Herman Mashaba
‘I am an unapologetic capitalist’
● On August 22 2016, history was made in Johannesburg when seven political parties, together with the EFF, united against the ANC and elected the city’s first mayor from the DA. My decision to resign as executive mayor aside, I maintain my belief that the future of South African politics lies in robust coalitions united around a shared desire to address the challenges facing our country.
Given the polarisation of SA’s political spectrum, it is understandable that many in our country question this view. On the face of it, the idea that parties with fundamentally opposing views could find common ground seems unfathomable. Indeed, many insinuated that the only reason for this must be nefarious.
What those who hold this view often fail to recognise is that at a local government level, ideology is largely irrelevant. I am confident in saying this as an unapologetic capitalist after spending the past three years working closely with the EFF, a party that is unapologetically socialist.
The nature of local government politics does not require that parties necessarily agree on the issues that dominate the parliamentary arena. While important at a national level, competing positions on something such as National Health Insurance, for example, do not preclude agreement about what matters most to the residents of a municipality — the delivery of quality basic services.
This is not to suggest that values do not matter. On the contrary, a coalition that is not based on shared values is destined to fail. It is for this reason that that multiparty government in the city decided from the outset on values that could be collectively owned.
These included a desire to build an inclusive economy, the desire to entrench a professional public service, the desire to tackle corruption through honest and transparent government, the desire to build safe and secure communities, and the desire to provide dignity to the marginalised residents of the city.
Of course, in some cases there were disagreements about the underlying mechanisms to achieve these. In navigating these disagreements, my approach was always to pose a simple question — what will benefit the residents of the city?
It is through this lens that the members of the multiparty government evaluated proposals, and ultimately built consensus.
I view this to be one of the greatest advantages of coalition government. When no single party has a monopoly on ideas, proposals can be evaluated on their merits and their impact on residents.
Reflecting on the past three years, I can point to numerous instances where members of the multiparty government supported proposals that would not have been found in their 2016 election manifestos.
The EFF, by way of example, bought into my vision to turn the inner city into a construction site through the release of city-owned properties to the private sector for mixed-use development. By demonstrating how this would accelerate the provision of affordable housing, while creating jobs and growing the economy, I was able to get their support for a privatesector-based approach.
In contrast, the EFF convinced us to support a programme of insourcing that provided dignity to 7,000 employees including security guards and cleaners. While not DA policy per se, our investigations demonstrated that by cutting out middlemen we could increase the salaries of beneficiaries by as much as 50% with little to no impact on the overall cost to the city.
By excluding a dogmatic adherence to ideology in the determination of our shared priorities, we were able to get parties at the opposite ends of the South African political spectrum to support a programme of government that served all residents of the city.
As the former chair of the Free Market Foundation, many have questioned whether my views have become diluted over the past three years. I do not believe so. Instead I would proffer that my exposure to poverty and inequality has made me acutely aware of the need for a capable and caring state to work in partnership with the private sector to address our mountainous challenges.
I maintain the view I put forward in a speech in
2015, that the only way in which we can achieve true redress is by growing the economy, increasing investor confidence and repealing legislation that undermines these objectives.
My experience as mayor, however, has given me new insight into the role that must be played by government, and the repercussions when it fails in this role. I have been exposed to the direct impact of state capture, corruption and the plundering of state resources by the ANC. I have seen communities deprived of the dignity of basic services while a small elite benefited through patronage, and I have experienced the impact of cadre deployment that has decimated the public service.
The fact that 25 years after apartheid we are faced with greater inequality, more crime and an education system that has failed our young people is a direct result of the monopoly on power enjoyed by the ANC.
In Johannesburg I never had the luxury of complacency and treating councillors as mere voting cattle. Every item that went to the council had to be consulted on and workshopped with my own caucus as well as the members of the multiparty government and the EFF. While everyone did not always agree, the consultation process itself improved the eventual outcome and served to hold the executive to account.
It is for this reason, if no other, that my vision for SA is to see coalition government become the norm.
It is my hope that the coalition project in Johannesburg does not end with my resignation, and that the ANC is not permitted to reclaim the city and return it to a patronage network for the connected few. Over the past three years we have uncovered too many examples of their abuse of residents and their looting of the city’s coffers to allow this to happen again.
No political party is perfect, but I certainly believe that we are better together.