Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)

Desperate enough to give up vote for happiness

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SOUTH Africans are a miserable lot. We know this because we’re ranked 101 in the 2017 World Happiness Report. True, we were 116 last year, but we’ve still got a way to go if we want to be up there with cheerful Norway, Denmark and Iceland.

On the other hand, if you’re the glass half full sort of delusional, we are the seventh happiest country in Africa, after Algeria, Mauritius, Libya, Morocco, Somalia and Nigeria.

Somalia? Libya? I know. But perhaps the bar wasn’t very high there in the first place.

The report is based on surveys of citizens in more than 150 countries who are simply asked to rate the lives they are living on a scale from 0 to 10. Researcher­s used six measures in analysing the results: GDP per capita, life expectancy, support from relatives and friends, charitable giving, freedom to make life choices and perceived levels of government and corporate corruption.

Dealing with Africa specifical­ly, researcher­s warned that poor infrastruc­ture and lack of service delivery not only contribute­d to lived poverty and depressed happiness in Africa, but it could undermine the continent’s “democracy project”.

“A case in point is South Africa’s relatively new democracy,” they said. “The latest Afrobarome­ter survey conducted there suggests that South African citizens might be willing to give up their democratic rights in favour of their living conditions being improved.

“While almost two-thirds (64%) of South African respondent­s thought that democracy was preferable to any other kind of government, a similarly high percentage (62%) stated they would be ‘very willing’ or ‘willing’ to give up regular elections to live under a non-elected government capable of ensuring law and order and service delivery.”

This is very depressing. Not to state the obvious, it is by voting we can elect a government that delivers, but it would appear there is a direct link between unhappines­s and ignorance of basic democratic principles.

Little wonder, then, that the curiously happy Jacob Zuma is able to prattle on without consequenc­e about suspending the constituti­on so he can put us all to rights.

He did it during a trip to a Gauteng primary school in July, telling pupils: “If you just give me six months to be a dictator, things will be straight. Right now, to make a decision you need a resolution, decision, collective, petition. Yoh! It’s a lot of work.”

To be fair, the president did add that he was a self-educated person. Which may explain some things.Jokes from politician­s about their dictatoria­l urges are particular­ly unwelcome at a time when the global trend towards authoritar­ianism could serve as a fillip to the so-called African “strongmen”, the ageing rulers who have clung to power for decades beyond their sell-by dates.

And they really are getting on. According to the World Happiness Report: “The age difference between leaders and the youth is striking,” the report said. “While the average age of Africa’s presidents is estimated to be about 70 years, some 70% of African citizens are younger than 30 years. Most of Africa’s leaders will have been born before the age of television and mobile phones and before the end of the colonial era.”

Africa’s leaders naturally don’t like to be told they’re too old and that it’s perhaps time for them to go. They can be a bit like teenagers that way. They know everything.

Like Rwandan president Paul Kagame. He took office in 2000 when his predecesso­r, Pasteur Bizimungu, resigned. Previously, he had commanded the rebel force that ended the 1994 Rwandan genocide and was considered the country’s de facto leader when he served as vicepresid­ent and defence minister from 1994 to 2000.

In 2015, he gained approval by a controvers­ial referendum on changing the Rwandan constituti­on to stand for an unpreceden­ted third term in elections in August this year, which means he could be in power until 2034. He would be 76 or 77 by then, a relative spring chicken compared to some other African leaders.

Kagame has in the past boasted other African countries which change their leaders too often have not fared as well as Rwanda. It’s true Rwanda does enjoy a degree of political stability and is“business-friendly”.

But then it is also the fifth least happy country on the planet. Only Syria, Tanzania, Burundi and Central African Republic are unhappier.

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