The ANC has “all but lost interest in democratic governance and service delivery”.
This is the view of South African writer, Palesa Morudu, who has written about the recent riots in the Washington Post, one of the world’s top newspapers.
Picking apart the reasons for the riots and looting, Morudu opens her piece with the assessment: “South Africa is a tinderbox marked by extreme inequality. The country’s ruling party lit the match.”
She notes that President Cyril Ramaphosa has described the unrest as “a failed insurrection” that was “nothing less than a deliberate, coordinated and well-planned attack on our democracy”.
Morudu adds that what Ramaphosa failed to say is that the chaos “emanated from within his party, as a faction stirred the pot by casting doubt on the rule of law”.
Because of the strength of the pro Zuma faction, she concludes that “the ANC in its current form has become the biggest threat to the future of the republic”.
Analysing the ruling party’s failure, she says: “The scale of this criminal neglect has been blasted live into homes for the past three years through television coverage of the Zondo Commission’s inquiry into the allegations of corruption. Meanwhile, the multiracial middle class has outsourced safety and security, health, education and energy to private companies. The vast majority of poor people, who are mainly black, lack decent basic services and life prospects.”
She says that while this faction has been weakened, and Ramaphosa could see the failed “insurrection” as an opportunity to rebuild, he doesn’t have much help around him. “Except for a few bright sparks, the president is surrounded by mind-numbing mediocrity.”
But she sees glimmers of hope, looking to Mamelodi, where she was born, and where ordinary people organised groups to stop looters.
“Millions of South Africans decided they would not be part of the looting, refusing to become human shields for a faction of the ANC that has lost power.”
