READER LETTER | We need to reclaim our democracy from 'leaders'

It is indeed a grim and sad reality that a decline in political trust is gravely undermining our fractured democracy. Scandals and sleaze have taken a massive toll on public confidence in our battered politics and compromised politicians.

It is a strange paradox of our diluted democracy that we have the conditions and tools to enable our political system to work better than ever before, yet all that is glaringly evident today is utter dysfunction, a prelude to complete chaos and anarchy. As our battered economy impacts on the masses, we hover on the brink of collapse, we have in the process become a fully failed state of critical geopolitical concern.

Trust is an essential elixir for public life and community relations and when the masses think about trust these days, they worry. Most believe that citizens have little or no faith in their leaders and that the public’s confidence in our government is shrinking rapidly. Many of our past and current leaders are congenital liars.

Years of lying has made our politics morally bankrupt resulting in the dearth of infrastructure and a massive decline in the quality of services.

A combination of factors has mushroomed over time and has raised serious concerns about the threat that rampaging corruption poses to the very fabric of our nationhood. Someone once said that if you analyse the DNA of a dubious politician you will find the bribe gene.

This genetic disposition presumably explains our chronic corruption situation. What we are witnessing today is the emergence of a new moral barbarism. With the larger public disdainful of our current and previous politicians. How can so many continue with the tactics of public obfuscation and diversion?

Many of our current crop of leaders remain wedded to the tactics of diversion, obfuscation and half-truths. A web of deceit has cloaked our democracy, a litany of lies will eventually throttle and destroy it.

The elections in 2024 will be our last chance to reclaim our democracy, should we falter along the way, then we deserve the degradation that will follow.

Farouk Araie, Actonville, Benoni