Despite lamenting the crisis within the ANC and the extent to which the country is wracked by failed ANC governance (editorial, May 31), it is disappointing to note that the Daily News, persists in believing that only the ANC can extricate South Africa from the mess it has made.
In a democracy governments that fail are voted out. While history has recorded that the ANC brought democratic change to South Africa, that fact does not give the ANC an indefinite right to rule. Few aspects of life in South Africa have improved in the 23 years the ANC has ruled. Even the constitution is under threat by a President who has violated it and who has indicated that he favours abrogating the provision of compensation for land expropriation.
Yet the Daily News avers that the ANC can “self-correct” and redeem itself as a result. However, the reality is that the re-set button is no longer democratically available. A 63-page study titled “State capacity Research Project” by eight South African academics convened by Professor Mark Swilling of Stellenbosch University, published in May, provides a detailed analysis of the extent to which the ANC has been appropriated by an elite whose agenda is inimical to South Africa’s interests.
The study confirms that South Africa has experienced a silent coup that has removed the ANC from its moorings and re-purposed it for the benefit of a constellation of networks the apex of which comprises twelve companies and fifteen individuals connected to the Gupta-Zuma oligarchy. The study notes that corruption is merely the symptom of the rot that infests state-owned enterprises and government ministries. The manoeuvring and deployment involved in effecting state capture is the real cause of the crisis the country faces.
Appealing to candidates seeking to replace Zuma as ANC president to “go back to the drawing board” and “not to over-promise,” is futile as long as the game of patronage is controlled by those who have established a state within a state.
More ANC rule is not the answer to the woes that have engulfed South Africa. Elitist, the oligarchic rule has no place in a democratic, open society which the preamble of the constitution professes. As such, we are not a one-party state but a multi-party democracy and therefore it is time to grow up and recognise that there are alternatives to the trust the ANC has betrayed.
Sent into The Daily News and published, 3 June 2017.
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