Time parties realigned elections

At the time of going to press, the ANC’s top officials were at President Jacob Zuma’s official residence in Pretoria in a bid to persuade him to step down from office.

There is no doubt that, for a variety of reasons, the vast majority of South Africans want to see the back of Zuma, even though he constitutionally still has almost two years to go before the end of his term.

But such is the nature of politics that despite almost a decade of his ruinous governance, there is still a substantial number of people and organisations who defend him and believe that he should go nowhere.

Some of them have threatened to take to the streets today to demand that Luthuli House abandons its push for Zuma to resign. Public support for these groups seems minuscule and therefore it is unlikely that their move would save the president from his fate.

However, what is worrisome is that there are other groups organising counter protests “in defence of Luthuli House”. If badly managed the situation can get out of hand, considering the heightened emotions on both sides.

Yet all of this can easily be avoided if major political parties – especially the governing ANC – changed the way they elect their leaders and presidential candidates.

If the current practice is left unchanged, it means that every 10 years or so, we are likely to see a president being recalled from office two years before his term expires simply because he is no longer the party leader. It is the fate that befell then president Thabo Mbeki in 2008.

It is high time the ANC and other major parties re-aligned their internal party elections to the terms of government.

Instead of a party’s elective conference being held almost halfway through the term of a government - hence causing the socalled two-centres of power if the new party leader is a different person from the sitting head of state – it should be convened just months before the next general election.

This can bring about some level of stability because the transitional period would be much shorter, hence avoiding the kind of political impasse we have found ourselves in since December last year.