This time it’s different.
The world is facing a pandemic and anti-racism protests that are exposing rage, fear, despair, lies
and secrets.
The double-whammy crises are also revealing compassion, kindness, unity and people finding their voices to question what’s right and wrong.
Trevor Noah said on a Twitter post that the contract between society and government had broken, and the governed were not being heard by the governors.
The South African government sent a message to the US in sympathy for the terrible death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer - who, it turned out, had at least 17 previous complaints filed against him - and has now been charged with Floyd’s murder.
The irony is astounding. This is the government that exonerated South African soldiers who appear to have killed Collins Khosa at his Alexandra home, ascribing it, and other deaths at the hands of law enforcement, to over-enthusiasm.
Accountability across all spheres of government in this country has been absent for years. There is no handbrake on or comeuppance for those who loot our coffers, make life-changing decisions for us, or are supposed to deliver health, education, security. There is no rational plan to create jobs or help others do so or to tackle the poverty millions of South Africans live in.
The same faces are brushed off and recycled at the top levels of the government, adding nothing to new thinking, new ideas, new plans.
They - and the angry, toothless opposition of all stripes - must fall before our country falls further.
The judiciary and political “lawfare” offer the only pushback
for citizens, and that too is often agenda driven.
The Constitutional Court this week ruled that people can run in national and provincial elections as independents. The ruling was suspended for two years, so it is no quick fix.
It is way past time for electoral reform so that citizens take back the power the state has usurped.
Every election sees a mass turnout of politicians doing the rounds, handing out T-shirts, food parcels and promises. These candidates are on party lists: lists that people have no say in. Branches put forward candidates, and there’s a vote and that’s that.
At the polls, queues of voters get to pick a party and that party, with behind-the-scenes shenanigans they claim are “transparent”, chooses the person who takes your voice.
It’s time we took our voices back. The people who make the crosses on the ballot should know their candidate, and that candidate should have worked to earn the voters’ trust. The candidate, not the parties at mass rallies led by shouty people, should be talking to voters to get fresh ideas and suggestions about what they want and need.
And when those who represent us don’t deliver, they should be voted out. If they are involved in self-enrichment with our, the people’s, money, they should go to jail. If they lie, obfuscate or fail to take the electorate into their confidence, that should be their ticket out.
South Africa has so much promise, but so much to fix.
Its people should not have to take to the streets to get their public servants to hear their voices and deliver that better life for all. That power should be made with a cross in the ballot box, and the social contract restored.
It can be different this time.
- Slogrove is the news editor.