BECAUSE it is August, the month of fashionable noises about sex pests and the like, we're compelled, I suppose, to dwell on this mess with Zwelinzima Vavi, he of the exciting trousers and a certain way with the ladies.
Support for the Cosatu general secretary has been growing now that the rape complaint has been withdrawn and there has been excited talk of his "rehabilitation". In one of the reports, the Daily Maverick even described his grubby behaviour as an "indiscretion", as if squiring a junior employee on your desk during office hours was a trivial business. Nothing more than a harmless pecker-dillo. Nudge nudge, wink wink.
Predictably, there has been dark chatter of conspiracies from the trade unions. Many, like the National Union of Metalworkers of SA, were adamant that a third party had plotted with Vavi's accuser, a 26-year-old married woman, in a bid to discredit him. "The question," Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim said, "is who are these people?"
Another question may well be: "On the desk? What was in it for the workers?"
There's no doubt that Vavi has enemies. Perhaps they include those who, in the words of another union, targeted him "because he has dared to speak truth to power, on unemployment, the absence of service delivery, on corruption, and many other issues".
But his biggest enemy is himself. Judging by his comments this week, he is vain and delusional, possessed of a narcissism that is probably psychopathic.