His failure to act decisively on several issues, including HIV-Aids, crime and corruption, worry those at the business end of the alliance. He has also surrounded himself with a coterie of trusted advisers and it is impossible for any outsider to tell what activities they perceive to be a threat, and to what. There are at least three dangers in casting invigorating tensions within a political party as a physical plot against the leader. Firstly, all criticism, no matter how mild or how lurid, comes to be seen as part of a campaign of subversion. Critics, afraid of being seen as allies of real or imaginary assassins, are compelled to issue hollow oaths of loyalty when they would rather their criticisms were clearly heard.
Honest debate is strangled.
Secondly, intelligence services have a duty to head off any real threat to the safety of senior members of government. The antidote is responsive leadership and space for open debate. Let us rather have that, if we can.