‘Voters continue to protect political incompetence that has caused incalculable harm to our country and its people.’ File Picture: Brenton Geach/African News Agency (ANA) Archives
The implosion of our government is tragic and catastrophic to watch. Our politics have become embroiled in political struggle, family and cultural entitlements, and the voters have very little influence over who their representatives are and the quality of these individuals.
We have tragically become a state where criticism of political representatives is at the risk of you being killed for exercising that right.
The recent deaths of political luminaries in South Africa have shown that we are delusional about what public representation should be about.
Our national and provincial parliaments and local government councils have become employment schemes for the otherwise unemployed and unemployable. The overwhelming majority of South African politicians would not be able to find a job in any other sector of the economy.
In many instances small-town councils as well as big metros have become Mafia empires where either your life or your reputation will be destroyed for standing up to corruption, exploitation or nepotism.
The pursuit of a career in politics is a very dangerous business in South Africa.
When a very average councillor receives a text message that reads, “They’re coming for you” then all the freedoms and rights on which a constitutional democracy is built are at risk.
It is how silence and compliance are enforced and how incompetence and corruption remain in power.
It is not only individual politicians who have caved in to this culture of fear, but entire political parties have become enclaves of fear where draconian rulers and their enablers threaten free political engagements around the principles of the South African Constitution.
In a recent WhatsApp group exchange around a social issue that included activists, academics, NGOs and a politician, I was reprimanded by the politician for expressing views that put his party under scrutiny.
I was later told that many community WhatsApp groups have the same problem where politicians curtail members’ rights to free expression and where people who responsibly use their free speech rights are told, “… then go move back to where you come from if you don’t like it here!”
Free speech and the protection of human life is the big difference between a respectful democracy where constitutional values are sacred and self-righteous privileged enclaves that trade on insults, smears and violence.
We have become a country intolerant of political views that challenge our own. Voters continue to protect political incompetence that has caused incalculable harm to our country and its people.
Diverse groups continue insidious practices that protect their own and their paymasters’ interests instead of what is best for our country.
Politicians and their corporate, community and NGO enablers have entrenched the “political hack” and “hired gun” phenomena within our politics.
Listening to media people interview lawyers, NGOs, and corporate citizens on issues ranging from housing to crime to human rights, it’s very easy to hear the political hacks and hired guns reveal themselves.
It is in these spaces where the most harm is being done to our constitutionality as a country.
When our youth listen to television, social media and radio interviews and they see and hear hacks and hired guns get away with random comments without being constitutionally challenged or held politically accountable for what they are saying, then our independent systems have colluded with those voices in the destruction of the country our youth must lead one day.
A political party with constitutionally sound political policies, competent candidates with respect for human rights and an understanding of the times in which they are tasked to lead the country is the gap in our political firmament right now. Too many new parties are simply in opposition to existing parties but not competent nor capable of leading a complex constitutional democracy.
Incompetence, intolerance and the insidiousness of unconstitutional political views and practices are at an all-time high in South Africa. Only the voter can give South Africans a better life in 2024.
* Lorenzo A. Davids.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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