South Africa is in a state of disaster. Its present actuality is essentially formed by historic occasions, not least the outcomes of the political settlement course of that led to the top of apartheid in 1994.
Unlike different international locations in southern Africa, the place political independence got here after ugly liberation wars, the leaders of the African National Congress (ANC), which led the liberation wrestle and has been the governing social gathering since 1994 – alongside different political and social actions – managed to negotiate a transition to democracy. There have been many “wins”, together with assent to the election of a majority-led authorities and the enactment of insurance policies that may guarantee broad-based financial transformation.
This transition could also be seen as some extent in historical past the place the nation navigated certainly one of its biggest crises. But its present leadership is confronted with a number of challenges. These vary from excessive poverty and excessive unemployment to the extreme undermining of democratic establishments by corruption and state seize.
These “wicked problems” are so troublesome and sophisticated that there isn’t a single, silver-bullet reply. There is just a variety of clumsy options, all of that are imperfect. The policy-making puzzle, due to this fact, is as a lot about recognising the character of the issue as in search of to mitigate dangers.
Our new book, The Presidents: From Mandela to Ramaphosa, Leadership in an Age of Crisis, assessed the leadership of South Africa’s 5 post-apartheid presidents – Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Kgalema Motlanthe, Jacob Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa. We wished to see what classes could be discovered, particularly in relation to their strategic skills. Strategy is among the essential leadership attributes vital to address the sturdy headwinds that leaders usually encounter.
We concluded that there was a scarcity of really strategic leadership in South Africa on this interval, with a number of exceptions. Thus, the nation has been unable to grapple with the underlying structural issues which might be the basic reason for its socio-economic precarity.
Strategic considering
What will we imply by “strategy”? Here we defer to former UK member of parliament and now (UK) Times columnist Matthew Parris. He says, though the which means has turn out to be diluted by means of promiscuous and infrequently inappropriate use … technique stays the perfect phrase now we have for expressing makes an attempt to take into consideration actions upfront, within the mild of our targets and capacities.
Many leaders, governments and organisations confuse planning with technique. So that is an apt consideration to have in mind: have South Africa’s post-1994 presidents addressed the basic query of what’s fallacious with the society and its financial system, in a strategic means?
Here’s how the nation’s 5 post-apartheid presidents have fared on technique.
Five completely different kinds
Mandela, the primary president of a democratic South Africa, made huge strategic decisions – not essentially the precise ones, however actually ones that have been befitting of the instances.
A major technique selection confronted Mandela on the very introduction of the democratic period. He opted for nationwide reconciliation as his political motif. It was strategic within the sense that the choice was to drive a robust transformational agenda with out in search of to get the highly effective and privileged white minority on board.
Crudely put, he may have opted for redemption and even revenge, somewhat than reconciliation.
This was accompanied by a deep private dedication to the rule of legislation and constitutionalism. He used his presidential energy to drive that message and execute that technique, leaving the element of administration of coverage and authorities to his quantity two, Thabo Mbeki.
The transition from his authorities’s Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) to the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) macroeconomic technique is one other debatable working example.
The RDP was the ANC government-in-waiting’s flagship programme for socio-economic transformation. It was an primarily Keynesian public investment-focused plan for enhancing public companies reminiscent of housing, healthcare and electrical energy to the black majority. The shift to GEAR was deeply contested. Left-of-centre commentators and gamers inside the broader ANC-led alliance noticed it as a neo-liberal method to fiscal and financial coverage that may constrain the federal government’s means to drive redistribution of wealth and alternative.
When his flip got here as president (1999-2008), Mbeki strove to step up to the strategic requirements that Mandela had set. His imaginative and prescient for Africa, during which Africans would take management of their future, was strategic. So was his willpower to confront the “two nations” downside – one affluent and white, the opposite poor and black.
The shift to GEAR was executed with strategic goal and an iron fist. There have been unfavorable penalties, particularly in the long run. But few, if any, huge strategic decisions could be win-win; there’ll invariably be a draw back. The query is whether or not the chief understands after which confronts the dilemma, and in doing so can articulate the upside and recognise its intrinsic worth, one which justifies the draw back.
Mbeki was a flawed visionary. His legacy is scarred by his inexplicable lack of judgment on HIV/AIDS, and his cussed refusal to settle for that his authorities ought to present antiretroviral therapy.
Motlanthe, who succeeded him, in his modest means, additionally recognised the strategic crucial of his brief, caretaker time as president – (25 September 2008 to 9 May 2009): to consolidate authority in democratic authorities and to stabilise an unstable physique politic within the context of the palace coup that had taken place inside the ANC.
Even Zuma, his successor, in his personal mendacious and deviously self-serving means, had strategic intent: to seize the state for venal private achieve. He executed it with a ruthless sense of goal.
Current president Cyril Ramaphosa seems to be the least strategic of all of them. His failure to grasp the strategic nettles inhibits his presidency. On points such because the transition away from coal, the federal government stake in state-owned enterprises or the necessity for a fundamental earnings grant, Ramaphosa has dithered, in search of to wait till ample consensus has shaped or setting up cumbersome session processes, earlier than reaching a transparent resolution.
He will get issues completed; he will get there in the long run, however his design and use of course of is that of a grasp tactician, not a strategist. He has not risen to the leadership heights required by the gravity of the historic second. This requires leadership that may unshackle authorities from the congealing embrace of the ruling ANC and its fractious factions. A pacesetter who would rise above the day by day throng to encourage bizarre residents with a compelling narrative of hope and alter, underpinned by iron willpower to take courageous choices and to execute them with a way of goal and pressing expedition.
Circling the issue
The crises that confronted these 5 presidents have been very completely different, with various ranges of depth and composition. Each has confronted huge challenges, that would inevitably not be resolved solely by their government workplace. Undoubtedly, a part of strategic and visionary leadership is the power to determine present and potential allies who’re prepared to make investments what’s required to drive a transformative agenda.
All have responded to “what went wrong”. But, due to limitations to their strategic leadership, none has totally met the problem of confronting “what is wrong” head-on. Their means to deal with the query of “what is wrong” has been constrained by the very actual calls for to put out fires, and maintaining the boat afloat with out an eye fixed on the navigation system. And the place they’ve targeted on navigating the tough seas to get to the vacation spot of a extra equal, inclusive South Africa, the vessels of governance with a mandate to steward these transitions haven’t all the time delivered.
Mandela, Mbeki and now Ramaphosa have circled the issue (whereas Zuma weakened the state’s functionality). But maybe as a result of it’s such a depraved downside, and the structural difficulties run so deep, they’ve failed to outline a strategic course that may confront the underlying structural situations, consigning South Africa to an unsure and worrisome future.
This is an edited extract from the authors’ new book The Presidents: From Mandela to Ramaphosa, Leadership in an Age of Crisis.
Richard Calland, Associate Professor in Public Law, University of Cape Town and Mabel Dzinouya Sithole, Programme Officer – Building Bridges, University of Cape Town
This article is republished from The Conversation underneath a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
