Zuma, a burden to ANC and society - South Africans must demand the best in office

MY PREVIOUS column was predicated on Karl Popper's question: "How can we so organise political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage?"

The question was not answered, for the column sought mainly to illustrate that South Africa is in the throes of serious political problems.

The pandemonium that broke out at the State of the Nation Address (Sona) brings back Popper's question like a ghost that will not stop haunting the living until they meet all its demands.

But we cannot answer the question without first stating, categorically, the central lesson to be learned from the chaos of February the 12th.

What must be done to save our country future political embarrassment, will follow from that lesson. What, then, is the lesson?

Here it is: a morally and intellectually compromised leader of a political party is a burden not only to his party, but to society as a whole.

Eugene Terre'Blanche was a leader of the AWB, but he was a burden for the rest of South Africa. Since the AWB was an actor in the country's political arena, Terre'Blanche's racist rants were poisonous for the rest of society.

In the same vein, Julius Malema, by virtue of leading a political party, unavoidably pollutes race relations when he howls gigantic curses against white people.

President Jacob Zuma is a star exemplar of this. His party, the ANC, elevated him to its highest office, regardless of his well-known moral and intellectual shortcomings.

By virtue of the ANC being a governing party, Zuma became a liability not only to his party, but for the rest of South Africa.

If Zuma did not become president of the ANC, South Africa would have been saved the embarrassment of a president who quite clearly cannot distinguish right from wrong.

By making Zuma its president, the ANC turned a problem that should have been confined to the party into a political catastrophe for the whole country.

In other words, it is impossible to explain the mayhem that took place in parliament during Sona without pointing to the person at the centre of the chaos - Zuma.

When Mmusi Maimane said "Mr President, you are a broken man", he essentially meant that Zuma's brokenness embodied the brokenness of the country's political system as well.

If you want to gauge the extent of our country's brokenness, look at Zuma. Without him, there would most probably have been no chaos in parliament.

It is not that people hate him; it is because he has a blemished track record - in and outside government.

Malema is also dodgy; there is no doubt about it. But the chaos his ragtag and bobtail crew caused in parliament was a response to an even dodgier character - Zuma.

Let us remember the central lesson: a morally and intellectually compromised leader of a political party is a burden not only on his party, but for society as a whole.

Well, Lenin wants to know: what is to be done?

The starting point would be for society to abandon the idea that internal party matters belong to party bosses.

What happens within political parties must be viewed and treated as a fermentation of society's problems.

If we remain silent when the DA packs its leadership structures with white faces, we must not complain when we see the party's parliamentary benches being overwhelmingly white in a predominantly black country.

Similarly, society must appropriate it as its business to have a say when the ANC goes to elect leaders at its conferences.

When nominations are announced, churches and other moral associations must rise against the inclusion of morally questionable characters such as Zuma, for if we don't do this, these individuals will end up in our parliament, and turn it into a House of Clowns, while we all watch in despair.

Many among the literati find it hard to believe that functional illiterates have made it all the way to parliament.

But why have academics not championed the proposal that no one must be allowed to be elected into parliament without a post-matric qualification?

What a joy would it be to be governed by the best in society!

This is not bizarre; it is already practised in Africa.

As you read this column, it is illegal in Kenya for a person to be president or mayor without a university degree.

Yes, Zuma can be a herdsman in Kenya - not a president. But, for some inexplicable reason, black South Africans fancy themselves better than other Africans.

Arrogance can be ignorant.

In this hour of rampant disorder, only fresh and audacious ideas can build a bridge to the other side of Mandela's Promised Land.