Listening to Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen make a pre-election speech and refer to parties campaigning in the Western Cape as “mercenaries”, one has a moment of despair for such an unnecessary comment, but also one lacking in nous. One may not like one’s political opponents but to call Rise Mzansi a “mercenary” party is a little bit much.
Steenhuisen is a clunky politician who is mostly not the best interlocutor. Far better are his Western Cape colleagues, Geordin Hill-Lewis and Alan Winde, who at the time of the stray comment were working hard dealing with flood disasters across the Cape. Their leader’s “mercenary” comments would have been unhelpful.
Support for the DA, specifically in small towns and farming areas in the Western Cape, cannot be guaranteed. There’s something brewing and Steenhuisen would do well to be aware of that and not inflame matters by thoughtless rhetoric.
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But of course, Steenhuisen’s offence seems mild (because there is a difference between the criticism he received for the comment on X and the real world, it must be said) compared to the increasingly lame President Cyril Ramaphosa who told us recently that his party was doing “all it can” to deal with crime. Really?
Then there’s the ANC bloviator, Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi, promising jobs to unemployed youth which he surely knows will never materialise? And convicted criminal Gayton McKenzie spreading xenophobic lies across the country, seeking only to divide communities already embittered and embattled.
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Or Patricia De Lille in her latest reincarnation, pledging to “end the suffering”. She obviously doesn’t do irony. She is part of Ramaphosa’s government which in large part causes the suffering she refers to by uncaring and corrupt governance. What does the “Good” party actually stand for, one has to ask?
Is it any surprise then that South Africans are facing this election with apathy, if early polling and the 2019 election are anything to go by?
As Azola Ndongeni pointed out when writing about the importance of the youth vote, “the statistics from the last election cycle paint a troubling picture of the state of youth voter participation in South Africa. According to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), only 56% of eligible voters aged 18-29 registered to vote in the 2019 national and provincial elections. Furthermore, voter turnout in this age group was a meagre 46%, significantly lower than the national average of 66%.”
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Counter-intuitive as it may sound given that the elections are almost upon us, we need to think beyond them. Now is a definitive time to draw lessons from the past and think about the future South Africa shaped by citizens who demand accountability from those in power.
Idasa reflection
In these times of trenchant disagreement, cul de sac politics and dangerous men and women who hold power, one often wonders what the role of an Idasa-type organisation might have been? Idasa closed its doors 11 years ago this month. Its lessons remain, especially in a country which is not particularly good at reflection — there’s too much happening and we need to keep moving, moving, moving.
The Institute for a Democratic Alternative in South Africa (Idasa) was founded in 1987 by Frederik van Zyl Slabbert and Alex Boraine, members of the opposition, in what became known as “the last white Parliament”. Slabbert and Boraine, sensing the impasse of the complex time that was the late 1980s, understood the political moment better than most.
Idasa sought to bring the “mutually hurting stalemate” that prevailed in South Africa to an end by building dialogue between the Afrikaner establishment and the ANC in exile and within South Africa.
Two of its most significant meetings were held in Dakar in 1987. That in fact signalled Idasa’s own beginnings and formed its deep roots. The 61 mostly white Afrikaners met with then-banned ANC leaders in exile to talk through the possibility of a peaceful end to the conflict in South Africa.
As Max du Preez wrote, “the Dakar initiative was followed up with several Idasa-organised meetings between the ANC in exile and business people, writers, students and other groups over the next three years. Talking had become fashionable.”
Soon thereafter it arranged meetings of writers, public intellectuals and artists from across the political spectrum at Victoria Falls. That convening power was always part of its organisational DNA.
After 1994, Idasa’s strength lay in its ability to shift with the times and be nimble in the face of change; always inventive, from its HIV-Aids and governance work to its work on transparency and accountability, the Afrobarometer, local government and citizen activism, Idasa broke new and interesting ground.
For whatever its detractors have said about Idasa and its liberal roots over the years, its employment record will show that it provided a home for the most diverse, talented, politically astute research staff one could probably hope to find. From journalists to lawyers, anthropologists, economists and political scientists, Idasa was the unlikely home for us all.
What set Idasa apart was its ability to take on the thorny issues. There were probably two issues that marked the 2000s at Idasa - its work on the Arms Deal, and money and politics.
Democracy and the Arms Deal
In 2000, Idasa recognised that the way South Africa handled the multi-billion rand Arms Deal investigation would be a litmus test for our democracy. At that point, Idasa was the only non-governmental organisation focusing on the work of the Public Accounts Committee and its battles with an executive trying to intervene and stop an investigation into the deal.
Those were difficult days of political interference, and Idasa’s intervention, small though it was, was an important moment. Its report titled, “Democracy and the Arms Deal”, released in May 2003, outlined the impact the deal and the subsequent lack of accountability had on Parliament and other democratic institutions.
In 2005, after lobbying intensely for the regulation of private donations to political parties, Idasa moved to sue the ANC and four opposition parties to reveal their sources of private funding in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia). Idasa lost the case as Judge Ben Griessel found, inter alia, that political parties were private bodies and therefore had no obligation to reveal their sources of funding.
The issue came full circle from those early days of Idasa’s persistent advocacy when My Vote Counts and others effectively picked up the baton in later years. The issue remains thorny, specifically in light of the latest attempts by the ANC to unpick that legislation.
But it was this sort of groundbreaking work that made Idasa unique. Idasa attracted friends and enemies in equal measure and across the political divide. As staff, we always thought this meant that we were doing something right.
On any given day it walked the tightrope of being a “critical ally” of government — praising where necessary and offering criticism where necessary. There were lighter moments too. Then Minister of Public Service and Administration, the fierce Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, once started a speech on ethics in the public service in Parliament glaring up at us in the public gallery and declared “even Idasa would agree with me on this…”.
Looking back, there were peaks and troughs, and mistakes were made. Yet, 2008 and the global financial crisis meant a virtual drying up of donor agency money, especially to countries like South Africa. Donors then, and still largely now, see South Africa’s challenges as self-inflicted wounds which they believe we have the wherewithal to resolve ourselves.
Their interventions have been far narrower in recent years and less focused on dealing with the arc of the transition, how we got here and preserving crucial institutional memory of those within civil society who worked closely on trying to build effective democratic institutions, but also on issues of government ethics and the slow work of building a broader culture of transparency.
There are reasons why Parliament is unable to hold the executive to account effectively, and that emasculation of institutions had its roots in the Arms Deal. Idasa’s closure has doubtless left a void that must be filled by the active citizens and progressive donors who remain committed to the values of transformative constitutionalism.
South Africa needs to forge a new kind of citizen activism if we are to truly save ourselves from the venal politicians who govern.
Somehow, however, we also need to make space for some of that original “Idasa-type” work which convened groups across different spheres of society to deal with complex problems through dialogue. Such deep reflection on citizenship and what it demands of us seems more necessary than ever - perhaps especially during the fierce urgency of now.
For we are learning the hard way that democracy is a slow, obstacle-ridden marathon and not a sprint — and its gains can be very easily lost. DM
Judith February headed Idasa’s Political Information and Monitoring Service from 2003 to 2012.