Eastern Cape ready for a leader like Holomisa

THIRTY years ago I left the Eastern Cape on a quest for higher education. It has been a journey that has taken me to Wits University, Cornell University, MIT, Harvard and 10 days ago, to Oxford University for a panel discussion with Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe.

You may find a little boastfulness in this if you are my age, but also a little inspiration if you feel stuck in a township high school.

And that brings me to the elections, and Bantu Holomisa’s candidacy for premiership in particular.

The Eastern Cape needs a revolution quite like the one that happened in the Western Cape – a change of government. I have my own squabbles with the DA’s commitment to racial transformation in the Western Cape but they have been smart enough not to make “amandla functionaries” responsible for government departments. As a result, the Western Cape is regarded as the best-performing and least corrupt province in the country.

I would not give the province to the DA, but Holomisa seems like what the doctor has ordered at this point in time. Or as a friend of mine put it, “ Holomisa fits the job description to the T in the Eastern Cape. Things there are just beyond discussion. They just need a strong leader”.

I am wary of strong leaders, but who could doubt that the province needs decisive leadership and unity of purpose – a spring cleaning, if you like.

It may help that he has the experience of having been at the head of a government before. It was a homeland government, to be sure, but it was one that allowed ANC and PAC underground guerillas to move in and out of its borders at a crucial moment of our struggle. I suspect that is why Holomisa topped the ANC list in the 1994 conference.

Eighteen months later he was expelled by the ANC for his refusal to back down on his corruption allegations against Stella Sigcau. Madiba attempted to persuade him to come back but he refused, suspecting that he would be tarnished by mere association with the ANC.

It was indeed a matter of time before the arms deal blew up in everyone’s face and divided the ANC right down the middle. To cut a long story short, then began the rise of Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma.

There is no guarantee that Holomisa will bring about the moral and ideational change I have in mind. If democracy was an exact science we would not need elections. We would just pick the best leader from the shelf ahead of time. And we surely would have picked someone else instead of Zuma.

But democracy is about the courage to make choices, and correct those choices when the time comes. Now is the time for the Eastern Cape to make a change, or remain in the hands of the wolves who have bankrupted it entirely these past 20 years.

Finally, South Africa needs a black-led but non-racial opposition movement, not just a party. This must be a movement of values that will inspire our children to dream like I did those many years ago. A good performance at the provincial level could catapult Holomisa into a national opposition figure, kingmaker and leader.

Xolela Mangcu is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Cape Town and Oppenheimer Fellow at the Hutchins Centre for African and African American Research, Harvard University