SA can be saved with ‘compromise and creativity’

“There are opportunities in all the doom and gloom,” Tony Leon, former Member of Parliament and founder of the Democratic Alliance, told the Jewish Literary Festival, held at the Gardens Community Centre on Human Rights Day, 21 March.

Leon was in discussion with political adviser and business leader Colin Coleman on the topic “SA: What Next?”

“Can Mandela’s dream of a free and democratic South Africa be saved?” Coleman asked. “We’re in an economic growth trap, with rising inequality and extreme levels of unemployment.”

Infrastructure is collapsing, with load shedding a feature. And then there’s the rise of organised crime accompanied by failing policing networks.

All three problems are interdependent, he said. “How do you fix Eskom if there’s sabotage? How do you fix corrupted police structures? If you don’t fix corruption, you won’t get economic growth. If unarrested, we will see a Nigeria. That’s the way South Africa is headed unless we have a political rupture,” Coleman said.

African nationalism is administered with largely right-wing economic policies and an absence of skills to administer it. “The opposition seems to think it operates in the United Kingdom,” Coleman said.

“We have a social democratic, non-racial vacuum in the centre,” he said. “The Mandela spirit requires us to occupy it.”

Referring to the recent Cabinet reshuffle, Coleman noted that of the 21 appointments announced not one was Indian or White , and other than Patricia de Lille, all were African. “Mandela wouldn’t have allowed it,” he said.

Leon agreed that there was a “huge vacuum at the heart of South Africa’s polity”. Referring to the government’s stance on the Russia-Ukraine war, he said it was increasingly on the wrong side of the divide.

With gross domestic product growth at 0.3% this year according to the Reserve Bank, load shedding is costing the country R899 million a day.

Referring to examples of leaders who had made a difference, Leon mentioned David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister. In a move that had split Israeli society in two, he had taken the decision to accept reparations from West Germany.

“He realised Israel needed help wherever it could find it.”

Similarly, Nelson Mandela had entered into negotiations with the South African government with no mandate from the African National Congress (ANC).

South Africa was in a classical Catch-22 situation. There could be no reform without splitting the ANC, yet President Cyril Ramaphosa had stated that his first priority was the unity of the party.

“We cannot possibly save South Africa with the ANC. It’s the biggest threat to South Africa’s political and economic prospects,” Leon said.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) hadn’t been able to extend its control outside the Western Cape, suggesting that it had reached its ceiling of support. As with his founding of the DA in 2000 by uniting opposition forces, Leon advocated the building of a new coalition or entity to draw support from the ANC.

“But it has to be done in the next 13 months, otherwise we’ll continue on the path of disintegration. A lot of creative thought, energy, and leadership can get us out of this trap.”

Referring to former President Thabo Mbeki’s warning of an Arab Spring, Coleman said, “We’re in it – a slow-burning version of what you see in North Africa.”

The country needs to create 3% to 6% economic growth somewhere in the next 10 years. To do that requires about five million jobs, he said.

“We need to stimulate the economy – put money in the hands of the poor so they can start shopping, give people more means to start businesses.

“We absolutely have to recapitalise Eskom, and cut red tape for small and medium-sized enterprises. It’s time for us to rethink black economic empowerment.

“It was bastardised by big capital selling stakes [which] enriched a few people but did nothing for the masses. We have to rethink the relationship between employers and employees,” Coleman said, referring to the “misalignment” between the rewards for the two groups.

“Would it be so terrible to put workers on boards [of companies]?” he asked.

“I don’t have confidence that the DA has the ability to rethink its social democratic policies so that it can combine with the likes of us in a constructive way,” he said.

For his part, Leon noted that there were 7.4 million taxpayers in the country, of whom 1.4 million paid 71% of all taxes. About 20 million receive social grants.

“We have one of the smallest tax bases in the world supporting one of the largest welfare states in the world. That’s got to change.”

Questioner Professor Anton Harber asked whether the DA leadership was capable of constituting the centre proposed by the speakers. “It’s an evolution,” said Leon, referring to former president F W de Klerk’s political about-turn. “Leaders can rise to the moment.”

Coleman, on the other hand, didn’t believe the DA was going to reinvent itself alone, with “the leadership showing no sense of taking advantage of this massive opportunity of the failure of the ANC”.

“The DA needs to stay in business. It does a great job of governing here. But the truth is that some entity with which the DA, I hope, will collaborate, should or could be formed” to win over the dissenting ANC voter base and get beyond the present 34% combined opposition, excluding the Economic Freedom Fighters, Leon said.