South Africans have fallen into the habit of lamenting the state of politics and the quality of political leadership in their country, damning themselves with comparisons with Barack Obama.
It is true that we do not have an inspirational leader in the Obama mould, and that since the ANC’s Polokwane conference the country has sometimes seemed to be galloping downhill. But the breaking of Thabo Mbeki’s stifling hold on the ruling party and broader national debates does seem to have ushered in a new and more vibrant political era.
There are cheering signs of a resurgent interest and excitement among ordinary people, and next year could see the most absorbing elections since 1994.
The Independent Electoral Commission has announced that last week’s voter registration drive was the most successful since 2000, with 1,6-million new voters placed on the roll. The IEC has confirmed that a record 143 political parties have registered for next year’s poll.
The splitting of the ANC monolith has added spark to the political scene, jarring the ANC out of the arrogance and complacency born of 14 years of unchallengeable dominance. This week’s Mail & Guardian reports on research that underscores long-term changes in our electoral landscape, which may have been accelerated by the emergence of the Congress of the People (Cope) from the bosom of the ANC. Analysts suggest that the 2009 contest will be the most open of the democratic era, with all the opposition parties showing signs of growth. The research also highlights how falling poll percentages, relative to the total size of the electorate, have fuelled ever-increasing ANC majorities since 1994.
The new disposition of forces has already had an impact on the ANC. It has, for example, forced the party’s leaders to rein in motormouth Julius Malema, sparing South Africans the routine follies of a young man who misguidedly saw himself as following in the footsteps of Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Peter Mokaba. The ANC acted against him, not out of concern for South Africans and their constitutional rights, but out of a realisation that he had become a key mobilising tool in the hands of its opponents.
In another sign that it is finally listening to the people, the ANC government has bowed to the wishes of communities in North West, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape forced by Mbeki and Sydney Mufamadi into provinces they rejected. The new local government minister, Sicelo Shiceka, announced this week that Moutse, Khutsong and Matatiele will be reincorporated into the provinces of their choice.
The realignment may also have the effect of loosening Jacob Zuma’s dependency on the ANC’s union and communist allies and pushing the party towards the pragmatic centre, which Cope threatens. It is unlikely that some of Cosatu’s wilder proposals, including prescribed assets and nationalisation, will find their way into the ANC election platform. Given the manifest deficiencies of the South African state, it makes no sense to heap further burdens on it.
One does not have to support Lekota’s movement to see that its emergence is good for our body politic. It broadens the market, offers alternative leadership and puts the ANC on its mettle. South Africans are invigorated by the changing political landscape — and that’s how it should be!
Put public back in the broadcaster
With its internecine battles and poor programming, the SABC has become a byword for mediocrity. Whereas the institution’s heft and its resources could make it Africa’s most powerful public media outfit, it is in the hands of a B-team.
Under strongman and editor-in-chief Snuki Zikalala, the institution’s most important output — news and current affairs — has become a political football kicked hither and thither by an array of politicians. With its finances in a mess, the SABC is on a slippery slope. How very sad that the public broadcaster, the first institution to be liberated from the Broederbond, has come to this. Now its board faces a putsch by an angry Parliament in a move led, ironically, by MPs of the ruling ANC. Zikalala has always called himself a cadre of the ANC but the party is now baying for his blood.
It also wants the heads of the board, which has many great talents on it but which was appointed by former president Thabo Mbeki in clandestine and sneaky ways. He went over the head and against the wishes of Parliament to stack the board with several of his inner-circle, a move which infuriated his rank and file. With Mbeki out of the way, the MPs want the board to be booted out too and they are likely to do this before the end of November. Parliament passed, with unseemly haste, an amendment to broadcasting laws that now allows it to fire the board. Previously this was the remit of the president.
It’s an understandable step, but wrong nonetheless. It is like putting a Band-Aid over a festering sore. The real problem lies in how the board is chosen — the process is opaque and gives too much power to the ruling party. The political instinct to attempt to use the board to leverage influence over such a powerful instrument is a characteristic of both the developed and the developing world. To counter this instinct, the board should be appointed in a process with far more public oversight and participation.
We support the call by the Save our SABC coalition to rethink the move to oust the board and instead to reinstil genuine democracy into the process of appointing the vital stewards we put at the helm of the public broadcaster. It’s time to put the public back into the broadcaster.