Uniting to defend our constitution against Zuma and his threats

This week I added my name to those of more than 300 South Africans calling for the urgent defence of our constitutional democracy as part of a nonpartisan campaign under the banner “Defend Our Democracy”.

The initiative was convened by South African leaders from a diverse cross-section of sectors — including the Rev Frank Chikane, professor Saths Cooper, Cheryl Carolus, Mavuso Msimang, Sipho Pityana, Neeshan Balton, Busisiwe Mavuso, Adrian Gore, the Rev Moss Nthla and Brigalia Bam — as a call to action to people around the country to reject the anti-constitutional conduct of former president Jacob Zuma and those connected to the state capture project.

Of particular concern is Zuma’s effort to undermine the work of the commission of inquiry into state capture by flouting a Constitutional Court ruling that he should appear before it, and more recently, the deployment of Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association members in army regalia outside his Nkandla home, and their vow to protect Zuma from arrest for being in contempt of the court’s ruling.

The actions of the former president and his coterie should send a chill down the spine of every citizen as they raise the dangerous spectre of an armed confrontation between members of the South African Police Service and Zuma’s de facto private militia should his arrest warrant be issued.

The rule of law becomes meaningless in any country if armed paramilitary groups can threaten violence in the event that the institutions in the criminal justice system execute their mandates according to the letter of the law. Such threats are patently illegal and have no place in a constitutional democracy.

All the while, SA remains always at the precipice, with a tidal wave of socioeconomic and political crises waiting to engulf it. To the constitutional crisis presented by Zuma’s intransigence, we may add any number of seemingly intractable challenges requiring massive reforms and collective action to address.

The Covid-19 pandemic, while exposing the parlous state of many of our provincial health systems, has also had a devastating effect on the economy, and bodes poorly for the resolution of the youth unemployment crisis that has gripped SA for a generation.

With a labour market in desperate need of skilled and experienced workers, young people continue to struggle to make it onto the first rung of the formal employment ladder. In the first quarter of 2020, young people accounted for 63.3% of unemployed people in SA.

Stats SA’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey found the unemployment rate among young graduates was at a staggering 33.1% in the first quarter of 2020, compared to 24.6% in the fourth quarter of 2019. This was before the devastating impact of the lockdown in March 2020.

Unemployed, desperate and disillusioned young people in their millions are deeply vulnerable to the seductive politics of simple solutions to complex problems. When the promises of the liberation of our country are broken for the many and enjoyed only by the few, it becomes perfectly rational for young people to seek political homes away from the centre, which they see as having failed them.

This brings us to SA’s political crisis, which will likely present itself at our local government elections later this year. As the governing party faces threats to its incumbent leadership from the state capture faction of the party, opposition parties have become ever more polarised. They choose the path of greater fragmentation as they try to appeal to smaller and more niche racial and ethnic-based voter groupings, instead of presenting a vision of SA that can be embraced by a diverse electorate, united in its commitment to the principles enshrined in the constitution. In short, SA lacks a natural successor to the ANC; a party that could realistically govern at a national level in the event the ANC lost power in a general election.

All is, however, not lost. If nothing else, this week’s convening demonstrated that our country is still replete with talented, ethical, intellectually rigorous and people-centred leaders who remain committed to the nation-building project.

SA possesses massive reserves of goodwill and expertise — from the finance, logistics, manufacturing and agricultural experts in the private sector to authorities on human rights, health policy, education and gender equality in our civil society movements.

We have faith-based organisations with enormous convening power — in the hundreds of thousands and the millions — at every level of society. And we have a government that, for all the challenges it faces, is capable of galvanising the best among its ranks in times of crisis — such as the Covid-19 pandemic — and when we must promote the national brand — such as in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup.

They say one should never let a good crisis go to waste; the constitutional and democratic threats posed by the denizens of state capture present a critical opportunity for the various strands of leadership, skill and expertise in SA to come together in service of the nation-building — and rebuilding — project.