South Africa is not a failed state, but we’re fragile: With South Africa on the fiscal precipice, the president needs to take hard decisions instead of focussing on re-election
We are not a failed state; defined as a country whose political or economic system has become so weak that the government is no longer in control. No matter our angst at the levels of public service delivery, it would be unfair to categorically say that we are at this point. But fragile, we definitely are.
With the country on the fiscal precipice, as it was when he took the helm — and with the country’s debt being relegated to junk status little after a year after he was elected as president — the hope was that he’d use the crisis to take all the hard decisions that those before him would never consider. , as Professor William Gumede calls it, was the only path to cleaning both Luthuli House and the functioning of the state as a whole.
With unemployment sitting at 34.9%, the highest of the world’s industrialised countries, a functioning state should be focused on supportive measures for all industries that can help to absorb jobs. with the stench of “palace politics” in the air, which will serve only to undermine efforts to resuscitate the economy and most importantly, usher in a fresh bout of confidence.
Considering that the most recent local government elections showed a country getting more accustomed to a future where the ANC is no longer in government and rather in opposition benches, the party should be more concerned about how better it can govern. But then, this is the post-2007 ANC. Further denting prospects of a turnaround in confidence levels was the ever-persistent spectre of load-shedding accompanied by the sordid tales of corruption from the Zondo commission. We were always set for a hard few years, regardless of who was the tenant in Mahlamba Ndlopfu.
He should have taken a leaf from former UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who in search of unity of his party gave in to calls for a referendum on the country’s membership of the EU six years ago. His preference didn’t win, and he lost his job to his long-time political rival Boris Johnson. The referendum, combined with the effects of the pandemic, has set the country on a course to an uncertain and nationalistic “Great Britain” commandeered by Johnson — for the time being, at least.
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