The Overton Window of political possibilities is nigh and upon us. The impossible has become the inevitable, and the question is whether the republic is ready, and in particular politicians, to comprehend the shift. The Future we Chose 2005 Scenarios that the African National Congress constructed anticipated that the ANC will have been on a path to renewal and the public possibly appreciating this, the fortunes of the ANC would reverse to a more positive outcome. A loss of majority vote was not anticipated despite the Muvhango Scenario exploring the possible reduction of the majority vote for the ANC.
When the ANC went into the election, like any other party it anticipated an outright majority and an opportunity to execute its policies and agenda of renewal. In the period preceding the elections, while the Overton Window and the polls suggested the window of majority will have shut, the ANC leadership refused to reconcile with this possibility. Now what was seen to be impossible has become inevitable, throwing the country on the verge of a constitutional crisis given that the choices on the table are contested and often irreconcilable as the Overton Window shift expresses itself in multiple tongues.
What remains true to this day is that the economy is comatose with gross fixed capital formation below 5% and in fact in the negative, where ideally it should be closer to 30%. The IMF projections suggest that South Africa could occupy its god-given first spot by the end of the year. This happens not because South Africa is performing but because Egypt and Nigeria stumbled and fell before reaching the finish line. This is a classical Maradona’s hand of god-victory. Many have tried to celebrate this pyrrhic victory perhaps to calm the nerves.
On December 19 2023, realising that we are eight months to the election I penned an article in the Daily Maverick that the 2024 poll be postponed or delayed to a poll date that would still fit within the constitutionally allowable period of up to August.
The challenge with a post-election convention is that the act of canvassing for votes polarises society and the outcome can be even more complex to negotiate as we are witnessing now.
I followed up this call with another article that elaborated on why the first call was made showing that the dividend of democracy failed the blacks and the coloureds and that for us to proceed soberly in the next 30 years we need to step back and come to a consensus on what a democracy dividend would mean.
So the call, if followed and executed with attention to what is ahead of us,, would generally canvas the political parties towards a socially agreed upon policy stance. Many argued there is no time for consultation. Others argued such an option would provide a possibility for the ANC to try to get its house in order. Some asked what the constitutional constraints of such a call would be mitigated. These observations made by those who critiqued the call for a convention did not question its Overton Window, but questioned its timing. But the challenge with an Overton Window, once in motion and excavating the motive force for it, is near impossible to put back, and its momentum of the impossible becoming the inevitable can be overwhelming when it eventuates — politicians cannot control it as it renders them irrelevant for the times.
Former president Thabo Mbeki made the call for a national convention in May, and this was supported by President Cyril Ramaphosa. But obviously this call aimed to convene after the elections. The challenge with a post-election convention is that the act of canvassing for votes polarises society and the outcome can be even more complex to negotiate, as we are witnessing now. The Overton Window is becoming more urgent with each passing day towards May 17 when an announcement of the form of government should have been at least concluded. The three options on the table given the polarity and distance in policy orientation and considerations among political manifestos render any of the options suboptimal for a developmental state. Ours is a democracy largely designed for a majoritarian government, and the terrain for coalitions while it was manifest in municipalities remains an alien Overton Window at the provincial and national levels.
What makes the situation dire is the state of policy design immaturity. Thus the Overton Window, besides confronting the political space in disarray, has to confront the infant policy designs. The discussions and compromises on the table are thus guided by personality claims rather than policy impacts and outcomes. It even gets more difficult where the polarising campaign, with insults hurled and traded among politicians, have created a difficult position among the leadership of the contestation.
A discussion by society would have reduced the issues to three important things that the National Development Plan had identified: poverty, inequality and unemployment. In short human dignity and Palestine contestation fall within the spectrum of human dignity, and ordinarily this is a matter over which we should not be polarised yet we are. While we failed to catch the Overton Window before the elections, the window suggests the impossible six months ago has become the inevitable six months later but now with limited options for us as a nation. The Ides of March seems to be upon us as the Overton Window of impossibilities marched on into the sphere of the inevitable.
The core guidance we may seek as we face this slippery slope is what Morena Mohlomi, the 18th-century chancellor of Ngolile Academy of Leadership, would have said: “A responsible leader pursues peaceful and productive alliances, accommodates stakeholders and uses new instruments of power to create intergenerational value.” His was a transformative leadership that relied on integrated reporting. Ahead of his time Mohlomi envisaged integrated planning that is driven outside-in by systems thinking and design thinking of integrated reporting. The notion of integrated reporting meant Mohlomi acted with the end in mind of what success would mean. The Overton Window is about the meaning of success. In the book of Mohlomi, it is about creating intergenerational value, and my article on South Africa failingcoloureds and the blacks acutely points at this intergenerational value, for this 90% of the population. This is the Overton Window where the impossible has become the inevitable.
Credo of Morena Mohlomi’s leadership:
Dr Pali Lehohla is the non-executive chair of the board of Suppple, a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa
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