For the past several years Cosatu and the SACP have been important guardians of the ANC's internal democracy. At a time when President Thabo Mbeki was silencing dissent within the ruling party, and beginning to openly abuse his power, those two organisations remained critical of his rule and outside his control.

In 2001 the leaders of the two organisations - Zwelinzima Vavi and Blade Nzimande - took a very public stand when Matthews Phosa, Tokyo Sexwale, and Cyril Ramaphosa were accused by the Minister of Safety and Security, Steve Tshwete, of "plotting" against the president.

The person who actually conducted the police investigation into the three ANC leaders was the recently appointed national commissioner, Jackie Selebi. The Mail & Guardian reported (May 10 2001) that Selebi had personally met an informer on his way to meet an advisor of Phosa at Pretoria station, "handed him a recording device disguised as a cellphone," and then listened in on the meeting "real-time, from police headquarters."

As a consequence of their outspokenness Vavi and Nzimande (and Jeremy Cronin) were vilified by the Mbeki-ites and excluded from the centres of ANC power. When Mbeki and his once loyal no.2, Jacob Zuma, fell out the SACP and Cosatu seized the opportunity. Understandably perhaps the two organisations decided not to look this gift horse in the mouth - especially when they knew they could use it to ride back into the centre of town.

As Mondli Makhanya noted in his column on Sunday the primary objective at the ANC's national conference in Polokwane last year "was to get rid of an incumbent who was seen as autocratic, dictatorial, conniving, cruel, egocentric and vindictive. But in doing so, the ANC went further than using Zuma as an instrument for exorcising Mbeki. It also embraced all that is wrong with Zuma."

Over the past few weeks there have been a series of statements by the leadership of Cosatu, the SACP, and the new ANC, which have indicated a determination to block the prosecution of Zuma regardless of the cost to our constitutional democracy. If anyone needs any reminding, it is an abuse of power for a ruling party to press for the dismantling of an organ of state - "in six months" - which is currently bringing a prosecution against its leader; or to start attacking the judiciary in a transparent effort to undermine the legitimacy of his upcoming trial.

It is conduct that suggests, incidentally, that Zuma's supporters are certain of his guilt even as they agitate for his ascension to the state presidency. If the charges against Zuma were really "trumped up" - as Cosatu claimed after Polokwane - then he would be rushing to court to clear his name (not trying to secure a "permanent stay of prosecution.")

Yet it is their contrasting attitude to the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO) and Selebi which is likely to do the most harm to the moral credibility of Cosatu, the SACP, and the (so far) untainted individuals in the new ANC leadership.

Despite a series of revelations of Selebi's close links with corrupt businessmen through the course of 2006 both Cosatu and the SACP persisted with their demands for the DSO to be brought under his control.

Cosatu passed a resolution at its 9th national congress in September 2006 calling for the Scorpions to "be incorporated into the SA police services under one Commissioner." Following Mbeki's state of the nation address in early 2007 the SACP reiterated their call "for the Scorpions to be merged with the police." The ANC's national policy conference in June 2007 duly passed a resolution calling for the DSO to "be located within the South African Police Service."

Once he got hold of the investigative arm of the DSO Selebi planned to do with it what he had done to the police's anti-corruption unit: disband it and scatter its members among police stations across the country.

Then last week South Africa witnessed the culmination of one of the most blatant abuses of state power since the start of the new democratic dispensation. On New Year's eve President Mbeki was informed by the NPA that (despite his wishes) they were going to go ahead and charge Selebi with corruption and obstructing justice.

On January 4 the head of the National Intelligence Agency, as well as a senior police officer, attempted to pressure the main prosecution witness, Glenn Agliotti, into retracting his testimony against Selebi. They prevailed upon him to sign a document to this effect.

On Monday, January 7, Agliotti was summoned to another meeting with the NIA and this police officer with a similar purpose.

On Tuesday, January 8, twenty armed police officers arrested (on truly trumped up charges) the person leading the investigation into Selebi, Gerrie Nel.

On Thursday, January 10, Selebi brought an interdict - in his "personal capacity" - against the charges about to be laid against him. His affidavit made extensive reference to the NIA/police document Agliotti had signed.

All this squalid manoeuvring collapsed on Friday (11th) after Judge Nico Coetzee dismissed the interdict and ruled that the NPA had a compelling prima facie case against Selebi. On Sunday the papers were full of allegations around the "longstanding corrupt relationship" between Agliotti and Selebi, and the R1,2m which the latter is alleged to have received from the former between 2004 and 2005. This Monday the case against Nel was withdrawn after it was found to be without any merit.

There are, Mpshe noted, "few more serious offences in a democracy than the head of the police being guilty of corruption." So what was the response of Cosatu, the SACP, and the new ANC leadership to these developments?

Cosatu said nothing. The SACP released an ambiguous statement which implied (at best) a moral equivalency between the actions of the police and the DSO. It then concluded, perversely, that all this underlines the "correctness of the Alliance stance that one police force must be created and that the Scorpions must be urgently incorporated into the SAPS."

On Tuesday the new ANC National Working Committee expressed its displeasure only at the "sudden withdrawal of charges" against Nel. It went on to suggest that "those who occupied positions in agencies of the former apartheid government [a reference to Nel] can act with impunity while the offensive against cadres of the democratic movement [a reference to Selebi] is intensified."

The most charitable explanation one can attach to Cosatu and the SACP's statements, and silences, over the past few weeks is that they do not realise they have won: power brings with it responsibility and they can no longer exercise the license that opposition allows. Mbeki is finished and it is no longer necessary or forgivable to align their actions with the interests of the more noxious elements within the Zuma camp.

The less charitable explanation is that all their rhetoric about Mbeki's abuse of the state apparatus was just useful propaganda in the struggle for power. Now that power is won they intend to wield it as they long complained Mbeki did, but without any of his caution or restraint.

In the play A Man for All Seasons there is a famous exchange between Sir Thomas More and William Roper, where Roper challenges More's comment that he'd willingly grant the devil the protection of the law.

ROPER: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!

MORE: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

ROPER: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you-where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast-man's laws, not God's - and if you cut them down - and you're just the man to do it - do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

Before they go much further down their current path the good people of the Tripartite Alliance should pause and ask themselves this: Presuming your efforts to intimidate the judiciary, dismember the DSO, and undermine the rule of law, have the desired effect - and remove all obstacles in the way of Zuma's ascent to power - what then? Where will you run when his adherents turn on you (as they surely will) "the laws all being flat"?