decision-makers in the arms deal. In his book "After the Party" Andrew Feinstein tells of how one of the arms deal investigators told him, in early 2001, that they had been brought into a meeting with Mbeki "and effectively told who they could and could not investigate."

This was undoubtedly relevant during the campaign for the ANC presidency. In judging the relative fitness of the candidates standing for office one had to keep in mind Zuma had been subjected to seven years of investigation, while many ‘more guilty' individuals in the ANC had been shielded from any real scrutiny.

Now that Mbeki's ambitious for a third term have been checkmated, there is no good reason why the criminal case against Zuma should not go ahead. Yet the newly ascendant ANC leadership seems to be preparing to try and kill it before it can come to trial.

A statement issued by the ANC's National Executive Committee, following its meeting on Monday, expressed "its concern and grave misgivings" about the timing of the corruption charges against Zuma, "and the general conduct of the NPA in this case, including inconsistency in the application of its mandate and leaking of information to the media."

On Tuesday the ANC's new Treasurer-General, Mathews Phosa, told journalists "The political spin on the case is undeniable...And if you think the ANC does not know what is happening you are making a very big mistake ... This case is very politically inspired."

This is an argument that can only be pushed so far. The prosecutors and investigators who have done the actual work have been non-partisan professionals. The prosecutions the DSO has brought to court have been well-founded and have, thus far, held up. The strategy of Zuma's legal team - of doing everything possible to delay (and prevent) the case coming to trial - is an implicit acknowledgment of the strength of the case against their client.

The problem of the president's political influence over the NPA, such as it is, could easily be solved by some minor legislative changes and the appointment of independent-minded professionals to the top positions in the organisation (rather than ANC cadres). This would also put an end to the temptation, or need, to leak details of ongoing investigations before they have come to court.

Instead of doing this the new ANC leadership is now aggressively pressing ahead with the proposal to (effectively) place the DSO under Jackie Selebi's direction. This would mean that the DSO's investigators would be transferred from the NPA - where political control can only be exercised imperfectly and with difficulty - to the police, where it can be done directly.

It would also effectively mean the end of the one institution currently able and willing to investigate high level organised crime and political corruption in this country. The ability of the police to investigate such crimes has largely been neutered by Selebi's ‘transformation' of that organisation. The specialised units have been closed, professional policemen have been squeezed out, and political appointees and cronies have been infiltrated into key positions.

The most grotesque aspect to the ANC's plan is the fact that it is being pursued at the same time as the (political) police are beginning to run amok. The thuggish arrest of Gerrie Nel - the prosecutor leading the investigation into Selebi's links to organised crime - is just one of a number of recent examples of such policemen trumping up charges against their opponents in an effort to intimidate or discredit them.

In the case of certain individuals the motives behind the effort to scupper the Zuma prosecution and destroy the DSO are obviously dubious. Others in the new ANC leadership - who have done nothing wrong and have no reason to fear investigation or prosecution - may genuinely believe that they are necessary to counteract a manifest unfairness. These individuals should remember though that "all evil examples have their origins in good beginnings."

In The Discourses Niccolò Machiavelli observed that the "ambitious citizens of a republic" aim firstly "to make themselves sure against the attacks, not only of individuals, but even of the magistrates." To do this they seek to gain friends through various means, including assisting men with money and defending others from the powerful.

"As this seems virtuous, almost everybody is readily deceived by it, and therefore no one opposes it until the ambitious individual has, without hindrance, grown so powerful that private citizens fear him and the magistrates treat him with consideration."

When it reaches that point the republic has entered into very dangerous territory. Men rise from one "ambition to another": first they protect themselves from attack, and then they attack others. Once "the citizens and the magistrates are afraid to offend [the ambitious citizen] and his adherents, it will afterwards not require much effort on his part to make them render judgments and attack persons according to his will."

The path outlined by Machiavelli is very similar to that followed by Zuma since 2001. His campaign against Mbeki has been driven by a desire to secure himself from ‘attack', and he has gained support within the ANC by presenting himself as the best (and only) defence against a powerful and malevolent ruler. That ruler is now on the way out, Zuma is ascendant within the party, and the ANC seems unworried by the power and impunity that they are readying to hand over to him.

The ANC (and South Africa) would do well to bear in mind Machiavelli's advice over the next few months: "Republics should make it one of their aims to watch that none of the their citizens should be allowed to do harm on pretence of doing good, and that no one should acquire an influence that would injure instead of promoting liberty."