South African politics has been reduced to something akin to an open bazaar, where individuals, many without any discernible ability, attribute or qualification, can chance their arm and often hit the jackpot.
You don’t have to prove that you can read or write to make it — ask MP Penny Penny. The barrier for entry is low. It takes a few thousand votes to become a parliamentarian. All you have to do to get on the bandwagon is convince a few gullible souls.
It’s no surprise therefore that we’re poorly served, and that the public has such a low opinion of politicians. The evidence is around us — collapsing infrastructure, high rates of unemployment, crime, lawlessness and corruption. The reason is not hard to find: the people entering politics are well below par, degrading and contaminating the entire system.
Plato, the Greek philosopher, said years ago that one of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. He could have had South Africa in mind. We certainly can do better. Those entering politics are often people who have little or no qualification to speak of, and see a career in politics as a route to some easy pickings.
The latest to throw his hat in the ring is Floyd Shivambu. Perhaps throwing his hat is a touch inaccurate. He’s been around the bend a bit. A consummate party-hopper and a chameleon of note, he’s worn all sorts of colours in his young political career, from the ANC and EFF to MK, where — after ten months in the party — he was cruelly and publicly humiliated and left no option but to leave.
It was obvious he would launch his own spaza shop the moment he initiated what he called a consultative process. Otherwise, why would he bother if he wasn’t going to?
It’s a well-trodden path. Herman Mashaba went on a nationwide campaign seeking diverse views before creating ActionSA. That way, it makes the whole exercise look like a well-meaning and selfless undertaking, rather than the self-serving and egotistic exercise that it is. It gives it a cloak of respectability. In establishing the party, you can try to convince all and sundry that you’re merely responding to the cries of the people on the ground, and of course in their gratitude, they’d reward you with the party leadership, maybe even for life.
ActionSA, its members already holding crucial positions in municipalities and parliament, is yet to hold a leadership contest. So is the MK, our official parliamentary opposition. The whole thing sounds more like Animal Farm than democracy. They partake in the system, but they don’t practise it, or even believe in it. It’s more about personal ambition and greed than serving the needs of the people.
Shivambu, who seems to have convinced himself he’s some political genius or strategist, isn’t bringing anything new to the system. He’s merely trying to throw off the old garb and recast himself. However, if successful, he’ll return to parliament dragging his old scandals. Like all politicians, he dissembles without batting an eye. Asked how he squared his harassment of Jacob Zuma to pay back the money with his subsequent doting on the former president, he claims to have been misled by the media. He obviously has a low opinion of the public’s intelligence. The man who’d rudely raise silly points of order in parliament and perfected the art of winding up the unruly EFF mob to disrupt its work, now says such buffoonery should not be tolerated.
Stopping the rot should not involve raising the barrier to entry. It requires changing the system so that it’s the voters, not party bosses, who have the final say as to who represents them in all spheres of government
One hopes though that during the course of his perfunctory consultation process, he’s had the decency to sit down with the poor VBS Mutual Bank pensioners whose hard-earned savings he frittered with such gay abandon — and explain to them how his formation of the party would help them get their money back.
One of the arguments advanced by those opposed to electoral reform is that the current system protects smaller parties. But that’s not what an electoral system or a democracy is supposed to achieve. An ideal electoral or voting system is one that act as an effective tool for citizens to hold their public representatives accountable. The current system falls far short of such a yardstick. Instead, parliament is crawling with tiny parties — one- or two-man outfits — that have no identifiable constituencies. They’re just there for the income. It left voters - the cog or mainstay of any democratic system - high and dry.
It’s a system ready-made to serve the interests of politicians, which is why everybody is storming the ramparts to get in on the act. Why not, when they’re amply rewarded for little work and even less talent?
But the tiny parties dotting the political landscape have proved an unexpected boon for the ANC.
It decided not to form a coalition with one or two of the larger parties, but instead spread the largesse to 10 entities. But they’re not being generous; they’re simply exploiting the system — playing smaller parties against one another — to their own advantage. And they’re not done because they now want to bring more parties into a rickety GNU that seems it could collapse any moment. With all the problems the country is facing, all they seem interested in is spending precious time gaming the system — and making even more enemies in the process.
Stopping the rot should not involve raising the barrier to entry. It requires changing the system so that it’s the voters, not party bosses, who have the final say as to who represents them in all spheres of government. Nobody should have even a scintilla of power to decide people’s fate or future without a direct mandate from them. It’s called democracy.
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