There is much an excessive amount of blame being attributed to President Cyril Ramaphosa for the nation’s present woes, as South Africans search for a “messianic figure” to save lots of us from the challenges of governance and societies ills.
This was the opinion of the Director of Programmes on the Auwal Socio-economic Research Institute (Asri) Ebrahim Fakir, who mentioned President Ramaphosa can’t be blamed for everything that’s presently wrong in the nation.
Fakir was chatting with The Citizen on Wednesday concerning the blame that has been showered on Ramaphosa by political commentators and analysts concerning the state of the nation.
He believes a few of this may increasingly be misplaced.
“We have this idea that the leader must be a messianic figure who can solve, and do, and take charge for every single thing in society, and no leader can do that. It’s impossible. There are serious structural constraints to what Ramaphosa can do.”
Fakir mentioned there are three structural constraints on Ramaphosa’s shoulders which precludes him from instituting sure actions.
Balance of energy inside his social gathering not at all times beneficial
“So, the president of ANC shouldn’t be all highly effective. He has to work by means of the highest six, by means of the NEC, by means of the nationwide working committee, and in that element lies the satan, as a result of whereas the stability in the NEC would possibly be in his favour, he’s not fully so.
“So, he has to contend with other people and the factions are no longer static, they’re no longer forming around certain ideas. They are now constantly shifting and its very difficult for anyone including him to work out who stands where, and how, and in what formation.”
“The second set of constraints are in the state, in that folks assume he can do every kind of issues. So out of the Zondo fee, ‘there must have been so much prosecutions already and this should have happened and that would have happened.’
“And its not possible for him to overstep the authority and the bounds which limit his ability to exercise power. He’s not a complete authoritarian president, and our constitution places limits on those.”
“The third area which are social and inherited problems in society and the economy, which we are expecting one man or even one organisation to have solved, and these are all problems which have been inherited from apartheid. Firstly, but more importantly, problems which have come about because of contradictory and inappropriate policy which was set up incidentally, funny enough, by former ANC administrations.”
“Now he has to carry the can for all of that but he is not solely the person at fault or responsible for it.”
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Fakir, nonetheless, mentioned there are some issues that Ramaphosa is blameworthy for, notably in the African National Congress (ANC).
“Where he perhaps didn’t take a strong enough stand as he should, particularly on issues of internal discipline, sometime on resolutions which were taken at the ANC’s conference, which need to be streamlined into state and government decision making, and with dealing and enforcing internal rules and discipline of the ANC.”
“That is people who should be stepping aside, not making themselves available for particular positions within the ANC,” mentioned Fakir.
Fakir mentioned individuals ignore the truth that Ramaphosa has tried to do what he can do inside his energy and authority.
“Where of course he’s blameworthy is that endemic into the organisation, he is part of the ANC. So, this is an ANC problem, is that that they have rendered their own president a person who is caught between paranoia and paralysis. And paranoia is increasingly animating and characterising who and what the ANC is and what its becoming, because there’s conspiracies and hysteria and everyone’s out to get everyone. Everyone’s looking over their back all the time and its impossible to get anything done.”
Endemic issues predate Ramaphosa
“The problem is fundamentally the ANC and he then has to realise that even if and when he goes to the elective conference at the end of this year, he will still be bedevilled by these problems of paranoia and paralysis, because he’ll continue looking over his back,” Fakir mentioned.
Fakir mentioned financial progress, financial issues, huge unemployment and deepening inequality are structural points which have been endemic in the economic system earlier than Ramaphosa grew to become president.
He mentioned regardless of the excessive stage of belief Ramaphosa enjoys in comparison with the ANC and in authorities, the president is proscribed by how a lot he can do in phrases of extra radical coverage.
“The level of trust to be able to implement radical policy you need high levels of trust and confidence which in the state are extremely low despite his high levels of enjoying greater confidence. So, he can’t even engage in more radical policy which will see greater redistribution.”
Time to reconfigure the state
Fakir provides that there must be an entire reconfiguring of the state, and Ramaphosa has to be way more decisive about people who find themselves not in line with the agenda he needs to pursue, and eliminate them regardless of the political prices it comes with.
“He has to no longer keep balancing the different factions and interests inside the ANC to keep them happy. If there happens to be a break or split, so be it, and he shouldn’t be shy to be the president who dies over that. Maybe that’s his fear, but that is now a misplaced fear because it literally has come to a point where he has to choose, either the ANC or the country.”
Fakir mentioned that was the selection Ramaphosa was left with in 2017 when he selected the ANC over the nation and that didn’t work for him.
“He now has to choose the country,” Fakir mentioned.
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