Alternative leadership to pull us from the abyss

SOUTH Africa, politically and economically speaking, is beginning to be a “heart of darkness”, and we are facing the 2019 general election with the smothering hopes that we will get out of the corruption grip.

And indeed, KwaZulu-Natal has a huge problem, where everything seems to be falling apart. It is helplessly drowning in a whirlpool of endless vicious political killings, betrayal, crime, rape, violence, etc, where leaders pillage the remnants of Africans’ dignity. The centre is no longer holding in our province. We are at the edge of the abyss.

KZN has again become the political killing fields, this time the killing is centred within the ruling party rather than within the competing political formations. It is a dog eat dog situation, for the crumbs falling from the master’s table.

The ANC revolution is consuming its own children. The situation is too ghastly to contemplate, and it is unlikely that it will be resolved before the 2019 election.

Therefore, the ANC will face the 2019 election limping and hugely divided. It may have all financial resources needed for running an election, but its forces, regrettably, are in tatters. It is a weakness that will be exploited by other opposition parties. If this assumption is correct, then we might see a different administration in KwaZulu-Natal. It will be either the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) or the DA.

Recently, we were provided with a glimpse of an emerging coalition of forces working to undermine President Ramaphosa. Paramilitary dancers, Supra Mahumapelo, Black Land First, Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK) and a host of other beneficiaries of patronage and protection under former president Jacob Zuma’s rule displayed their support not only for the legally embattled exfirst citizen, but also for an alternative discourse on both policy and governance in the country.

Using Zuma’s court trial as a conduit for discontent, the motley crew of Ramaphosa dissidents were seemingly laying the foundation for an alternative political discourse within the ANC. It is a discourse that is not yet known.

Under the ruse of the Zuma trial, the subliminal message was a clear deep disgruntlement with the reforms undertaken by Ramaphosa to clean house within most state-owned enterprises and put an end to state-capture deals and other nefarious deep-state-related business deals. The discontented seem to seek to undermine the ANC from within by vigorously defending their support for the party but simultaneously articulating an alternative narrative – one which they hope will find greater traction as Ramaphosa struggles to get a grip on the economy and produce real results in the run-up to the 2019 polls.

All this points to a more unstable election year than previous ones.

Quality African leaders such as Nyerere, Nkrumah, Mandela, Prince Buthelezi, Sobukwe, Thabo Mbeki, and many others advanced the theory of “humanist revolution” in different terms and in different times, but it is clear that our people are not yet ready to take and internalise what is African and discard what is foreign. We need in this province, a political leadership that will serve the interests of the majority, not the narrow interest of the ruling party.

Africans must always remember that any nation is judged collectively through its leadership. Let’s have an alternative leadership that will usher in a new and unique humanist-oriented approach, for indeed if we fail to rid the country of this corruption cancer, our beautiful country will soon disintegrate and collapse, and already there are signs of that beginning to loom on the horizon.

MFUNISELWA J BHENGU Founding Director: Usikolwethu

Global Institute