Title: Manifesto: A new vision for South Africa
Author: Songezo Zibi
Publisher: Macmillan, 2022
ISBN: 9781770107984
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I sincerely hope that he garners enough support to enter parliament with a few colleagues. And there to learn the ropes to allow him to create the strategies to put his admirable ideas into action.
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It’s election year again, and many politicians and parties have now begun burying us under their braggadocio, their promises and their noise.
First out of the blocks, now over a year ago, was Songezo Zibi, who founded a start-up political party, Rise Mzansi, and who has already scribed a manifesto for his party. This has had the unusual fortune of being published as a book, and has in fact found its way up the ladder of the Sunday Times Non-Fiction Book of the Year list, making its way to the final five.
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Having a degree and having had a proper job would presumably exclude him from DA leadership opportunities, so, where to?
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Zibi is unusual for an entrant into the tough and murky business of formal politics, for he has been a successful editor of a quality daily newspaper, Business Day, nogal. And he is only 48 years old, with a commerce degree from Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). Having a degree and having had a proper job would presumably exclude him from DA leadership opportunities, so, where to?
Manifesto begins as most business plans do – with a status quo report. While his intention is not to spend much energy lambasting the ANC, over half of Manifesto is in fact dedicated to such flagellation. Three of the first four chapters are headed “Snapshot of a broken promise”, “Political decay” and “A state destroyed”. Probably the highly exposed nature of the ANC’s faults leave other commentators with irresistible ammunition – whatever, Zibi joins the long queue of ANC trashers. We have to “exclude the ANC as a central pillar of South Africa’s future” (78) and – the cliché of 2022 and 2023 – “We must vote the ANC out” (184).
In South Africa, we do not vote a party “out”; rather, we vote another party “in”. So, what of the other two “possible” parties, the DA and the EFF?
The DA and the EFF are fortunate in that Zibi does not spend as much effort on his analysis of them as on the ANC, for he is equally unsparing in his criticism of these parties, the other two of the “big three”. And he suggests that we have a most disquieting history of coalition-making. “A coalition is not the Utopia voters might imagine,” he states (75).
Four points to consider
Thus, having found little of today’s witches’ brew of politics to be to his taste, Zibi then turns to what he feels South Africans should, and sometimes do, stand for. There are four things to take out of Zibi’s book, and they are:
#1
He notes that our system of electing/appointing public representatives requires an overhaul. The Zuma years showed, he argues, all too clearly how this system can be manipulated to appoint cronies of the leadership of the big parties, to the nation’s detriment.
He recommends an independently elected president à la the USA, with MPs being elected on a ward-based system with clear rules of recall for MPs who break what he calls “norms” (mostly defined as sexual wanderings). Also, we need some sort of system that assures competence in public representatives (88).
These are not new proposals. In 2003, Van Zyl Slabbert chaired an “Electoral Task Team” at the request of the government. It recommended a 400-seat parliament in which 300 members would be elected from within 69 defined “constituencies” of three to seven members per constituency, thereby ensuring a much improved connection between MPs and citizens. The remaining 100 members would come from proportional representative lists to “restore proportionality”. This is not unlike today’s local government arrangements, and Slabbert et al saw the possibility of this system being used at all three levels of government. Regretfully, nothing came of Slabbert’s proposals.
Zibi should be encouraged to continue working for changes in our electoral system, which changes are plainly overdue. We certainly need more accountability and availability from members of both parliaments, and most certainly more competent members.
#2
Zibi begins Manifesto by stating his intention in writing it: “[T]his book is my attempt to start a conversation about national renewal” (4). His ambitions grow as the book progresses: “I want to state unequivocally that I am committed to every single proposal that it contains. That includes accepting responsibility for leadership in the manner I have written …. This includes running for president” (90). By the end, his ambitions are again somewhat restricted, and he writes: “This book and this last chapter are intended to start new conversations about how we do that rethinking …” (198).
Manifesto is thus clearly a call to arms behind a defined leader. Zibi is intent on becoming president – certainly constrained by the ambit of Manifesto, but president he intends to be, whatever that may take. We will return to “whatever it will take” later in this review.
#3
What is the nature of the South Africa-to-be that his Manifesto describes?
Firstly, Zibi argues, we need to negotiate a new, up-to-date social compact, signed off by all South Africans (83). This social compact must be backed up by “values we can believe in”, guided by the preamble of our Constitution (84). This leads us to:
It is my view that the most appropriate way of interpreting the above injunction is to use social democratic principles and values …. Social democratic values resonate deeply with most South Africans I have met. (84-5)
And what are these values? Zibi suggests “freedom, equality and justice, and solidarity” (84). (As definitions of “social democracy” go, Zibi’s repeated efforts need considerable supplementing, and he could also fruitfully contrast it with the more recent hot number, “neoliberalism” à la the DA.)
Thereafter, we must:
translate [our social compact] into political and social objectives and then organise around these in order to take political power at each one of the three spheres of government. Once we have done that, we need to reorganise public institutions and rewrite the rules of engagement in order to begin the very long and difficult journey of reshaping the future of the country. (88-9)
#4
The final proposal of Zibi’s, and possibly his most heartfelt entreaty, is for “professionals” (defined as people with some tertiary education and with an executive job) to become involved in politics. Today, he believes, this class, the professionals, have abandoned politics and left this dirty but important business to the working class, who now run those few barricades that occasionally appear on our streets, while the professionals get on with the hard job of suburban living, shopping and sipping Chardonnay. That doesn’t work, and Zibi cries, “Get involved!”
How? He is not specific. But the choice is stark – either become a politician (and endure the endless timewasting meetings and the horror of having your vote dictated to you) or become a bureaucrat (and endure colleagues often interested in the 25th of the month and little else). Not great options – very much below private sector opportunities, and with much less Chardonnay.
Not played on paper
Nevertheless, who can fault these proposals?
Years ago, I heard a useful story. It is of a cricket-mad youngster, given to much statistical analysis of the game he so loved. One day, his mass of statistics pointed him to an inexorable conclusion, which he shared with his grandfather.
“Grandpa, do you know that, on paper, Zimbabwe must beat Australia?”
Grandpa carefully replied, “Youngster, now isn’t it sad that cricket is not played on paper, but on grass?”
Songezo Zibi has done his homework, and it points us to his conclusions. But he has only done two thirds of the business plan, for he has done the status quo report and he has done the guiding principles, but he has left out the strategy that will get us from the status quo to the desired outcome. That, of course, is the whole core of a business plan.
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How will he get the 201 votes in the House of Assembly that are needed to make him president?
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How will he get the 201 votes in the House of Assembly that are needed to make him president? It may appear to him to be a minor detail compared with assembling the principles needed to guide a renewed South Africa, but we are not playing this game on paper – we are playing it in the bloody cut and thrust of existing political arrangements. If we were in the habit of taking a good guy with a brilliant mind from a minor party as our leader, surely Van Zyl Slabbert would have become our prime minister days after the 1974 election, Mandela would have returned to us in probably 1977, and we would have missed the bloodshed and horror of the 1980s. But it doesn’t work like that in politics. For Zibi to become president, he will need the voting support of the ANC (most probably) or the DA (possibly), two parties he is now spitting at. How will that work?
How do you get a social compact agreed by the people of South Africa without the active support of the big parties? And how do you get that support?
How do we provide all citizens “access to a reasonably priced, increasingly renewable energy; affordable state owned public transport on a safe and efficient public transport infrastructure; modern public health facilities; and good public schools”?
His answer:
When a new vision of our country triumphs, South Africa will invest significant resources in community and sporting centres that are professionally run and owned by the communities in which they are situated. (187, 193)
How do we change a corrupt and incompetent government and make the renewed version of the bureaucracy the delivery vehicle of this miracle? It’s cheap to say “root out corruption and employ professionals”. The phrases are easy, the reality more complex. Zibi has not provided the template that will take us from the one to the other.
A clue to Zibi’s thinking is presented in his description of the possible development of his home district, Mqanduli in the Transkei. Here, the government has installed electricity to most homes, but there is no running water (150ff).
Surely, for Zibi, this is a great development opportunity? Put running water into every house, and then people could start buying washing machines. This could cause a shop to open, selling washing machines, and some local citizens could acquire the skills to install them and maintain them. Jobs.
These jobs could increase the purchasing potential of the community, and a small supermarket could start. More jobs. Maybe more shops: “Edgars, Sales House and other shops,” he suggests (151). And so development happens, all begun by the simple business of government providing running water.
A lovely scenario, but regretfully, development, like cricket, does not happen on paper. Mqanduli has about 3 000 citizens, about 300 per square kilometre of its land area. Chain shops mostly are guided by firms like AC Nielsen or such, who research population densities, population income levels, monthly spending levels, roads and traffic flows, distances from other facilities, and much else, and then guide their clients as to what could work on a site the client has identified. Would it handle a regional centre, a neighbourhood centre, a “mom and pop” local store or nothing at all? I think we can all guess that Mqanduli has a lot of growing to do for Zibi’s positive assessment to become reality.
For Zibi’s Manifesto to be credible, he has to fill out the third section of the business plan – he has to show us the route, however nasty, that he wishes to follow to get from the status quo to his desired goal. And not in phrases like: “Upgrade the capabilities and the morals of the civil service.” Too general, not convincing. He has to show us the tough route to a better society, which he has not yet done.
At present, the business school will fail his Manifesto.
Songezo Zibi is obviously a successful journalist and writer. Having attended his presentation on Manifesto, I believe that he is very personable and clearly trustworthy. With his having written Manifesto, his patriotism and determination to make South Africa a better place are indisputable. And his willingness to abandon an obviously successful career to see through his ideals is very unusual in a country now dedicated to “What’s in it for me?”.
I sincerely hope that he garners enough support to enter parliament with a few colleagues. And there to learn the ropes to allow him to create the strategies to put his admirable ideas into action. But he still has a way to go, to finish Manifesto properly.
See also:
Election 2024: The DA’s rescue plan for South Africa, a review
Election 2024: The Economic Freedom Fighters’ election manifesto
Die "professionele klas" uitgedaag in ’n gesprek oor Songezo Zibi se Manifesto