What is governance for? What is democracy? And what are they in a South African context?
In South Africa today we have career politicians, we have tenderpreneurs and corrupt government officials and this is what South African politics consists of? We are not a democracy, we are a kleptocracy. We have citizens going into public office with the sole aim of self-enrichment with no interest in servicing the community.
So what are we missing? It’s a simple answer; we are missing the true public servant. Men and woman so committed to the service of others that the idea of self-enrichment is as foreign an idea as public service is to the current stock of politicians.
The folly of South African is that we don’t have any governance at all in the strictest sense. The ANC as the ruling party is and is likely to remain for some time to come, the powerhouse of South African politics. However, the structure of the ANC and the South African election system are fundamentally flawed.
ANC presidents and therefore South African presidents are voted in by the ANC elective conference and not by the people. As a result, instead of the South Africa public voting in the best president for the job, a few thousand delegates vote in the president who is most likely to keep their interests in mind when conducting their duties.
The solutions is simple, the South Africa public should be able to vote for the president of their choice rather than for a party.
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