JUSTICE MALALA | Voters want a constructive, merit-based model of governance

If you are in the SA political firmament and marginally interested in being shouted at, then try telling the SA opposition that it has fallen short in its role of taking on the ANC. Try telling them that since the ANC elected the compromised, scandal-soaked, incompetent, Jacob Zuma as its leader, the country has been waiting for an alternative to the governing party. And that they have failed to take advantage of that. That, in many ways, the opposition’s failure to draw people away from the ANC, is because it has not given voters compelling enough reasons to move the vote to them.

Voter turnout numbers of the past fifteen years tell a simple story. People stopped voting for the ANC — and they haven’t found anyone else attractive enough.

In an article in The Conversation earlier this year, academics Collette Schulz-Herzenberg (University of Stellenbosch) and Robert Mattes (University of Strathclyde) said election-day participation (voters turning up) had declined by “almost 40 percentage points, from a high of 86% in 1994 to just 49% in the last general election in 2019”.

“We believe this drop in voter turnout helps the ANC stay in power despite its dismal governance record ... In a new study we found that 44% of respondents who said they had voted for the ANC in 2014 were dissatisfied with its performance in government by the time of the 2019 election. But dissatisfied ANC voters switched their vote only if they held positive views of an opposition party.”

That last line is crucial. It is not enough for the ANC to be bad; the alternative must sell itself to that disillusioned voter, too. The numbers say the opposition has not done it.

The past six years haven’t helped, either. The coalitions built by the opposition in Tshwane, Nelson Mandela Bay, Joburg and elsewhere have been collapsed by infighting and greed. The idea that any of these parties can be a decent governing alternative keeps on being dashed as some jump from one coalition to another, just so their local leaders can benefit from government tenders. All this happens even as a clear chance to display their ability to collaborate is within sight.

Voters who have watched the collapse, engendered by the ANC’s cadre deployment will have a positive view of this resolution by the participants in last week’s meeting.

Take the disaster that is the City of Johannesburg. We do not have a mayor because these opposition parties have agreed to place a mute, powerless, papier mâché figure in the mayor’s office. The city is dying. Its people are suffering. The ANC, which allegedly runs Joburg, and its partners in crime in the opposition, should be ashamed of what it has brought the city to.

Last week’s meeting of some opposition parties, initially under the banner of the DA’s “moonshot pact” and renamed Multi-party Charter for SA, was interesting and important in many ways. Its primary importance may be that it begins to address the finding by Mattes and Schulz-Herzenberg that “ANC voters switched their vote only if they held positive views of an opposition party”.

I was interested that some of the most useful decisions of the participants was that they were “constructive” — they took our current failures and built a new and hopefully better model of governance. For example, the decision to use a merit-based approach in the parties’ allocation of positions in national and provincial cabinet is one that will resonate with voters. Explaining the decision, independent moderator for the talk Prof William Gumede said the parties will “look for the best candidate for the position, among them or outside, and that’s what will form the basis for appointments”.

“It will not be politically motivated, patronage-based or cadre deployment-based,” he said.

If there is anything that has nearly destroyed South Africa in the past 29 years, it is the ANC’s cadre deployment. Instead of employing a qualified financial manager for a municipality, for example, every new mayor goes trawling for “our person”. From eThekwini to Nelson Mandela Bay, Mahikeng to Bethlehem, municipalities have collapsed because of cadre deployment. Don’t let me start on state-owned enterprises. The destruction wrought by cadre deployment there is heartbreaking.

Voters who have watched the collapse, engendered by the ANC’s cadre deployment, will have a positive view of this resolution by the participants in last week’s meeting. They will be heartened by the parties’ agreement that lifestyle audits will be introduced and implemented on all members who take up office in government.

Further, the parties seem to be moving towards some consensus on building a cabinet of the capable — individuals who are fit to deliver on portfolios will be appointed, instead of the new cabinet being carved up by party affiliation. It will not be enough that one is a member of the IFP. A qualified person must be appointed to lead a ministry.

Two things stand out now. First, the ANC has failed dismally as it goes into an election with GDP growth of 0.4%. Second, the opposition may be beginning to project a positive attitude.

This is a recipe for change.