The launch of the national dialogue has reignited debate about whether the process can genuinely help fix the country’s problems or it is just another stage to advance elite interests.
Political analyst and Public Affairs Research Institute executive director Dr Sithembile Mbete says dialogue has been a recurring theme in South Africa’s democratic journey.
“It comes from this idea that we are so fractured as a nation across political, racial and class lines and that we somehow need to talk to each other to find a solution,” she explains.
She likens the initiative to “post-conflict negotiations” but warns that dialogue without a clear end goal risks becoming hollow.
Arena Holdings editor-at-large S’thembiso Msomi agrees, saying South Africans have long felt that “what we have is not enough”.
“Clearly there’s general unhappiness about where South Africa is going,” he says.
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The dialogue has already been rocked by high-profile withdrawals from key organisations and legacy foundations. President Cyril Ramaphosa, however, insisted the process would continue with or without them.
Mbete says the public fallout between elite actors should alarm ordinary citizens. “We often talk about South African problems as if they’re problems of ordinary people or voters. Actually, we’ve got an elite problem. Some of the most important people in this country could not get themselves together to resolve their disagreements,” she says.
She questions whether the disputes dominating headlines have any connection to citizens’ everyday struggles: “It’s not clear to me that the things being fought over at an elite level have anything to do with joblessness, the education system or service delivery.”
Msomi suggests the dialogue may be Ramaphosa’s attempt to revive a failed promise. “One of the president’s big issues after the Covid crisis was to deliver a social compact. He kept promising it in 2021 but it fizzled out. I sometimes wonder if he now looks at this process and thinks: here is my opportunity to deliver something since I was unable to deliver the social compact.”
Msomi still sees value in the initiative if it is genuinely broad-based: “It’s not really a bad idea to have a national dialogue that is not driven by political parties, but that involves them.”
Pressed on how much time South Africa has before citizens lose patience, Msomi is cautious but hopeful: “I hope that we do achieve something out of it, where we are we cannot sustain this [status quo].”
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