Leadership vacuum is one of South Africa's worst drawbacks

History provides evidence that when communities are leaderless, a space is created for them to lead themselves.

This can be seen in a family where parents have died; children take leadership responsibility because their parents are no more.

This is the case today in South Africa. Communities have created their own leaders because the ward leadership are not serving their interests but their own selfish egos.

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After King Bambatha's death, Africans were leaderless and there was a leadership vacuum. Hence we saw young people forming themselves into what was known as the Congress Youth League (CYL) in 1944.

It was a radical young league that wanted to help militarise and radicalise the African National Congress and remind it of the purpose of its existence.N

After the CYL was unsuccessful in its mission to revive the ANC, the CYL plunged into factional battles and created what was known as the Africanists and Charterist groups.

There was again a leadership vacuum that caused the formation of the radical and revolutionary Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), which was not apologetic and physically confronted the apartheid government in 1960.

After the PAC was banned, the people were depoliticised and felt leaderless. Steve Biko, Onkgopotse Tiro and their contemporaries took over the leadership role through Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) whose aim was to restore self-confidence to Africans.

The BCM provided leadership to the extent of awakening black students who stood up for their fundamental freedoms in 1976. Many died during the "Soweto Revolution" [June 16 uprising]. In the late 1970s, the movement experienced a dark cloud when many of its members were brutally murdered. Biko was killed and Tiro was assassinated.

Many BCM and PAC comrades suffered this ordeal and the country became leaderless. This led to the rise of workers' protests in the 1980s when Cosatu became popular under the leadership of the likes of Jay Naidoo. Later, after the unbanning of all political parties, South Africans voted for the first democratic government in 1994.

We were of the impression that the late former president Nelson Mandela was our Moses and would make our problems disappear. We realised in the beginning of the 2000 millennium that not even Thabo Mbeki or the ANC would would not solve our problems.

And Jacob Zuma becoming president made matters worse . South Africans now realise there is a leadership vacuum and are leading themselves.

The current leadership vacuum has yielded Joseph Mathunjwa, Julius Malema, Irvin Jim, the Marikana massacre, students riots and community protests. Young people, especially university students, are leading themselves to demand lower fees and transformation.

Workers also suffer the same fate. Township dwellers are burning schools, libraries and other government assets in a bid to symbolise their ability to lead.

Strong leadership in SA is needed and should be provided. What one sees today is a party voted for by the majority of eligible voters.

But when serious decisions about the future of the country are to be taken, we are often told about the ANC national executive committee meeting.

The only solution to the problems we are currently facing is electoral reform. The PAC has always advocated a constituent assembly. It is the kind of system that forces public representatives not to be accountable to their political parties but to their constituencies.

We are always told that we are a multiparty democracy, but the views of opposition parties are always ignored by the majority in parliament.

Can we therefore say that democracy is efficient?

It's not because the views of the minority are undermined by the majority without rationale and reason, but by mere numbers.

Kenneth Mokgatlhe is PAC spokesman