South Africa on boil: Night Darkening or New Dawn Arriving?

[Sukla Sen]

<<For a quarter of a century South Africa has tried to run a democracy without effective law or police. It does not control its borders. It has abandoned its citizens to be preyed on by criminals. Its economic policies, which would only work with Scandinavian levels of productivity and honesty, are disastrous in an African context, as are the ever more stringent racial quotas on hiring. As a result, its vast state-run enterprises, from electricity and schooling to defence and the provision of water, have almost collapsed, pillaged by criminal networks.

Duduzane Zuma’s best argument in his campaign to be leader of the ruling party may be that he far better represents the spirit of the country than the honest but largely ineffective and irrelevant President Cyril Ramaphosa. South Africa’s stability has not been so fragile since before the first democratic election in 1994.

At the same time, the lessons for any enlightened leadership have never been clearer if the country is willing to learn: economic statism and tolerance of corruption, along with the cult of violence and revanchism evident not only in Zululand but in the language of student movements and the Economic Freedom Fighters, have brought South Africa to the point of breakdown.>>

(Ref.: <https://scroll.in/article/1000331/how-jacob-zuma-put-the-squeeze-on-south-africa-and-what-that-means-for-the-countrys-future>.)