Weakened state institutions ‘proven’ to be biggest threat to SA’s democracy

Calls for change and a renewal of South Africa’s democracy have intensified from civil society, labour, business, faith-based institutions, youth groups, academia and other sectors.

According to former deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas, democratic renewal and change in SA was now “urgent and necessary” due to democratic backsliding, as the state’s weakened institutions have proven to be the biggest threat to democracy in the country.

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He said although scholars like Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have argued that a democratic backslide traditionally happened through major single events like military coups, it also happened through a barely visible state-led weakening of democratic institutions and practices.

“The ruling party has become incapable of choosing the most honest and competent leaders.

“This is because of patronage and corruption,” he said, speaking at the Defend Our Democracy conference on Friday.

“This, I suggest, should be a first quick win for Defend Our Democracy and the broader united front we must put in place.

“The time has come for a national referendum on the electoral system to define the way forward.

“This obviously has to be preceded by a mass education and mobilisation campaign focusing on the importance of electoral reform to liberate the country.”

He added that there were four main areas where democratic backsliding was likely to occur and where South Africans needed to raise their capacity to monitor and converge in actions to strengthen democratic resilience.

“The first area is where there are utterances or moves by those in power to undermine democratic institutions. “In our case, this includes attacks against the constitution and the rule of law.

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“In fact one of the key propositions I suggest this morning onelectoral reform would require a constitutional amendment.”

However, chief executive of Business Unity SA Cas Coovadia said while it might seem that the debate and focus were on the problems in the majority party, South Africans needed to ask themselves if the country has a political crisis or an economic crisis.

He said with only two years left until the next national elections there were hard discussions to be had on what could be done to have a political system and architecture backed up by an electoral system which could be trusted.

Another urgent issue was what could be done between now and 2024 to ensure a different political architecture.

“Business should be held accountable to do business properly, but how does what has become essentially an illegitimate government hold business accountable?” he asked.

“We know business doesn’t get involved in politics, well my view is politics is getting involved in business.”

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Coovadia said SA has lost its moral compass as a society and not just in business and politics as a result of lack of governance, with everyone to some extent becoming dehumanised.

Meanwhile, Sandra Africa, associate professor in political science at the University of Pretoria, said the massive unrest in July last year, showed the failure of our institutions, and also exposed racial tensions, a scourge which South Africans must face.

“The notion of an insurrection suggests that political actors exploited these weaknesses,” she said.

“I urge this conference to develop a collective vision of what national security could look like for our people.”