Nkosikhulule Nyembezi
Cape Town - So far, this has been a big month in South African politics. If that makes you fear you have missed something, don’t worry. You have not. For that is just the point.
This has been an important month for the ruling ANC and other major political parties, such as the EFF, to start trying to regain control of the political agenda by speeding up the implementation of the Zondo Commission report recommendations.
But the efforts of both parties did not get off to a good start. That failure matters because it will shape our politics.
Take ANC NEC member Tony Yengeni’s filing of a complaint with the Judicial Services Commission against Chief Justice Raymond Zondo over some of the findings in the latest volume of the report on state capture.
He argues that Zondo breached the judicial code of conduct when he made findings with political implications. Yengeni accused Zondo of advancing Ramaphosa’s interests in the ANC’s upcoming elective conference, where the President is up for a second term.
As if that was not enough, EFF leader Julius Malema added his voice to the chatter of calls for Zondo to account, saying his party has no appetite for entertaining the commission’s report because Zondo ‘used the commission for personal reward.’
The attacks on Zondo are ideological and arbitrary in the context of current national needs to stem corruption and politicians’ previous commitments to take action, and they are almost impenetrable.
The utterances’ aimless approach is revealing. There are a lot of blame games but no coherent corruption-combating narrative.
These unwarranted attacks on Chief Justice Raymond Zondo say much about Yengeni and Malema’s parties today. The two leaders and their parties talk incessantly but do little to stop corruption that lasts.
Their overall response to the commission’s reports is a ragbag. They reflect narrow party interests that have become unable to articulate, in any unifying way, what it is in government and opposition benches to achieve in this fight against corruption. They have no project beyond staying in power. The attacks make sense only as a headline flash of rhetoric for the ANC and the EFF radicals.
They solve precisely nothing, including the parties’ predicaments exposed in the diminishing voter confidence.
There will be another national and provincial election within the next two years.
This month’s new demonstration of the lack of seriousness to positively contribute to our collective efforts to confront corruption confirms that entrusting our electoral support to political parties will not be easy for ordinary citizens.
The increasing number of political parties faced with internal squabbles ahead of their elective conferences is a cause for public concern.
Internal disputes are diverting attention from issues of national importance.
Even the debates in Parliament on budget votes, meant to signal decisive action against corruption detailed in the Zondo Commission reports, lack demonstrable political will demanded by citizens.
Since it is likely to be the last year of substance in this Parliament before election campaigns for 2024 overshadow the programmes of parliamentarians and the government administration, the current debates and decisions in Parliament should demonstrate decisive action against corruption.
Yet, they turned out to, so far, have very little focus at all.
Parliament today is best understood as a loose and volatile alliance between overlapping rival factions of party politicians who independent public representatives must replace.
The rivalries start at the top, between corrupt individuals in the governing party who want to prolong their access to and control public resources for personal benefit and selfish individuals in the opposition benefiting from the patronage of networks of influential individuals.
But, when economic hardship is mounting so fast and likely to continue, the citizens increasingly see political parties as a liability to our democracy.
They are likely to look up to independent candidates for a new political contract to restore legitimacy to our democracy.
Factionalism also engulfs smaller parties, and they are rapidly amassing a tainted record as betrayers of the electorate.
Take the example of the African Independent Congress (AIC), which has two seats in Parliament and was once considered a kingmaker in several municipalities, but today has no hope of achieving its former glory until two warring factions within the party set aside their differences.
In a recent ruling, the KwaZulu-Natal High Court (Pietermaritzburg) Judge Rob Mossop told the two warring factions that “if this is not done, the AIC will perish.”
In addition to having two parliamentarians, the party also has two factions. Last year, both launched court applications after the party’s bank, FNB, placed a hold on its five accounts.
The topicality of his warning was unmistakable in a month when the ANC and the EFF had just done precisely that by attacking the judiciary members instead of uniting to combat corruption.
It is hard to square the diversion of attention to petty palace politics and attacks on the judiciary members when they need to deal with such realities as rising inflation, decaying infrastructure, rebuilding the economy, or laying the foundations of a corruption-free society.
It is perverse when seen in the context of the delays and bureaucracy facing businesses and industries waiting to invest in our economy as part of the social compact announced by President Ramaphosa in this year’s State of the Nation speech.
So far, this month has been important because of the failure of political parties and their deployed members in Parliament to represent the people.
Like any entitled, spoilt individuals, they have learned nothing and forgotten everything voters told them during the last local government election campaigns.
They seem determined to be the authors of their defeat. In such grim economic times, the fortunes of political party public representatives may no longer be in their own hands.
They are shifting to those independent candidates already preparing to contest the national and provincial elections for the first time in 2024.
And most of all, they are firmly in the hands of those voters ready to switch their political allegiance.
Nyembezi is a human rights activist and policy analyst