Regardless of how the 2024 elections end, the ruling party must undergo radical political transformation to survive
(Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko)
There is little denying that our current cohort of political leaders, at least at a national level, are as charismatic as dry toast.
Julius Malema was, for many years, the outlier, having the ability to draw and rile up a crowd. Many an editor will say he had the singular ability to boost newspaper sales if his name was mentioned on the front page.
He may have aged since then, but his rebellion schtick has not matured, and his one-liners are contrived and predictable. His skin, too, has grown thinner, and instead of offering counterarguments of substance, he has opted to threaten, insult and sue those who offend him.
As for Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen, he gradually, and then expeditiously, became more uninspiring in just about every public outing as he warmed his leadership chair.
It is not that his content is weak or delivery poor, it’s simply that his personality has evaporated since the days of being the official opposition’s chief whip. The once quirky, fast-talking and aggressive debater has been reduced to a staged and scripted party man.
And then there is President Cyril Ramaphosa.
What he lacked in chutzpah he made up for in affability. His strength was once the ability to engage with different groups in their language. If he spoke to farmers, he would wear khaki and talk land rights; at union events he would wear a bright red jacket and shout the benefits of socialism and statism; and at Davos, surrounded by his billionaire peer group, he displayed an understanding of Caring Capitalism.
But his engineered Everyman approach can no longer sustain itself. Today, we don’t know where he stands on many things. He is evasive and not as transparent as his media team would lead us to believe.
Is South Africa’s lack of magnetic leaders all bad? Not having populists such as Donald Trump or Hugo Chavez means political parties need to sell their ideas, not their leaders, to the people.
After all, it was ideas that led to the Bill of Rights, the civil rights moment and the collapse of apartheid. Individuals played a role, but the driving force was that the collective vision for the need for change was strong enough, and accepted broadly, for such acts of change to occur over several generations.
Our political system, although flawed, is still designed to place ideas over individual ambition. This is good.
Thus, as we gear up for yet another ANC elective conference, party delegates and the public need to hone in on what the chosen leaders will do and, more importantly, do differently to their predecessors.
Such events are more than just the television spectacle of who nominated whom from the floor.
It is about the future of a beautiful country that is circling the drain.