Politicians ditching morals for money
ATTEMPTS by President Cyril Ramaphosa to block any attempt to reveal CR17 contributions is puzzling. The brutal and bruising quest for power saw many political poker players spending billions of rand to influence crucial outcomes, supplanting political parties and morphing into extensions of candidates’ campaigns. If we do not reduce that influence, our system risks losing its legitimacy.
The morass in our politics is the result of a system too beholden to big money and backroom deals.
By blatantly refusing to divulge the sources of his CR17 campaign, Ramaphosa is, almost invariably, guilty of pervasive gross moral dereliction of duty. It was columnist Cal Thomas who once said: “One of the reasons people hate politics is that the truth is rarely a politician’s objective. Election and power are.”
Perhaps it should be a timely reminder to our president that anyone in a position of political power has a greatly elevated moral obligation to perform his sacred task with due diligence? With great power comes great responsibility.
Common decency requires him to act with extreme moral trepidation at all times, ever mindful of the possibility that he is trampling the rights of the morally innocent.
Over the past 25 years, we have grimly witnessed, in 3D, the art of brazen and shameless looting of a state’s resources in an orgy of dismemberment that defies description.
Our democracy is a charade, our leaders have mastered the art of political chicanery. Our brand of politics confirms what Machiavelli said centuries ago: ”Politics have no relation to morals.” Whereas the ubiquity and repercussions of endemic and rampaging corruption in our rainbow nation have been widely articulated, the fight against it seems to be a fleeting illusion. Behind our unsavoury politics, lies an insatiable thirst for money and the realisation that power can deliver untold wealth.
In the wake of our greedy brand of politics, the truth is left butchered, as are morality, decency, integrity and honesty. The pervasiveness of corruption, lack of institutional safeguards and social cohesion in the country are visible throughout all echelons of public life. During the 2017 ANC meeting to elect a new leader, the campaign was financed by a deluge of “dark money” from deeppocketed individuals and groups. This is wrong, as it breeds cynicism in our democracy.
Tainted money slithers through every part of our political system, corrupting democracy and taking away power from the people.
The corrosive impact of secret funds donated for political purposes is a potent and deadly threat to our hard-won democracy.
FAROUK ARAIE | Joburg