At the launch of the ANC in
1912, the unity of African Tribes and the exclusion of Africans defined and determined
the political history of what became the Republic of South Africa. The ultimate
prize of establishing a Native Congress was to guarantee enfranchisement and
representation in the emerging architecture of political power. The seeds of a
political system where democracy for those who vote guarantees their equality, with
the undergirding economic system not guaranteeing equal opportunities, were
planted then. The paradigm of freedom for the native congress became inclusion in the system, and once inside, recalibrated its templates of all dominance. The extent to which this foundational reality has been abandoned is yet to be
seen as inclusion, which happened in 1994.
The
ANC is now part of the system, if not the system itself; it is included. It is also
the true animating force behind the policy trajectory South Africa has been
following for the past thirty years. It moved the most exuberantly down
whatever economic path South Africa finds itself in, either through conscious
effort facilitated by the constitutional order it adopted in 1996 or sheer
loyalty to its foundational character in 1912, and subsequent redefinitions as
its monumental policy documents such as Imvo za Bantu, the 1949 Program of
Action, the Freedom Charter, the Morogoro Resolutions, the Kabwe Ideations, the
Harare Declaration, and its various Conference resolutions.
With
the system being 114 years old, it is now entrenched if the 1910 Union
Constitution is taken as the inaugural legalisation of arrangements with which
South Africans agreed, all-inclusive or otherwise, to govern themselves. Its
optimisation over the 114 years was, in the main, the discontent of its
legitimacy or authority to exist based on the will of those it governed. It
mutated from being a colonial construct with profound mercantilist value
extraction characteristics to a racial oligarchy which excluded 'non-whites'-
to a non-racial inclusive construct whose authority culminated in the 27th
April declared a 'freedom day'. The system is at present compliant with
the 1955 declaration that ‘no government can justly claim authority unless it
is based on the will of all the people’, as it operates through ‘freely elected
representatives’.
The
transitions from excluding those then called non-white to non-racial inclusion have
focused on optimising the system rather than bringing about fundamental
structural changes on the templates of dominance accompanying the system. The
persistence of referring to the post-1994 era as a democratic breakthrough on
the one hand and 'Freedom Day' celebrations on the other suggests unresolved
ideological questions remain. This has turned the registration and alteration
of interests within the system into a contested arena for political coalitions
and other social formations. The system's survival will continue to be
determined not just by its legal standing, enshrined in the country's supreme
law, but also by its ability to address the pressing societal issues.
If
there is any rise of discontent about the system, it would be the direct
consequence of loosening the bond between the governed and the representatives
they elect. The increasing perception that political parties serve a narrow
elite of career politicians and insider interests has generally been the source
of system delegitimisation unless an ideological contest exists in how the
state and the democratic order should be. In a society with a preponderance of
people in a generation that believe they are all leaders, the risk of mavericks
exploiting fissures in the system grows commensurate with how the system
ignores the majority of those it should make their lives better.
As
post-liberation governing parties get sucked into the working of systems and
their subtle and overt ideological biases, the elitist advantages and trappings
of assumed power might be a constraint to fracture the templates of dominance
if they advantage the new elites. This conundrum has pitted ideologically
congruent leaders of liberation movements against each other, often at the
expense of service delivery exigencies that come with post-liberation
reconstruction and development.
The
mushrooming of political discontent in South Africa, as manifested by creating
political parties and splits, indicates a loosening bond between the liberation-promised
voters and those they borrowed the public power to deliver. The reality is that
service delivery as a measure of political system legitimacy, especially where
the issues of disenfranchisement are resolved, has become critical in a more
uncertain and economic shock-prone system. Yet the legitimacy of political
elites is in retreat for various reasons, with ethicalness at the top of the
pack.
In the search for legitimate and ethical leadership, political systems are witnessing the fragmentation of decision centres, unprincipled and sheer oppositional coalition arrangements, growing trust deficits between the state and its critical social partners, rivalrous relations amongst political parties that are polarising society and impacting on social cohesion- conditions that have begun to reverse the nation-building gains RSA started in 1994.
In
his inaugural speech as an elected president of the country in 2019, President
Ramaphosa spoke of a social compact. If there is a problem in South Africa that
he accurately diagnosed and never took deliberate steps to deal with, it is necessary
for a social compact. The governing party is undergoing a very turbulent
renewal process. The nation cannot wait for that process. Still, through the
vehicle of the state and within the lawful framework set in the Constitution,
the President, whomever he will be after 29 May, can redefine a new trajectory
for South Africa.
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