A VIEW OF THE WEEK: We have politicians so bad they even fail at politics

There is a Friday ritual in my house. After an early dinner, the family settles down and watches Netflix. We always promise to stop watching after one or two episodes so the kids can go to bed and we can get some much-needed sleep. It’s a promise we never keep.

Eventually, we give up and resign ourselves to the fact that we are constantly setting ourselves up for failure, and don’t make the promise anymore.

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There must be a similar resignation sweeping through the corridors of City Halls, government buildings, and Luthuli House. How else do you explain the indifference that many politicians have just months before the country’s national elections?

Promise? What promise?!

There is an age-old cycle of politics: Speak nicely. Tell a few stories. Have people pay attention. Make a promise. Break the promise. Rinse, and repeat.

But the textbook on “how to be a politician” has been thrown out by those in power who fail to meet one of the most basic requirements: make a promise.

Electricity Minister Kgoseintsho Ramokgopa told a media briefing this week that load shedding is here to stay for at least the next three years, but made no promises that rolling blackouts would ease off in that time.

Joburg mayor Kabelo Gwamanda was just as slippery a few days later when he announced that Lillian Ngoyi Street in the city’s CBD would finally be fixed, but he could not promise the repair bill would not be inflated.

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Dodging accountability may be bad practice, but not setting a target to hold you accountable to is far worse.

A policy within the ANC

This laissez-faire attitude is endemic in politics and rampant in the ANC.

The ANC’s response to former president Jacob Zuma‘s public affair with the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party has been lacklustre at best, and has all the signs of a heartbroken lover refusing to accept their partner has cheated on them.

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Like that lover, the party hoped Zuma would slip out of their lives quietly and they could move on with life. How else do you explain ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula simply declaring Zuma had “taken a decision to leave the ANC”?

The ANC has a rulebook for members, a book of promises to keep, that state you cannot campaign for another party and not be disciplined by the ANC. In this, the ANC has so far broken its promise by not taking action against Zuma.

It has promised to deal with the matter soon, but much of that will have come from public pressure and scrutiny.

So while you cautiously sift through the many empty promises that will come in the months leading up to the elections, pay careful attention to those who are not promising at all.