DD Mabuza’s rise to the deputy president position has earned him respect as one of the smartest politicians in the country. To his political allies, this rise showed that the man is a master tactician who knows how to seize an opportunity, while his political foes are still surprised how he did and still licking their own wounds.
One of his political foes who is still recovering from an emotional, psychological, and financial battle with DD Mabuza, is businessman Fred Daniel.
In Predator Politics, Daniel, through the pen of the respected author, Rehana Rossouw, tells his own long and bruising battle with Mabuza during their time in Mpumalanga, while the latter was still serving in the provincial government.
Let me start by saying I have massive respect for Rehana Rossouw as a writer and storyteller. However, I need to admit that I am very disappointed with her latest work.
By just looking at the cover and the title of the book, as a reader, you will easily be forgiven if you expect to read about David Mabuza’s political shenanigans from the get-go.
Almost 10 chapters down the line, there’s little mention of Mabuza, but just Daniel’s battles with other state organs and other people in his land battle in Badplaas. It is only in the latter part of the book where one kind of understand why DD is on the cover of this book. And that is something that nearly tempted me to drop the book, because I, at first, saw that as a marketing gimmick to have him on the cover.
The other disappointment is that Rehana has just allowed Daniel to throw off old and widely reported accusations about Mabuza throughout the pages of this book. Mabuza is not given a right of reply nor are the other people that Daniel accuses of having been part of what he believes was an orchestrated move to frustrate his business adventures in Mpumalanga.
Listen, DD Mabuza is no angel, however, perusing through the pages of this book, I just feel like Rehana just allowed Daniel a free platform to attack Mabuza for his own selfish reason, while portraying himself as a corruption buster. And as a result of that, she massively failed to do due diligence for a book that required two sides of the story.
The only good thing that the scribe managed to bring to light is how the provincial government of Mpumalanga played and continues to play a massive role in delaying and frustrating the issue of land restitution in the province.
Besides that, Predator Politics reads like a well-concocted weapon directed to Mabuza to further the agenda of Fred Daniel and such, it should be read with a grain of salt.