This is an archived copy of the first version of my open letter to democrats. The updated version of this part is here.
Now that’s a distinct possibility if democrats and opposition parties play their cards right. That will mean that we won’t have the majority needed to change the powers of the president until at least the next elections after 2019 (which I propose, below, may be less than 5 years after 2019).
It’s not a train smash though – a new president from the opposition ranks is not going to use her or his vast powers for the purpose of corruption from day one, and by the next elections after 2019, we should have enough right-minded democrats in Parliament to be able to fix the last of the leaking taps of our democracy.
In the meanwhile, the National Development Plan,[1] which deals, among others, with measures to “strengthen accountability”, can help keep the spotlight on the powers of the president. Some NGOs also focus on certain aspects of the problem.[2]
But an ANC loss in 2019 is far from certain.
The major problem for the opposition is that the ANC takes up so much electoral space that opposition parties don’t get to choose their bedfellows for a coalition if they want to have any hope of gaining a majority.
There’s not much that our two biggest opposition parties, the DA and the EFF, have in common in terms of policy, for example. In fact, some of their core policies are irreconcilable. The EFF’s policy of nationalising all land without compensation and then sharing it out among the people, and nationalising banks, would certainly make every hair on a DA supporter’s head stand on end – and vice versa for some DA policies.
So a meaningful coalition is not possible if parties stand on their normal policies. But the only way to oust the captors is through a coalition.
On the one hand, one can understand that party leaders and members don’t want to taint their party’s “brand” through association with a party with the opposite policies, but at a national and provincial level, government would just be too unstable if, for example, a tweet from a leader of one of the coalition parties can destabilise the government.[3]
The working relationship would have to be closer, based on a formal agreement. We absolutely need to radiate stability from day one of the new government after the adventures on which the current one took us.
Besides, parties who have an interest in forming part of a governing coalition should not undermine and criticise each other in the same way that unrelated parties do, thereby driving votes to the ruling party and governing nothing in the end.
No, the coalition must begin to take shape now, not after the elections. The absence of a stable coalition before the elections will vastly reduce the opposition’s chances of coming to power.
Intractable problem? Another five years of captor rule?
Not if one turns the 2019 elections into a referendum for a mandate to clean up the rot in our political system.
By “referendum” I mean that all opposition parties unite around a single promise: to give us our democracy back. Nothing else than the promise to fix the laws that allowed our democracy to be captured.
12 April 2017: the finest hour of the parties, civil society groups and individuals opposing state capture. All were united around a single goal – to get the president to step down. This march was in Pretoria. Credit: Ihsaan Haffejee/GroundUp. (Click to enlarge.)
Then, whenever that job is done, to call new elections where normal party politics resume under the new rules.
The only way to get a broad enough consensus is to focus only on what all democrats agree on: to get our democracy out of the hands of our captors, and quickly.
Opposition parties and civil society organisations have already taken a big step in that direction by uniting on a common platform to demand that the president step down.
It’s a good demand, but it will have little effect if he’s merely replaced by another representative of our undemocratic rulers, or even by brand-new undemocratic rulers. Those are possible outcomes should the ANC decide to replace the president before his term comes to an end.
So the focus of the broad spectrum of organisations, parties and individuals opposing state capture will have to shift from the individual occupying the seat in the presidency to the political framework that put him there – and keeps him there. There’s no way around it.
The only question is how to get the electoral support to make the necessary changes, and to get it by the 2019 elections. Another five years of undemocratic rule is not an option. We’ve got twenty months or so to pull it off.
The “broad church” approach will make it possible for the SACP to join, as well as all labour organisations, religious institutions, disaffected ANC members, the works. It will make us unstoppable.
Part 8 consists of three “sub-letters” to key role-players.
Footnotes
Click on the footnote number to go back to where you were.
[1] http://www.gov.za/issues/national-development-plan-2030
[2] How to appoint an honest and competent police commissioner
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