Over the last few years, in fact, in the previous fifteen years, South Africa experienced a slide in the capacity and capability of the state to meet its executive and constitutional obligations to its citizens. The post-apartheid reconstruction and development component of the democratic order being created has been replaced, first by a period of eroding the institutional leadership of organs of state, the declining reconciliation spirit aimed at building socially cohesive communities, the growing trust deficit between the various establishments undergirding power centres anchoring the reigning political order. In this vortex of political mistrust, quest to complete the unfinished revolution, and belief in the invincibility of identity politics based mobilisation of racial or tribal power to establish enclaves of their own affair's management regimes, leaders from the diverse, and somewhat difference-institutionalised, communities must attune their conduct of politics before time runs out to fix the country.
The
period between 2016 and 2021, characterised by the decline in 'committed voter'
support for the governing ANC, and the warning signs of further political
fragmentation, has increased varying degrees of hope for a possible regime
change in South Africa driven by citizen discontent. The evidence of growing
'committed voter' disapproval of the ANC governing municipalities that still have
to be tested in the National and Provincial governments seems poised to deliver
an opportunity to consider a coalition-enforced government of national unity.
The murmurings of a need for social compact are not only a reaffirmation by
government, organised business, monopoly capital, and civil society of the need
for cooperation to start an economic recovery revolution in South Africa but a
sign of retreating from political rivalries about the country in favour of
establishing a cooperative political order without vitiating the sacredness of
the established multiparty democracy.
South
Africa's diverse 'establishments' still hold starkly different visions of what
should guide its political economy and politics, and they are all vying to
shape a new political order accordingly. In such circumstances, social
compacting and national unity ideas will prove evanescent and succumb to a
cycle of conflicts. As a country, we have been here before, and every time we
came to a settlement, it was because of leadership that went beyond the calls
of incumbency and myopic defence of interests but a commitment to a future
without them. In such a turbulent political climate, where leadership only represents
the resilience of established institutional frameworks our democracy has put in
place to mitigate the risk of dangerous mavericks plunging all of society into
crisis, the question is what framework should we put in place to get quality
and yet not popular leadership to find expression where those that are outcomes
of simple majority democracy are seemingly in control of levers of state power?
Interrogation
of this has now become a matter of national urgency. Given the challenges of over
40% youth unemployment, an underperforming economy, collapsing public
infrastructure to undergird any prospects at recovery, chronic electricity
outages with a plus 500% increase in the export of coal, South Africa is in a now-or-never
moment to address how it is going to deal with its accurate national and
non-racial response to ward off its march towards a failed state end. The
apparent and growing disintegration of 'the centre' at the altar of 'organised
global interests' disguised as 'multilateral treaty obligations' by a 'national
interests protection deficient' leadership has created a situation in which
multiple crises in South Africa compound one another. Because there is no
monopoly of wisdom on crises, we cannot accept that only those in political
leadership should have cognitive dominance over solutions. Instead, we should
create a context where the nation's or the nation-state's leadership come
together to forge solutions despite the reality of current and broader
disagreements on the end state.
Om die waarheid te se; we need leadership to manage the fierce competition for hegemonic control of South Africa's destiny in a way that aligns their dangerously diverse interests. At this rate, where the race to the bottom is increasingly misdiagnosed as competitiveness, despite the imperfections within the instructing market, the failure of leadership to untangle the various knots of compounding common and complex challenges will be a sure way to catalyse our slow march into the abyss of a failed state. As a nation, we must understand that in society, there will always be 'groups, individuals, companies, and organisations that have an interest in the performance, running and activities of what we seek to achieve, and thus have the right, privilege, or claim to be informed and consulted. The condition of competition and collaboration is differently managed in politics and government environments and appreciated in conditions where client or customer content is supreme. Trust as the driver of customer decision-making on products and the price they pay is a resource the private sector has mastered to compete and collaborate with. As a country, we need more than just private-sector lessons to exit the quicksand and dawn anew.
In
1990, when Mandela was released, either because of the pressure of the
liberation struggle or the function of leadership by those that realised the
immorality of apartheid and acted in benevolence to humanity, trust between
South Africans was a scarce resource, save for those that decreased themselves
for South Africa to increase. It took the genius of leadership across society
to create new hope where manufacturers of racist and tribal anarchy were
fighting for self-preservation. Like then, where multiple crises in South
Africa compounded one another, the vestiges of the past era, which now include
corruption and the totality of state capture, there is an order whose birth
from a compromised one is trying to recede in a rearview mirror. At the same
time, there are muted, silent, and yet loud murmurings of leadership that seek
to compete for the hegemonic right to mould a new era to replace what obtains.
The consequence of uncertainty brings with it the danger of critical issues requiring
collective action to be addressed. Yet these challenges of multiple crises
compounding one another should be harnessed to make it possible for South
Africa's cognitive leadership to imagine new ways of aligning interests to
muster socially cohesive collaborations. We have spent almost a third of a
century trying to establish a political order with which our democratic order
will be guided. If we failed, and this rendition argues we did not, but on the course,
it can only be because of our inability to ditch collaboration based on
mutually agreed upon rules of transitional relations, thus creating a
transitionocratic state instead of a permanent strong state machinery.
Instead
of repurposing the state through its most active agency, the government, we set
in motion transitional arrangements without end dates for permanence to return.
Dawning anew, euphemistically called renewal and rebuilding to meet the nomenclature
demands of the dominant political party, can only mean refocusing on shared
interests, particularly on issues related to the economy and its spatial impact
on society. The Constitution is the greatest of platforms and a normative haven
within which accountability could be demanded. The test of the legitimacy and
legality of political pronouncements should lie in their congruence with what
the Constitution provides, especially its preamble and founding
provisions.
Our
multiple compounding crises are, in fact, a moment where national rivalry for
resources and survival is running hot, and government support, and not the
governing party, is cooling, and yet a new period of cooperation in the style
of the post-1990 era is not in the offing. Still, there is room for a shared
national vision that will help us as a society to align with what the
Constitution has delivered as the liberation promise. CUT!!
🤷🏿♂️Eish...
leswi, nge swa le ka sasavona
🤷🏿♂️We
need a bigger conversation
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