In search of a leader
IF PUBLIC memory is woefully short, the recollections of politicians tend to be expedient.
Those of us who remember that heady day of September 13, 1989, when an estimated 30 000 UDF supporters marched from St George’s Cathedral in Wale Street to the Grand Parade in Cape Town, will recall that the national mood of resilience of the mass democratic movement cut across just about every sector of society.
At a time of intense state repression, that tide of rebellion led by clerics Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Rev Alan Boesak, Rev Frank Chicane, the city’s mayor Gordon Oliver and an array of struggle stalwarts including Trevor Manuel and Faried Essack, was not only a landmark event but a game-changing moment.
After witnessing those scenes being played out in the heart of the city (at the time, I was a reporter assigned to cover the event), one wondered if President FW de Klerk would be prompted to concede that his government now had to acquiesce to such defiance.
Five months later, de Klerk’s concessions ushered in the transition to democracy.
Capture
Fast-track to last week, when there was a similar spontaneous outpouring of sentiment for Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and the former public protector, Thuli Madonsela, for her report on the “state of capture” as people from nearly all levels of society across the country felt a sense of personal grievance over the framing of fraud accusations against Gordhan, and against allegations of sleaze and graft in the establishment.
Eventually the charges against Gordhan were dropped and the PP’s report, pending a judicial review, is very much a work-inprogress.
The battle among the political class, the judiciary and the establishment seems never-ending.
In the past couple years, it has actually intensified as the courts have stepped into a twilight zone created either by the dereliction of responsibilities by the establishment or by an onrush of judicial activism.
In the public eye, the intensity of the conflicts is magnified when the battle lines are drawn amid the PP’s mandate to investigate allegations of misdemeanours and corruption
The EFF’s ambitions to win brownie points by enjoining the ferment surrounding Gordhan and PP’s report were profoundly misleading.
The idea that thousands of the placard-bearing ‘red army’ zealots that converged and looted shops in the North Gauteng High Court precincts had shaken or stirred the country was nothing more than gathering figs from thistles.
For the moment, the optimism of the EFF, its clutch of opposition bench mates, ANC collaborators and a generation of Twitter and Facebook bugs attempting to re-enact that 1989 watershed cause of regime change, is somewhat premature.
The tragicomic relief in the Pretoria city centre can hardly emulate the tremors of the Grand Parade and of the country’s townships of the ‘80s.
The opposition’s wellpublicised and relentless pursuit of big ticket corruption has no doubt unsettled the ruling arrangement.
With all the understandable overzealousness of the newcomer, the EFF is determined to make its mark in trying to transform politics into an adversarial face-off by fracking the ANC.
Only the winner lives to fight another day.
If the combined opposition DA, EFF, orphaned Cope and United Democratic Movement’s project to link the anger against corruption, and in one case also the monopolisation of ‘white capital’, is even partially successful, the real catchment area for the party will not be the ANC-inclined poor and lower middle classes of urban and rural South Africa, but those who for over a century also kept the black, green and gold – and later the red hammer and sickle flags (although the SACP has somewhat ossified and ceases to be a point of inspiration) – flying in many pockets of the country.
Once the novelty of the DA and the EFF’s interventions wears off and they shift attention to issues other than corruption, it is quite possible that cracks in their ranks will appear.
Already support for the DA has just about peaked.
Morale
For the time being, the opposition’s geographical spread remains confined to South Africa’s version of the Beltway (matters important primarily to government officials rather than the people).
Indeed, so profound is the sagging morale of the ANC at this despondent and dispirited time, it is imperative it takes corrective action and is seen to get real about corruption. It is entirely possible that support for electoral interventions by the DA and the EFF will shrink.
Finally, Gordhan recognises the need to also send a clear message to South Africa Inc that it too is part of the problem, and that its commitment to ethical business practices has been uneven.
In future, the priority of government must not be special concessions to crony corporates, but the creation of an environment where there is fair competition and a level playing field for all.
The country needs a leader with the ability to spray the government and the political system with weed killers. As of now, only one leader fits the bill.