Many of my friends will
remember Natasha, the young girl who had her leg amputated about two years
ago.About five weeks ago Natasha became
very ill, and her mother took her to the hospital.Since being there, she deteriorated, and today, her mother told me she
has died.
I knew Natasha for many years,
and all through the traumatic and happy times, she remained a young woman seeking
to walk in the light. Today, I believe that she is finally in the light, and in
death has found her peace.
South Africa has seen a great deal of progress in many spheres of life since non-racial democracy in 1994, yet many of its people are still waiting for their hard-won freedom to pay dividends. Economic freedom still eludes them.
Unemployment is stubbornly high and the redistribution of wealth and land hasn’t been successful. It seems that the country’s leaders have hijacked this freedom in pursuit of their own selfish gains.
Politically exposed people, public officials and cronies in the private sector abuse their contacts, positions and influence unashamedly. Social pathologies such as rampant corruption and state looting are the order of the day. The cult of materialism is destroying the moral fibre of the nation.
What the country needs now is moral leadership that brings deep and lifelong changes to individuals and communities. It urgently needs leadership born of sound core values and characterised by accountable management.
There are fortunately well established models that set out what the characteristics of this kind of leadership are. South Africans should draw on these so that they know what it is that makes up moral leadership traits.
The four key-drives theory
The late Harvard Business School Professor Paul Lawrence says that all animals survive guided by two innate drives, or ultimate motives: firstly to acquire essential resources and offspring; secondly to defend themselves and their property.
Humans have evolved to require two additional drives – to bond in trusting, caring, long-term relationships and the drive to comprehend – that is to learn, understand and create.
According to Lawrence, good moral leaders hold these four drives in dynamic balance, weighing and balancing conflicting demands.
He states that the four drives, when expressed as nouns rather than verbs, yield four important core values: prosperity (resources), peace/trust (bond), knowledge (comprehend), and justice (defend). Just as with the drives, the best leaders attend to all four values simultaneously.
Prosperity seeks to improve every citizen’s ability to obtain the necessary resources. Leaders honestly ask what other people are entitled to, and then promote it at all cost. This asks restraint and self-sacrifice, simplicity and contentment. Greedy and power-hungry leaders, who only focus on their own success and enrichment, are in the light of the four key-drives theory, primitive and destructive.
A deviation from this was seen when Brian Molefe, former CEO at Eskom, almost walked away with a R30.1 million “golden handshake” even though he was at the power utility for only 18 months. This, after he resigned as CEO in November 2016 under a cloud after being fingered in former public protector Advocate Thuli Madonsela’s “State of Capture” report. He is now an MP of the governing ANC.
Justice-based leadership keeps the other person safe, as well as his loved ones and property, protects their names, and preserves their integrity. This kind of leadership tracks fraudsters and criminals and punishes them unashamedly. It doesn’t put a veil over injustice.
And justice is never prioritised in a leader’s interest and or survival. One cannot defend the indefensible. But, in October 2016 South Africa started the process to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) - an institution designed to hold war criminals to account, and to deliver justice for their victims.
Protesters outside the offices of fired finance minister Pravin Gordhan in Pretoria. Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
The move was a direct result of the government’s failure in 2015 to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir as required by the ICC and the country’s laws. But justice triumphed in the end. Earlier this year the government found itself with egg on its face when the Pretoria High Court declared SA’s withdrawal from the ICC unconstitutional and invalid.
Trust that is essential to caring and social cohesion, keeps promises and doesn’t cheat. It acts with respect, honour and recognition, which in turn are important elements for peace, reliability and stability. This asks tremendous courage, because one is often on one’s own, threatened, bullied and even reviled.
Barbara Hogan, anti-apartheid activist, former minister and the widow of struggle veteran Ahmed Kathrada exhibited these qualities when she courageously called Zuma to go. She reiterated Kathrada’s call to Zuma to step down for the good of all South Africans.
Knowledge and expertise to understand one’s world, place and role in it is extremely important. It is to know the importance of speaking truth and acting with integrity. It doesn’t withhold, but discloses. It doesn’t mock, but respects. It doesn’t intimidate, but inspires. It doesn’t manipulate, but motivates. It doesn’t bully, but protects. The larger the island of knowledge and expertise, the longer the coastline of respect, trust and admiration.
But the abnormal has, in some respects, become normal in South Africa.
That’s why parliament continued to maintain that nothing different was done at the state of the nation address earlier this year even when armed soldiers were photographed strategically blocking off areas in the parliamentary precinct, a move criticised as unseemly militarisation of parliament. And, footage clearly showed journalists being impeded despite parliament’s official assurances over several days that this would not happen.
The need for role models
What South Africa needs are ethical leaders modelling core values, in line with these innate key-drivers. Leaders who have the ability to honestly deal with their own weaknesses. This is not an option, but a national imperative.
Fortunately, there are examples South Africans can turn to. Take Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng’s historic judgment last year in the Nkandla case involving the illegal use of millions of public money for upgrades to President Jacob Zuma’s private homestead. Justice Mogoeng said Zuma had breached his constitutional duty by ignoring the Public Protector’s remedial action. Mogoeng’s behaviour displayed high ethical value.
At the moment South Africa is paying a very high price for the lack of moral leadership. This is true in relation to its economy, politics, education, social security, service delivery, and health services because certain influential politicians got stuck in a twisted first drive of self-enrichment – and bling.
South Africa has long been described as the “protest capital of the world”. But the protests have largely been confined to black townships and informal settlements.
The student protests of 2015-2016 suggested that this was beginning to change, with students of all races marching to places such as the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) headquarters Luthuli House, Parliament and Union Buildings. But the most recent marches were the first time in post-apartheid South Africa that such a united force was seen against a president and the governing party - the ANC.
This followed growing discontent towards President Jacob Zuma and the ANC that was reflected in the loss of support in the 2016 local government elections. The outcry following Zuma’s recent cabinet reshuffle, widely seen as being influenced by the interests of the Gupta family, culminated in nationwide protests on 7 April 2017.
Thousands of people marched across the country, notably in Pretoria, Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town, demanding that Zuma resign. These were followed by a march of the combined main opposition parties on Wednesday 12 April to the seat of government in Pretoria that attracted tens of thousands of protesters, making it possibly the largest march in post-apartheid history.
What might these marches tell us about the future direction of South Africa’s political landscape?
The 7 April march was largely organised under the banner of the Save South Africa campaign, which is made up of a variety of civil society organisations and business leaders. The predominately middle class makeup of the campaign was widely debated online. But who did attend and why? Was this a rebellion of the white middle class?
A research team from the University of Johannesburg decided to find out by conducting a short survey with 185 marchers. While a small sample, the research team felt that provided a fairly accurate sample and an indicative sense of who was involved and why.
Our findings were that the majority of those who marched were middle-class and mostly black. Most said they were there to protest against Zuma.
Who marched?
Of the 185 people surveyed, 56% were black African and 30% were white. The marchers were predominately middle class. Of those surveyed, 58% held what could be considered middle class occupations – either professional or managerial, technician and associated professions or clerks. Only 10% could be regarded as holding traditionally working class occupations – either skilled manual labour or trades work, domestic work or elementary. 13% were self-employed.
The middle class nature of the protest is reinforced when looking at the marchers’ place of residence and mode of transport to the march. Most of the marchers surveyed lived in a suburb (74%) and nearly half (42%) used a private car to travel to the march. The average age of the marcher surveyed was 41, again suggesting that the marchers were likely to be people somewhat established in their careers. Just under two thirds (61%) were men.
Why did people march?
The reasons that people gave for marching can be categorised into one of five themes: anti-Zuma, change, social justice, the economy and/or corruption and other. The anti-Zuma theme was the most popular, with 41% of marchers surveyed providing this as their reason for attending.
Protesters in Cape Town call on President Zuma to step down. Reuters/Sumaya Hisham
But identifying as anti-Zuma should not be equated with being anti-ANC. A number of respondents made clear that their opposition was to Zuma and not to the ANC. For instance, a retired 58 year old white man from Centurion said that he was at the march
to support all South Africans to get rid of the Zuptas (Zuma and the Guptas), not the ANC.
While a black African self-employed 42-year old women from Benoni said
Zuma must go! Leadership is not for the people… I’m an ANC person but we want our old ANC back.
Nearly half (48%) of black Africans responded with anti-Zuma sentiments. For white respondents, this was the second most common response, 26%. The second most common theme overall, and the most common theme for white respondents, was social justice. This encompassed a broad range of perspectives. For instance, one white 48-year-old housewife from Centurion said
tax money … is not being used to help the poor. Zuma misuses our money, the poor get poorer. Struggle people didn’t die for this!
Other respondents displayed their concern for social justice around a rights-based discourse. One 22-year-old black African student from the Pretoria suburb of Faerie Glen said he was at the march “in defence of the constitution”. While others framed their reason for being at the march around the future of their children.
The third most common theme was concerns for the economy and or corruption. For instance, a black 33-year-old operations manager from Randburg said,
My mom is a government employee – her pension fund will be looted and it’s not their money. Zero leadership in this country. State is corrupt. Junk status.
Women were slightly more likely than men to raise issues of the economy and or corruption. Lastly, need for change accounted for 11% of respondents. No significant difference in the reasons for marching by class could be determined, partly because the sample of working class people was too small to draw any conclusions.
Future prospects
Most of the respondents surveyed were not part of any political grouping, with most (57%) reporting that they had attended the march with family or friends, and nearly a quarter (23%) saying they had come alone. Time will tell whether this loose network of people will be able to build and sustain a collective movement. As other commentators have highlighted, a movement that centres on removing Zuma alone is unlikely to bring the socio-economic change demanded by poor and working class protesters almost daily in the country’s mainly black townships and informal settlements. Can concerns for the pensions of government employees be united with demands for service delivery from those very same government employees? It remains to be seen.
Molefe Pilane, an independent researcher, contributed to the survey.
The African National Congress (ANC), South Africa’s governing party, is weakening. It has recently committed some terrible mistakes in government.
High on the list of errors is its decision to close ranks in defence of President Jacob Zuma during the Nkandla debacle where public money was used on upgrades to his private homestead. Then there’s the deployment of incompetent “cadres” to critical positions in government as well as Zuma’s ill-timed cabinet reshuffle.
Critics argue that these problems stem from the ANC’s insistence on being a liberation movement which they say is incompatible with a constitutional democracy.
This has raised the question about the party’s very nature: Is it not time for the ANC to stop seeing itself as a liberation movement but rather a modern, professional political party?
But that argument is hard to sustain. There’s nothing particular about political parties that makes them compatible with constitutional democracy.
Liberation movement vs political party
Those opposed to the ANC’s holding place as a liberation movement argue that a movement – liberation or social – is the old way of doing politics. This, they claim, was suitable during the struggles against colonialism and apartheid. But that struggle is now over and the post-apartheid era presents a new set of challenges.
The idea of a liberation movement keeps archaic and obsolete traditions alive. These include the leadership collective, consensus choice of leadership, revolution, comradeship, cadre deployment and patriarchal leadership patterns.
The role and character of liberation movements in power is informed by the democracy theory (coming out of liberalism ideology) and the theory of party dominance. These theories suggest that for democracy to be effective, there should be vibrant political party competition because it strengthens deliberative aspects of a liberal democracy. It also engenders internal dynamism and change of groups of elites in power.
The party dominance theory leads to the view that the ANC dominates South Africa’s politics because of its liberation movement legacy. This dominance is seen as inimical to democratic competition.
But when liberation movements become political parties they enhance their efficiency and effectiveness. They also deepen their internal democracy and their ability to connect with the wider public.
Internal democracy within the ANC is seen as particularly important given its political dominance.
ANC military veterans guard the party’s headquarters ahead of a march by the opposition DA. Reuters/Mike Hutchings
Political parties shed the tendency towards democratic centralism, and its opaque internal political systems which insist on toeing the party line and brooks no dissent.
Political parties are assumed to operate like professional associations. They value accountability and transparency embracing modern systems of management and leadership. This enables them to become dynamic platforms for advancing refined political ends.
The conduct of Zuma and his cohort of leaders has been blamed on the ANC’s choice to remain steeped in the traditions of a liberation movement. The form determines the content: it produces tendencies that cause all manner of problems.
The ANC has made some catastrophic mistakes. It sometimes displayed arrogance in power and has allowed corrupt leaders to go unpunished.
There has also been a vacillation of policy stances on the economy, land and other crucial policy areas. Largely sound policies have been poorly implemented.
And there have been cases where the party and the state’s affairs have been conflated.
Some have argued that these problems stem from the ANC remaining essentially a liberation movement. To move with the times, they argue, it needs to assume a new, modern professional political party posture.
Lessons from elsewhere
The challenge in the ANC is, however, not unique to South Africa.
Liberal democrats in Japan, Christian democrats in Italy, the Communists (Kuomintang) in Taiwan and nationalist democrats in Kenya all experienced similar challenges.
Although they were not liberation movements, they share a number of features with the ANC. This includes arrogance of power, personalisation of power, elitism and the preponderance of sectional interests over the common good. So, it seems these are tendencies that need to be overcome.
It’s hard to sustain the argument that liberation movements are not right for democratic consolidation merely because they are movements or that political parties are by nature good for competitive politics. Political parties can dominate, distort, corrupt, abuse, and complicate democratic systems just as liberation movements deepen democracy by strengthening its social basis.
What the ANC needs to do
The ANC doesn’t need to transition into a political party, whatever that means in practice. But, it needs to develop a leadership that’s competent to use the state to change the economy fundamentally in order to serve the majority and bring about qualitatively positive changes to the people, especially the poor.
The party needs to put a stop to the self-inflicted damage to its image through endless scandals, public displays of arrogance, factionalism and internal conflict.
The ANC also needs to end its practice of deploying poor quality cadres to critical state structures, and start heeding the counsel of its friends and foes that it must place the country’s interests before sectional interests of whatever faction of its leadership is in power.
It can look to the Chama Cha Mapinduzi movement that’s been in power in Tanzania since the 1960s for example.
The party has ensured an open contest for leadership positions. The elected leaders are then expected to root out corruption, crime, tribalism and so forth.
There’s a constant change of national leadership and a level of dynamism that enables the movement to adapt to changing society. It has produced leaders like Julius Nyerere and John Magafuli who commands respect across party lines.
If liberation movements were formed to achieve total decolonisation and freedom, then for as a long the process is incomplete, they will have a good reason to exist. Like orthodox political parties, they constantly have to adapt to change.
Ultimately, democracy is meaningless if it doesn’t improve the material circumstances for the people. To do this, political formations must be occupied by conscientious, competent, compassionate and interested political elite.
This is what the ANC has shown it lacks as it attempts to “deal” with every scandal and crisis it causes. The problem isn’t its commitment to being a liberation movement, but rather that it wants to be a callous one.
Siphamandla Zondi, Professor of political science and head of department of Political Sciences and the Institute for Strategic and Political Affairs, University of Pretoria
What would it take for President Jacob Zuma and the African National Congress (ANC) to understand that South Africa is a constitutional democracy, and provide desperately needed leadership to protect this fundamental principle?
President Zuma’s apology and the ANC’s acceptance and defence of it are missed opportunities to reclaim credibility and the moral high ground. They follow the Constitutional Court’s ruling on the Nkandla saga – the scandal over the use of public funds on the president’s private homestead.
Apology is a noble gesture. It is expression of remorse. But what’s at issue here is far more than just being remorseful. A dereliction of a constitutional duty is serious a matter.
The Constitutional Court provided judicial leadership with its ruling in protecting the state against the competition to profit from it.
It redeemed a pledge of the liberation struggle in reiterating that South Africa shall be a constitutional democracy.
But it has always been clear that the practical implications and implementation of the ruling would hit a snag.
Why Zuma won’t be removed
Constitutional democracy is not only about court pronouncements. It is also, more importantly, about their implementation, which shows respect for the rule of law. The president ignored the remedial order of the country’s public protector. He therefore violated the constitution. This issue cannot simply be reduced to an apology. This is a serious indictment. The constitution is unambiguous on what ought to happen in this instance: parliamentary processes for the removal of the president must be invoked.
Sadly, the National Assembly also failed in its constitutional duty to hold the president and the executive accountable. Its complacency is writ large in its conduct on the Nkandla matter. Herein lies the snag in implementing the ruling.
Removing a president is a parliamentary process and the country’s opposition parties are pursuing the matter. But to be successful at least two thirds of the members of the National Assembly need to vote in favour.
The ANC members in the National Assembly are not likely to support the motion to remove Zuma. The opposition parties do not have the numbers to secure the required threshold. Combined they have 151 seats against the ANC’s 249 out of the total of 400.
And the Constitutional Court ruling implicates the ANC in a big way as the majority party in parliament. It reveals a contrived confluence of the executive and legislative authorities in riding roughshod over the supremacy of the constitution. The National Assembly is therefore equally at fault as the president.
If fault can be equally apportioned, shouldn’t the parliament dissolve itself? Shouldn’t the same happen to the cabinet? But, if all this happens, what would be left of the state? This lays bare the intricacy of implementing the Nkandla ruling. Adding to this is that the power to dissolve the National Assembly before the expiry of its term is assigned to the president, whereas that of impeaching him is assigned to the National Assembly. In the game of chess, we say checkmate.
Two powers that, in the case of one’s aberration, should dissolve each other are equally at fault in the same matter. The ANC exploited the possibilities that this has created. It imposed its leadership on a matter exclusively reserved for the National Assembly from its Luthuli House head office.
Its stand and support of Zuma’s apology effectively put a stop to the possibility of his removal as the head of state and that of the national executive. One thing that came out very clearly is that the line between the state and a political party is blurred. Even more worrying is the ANC’s display of arrogance. As a governing party, it seems averse to self-correction – an opportunity the Nkandla ruling presented.
But, what could it have done differently?
Reclaiming the moral high ground
Ironically, the only feasible way of removing the president lies outside the prescribed formal structures of the constitutional processes. In other words, the answer to the challenge of realising the implications of the ruling of the Constitutional Court is not in Parliament in Cape Town, or the Union Buildings – the seat of government – in Pretoria. It is in Luthuli House in Johannesburg. Perhaps this is a context against which the ANC’s press briefing on the matter should be understood. It was a lost opportunity to reclaim the moral high ground.
The ANC should have persuaded Zuma to resign from the position of the president of the Republic of South Africa and leave with some decorum. A precedent for this exists. Thabo Mbeki was recalled by the ANC in 2008, although this was not because of violating the constitution, as is the case with Zuma.
Mbeki had angered Zuma’s faction by dismissing him as the deputy president of the country, following his implication in the corruption trial of his financial advisor and friend Schabir Shaik. Mbeki lost the presidency of the ANC in 2007, and that of the country in 2008. Some argue that Zuma’s chance of being recalled cannot be compared with the Mbeki situation. Perhaps they are right, but the reasoning is strange.
Arguing that recalling Mbeki was easy because his position as the head of the state was already weakened because he had lost the presidency of the ANC is tantamount to saying that being both the head of state and that of a party guarantees impunity for deviance from the constitution.
For what it’s worth, Mbeki did nothing untoward to warrant the disproportionate wrath of the ANC. This is in stark contrast to what Zuma did, as the court determined. He violated the constitution.
The ANC should have persuaded Zuma to resign, or it should have recalled him to reaffirm the virtue of public office. Thereafter, it could have invoked its ingenuity and spun his resignation or recall to recapture the moral high ground and assert its commitment to protecting democracy and the future of South Africa.
It should have then tried as much as possible to reach out to the citizens and clearly communicate the message that, in the words of English economist Alfred Marshall in 1919:
The state is the most precious of human possessions; and no care can be too great to be spent on enabling it to do its work in the best way.
