Long before voters finally decided to put an end to a one-party dominance of our political system, the idea of a new national dialogue to help chart the country’s way forward was gaining momentum.
In his book, After Dawn: Hope After State Capture, which was published months just the 2019 elections, former deputy finance minister and now businessman Mcebisi Jonas argued that South Africa needed a new social compact as the deal that had been entered in to in 1994 had run its course.
This could be seen in what he called the growing “rejection of political institutions and the accompanying rise in extra-parliamentary politics” in the form of service delivery protests.
“The constituencies that benefited from the 1994 arrangement – established business, the new black elite and the trade unions – have begun to go their separate ways as their outlook hardens in the face of economic stagnation,” Jonas wrote.
If the situation continued, he warned, South Africa would continue to experience high levels of corruption and rent-seeking, reduced investor confidence, declining state capacity and economic stagnation.
“This scenario plays itself out like this,” he wrote in one essay, “low growth and decreasing per capita income fuel frustration and discontent among the poor and lower-paid workers, with declining support for the government and the ruling party. This creates a growing sense of crisis, with weakening revenue and legitimacy impacting on the state’s ability to lead society out of the crisis.”
He then argued for the creation of “new national obsessions around which stakeholders can cohere and push difficult policy positions that will break our low-growth, high-inequality trap”.
More recently, the call for a national dialogue has been championed by former president Thabo Mbeki who, speaking at a ceremony to mark the 30th anniversary of South Africa’s democracy in April, said among the issues that troubled him about South Africa today is that “we don’t understand South Africa in the same way” and, therefore, “have different pictures of what South Africa is”.
In one of its reflections on Mbeki’s speech, the Sunday Times erroneously attributed to the former president a term that was actually coined by one of the contributors to the conversation that subsequently followed Mbeki’s remarks. A “seismic reflection”, that’s what liberation struggle veteran and author Oyama Mabandla told the gathering the nation needed.
“The problems we confront are beyond the efficacy of normal engagement. They require a seismic reflection by the entire society,” he said calling on civil society, business, religious organisations and all other sectors to take up the challenge.
If politicians reduce the current moment to mere talks about executive positions in the new administration ... we will soon find ourselves in a much greater crisis where the centre will not be holding at all
In making the call, Mabandla was also expanding on the arguments he puts forward in his new book, Soul of a Nation: A Quest for the Rebirth of South Africa’s Values, in favour of what he calls a New Codesa.
“It certainly seems to me that after thirty years of an economy that has not created jobs commensurate with population growth and is characterised by a deficit of skills and know-how and a surplus of people on handouts, getting together our finest minds across all sectors to ponder and promulgate solutions to the crisis of expectations and confidence would be exactly what the doctor ordered,” Mabandla writes.
Paging through this edition of the Sunday Times, one gets the encouraging sense that, albeit informally, the dialogue has already started.
Instead of obsessing about which political parties would form the new executive and whether President Cyril Ramaphosa will stay on or be pushed out by his party, some of the country’s thought leaders have begun talking about how the country comes out of the polycrisis.
Just a few years ago, as editor, one would not have imagined receiving an unsolicited piece jointly written by leaders of Business Unity South Africa and Cosatu talking about what needs to be done to get the economy right.
As is illustrated in articles by former public protector Thuli Madonsela and Centre for Development and Enterprise executive director Ann Bernstein – which tackle the economic question from opposing angles – the conversation about the country’s future extends far beyond which political party partnership will be palatable to the markets or not.
As the cliché goes, one should never let a good crisis go to waste. Beyond the horse trading for positions, the election of the next government and the formation of the new cabinet, the political establishment will have to initiate a process leading up to a national dialogue. It will have to be truly inclusive with participants who are willing towards common values and goals.
If politicians reduce the current moment to mere talks about executive positions in the new administration – whether called a government of national unity or a coalition government – we will soon find ourselves in a much greater crisis where the centre will not be holding at all.
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