Johannesburg- South Africa’s governing political leadership lacks the capacity and ability to lead with urgency in dealing with the crisis both within and in the government. Thus, in the year 2022, the alarm bells will continue to ring over the instability and general degeneration of the ANC.
These alarm bells will equally ring even louder for the ANC government’s lack of capacity and ability to deliver both on public goods and services.
There are several instances in the year 2021 during which the party acted as if it was “business as usual”, when the situation required leadership urgency.
Two issues will suffice here: the first is manifested with how the state leadership performed over the Covid-19 situation. Through President Cyril Ramaphosa, the leadership handling the Covid-19 crisis has descended into mere project management. Rather than strategic innovations, the approach to dealing with Covid-19 has remained one of protocols of social distancing, sanitising, washing of hands and pushing a vaccination agenda.
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The addresses by the president have become too standardised – they have been about which lockdown level South Africa was moving into, whether alcohol must be sold, and the vaccination drive.
Leadership of Covid-19 requires contextual solutions.
This includes a reflection that Covid-19 in South Africa is enabled by massive black poverty, homelessness, lack of running water and sanitation, and poor infrastructure that lead to overcrowding in schools, health centres, public transportation and places of
social grant collections. In the last two years, an astute leadership would have ensured that these socio-infrastructure services were delivered at an
accelerated rate to curb the spread of Covid-19.
In a society such as ours, Covid-19 cannot be dealt with by following standardised protocols and vaccinations. It needs a contextual approach such as the provision of nutrition.
Second, there was no urgency against the degeneration of the ANC in 2021. The party lost major metros, rendering it a rural party, and yet it has not manifested any urgency in assuring its own regrouping.
Ill-discipline within the ANC was merely outsourced to state institutions such as the National Prosecuting Authority, while others were outsourced.
Former president Jacob Zuma was left to establish and run a parallel ANC from KwaZulu-Natal. The consequence was the ANC’s poor performance in the local government elections in KZN. But then, post this disastrous electoral performance, there is still no sense of urgency.
In essence, South Africa is in a state of abnormal normality. No sense of urgency from the political leadership, regardless of the dire crises the country faces: the Covid-19 situation, unemployment, poverty, homelessness, landlessness, and lack of water and sanitation.
So, regardless of the chal-lenges facing the country, for the ANC the year 2022 will be business as usual. There will be the usual events that get the country talking with no major outcomes: the ANC’s January 8 statement; the State of the Nation Address; and the Budget speech.
The January 8 statement will, as usual, see the dominant faction within the ANC flexing its muscles and testing its own internal opposition. There will be very little reflection about the quality and status of the ANC, both within and as the country’s governing party. There will be very little repositioning to ensure the organisation plays an empowering role among poor blacks.
This will be followed by party political debates mostly used to showcase their scant relevance in the development of SA.
As the year 2022 starts, the lethargy of the political leadership will continue to cost, particularly black poor people.
South Africa needs a political leadership with the ability to conceptualise and design a prosperous society. The emphasis is on political leadership because it is the only leadership that has a mandate on everything in society – from politics, education, economy, peace and stability, among others.
The year 2022 will just be another year of the survival of the fittest because that’s how the system is designed and administered by the black political leadership. The black political leadership is too entrenched into the system to change it.
And so, 2022 will be another business-as-usual year. Those that are milking the system will continue to do so. Those drowning in poverty will sink even deeper.
- Twitter page: @KunjaloD
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