Opinion: How long can South Africa’s Putin fetish last?

During the sweltering summer of 2017, on the fringes of a hellishly polluted dystopian nightmare-scape called Sasolburg, I met David Mahlobo, the head of South Africa’s State Security Agency . Mr. Mahlobo is a large, genial man who gives the impression he was badly bullied in high school. In the way of these things,was the bully now.

the president’s enemies. Mr. Mahlobo seemed too pleasant for this sort of wet work, but when he shared his personal WhatsApp number with me, the icon was not an image of Nelson Mandela, nor a glorious vista of Cape Town’s Table Mountain, nor even a grinning portrait of his boss, Mr. Zuma. Nope, it was a cheerful image of Red Square set against a bright blue sky. Moscow: spiritual home ofIn some respects, it’s unsurprising that the country’s spymaster would fetishize the Russian Federation.

South Africa is hardly the only democracy to harbour dreams of illiberal authoritarianism, but since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, foreign policy has been catching up with the domestic-policy bucket list. Mr. Ramaphosa’s administration was quick to promulgate a non-aligned stance, but in practice, until very recently the country seemed securely in Russia’s corner on this one.

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