The perpetual uncertainty in our politics arises from the fact that we are led by people who believe in nothing, who stand for nothing, and who will never rise to any position of consequence except to continue as the unethical windbags they are today.
Standing on principle is something you cannot discuss with them, for principles and spines they do not have. Discussing a vision of what our country will look like in 20 or 50 years is impossible, because all they can think about is what position they can get today to line their pockets now.
It is this lack of principles and ethics that will trip us up in our attempts to attract foreign direct investment, rebuild our institutions and grow our economy. It is this selfishness that will undermine and ultimately sabotage President Cyril Ramaphosa’s attempts to attract investment.
Most of our politicians have demonstrated over the past eight years that they are carpetbaggers, bereft of any altruistic instincts and uncaring of the needs of our people. They know the price of a Gucci bag, but they do not know the value of honesty, integrity or principle.
Nothing illustrates this more than the absolute shambles that has been our local government administrations since 2016. After the depressing mess of a Jacob Zuma presidency at national level, urban South Africans gave opposition parties a chance to run Joburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay. It was an absolutely thrilling moment, a chance for opposition leaders to show up the corrupt ANC cadres who had been so disdainful of voters.
It was not to be. By not giving one party a clear majority and a mandate to run things and turn the municipality around, we left ourselves open to the machinations of the greedy hyenas within these parties.
Politicians know the price of a Gucci bag, but they do not know the value of honesty, integrity or principle
Before long avaricious councillors were jumping ship, triggering by-elections and swinging power from one coalition to another. From Joburg to Nelson Mandela Bay, Ekurhuleni to Tshwane, opposition coalitions collapsed as comrades saw the dollar signs on the other side of the floor and hastily rushed to fill their rapacious boots.
The latest is the ousting of the DA’s Cilliers Brink as Tshwane mayor. Now, if an opposition party believes its principles and programmes are aligned with those of the ANC, for example, then it must jump in with the ANC and run the municipality.
What is troubling is when you find parties that have no alignment whatsoever suddenly jumping into the same bed. Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA has consistently billed itself, in the words of the former entrepreneur himself, as an entity formed to dislodge the “criminal” ANC from power. Last week he oversaw the booting out of Brink, and now lies happily in bed with the “criminal ANC” he has stridently disavowed in the past.
That in itself is not such a huge problem. Circumstances change, and parties and leaders must pivot to deal with the new circumstances. Such a pivot would, however, require Mashaba to explain that things have changed in his party and in the ANC and he believes that collaboration is possible. I have seen none of that from him. There is simply no principle undergirding the partnership.
Here’s the thing, though. What does the ANC intend to achieve when it takes over Tshwane? For a party that has been out of power since 2016, it seems totally unprepared for the task. It cannot agree on a candidate to wear the mayoral chain. It now tells us that it is off to reflect about it. It has no plan to turn around the city’s appalling finances. It has no road map.
So why is the EFF supporting the ANC’s takeover of the city? Why did Mashaba engineer this coalition coup? The answer is simple: leaders without principle, walking into office to line their pockets. They might as well put it on the billboards: it’s our time to eat.
What investor would put money into this mess? We can all proclaim that the government of national unity is holding and things are on the up, but in truth the brittle situation in Tshwane tells a different story.
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