It is not our institutions but their day-to-day functioning which betrays the lack of substance in our democracy
In two weeks' time I will travel to Dar es Salaam for this year's Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership ceremony.
The prize is awarded by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to African heads of state who deliver security, health, education and economic development to their people, and who democratically transfer power to their successor - and this year, controversially, there is no winner. As Time magazine put it recently, 2009 has been a bad year for governance in Africa.
Last year the award went to the former president of Botswana, Festus Mogae. According to the prize committee, Mogae had "ensured Botswana's continued stability and prosperity in the face of an HIV/Aids pandemic which threatened the future of his country and people".
In 2007 there were an estimated 300000 people in Botswana living with HIV. Considering that Botswana's population is less than two million, the pandemic has reached disturbing proportions.
Botswana's response to the pandemic, under the leadership of Mogae, was worlds apart from our own. In 2000 Botswana became the first African country to provide full-scale antiretroviral therapy to all its needy citizens. The success of this treatment programme has made our neighbour an example for other African nations to follow. Thankfully, we are now emulating Botswana's example and the Zuma government's progress in this endeavour recently received praise from the United Nations .
As well as (usually) recognising the continent's best leader, the foundation maintains an index of African governance among 53 countries. This year South Africa, the continent's "superpower", ranked fifth overall, behind Mauritius, Cape Verde, Seychelles and Botswana.
South Africa ranked third for participation and human rights, and indeed, our human-rights inspired constitution and the work of our Constitutional Court represent the best of the best. And our civil society organisations and the political opposition have, much to the annoyance of those in power, been trying hard to put this state on the road to becoming a genuine civic society where the rights and freedom of individuals reign supreme.
South Africa came seventh in rule of law, transparency and corruption. We came ninth in human development, and, worryingly, we came eighth in sustainable economic opportunity and seventh in safety and security.
The discrepancy between South Africa's scores is simply explained. On the whole, the democratising South African state has been caught between substantive and procedural democracy, perilously edging towards the latter.
Several factors have been responsible for this. These include the enduring institutional framework of the apartheid state, the nature of our elite-pacted democratic transition and the legacy of poor, unemployed and largely unemployable underclasses whose primary preoccupation is with sheer survival rather than with the nuances of political participation.
Here we clearly see the limits of "trickle down" economics, as well as decision making, in the developing state.
It is not our institutions themselves but their day-to-day functioning which betrays the lack of substance in our much touted democracy. Over the past 15 years, this has, as the index suggests, imposed on South Africa mixed results for the poor, unemployed and uneducated, as well as those infected and affected by HIV/Aids.
The consequences have been as devastating as they have been far reaching. The very prevailing mores and values - the distinction between "us" and "them" - which our democratic order sought to supercede now appear to have been further entrenched.
Race, not individual achievement and merit, once again dominates government policy, economic entitlement and public discourse. Collectivism, corporatism and interventionism have all curtailed individual liberty. Concepts such as vigilance, creativity, hard work and commitment have inevitably suffered.
We should not, however, adopt a fatalist or ostrich mentality, because the index offers South Africa hope. John Kane- Berman, the director of the South African Institute for Race Relations, offered some sensible advice last month. He agreed, and I know this will surprise a lot his fellow free-marketers travellers, with my central recommendation in my state of the nation address that in order to stimulate the economy and economic opportunity, we might need to contemplate - even temporarily - the devaluation of the rand to help manufactured exports.
Closely linked to bolstering economic opportunity, Kane-Berman highlighted the importance of education. One consequence, Kane-Berman noted, of failing schools is that universities are being inundated with unqualified students. I agree that it is important to fix further education and training colleges and sector education and training authorities. Rather than interfering with universities, which, broadly speaking, are working, the government should fix the broken public school system with greater parental choice and incentives like opportunity vouchers. This is how we square the economic opportunity deficit.
As for our dismal showing in safety and security, unless we get a handle on this and are "tough on crime and tough on the cause of crime", we risk undermining all the good work that has been done in the other categories. This would be a disaster in the year 2010, when we want to showcase to the world that South Africa is a trailblazer.
Creating an authentic opportunity society is the way to achieve this and to push our ranking up in the Mo Ibrahim performance index.
Keto