If Build One SA (Bosa) leader Mmusi Maimane had his way, SA would be a centrist country where the best of what capitalism and socialism have to offer inform state policy and are used to free those trapped in poverty.
SA would look a lot like the Scandinavian countries that have very strong mixed economy systems. “In those countries, certain big state-owned enterprises operate certain significant portions of the economy. The failure of the economy is not in who owns what, it is about how efficient a country works,” says Maimane.
Maimane believes that even better than the Nordics, SA has the advantage of being multicultural and if it wanted, it could turn this into a strength rather than a weakness. He reckons that the countries’ relative sizes make the Nordic countries more appropriate a model than Germany or the US.
“We cannot say we want to be America or Germany. Our sizes are different. I think it is a fair ambition to think of countries like Norway and how those have been worked to be able to achieve what they have been able to,” he says.
Not that SA does not have what it takes to be like the northern Europeans.
“The country has delivered when it needed to,” says Maimane. “If you take the period between 1998 and 2008, that 10-year period indicates a time that, despite our diversity, we were able to create a budget surplus, were able to grow over 5%. We demonstrated that even the fruit of delivery was delivering the World Cup in 2010.
“Sure, that’s was a football spectacle but in essence our diversity played to its strength. We have it in our muscle memory to say we can win when we want to. The only dilemma we have to respond to now is to say that the failure of our diversity is for two reasons.
“The first weakness is lack of leadership. Nobody can define what it means to be South African. Leaders give that to people. I am a father to my kids. We are a diverse family but all of us are Maimanes and I give that to my kids. I give them what it means to be a Maimane. Leadership works the same in a country such as ours.
“That’s why you cannot dismiss Mbeki’s 'I am an African' speech, not because of its poetic elements but because it gave us a sense of who we are and located the diversity of all our races to say you fit within this paradigm.
“With regards to values, they transcend our own boundaries — gender or race boundaries. For example, we might both say we have to look after the most vulnerable as an act of justice. Therefore if society puts itself around values it can achieve them.
“The converse is too ghastly to contemplate. If we believe we are too diverse it is ghastly because it perpetuates a different form of separate development. I think that is some of the fruit we are reaping now.
“I don’t need to be a woman to fight for women but I can appreciate that the safety of women is an important issue, that is why I must fight for it. It is possible and plausible that even the wealthy in this country can recognise the need to fight for the poor.
“I do not believe what other authors have conceded that demography is destiny. As a Motswana I can look at someone from a different ethnic group and recognise that the person has leadership skills. If I can’t then our political project is doomed.”
Maimane believes the pessimism over the ability of coalition governments to create a new, better culture in SA is premature.
“As South Africans we have become too harsh on ourselves when it comes to whether coalitions work or don’t. I hear people say coalition governments don’t work because of the smaller parties. Cape Town would never have formed a government that brought the change it brought. We must not be too quick to dismiss the dividend of change itself as a principle of democracy,” he says.
“Secondly, SA is the youngest in the SADC region that has post-liberation governments. We must give ourselves time to practice.
“Thirdly, we have got to legislate for how effective they [coalition governments] become. One of the legislative amendments I would put on the table would be negotiate for longer. Don’t let people enter into a coalition too soon. It would be like people who don’t date long enough and then get married and before you know it, they are divorced.
“Fourthly, we don’t bring citizens to the negotiating table. You and I never know what the agreements [between coalition partners] are about, we rely on hearsay.
“I wish even with the collapse [of the coalition government] in Joburg all the leaders who were negotiating those things should address a media conference together so that we don’t have you-said-he-said and citizens can have better accountability. If we amend the electoral law it will strengthen coalitions.”
For Maimane, any coalition partnership would have to be based on shared values as well as a shared and binding economic plan even if it took a long time to strike a deal if this was going to sustain the parties over their term of office.
“Small parties wag the dog because negotiations are not about citizens but about positions. Whoever offers the best positions to the highest bidder is what becomes consequential. We need to sit back a bit and say let’s negotiate a bit longer,” says Maimane.
The former DA leader says SA can learn from what Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema has been able to achieve in the period he has been head of state.
“I think what Hichilema is doing in Zambia is impressive. He has built more schools in a short time. The lesson is that Hichilema came from business. He was an outside player. He played a totally different role in how we approach governance issues.
“Zambia is an important lesson in regional leadership because Hichilema is the only one delivering any [leadership] and when it comes to delivery.”
Maimane reckons that for SA to have the kind of leadership Zambia has it must first reform the electoral system and allow voters to choose their president directly.
The region can also learn from the example of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas).
“We in the SADC are willing to sit back and watch Zimbabwe collapse without anyone saying anything as if it is the most normal thing. When the same thing happened in The Gambia countries like Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Senegal got together and said we are going to intervene in The Gambia,” says Maimane.
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