Don’t experiment with our lives
ANC presidential election
ECONOMICS tells us that there are “nice to have” goods and there are “must have” commodities. Put it another way, there are “wants” and there are “needs”.
Currently, in ANC circles and in the public at large in South Africa and abroad is the issue of a woman president, first in the ANC and inherently in South Africa. It is a hot issue, especially this year, when there will be an elective conference of the ANC.
There is no debate about the fact that South Africa is a fledgling and very young democracy. When the government and sympathisers of the ruling party defend themselves when many things are failing, they say, “This democracy is young and fledgling, we can’t get everything overnight, some things will take time to be achieved”.
In some cases, obviously, this makes sense. We cannot expect to have overnight a 90% literacy rate in South Africa.
Sometimes this invocation is thrown to cover for the ineptness and inertia of the incumbent.
Every sensible citizen in South Africa knows that our country is in deep crisis. For example, our public education is in tatters, there is an unprecedented high unemployment rate, especially among the youth, the economic growth rate last year did not even reach 1%, the high crime rate in general, corruption in the government and the private sector, the country’s economic rating is near junk status, and alcohol and drug abuse.
We face an acute shortage of classrooms in schools and universities, a shortage of teachers, especially for mathematics and physical science, we have a failing health system, a crisis in the national public broadcaster, and a crisis in the Presidency and in the ruling party itself. Considering the above mentioned, one can see that in South Africa we do not need “nice to have” leadership.
We do not need a “compromised” leadership. We do not need a “surprise” leadership as envisaged by the ANC Youth League, where it wants to propose a compromise leader.
Our country needs tried and tested leaders of the calibre of Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Oliver Tambo. Whether we have them in South Africa, I am not sure.
The “nice to have” movement I see in South Africa, as far as a woman president is concerned, is looking at experimentation: “We never had a woman president in South Africa, let us with experiment one and see how it works”. At this juncture of a deep crisis in our country, people still want to experiment about “nice to have” and compromised leadership.
Leadership is about the lives of people. With the stage where our country is, as a young and fledgling democracy and in a deep crisis, it does not need leadership experimentation. We can’t be immoral and stupid, experimenting with 55 million-plus lives.
I do not, at all, say that women are bad leaders. If a woman is tried and tested, and has what it takes to be a leader, it is fine, like our erstwhile public protector, Advocate Thuli Madonsela, for example.
She performed her duties far better than her male predecessors.
But a woman should not be elected because she is a woman, or as a compromise, an experiment or a proxy for the continuation of a man’s agenda, or to cover failings and maladministration of her predecessor. To lead a country is far more than that.
Some ANC circles want to elect Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma above the current deputy president of the country, Cyril Ramaphosa, as a successor to the current president of the ANC and country. So far, I haven’t heard any good reasons and sound factors these people put forward for preferring Zuma to Ramaphosa, in terms of leadership, education, experience in leadership, business acumen, knowledge of the constitution, public presentation, status in the country and the world, or any other reason.
The clatter I hear is that “we want a woman president at all cost”. To me this is a “nice to have” syndrome and it is very dangerous.
A country is not a tender or a job where women are given more points than men, it is far more than that. The country, if it has to be successful, cannot be ruled by emotions, cheap politics, or hatred of somebody with skills, morals, character and expertise – that is dangerous.
I am not qualified to cast aspersions on Dlamini-Zuma, but let those who want her as president bring forward sound factors and reasons why they prefer her to Ramaphosa. These people are even willing to exterminate the old tradition of the ANC that a deputy president succeeds his or her predecessor.
But at this moment, their arguments sound flimsy, clumsy, short-sighted, factional, chauvinist and condescending. “We want Dr Zuma, not for other reasons, just because she is a woman.”
South Africa has already been captured a lot. Let not gender experimentation also capture South Africa for another five or 10 years or beyond. Please.