Start with taxi ranks

Building Cyril’s dream city

We are all aware of how close SA came to a political disaster from which recovery would have been impossible in the short term. If Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma had won the presidency of the ANC, we would have faced a future of collapsing institutions, mass middleclass emigration, escalating political repression, and an economic disaster that would, within a short space of time, have placed our economy in the hands of the International Monetary Fund.

The fact that this didn’t happen is the most important political development of recent times. However, the camp in the ANC that wants to hold the line against political gangsterism seems to be regularly outplayed by secretary-general Ace Magashule, and is unable to deal decisively with the public protector and the EFF; both actively acting in support of the corrupt, and against attempts to restore the integrity of the state.

A president’s power is always limited, but it is still considerable. One of the most significant forms of power that a president has is a unique capacity to shape the public conversation. In this regard

Cyril Ramaphosa seems wholly inadequate. He frequently chooses silence when he should be building public support for reform and cedes control of the conversation to the likes of Magashule, a deeply compromised public protector and the EFF.

Much has been written about his state of the nation speech being another wasted opportunity. Instead of inspiration, we got a bland, insipid list of social goals with no sense of how they are to be achieved. The ANC, including the ANC before Zuma’s catastrophic presidency, has failed in multiple respects. Schools, land reform and housing are all areas of systemic failure. It also regulated mining — for more than a century a foundation of prosperity for some — into near oblivion by putting the interests of black elites before the interests of society as a whole.

Under Zuma, the economy tanked, major institutions were destroyed, political repression escalated hugely, and unemployment, already a crisis, worsened. There was also a general descent into lawlessness and corruption that we can all see in our everyday lives.

Traffic lights don’t work any more, our cities are full of rubbish, basic services are in dramatic decline, very few people trust the police. Under these dire circumstances the urgent task is to get the basics right. Traffic lights must be fixed, refuse collected, streets cleaned, rotten cops arrested, and so on.

These kinds of actions won’t fix our unemployment crisis, or find the money to restore the SABC, Eskom and SAA to viability after years of looting. But they will show ordinary citizens that things are improving, that a corner has been turned. Ultimately the greatest asset to any economy, and society, is the confidence of ordinary people. Zuma destroyed this. Ramaphosa needs to restore it.

That is why dreaming of a new shining city on the hill is a serious mistake. Why on earth should we imagine a new, smart city when schools still don’t have toilets after 25 years, millions live in shacks, and refuse rots on pavements? When we can all see that our quality of life is in rapid decline. Ramaphosa should have seized the moment and promised to get the basics right.

And if Ramaphosa openly acknowledged the scale of corruption and asked ordinary citizens to join him in standing against it, he would have immeasurably strengthened his position against the Magashule faction, the public protector and the EFF. For a man who was part of the trade union movement, and then the United Democratic Front, Ramaphosa seems to have very little understanding of the importance of charisma and vision in politics, let alone the necessity to mobilise people behind a vision.

The vast majority of South Africans would rally behind a call to oppose the corrupt. But if ordinary people are not inspired to action by Ramaphosa and cynicism sets in, the machiavellian machinations of the looters could easily overwhelm the forces of reform. It is now becoming urgent that Ramaphosa understand that he is confronting a political battle that must be fought politically.

The vast bulk of the media is on the side of the reformers. This gives Ramaphosa an extraordinary advantage, but he can’t exploit this if he doesn’t offer a clear and realistic vision and invite ordinary citizens to join him, not in fanciful dreams, but in the realpolitik of fighting the mafiosi and getting basic things working again.

Ramaphosa will not have goodwill forever. The time for him to seriously take on the public role of the presidency is now. The forces mobilising against him are ruthless, and if they are not decisively opposed we could find ourselves in serious trouble again.

Buccus is senior research associate at the Auwal Socioeconomic Research Institute, research fellow in the school of social sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and academic director of a university study abroad programme on political transformation