Opinion

Ten months is not enough to undo 10 years of misrule - but just how long is this going to take?

23 December 2018 - 00:07 By justice malala

President Cyril Ramaphosa seems to be flailing about. The economy is still a train wreck. Most state-owned enterprises, from Eskom to SAA, are still a mess. Bathabile Dlamini, she of "smallanyana skeletons" fame, is still a cabinet minister. That tells you everything, really.
Many who helped Ramaphosa win last December's ANC elections are disillusioned. They say he lacks steel and resolve. His reform agenda seems, well, like it is just words. The New Dawn seems stillborn.
One of the more interesting questions that Ramaphosa's predicament raises is this: how long does it take a for a country to turn itself around after a bout of bad leadership? For there is one thing we cannot run away from when we assess Ramaphosa: he succeeded an astonishingly bad leader (and, to be fair, by deputising for him in the party and the state, Ramaphosa also aided and abetted Jacob Zuma).
Ramaphosa's failures this year illustrate just how hard it is for any country to recover from bad leadership.
When SA was on the brink of falling into "junk status" a few years ago, economists gave us studies of just how long it takes to claw one's way back into the good books. The estimates were anything from five to 18 years.
That was economic recovery. How does one claw one's way back when your institutions of accountability, governance and state have been totally undermined? When the key cultures of accountability, openness and service have been thrown out the window?
Zuma's wrecking ball was not just domestic. It extended to SA's standing on the continent and in the world.
In SA he opened the doors to the belief that hard work, application and excellence don't matter. Instead, he told our young people that political connections and a bit of "cold drink" is what you need to get a government tender or, indeed, any other kind of work that leads to wealth. He told the rest of the continent that it was OK to oppress your own - you will still be able to attend fancy African Union functions and not fear being arrested or held to account in any way.
This is what Ramaphosa faces - undoing 10 years of misrule and thievery. Is 10 months enough to judge him by, given the gargantuan task he faces?
On the other hand, surely he knew the very tough job ahead - and had a plan? At the rate he is working now, it is going to take 20 years for us to recover from the kleptocratic Zuma era. Or 40.
Take, then, the damage wrought by Donald Trump on the US and the world. The man has been in office for just under two years and one might as well change his name to King Chaos. He runs the place as though a two-year-old has been handed the keys to the kindergarten.
There is no point memorising the names of his cabinet members - they resign by the week in disgust. On Thursday, defence secretary Jim Mattis resigned in protest at Trump's decision to withdraw US forces from Syria. Mattis is the fourth member of Trump's cabinet to resign or be forced out in less than two months. He is the third in less than two weeks.
I have over the past four months struggled to work out Trump's Middle East, Russia or Africa policy. He is a walking contradiction. He flip-flops daily on key issues.
And he lies every single day. The Associated Press and the New York Times run daily counts of his "false claims". On December 5 the Toronto Star's Daniel Dale wrote: "In his second full week after the November midterm elections, Trump made a mere - mere for him - 29 false claims. The next week, he returned to form. Trump made 91 false claims in the week ending on Sunday the 11th - the most of any week of his presidency."
That is the Trump presidency: chop and change policy, fight off investigations, lie through your teeth every day and create uncertainty and chaos.
The problem with the Trump administration is that it has made the world a very dangerous place for you and for me.
If you are in Saudi Arabia and you are a journalist or gender activist or have an opinion of any sort then you can be arrested, tortured and murdered. Trump will say, as he has in effect said about the murder of the columnist Jamal Khashoggi: "Sorry, but these guys are investing lots of money in the USA so, well, they can kill whoever they wish." Same thing in North Korea, Somalia, the Philippines, Hungary or wherever.
US foreign and other policy is now for sale to the highest bidder - Russia. Climate change? Trump listens to the corporations that profit off environmental degradation. Trump has empowered the bad guys of the world.
In just two years Trump has made the world a very, very unsettled, very uncertain place. If he wins in 2020 then the big question for the US and for the world is this: just how long will it take to fix the mess that Trump will leave behind?
• Malala is a political analyst and columnist..

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