This article was published on Business Day, 07 March 2024. It was headlined 'Those in power continually redefine the barriers to entry'
Rodger Jardine's Change Starts Now (CSN) decision to withdraw from the race echoes more of what will come. South Africa's political order has settled on being driven by political parties. Individuals as brands, funded and manufactured legacies, and overrated approvals by the economic establishment will, therefore, struggle to enter politics as easily as it was post-1994. Politics as a vocation in South Africa has a 30-year non-racial experience. This means those inside have by now started to define barriers to entry, and new entrants must have more than just funds to disturb the status quo.
Post 1994, South Africans
entered an era of accelerated opportunity. Young people were appointed to
positions of responsibility that few adults before them dreamt of occupying.
Getting into higher positions of national influence was possible for those with
requisite political and social capital, irrespective of experience. Some only had
to be political activists on steroids to be considered. This influenced how people
rose along the corporate ladder, overturning the tried and tested 'rise through
the ranks' model of societal leadership ascendence.
This trend was scaled
onto the business environment, and the system manufactured instantaneous
corporate leaders and millionaires. Justifiably, barriers to entering most
public and private sector positions got lowered in the process. New corporate
villages were being created, and many would be appointed into complex positions
with certificates of attendance instead of competence. Others would be selected
based on their proximity to political power, and some would be appointed
because of their monetisable contacts list. The system manufactured more
positional leaders than leaders in positions.
In such contexts,
political influence and leadership can quickly become commodified. It is A
condition that explains why it was and is still easy to capture the state
through those elected and appointed. The
resolve to calibrate, instead of allowing an organic process, a multi-party
system where a majority of minority parties prevail has created a
broad-based-black-political-empowerment process that might face the catastrophic
structural failures its economic counterpart went through. Interestingly, the
funders of the political empowerment process hail from an ideological complex.
Those in power will continually
redefine the barriers to entry. Since its inception, post-apartheid, South
Africa has worked hard to establish a two-dominant party-political system. The
2016 and 2021 municipal elections outcomes made the possibility of ousting the
governing ANC real and made the idea of coalition government attractive as a
solution to neutralise ANC hegemony and majority party prowess. Motivational
speakers accelerated corporate leaders, natural anti-establishment
personalities, and persons from faith-based communities started aspiring to
politics. With funding available, a cocktail of political parties was then set.
Unlike the EFF and MK,
whose leaders rode on the back of an infrastructure they led before and were in
neglect by parties they splintered from, these new political parties were more
dependent on how they were branded than known to be fighting for the interest
of voters. It would be more the brand personality of the party and the leaders
that would make the magic than what is at stake in an election. The system
culled them off because they don't have the depth the IEC has converted into
numbers, and the empowerment process ends at them. The jury is out about who
will ultimately be on the ballot paper and who will get the most eligible
voters to the voting stations and vote for them. The lesson is that how we
rise to prominence as individuals does not necessarily work in all contexts.
Rodger Jardine and others like him can be more influential if they stick to
what they can command to effect change. CUT!
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