Keep past in mind while planning new direction

WE South Africans can really celebrate and when we do, we tend to forget where we come from and where we are headed.

The “send me” momentum has gripped the nation that even the very thieves who were part of the Gupta criminal network are on the bandwagon.

The removal of Jacob Zuma, the longest political nightmare our nascent democracy has had to bear with, is surely the cause of this euphoria. The economic mayhem he wrought will be with us for a very long while.

To understand how we got into this political betrayal is crucial for us to navigate the way forward.

That Zuma’s survival of numerous calls to step down from within the party and outside proves that the leadership structures are institutionalised in the corruption criminal web. The problem is the ANC and Zuma were simply a cog in the machine.

Cyril Ramaphosa’s new dawn, as the cabinet reshuffles reflect, is compromised, accommodating notoriously brazen thieves and serial incompetents alike.

Rather than taking the interests of the country into consideration Ramaphosa has capitulated to his party dynamics of unity at all costs.

Anyone who believes in this new dawn vote-catching phrase is living in a fool’s paradise.

Our badly battered economic and political state needs a non-corrupt, revolutionary political party that must pull the country back to its constitutional democratic path.

This country needs a new governing party.

The political dominance of the ANC in the face of the weakness of the opposition is one crucial reason the political hyenas, almost unimpeded, raid state resources.

In spite of the opposition parties co-operating in the last local government elections, fissures within and among the political parties themselves have never been greater.

The DA, hitherto the most tenacious and relentless of all, is torn apart by the Patricia de Lille debacle while the EEF is spitting mad over the land expropriation without compensation issue and is set to unseat Athol Trollip.

The much-vaunted political coalition of next year is aborted even at its conception.

As the official opposition party, the DA has a few lessons to learn.

It must campaign aggressively so that it increases its voting strength.

While co-operation and even coalitions form part of politics, it is always more preferable to do so on the symbiosis of policies, rather than mere marriage of political convenience. Unity between a democratic party and a populist, quasi-military party is bound to be disastrous.

To defend and advance the gains of our hard-won democracy rests entirely on the shoulders of the voters, especially black voters who hold the sway of the political direction due to their majority.

It is this majority that is still facing grinding poverty, unremitting unemployment and poor education.

These social ills became worse during Zumocracy.

Yet the same Zuma had the guts to preach that blacks voting DA were traitors and he did not understand them.

Black voters must claim their freedom to vote for any party of their choice, a party that has consistently and tenaciously defended the rainbow nation and constitutional democracy.