Never again must citizens be prey to whims of powerful political leaders

South Africans welcome the fresh air blowing across the nation following the rise of Cyril Ramaphosa to the ANC presidency.

Former crime intelligence head Richard Mdluli is gone, unfortunately after having drawn a salary of close to R8-million sitting at home since his suspension. The old Eskom board is gone, replaced by experienced people led by Telkom’s turnaround achiever, Jabu Mabuza.

The NPA boss Shaun (the sheep) Abrahams is on his way out, hopefully sooner than later.

The NPA’s Asset Forfeiture Unit meantime obtained a preservation order to recover some R220-million laundered through the Estina dairy project in the Free State. The same unit was also granted a preservation order against Trillian and McKinsey to recover a reported total of R1.6-billion stolen from Eskom.

This is all great news, hurrah!

But truth be told, it is ridiculous that here we are applauding a breath of fresh air in the first place. It shows how wretched the state of our country has become.

So, how did we land up neck deep in the rot that has defined the Jacob Zuma presidency in the first place? How did we allow the ANC to run amuck, destroying almost every pillar of our democracy in a blindly bizarre effort to protect the rotten deployee who threatened the mandate of the organisation itself?

And are we to accept the possibility of a dominant political party allowing another rotten candidate to climb to its presidency again – at our great cost as a nation?

What is it in our political system that has allowed this, and how do we close the great gaping hole?

So while we are indeed relieved and somewhat hopeful with the changes blowing in with the rise of Ramaphosa, it is not enough to stop there. Never again can we allow ourselves to be at the mercy of the whims of those who control dominant political parties, irrespective of whether there is an upright leader or a Jacob Zuma II.

Allowing such a vulnerability is akin to throwing the dice to determine our future. It’s national idiocy – possibly suicide.

There is also the fact that the rot filtered down and manifested in many of the institutions specifically established to protect our democracy. One example is the highest accountability structure in the land – parliament.

The rot of Zuma’s tenure did not just take place under the noses of ANC members of parliament, but ANC MPs themselves became complicit, compromised and basically useless in their role.

No wonder the Constitutional Court found that not only had the president, but that parliament had failed in its most fundamental duty of upholding the Constitution

In his January 8 speech the ANC’s new president reportedly stated: “We need cadres who are committed to serve no other interest than the interest of the people, who take no advantage for themselves or their families from the positions they occupy and who safeguard public resources The investigation and …prosecution of those responsible will be given top priority.”

Bravo. These words are admirable and the recent actions against corruption give credence to them.

But the question remains – what if another wave of “cadres” who conduct themselves immorally manage to control the ANC or any other dominant political party?

What then will give credence to Ramaphosa’s fine words?

In other words, we can never again allow our collective fate to hinge on the ascendence of one leader, good or bad. That said, how do we keep fools and looters out of leadership and how do we safeguard our state from becoming dysfunctional if a walking disaster manages to slip in?

Surely besides the urgent need to clean up the state, another project is vital. One to extract the lessons from the nightmare of the past decade or so and make sure we never pass through such troubled waters again.

Never again can this nation be so beholden to a ruling party that we are forced to endure its rotten candidate in the highest office of the land. Or others in lesser office.

Never again must we find ourselves at the mercy of the political expediency of a dominant party.

How we safeguard ourselves may require some thought, but what is clear is that a strong, ethical and capable state is vital.

And this demands a nation that is simultaneously strong and capable – people who are well informed and sufficiently aware to begin to change our cultural faultlines.

This is what will produce, among other things, the top civil servants who are not beholden to politically powerful people and who will stand their ground and demand propriety in the commission of the duties and mission of the state.