Waiting game of politics
THERE’S a tale, no doubt an apocryphal one, that a dear friend, A G R B, once told me. In a perfect moment of male bonding, two old goats, Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung, met in Vienna for a drink and a cigar.
Freud sat back on his chair, put his feet up on the desk and told Jung (something like): “Ah, my dear friend . . . things will get better.”
Jung nodded, tossed back his brandy and replied: “Yes, but we won’t ask when.”
Here, now, in South Africa, in these weeks before the ruling party elects its new leader, we might well ask when. When will things get better? The best answer is: nobody knows. The one certainty is that our future, and the fate of South Africa, lies in the hands of 5 240 people.
Let’s read this slowly and carefully: 5 240 people hold the fate of around 55 million people in their hands . . .
These are the delegates to next month’s elective conference of the ANC.
The leaders they chose will probably lead South Africa after Jacob Zuma.
And when that is done, the inertia that characterises governance, and that repeatedly interrupts implementation of policies, will resume.
The political calendar is, arguably, one of the main reasons why there seems to be no progress in implementing of policies and why the econ- omy is slowly grinding to a halt.
As we have come to know, rightfully or otherwise, very many, certainly not all, public servants owe direct fealty to the ruling party either through ideological solidarity, or quite simply because their livelihoods and those of their families are at stake.
And so, even those who may be independent and professional have a vested interest in preserving the status quo.
It may seem like a harsh judgment of the integrity of public servants, but the ruling elite created a political calendar that has embedded inertia in our political economy.
The implementation process, in its duel with the political calendar, goes something like this.
A set of policies is placed before the public service on the first day of the year.
Most public servants return to work by the second week of the year, so little work gets done.
Those who do arrive early are hesitant to get going, because the first event on the political calendar is the ANC’s birthday celebrations – where a big party ensues.
South Africans, including potential investors, wait for a sign.
After the party, a new round of wait- ing starts because there is a cabinet lekgotla sometime in late January.
After the January lekgotla the process of implementation is stalled, again, as public servants, and the country, wait for a sign from the president’s state of the nation address.
We’re now into Februar y. Still we wait. Nobody wants to undermine the budget speech of late February or the debates that follow.
We’re now moving through Februar y.
In March we start a month’s work, but a series of public and school holidays arrive (I am by no means opposed to public holidays), and by the end of April, on the 27th, we wait for a sign from “leadership” as we have another party to celebrate: our independence.
The speeches are grandiloquent and rhetorical, and met by vacuous encomia from party loyalists in a stadium nearby.
We are now into May, five months into the year, and public servants get to work, but they have to wait for a sign.
The president’s budget vote address should help give clarity, leadership and vision. It’s the end of May. Very soon there will be another massive speech on June 16, Youth Day. Winter sets in. There are school holidays coming, and public servants cannot second-guess the ANC’s policy conference, scheduled for July.
It takes a couple of weeks for policies to get to public servants.
August comes around and we have to wait for the cabinet lekgotla of September.
We can’t upset the party leadership.
We want to start working in late September, but the mini-budget is in October – we have to wait.
We’re reaching towards the end of the year . . . Waiting can be terribly exhausting.
Before you know it everyone prepares for school holidays and the December break.
Somewhere, everywhere, in the 12-month cycle positions must be filled; those public servants who are “acting” in positions are lobbying for permanent status; permanent staff are lobbying for increases; public servants trawl the internet for workshops and conferences to attend; Unisa essays, exams and study-leave absences weaken the implementation process; the almost de rigueur cabinet shuffles and cadre “redeployments” do not help provide certainty.
Ratings agencies are circling like vultures above our decaying economy.
Investors are hesitant.
Malusi Gigaba buys a new suit.
Fikele Mbalula sends a string of tweets.
The EFF coins a few more phrases like “Zupta”.
There is more vacuous encomia.
The waiting game continues.
The new year starts and continues as the previous one, mutatis mutandis ...
Everyone is fatigued.
They tell us things might get better after Zuma.
But, as the old goat Jung said in the apocryphal tale mentioned at the top of this column, we won’t ask when.
And by the looks of it, this fraction of a minority seems more concerned with saving or rejuvenating the ANC than it is with the political economic present, and the future, of the country.