To serve and protect ... themselves

She was shouted at, tossed into the back of a police van, kicked, forced to stand for three hours then handcuffed to a heroin addict.

Prosecutor Nontobeko Biyela's sin was that she dared to film a Durban metro cop talking on her cellphone while driving a police van.

It emerged in court that the bully, policewoman Thulisile Zondi, who was convicted of assault, had also threatened to "rearrange" Biyela's face.

The prosecutor was in her car in Anton Lembede (Smith) Street, in May 2013.

Zondi and her goons pounced on her.

"You are trying to take my bread away from me," she shouted at the prosecutor.

When Biyela tried to pacify the cops she was told that she was lying about working for the National Prosecuting Authority and was accused of being a journalist. She was arrested, locked up and assaulted.

This week Zondi was sentenced to a fine of R24000 and warned by magistrate Garth Davis that she would be put in jail if she indulged in such behaviour ever again.

"Police officers are meant to protect and serve the public. This was reprehensible and unbecoming in the extreme."

Davis also condemned the behaviour of Zondi's colleagues, who arrived in court to support her. They interrupted witnesses and had to be warned repeatedly to keep quiet.

Just last week, while the nation bemoaned the death of democracy, an interesting little sideshow was playing out in dear old Durban.

One James Nxumalo, a personable comrade and provincial chairman of the SA Communist Party, was elected chairman of the country's biggest ANC region, eThekwini.

Nxumalo, also eThekwini's mayor, is so dull and measured he makes his dour predecessor, Obed Mlaba, look like a rock star.

But those in the know breathed a sigh of relief because James trumped executive council member Zandile Gumede for the coveted spot.

The election had to be postponed twice because of cash-for-votes claims and ugly incidents involving comrades and guns.

Gumede, the ANC treasurer in eThekwini and a party heavy, is not covered in glory.

A 2011 report compiled by Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma suggested that she be removed as a councillor after a murder in her area, linked to internal ANC politicking.

As for Nxumalo, he is neither tainted by scandal nor widely acclaimed. One MP linked to City Hall described him thus: "Sadly, he is the brightest star in a very dull universe. Obed was pedestrian but at least he had a firmer grip on shaping the city."

An opposition councillor disagreed, saying Nxumalo was "infinitely better than Obed", who was lashed in a financial report into shenanigans at City Hall.

"He's fit, confident and smiles a lot. He's approachable and doesn't get unduly irritated or angry."

But, he said, Nxumalo doesn't always seem to have a handle on the city and he is not decisive enough.

I'm a tad apprehensive about Nxumalo. In his mid-forties, he joined the ANC and the SACP in 1990 when he was a factory worker. He's apparently close to Blade Nzimande. Ouch.

Nxumalo's election as ANC chairman, some say, makes him a shoo-in for another five years as mayor (2016-2021).

Thus far his tenure hasn't been marked by anything particularly visionary.

He is, in the words of one comrade, "lacking in charisma and presence".

And I see worrying signs, particularly with regard to the metro police, that the inevitable blurring of the lines between party and state will accelerate with him at the helm.

Apart from the Thulisile Zondi incident, in 2012 metro cops stormed City Hall demanding that their disciplinarian boss, Eugene Nzama, be sacked because he wouldn't formalise 600 temporary jobs.

Instead of laying down the law, Nxumalo and other ANC heavyweights begged the cops to cool off and return to work.

A top comrade tells me Nxumalo is a proxy for the irrepressible Bheki Cele, and that he is to be made executive mayor to give him the clout to jack things up at City Hall

I, Nontobeko and others wait with bated breath to see what wonders he will work.