SA needs competitive politics -
Leon
30 Nov 2012 | SAPA | Original Publication: IOL News
(Please note: This article was not written by Tony Leon)
“When
that happens, as it surely will pretty soon, then our fine constitutional
prospectus will start to live and breathe again and be rescued from the torpor
of one-party domination,” he said in a speech prepared for delivery in Cape Town
on Thursday.
The former South African ambassador to Argentina said when he led the DA between 1999 and 2007, the opposition was going up against staunch ANC history, as a party that held all the moral and political high ground.
At
that time, he said the ANC presented a formidable, often frightening, unity in
the face of any opposition, whether external or internal.
“Today,
the opposite is true: The opposition has the wind behind its back and the ANC
juggernaut is showing signs of decay and sclerosis - the symptoms of a house
divided whose inevitable right to rule is now under both question and strain.”
Leon
said a decade ago he had warned against certain “ANC-sponsored” concepts and
practices such as the national democratic revolution, cadre deployment and
black economic empowerment.
His
pronouncements led to him being called anti-transformational, the voice of
white privilege and the fight-back king.
“Now,
an entire chorus, including some significant black intellectuals, media editors
and trade unionists, are singing from the same hymn sheet, often in far more
strident and less polite notes than any I had sounded from my perch as leader
of the opposition.”
Leon
reflected on his three-year stint in the embassy, saying he would scour the
internet daily for news from his homeland.
He
said that despite reading numerous doom-and-gloom stories, there were signs of
advancement through the harshest of “political winters”.
An
example was the continued tenacity of the judiciary to find against the
government in significant judgments, despite being assaulted and questioned
from various angles.
“I
do not believe, incidentally, that South Africa is about to fall off the cliff
and plunge into a failed state scenario,” Leon said.
There
were too many institutions and feedback mechanisms for the country to follow
the same path as Zimbabwe.
However,
it was not enough for the country to muddle along in the hope it would get back
on the path set out in 1994.
“Our
task as citizens is to engage with the complexity and interdict our weaknesses.
As simple, and as complicated, as that.” - Sapa
• Follow Tony
Leon on Twitter: @TonyLeonSA
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