Over the weekend, the former Democratic Alliance (DA) leader, John Steenhuisen, humiliated over his own appalling behaviour and failure at the agriculture ministry, lashed out at one of his predecessors and now successful lobbyist, Tony Leon, inferring all kinds of impropriety about Leon and his firm, Resolve Communications.

The political hyenas were quick to pounce. After Steenhuisen had dropped that Leon’s firm worked for clients ranging from Starlink to farmers whose cattle were ravaged by foot and mouth disease (facts that were already openly in the public domain, disclosed by the firm itself), parties ranging from the African National Congress (ANC) to ActionSA demanded investigations into what they suggested was corruption and worse.

The ANC said, “These allegations raise important questions about ethical governance, accountability, and the assault on the integrity of democratic institutions.”

ActionSA said that Leon and his firm “reeked of textbook state capture”.

By all accounts, Leon and his firm have been peppered with abuse on social media channels. It is all very mad and silly.

Tony Leon is a most good and decent person to whom all South Africans owe a great debt of gratitude for instilling the institution of opposition into South Africa’s politics, which saved the country from the state capture era and later made possible the unity government.

When he wrote earlier today, “I have spent the greater part of my life in the service of South Africa's democracy, in its Parliament, as leader of the opposition, and in its diplomatic service abroad”, he is being modest.

Leon went on to write, “I have been the subject of robust criticism throughout that time, and I have never sought to be spared it. Public life invites scrutiny, and rightly so. But scrutiny and falsehood are not the same thing, and I will not allow the latter to stand unanswered when it is directed at a company that employs good people doing entirely legitimate work.”

Quite right again. The lobbying industry, or what is more diplomatically called “government relations”, is a very important part of any democracy. It offers a formal, structured, and mediated channel for investors to raise matters directly with policymakers when those investors feel policy is going awry.

Corporations may not want to approach political actors directly, or may not know how to do this, or whom they are dealing with, or how to deal with them. Leon’s firm allows them to do so in a credible and professional manner.

Lobbying firms hold no power over policy. They cannot determine what a minister does or does not do. Policy must still be made by politicians and, ideally, passed by Parliament. In a sense, this is no different to what a think tank may do, or an activist organisation, just that the latter two do so from an ideological perspective, whereas a corporate actor and their lobbyist would do so from an investment perspective.

What is happening here, the entire arc of the thing, is that the ANC is worried about the threat posed by the DA. The ANC also realises that, under its current leadership, it is incapable of reform. So, it has decided that the best course of action is to see if it can pull the DA down to its level. If the DA can appear inept in government, factionalised and divided, and accused of the same criminal behaviour that the ANC has been, then maybe, come future elections, voters will be less inclined to vote for the DA, thinking that all politicians are essentially much of a muchness.

This is a deliberate effort and, while the facts of what has occurred and been alleged should be reported in the press, that reporting should be done through a sufficiently shrewd and sceptical lens so as not to feed the hysteria or mislead the public.