With the situation in the country being as concerning as it is, the president of the country would be expected to invite leaders of political parties represented in parliament for a briefing and in the process solicit their views on the way forward. That used to happen some 25 years or so ago.
It doesn’t look like that is possible anymore. You need only observe the plenary proceedings in parliament to figure this out.
In debates, there appears to be a competition on who can use the crudest language, rudest and more insolent than the next legislator. This is especially the case when it comes to addressing the head of state.
Mangosuthu Buthelezi used to counsel every parliamentarian to respect the presidency as an office, even if you disagree with the incumbent. Debate the issues as robustly as you can, but cut out the insults.
We should also consider the impact of this behaviour on society, especially the impressionable children.
Teachers are having a hard time in a lot of schools controlling rude, ill-disciplined and uncouthpupils.
Those teachers and parents would not be helped by the disorderly and intemperate language of legislators.
There are two issues of national security importance that our parliamentarians should be grappling with in a collaborative and responsible manner; matters that should be above party hubris and interest.
The first involves the startling utterances of the KwaZulu–Natal commissioner of police Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, to the effect that the minister of police and senior police officers at national level, prosecutors and others in the criminal justice system, are in cahoots with organised criminals to commit crimes, protect one another and block investigations.
That is earth-shattering stuff that suggests we are almost at the level of a mafia state where law enforcement is captured by the underworld.
The manner in which Mkhwanazi raised these matters itself raises questions: Is the system so broken and infiltrated that Mkhwanazi could not trust anyone in the organisation with the information he had, not even the head of state?
Was a dramatic press conference the only way to bring the matters into the open?
Instead of dealing with the matter as a national crisis, some political parties saw it as an opportunity to score political points and used it as a stick to beat their political rivals.
They took sides, issued inflammatory statements and took to the streets to whip up emotions. The pronouncements by the parties in parliament were wild and inflammatory as well.
The second relates to the diplomatic, political and economic war the US has declared against South Africa for its stance on the genocide Israel is committing against the Palestinians in Gaza.
In the eyes of the US, the biggest sin SA has committed was to take Israel to the International Court of Justice for its unfettered and brutal killing and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
We have seen a procession of right-wing political parties to Washington to badmouth their country and sabotage whatever the state, through its departments of foreign affairs and that of trade, are trying to do.
In addition to meeting officials in government departments, which should not be happening in normal diplomatic engagements, these delegations have been conversing with rightwing groups in the US in an attempt to hurt SA, politically, economi-cally and diplomatically.
There are political parties in our parliament that are so obsessed with promoting themselves and hurting the state that they have lost complete sense of nationhood and national interest.
In such circumstances, it is difficult to see the head of state scrumming down with leaders of political parties represented in parliament in times of national difficulties.
Yes, you spar with one another politically, but in times of national difficulties, you put your heads together to save the country.
- Mangena is former minister of science and technology
