Citizens take back power

HOW much longer does the ANC need to realise Jacob Zuma is not, and was never, suitable for the office of president? Is the ANC waiting for the complete decimation of everything that holds us together before it removes this man from office?

The firing of Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister was a shock not only to ordinary citizens, but it would increasingly seem, that even the powers-that-be at Luthuli House knew little about it.

That the ANC then sought to imply that it had been consulted is, I think, even more worrisome than the likelihood of the president going temporarily rogue.

Because if true, it suggests that not only are we at the mercy of a disconnected president, but that those closest to him are as clueless and disconnected as he is.

All of this of course, only highlights the problematic structure of South African party politics that gives the ruling party sole mandate to choose the nation’s president.

And this president is in turn, allowed so much power that he can cement himself in by single-handedly appointing a wall of allies and puppets.

The recent fiasco is a manifestation of a problem long suffered by the public and now evident at the highest levels – cadre deployment.

The other side of this unlovely coin is that it deprives each citizen of having a direct say in who the person is at the top, and exercising their judgment on whether candidates are sufficiently skilled, experienced and suitable for the job.

As for the business of firing David van Rooyen only four days after he was appointed finance minister, this decision, says the presidency, was made after “serious consideration”. That, in case anyone didn’t notice, was a blatant admission that Zuma and ...eh, company, never properly applied their eh, minds, to the decision to fire Nene in the first place.

Further, that the president decided willynilly to remove a minister of finance without wide and proper consultation in an economic climate such as ours is clear dereliction of duty. It should be reason to remove Zuma and anyone else who might have been involved in this decision.

Then to feed the public the cringe-worthy line about the appointment of Pravin Gordhan being an indication of a “responsive president”, was to add insult to injury. What does the ÁNC leadership take us for? Idiots?

However, if there is one thing to celebrate about this fiasco – it showed that South African citizens will not be duped and that we are wide awake. People rapidly took to the mainstream and social media. Marches were organised throughout the country. Captains of industry and business leaders engaged the government behind the scenes.

It was surely this pressure on the government together with the collapse of our currency that led to the reversal of the President’s reckless decisions.

This clearly demonstrated the power ordinary South Africans have when they unite across all divides of race, creed, class and religion and take action.

My hope is that having rediscovered our power as citizens, we will not give it up again. This includes the business sector which is often too cautious to get involved in politics.

And when there is a change in government – which may happen sooner than expected – we owe it to ourselves and the generations that follow us, to never again allow a governing party to dominate us in the manner we have allowed the ANC to do.

The power we confer on those who lead us must be kept in check by unbreechable lines of accountability. This will only happen if we strengthen our systems and controls, ditch proportional representation and at the same time spend enough on people development to enure we have a vast pool of leaders to draw from in the country at any given time.

The more ethically upright, skilled and knowledgeable citizens we have, the better off we will all be. We must never be satisfied living in a country where the vast majority lacks knowledge and our systems are so weak in terms of accountability.