Questions about the right to govern

What more can one say after a week like the one that SA has had? One would expect that there would be a lot but then it has been seven days when everyone else has had their say, including this newspaper through a number of editorials and commentary from its excellent columnists.

Perhaps it might be good to start with positives, of which there are few.

President Cyril Ramaphosa was rightly criticised for his lacklustre speech on Monday night. This thing of talking at the country rather than engaging with it and facing questions from sceptical journalists isn’t working for him any more than it is for the rest of us.

That by Thursday business leaders were urging him to at least show that he is around was telling about how he sees the role of the president in times of crisis and trauma.

Not needed was police minister Bheki Cele telling the nation in the midst of the devastation that his troops had actually done a good job.

State security minister Ayanda Dlodlo thought it was a good idea to appeal to counterfactual reality and claim that things could have been far worse, if we knew what she did. Instead, it came out as gaslighting of the highest order.

When the president did eventually grace the country with his presence, the performance on Friday was much improved, though he faded after a strong start.

He addressed the calls for a state of emergency and we should be encouraged by the reasons he gave for not doing so.

We have been alarmed by government ministers who have shown unhealthy eagerness to use the Covid-19 pandemic to limit people’s freedoms, and a perception has settled that the government has sinister intentions to make the restrictions permanent. So it can be a positive thing if the president argues against a state of emergency because it would “allow a drastic limitation of the basic rights contained in our constitution, which no responsible government would want to do unless it was absolutely necessary”.

It’s understandable that people after an event like last week’s demand more “leadership” and quick action against the instigators. After all, the president said this was no explosion of popular anger but a deliberate act to undermine, or even overthrow, the democratic order. After suggesting that the government knows who planned, funded and carried out the acts of treason, Ramaphosa then went back to the “see you later” approach that is threatening to define his presidency.

An attempted coup in Turkey five years ago was more blatant than what was seen in SA. There, elements of the military took to the streets and fighter jets bombed their own parliament in an attempt to unseat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. That insurrection also failed to gain popular support.

But Erdogan showed the kind of “firm leadership” we would not want to see here. He imposed a state of emergency and within days had arrested tens of thousands of people. The crisis was used as a pretext to further undermine democracy and concentrate unaccountable power in his hands. Civil servants, journalists and even university lecturers were targeted in its wake.

Saying that at least you are not Erdogan might not seem much of a compliment to Ramaphosa but the value of having a president who is committed to the constitutional order is not something that can be underestimated. We’ve just had the opposite and this is where it has got us.

Since our president has shown himself reluctant to open himself to media scrutiny, which is also a cornerstone of the democratic process, it might be a while before he faces questions from journalists. In the meantime I have been preoccupied with the question of what I would say if the opportunity did arise. Once again, there are so many things, but perhaps the most important would be where does he think he derives his legitimacy from.

So many things are shocking about this week, but is there anything worse than the fact that his security ministers were fast asleep on Sunday and that even Business Day journalists knew more about the situation unfolding in KwaZulu-Natal than they did?

It had me thinking about Hillary Clinton, of all people. In 2008 she was in a bitter battle with Barack Obama for the Democratic Party nomination for the US presidency and an advertisement she released in an attempt to show her opponent’s lack of readiness.

Some, such as Time magazine, described it as creepy and others even saw it as race-baiting. A sleeping child, a ringing phone and a voice describing what is clearly a serious security situation. The tag line is to ask voters who they would want to be answering the phone at 3am, seeking to highlight her experience. It didn’t work and Obama went on to serve two terms as president.

In SA we got a clear sight not of who we wouldn’t want answering the phone, but who wouldn’t even get out of bed to take the call. And for days people were left to fend for themselves, which so many did heroically.

There will be a lot more to be said about the events of the past week and what may be coming in the future, about how much of recent events were due to a planned coup attempt, poverty or opportunistic criminality. And anyone who says they have the definitive or simple answer will be lying.

Watching the events last week and the government’s reaction, I was also taken to another event that is on the face of it unrelated. It was in the pre-Covid days and mining company Sibanye-Stillwater had a press briefing in Parktown not far from Business Day’s offices.

The company’s takeover of Lonmin, a former heavyweight miner in its heyday, came up. Sibanye CEO Neal Froneman made a comment about how Lonmin’s previous management had given up their right to manage.

One of the questions raised this week is whether Ramaphosa and the ANC this week signalled they had given up their right to govern, and whether they can turn it around.

IT CAN BE A POSITIVE THING IF THE PRESIDENT ARGUES AGAINST A STATE OF EMERGENCY

ANYONE WHO SAYS THEY HAVE THE DEFINITIVE OR SIMPLE ANSWER WILL BE LYING