Democracy & Social Justice

Robert Mugabe, the prime minister and president of Zimbabwe from independence in 1980 until 2017, when he was overthrown in a coup, has passed away at the age of 95. To speak the name “Mugabe” invokes charged political debates characterised by a range of conflicting tensions: hope and despair, demonisation and adulation, contempt and respect, dissent and loyalty. Sometimes these attitudes are interchangeable and overlapping, sometimes they express more fixed polarities. These divisions draw from the violence, fissures and closures that have given rise to Zimbabwe’s post-colonial political spectrum and left painful traces in the political imaginary of Zimbabwean people.

In 2016, various allegations were made by opposition politicians and the media of a close and corrupt relationship between then President Jacob Zuma and the Gupta family from India (several of whom had had their applications to become South African citizens fast-tracked).

Since the launch of Transparency International (TI)’s Corruption Perceptions Index in 1995, Kenya has invariably foundered in the bottom third of the countries surveyed. TI-Kenya’s Bribery Index reports widespread bribery; some institutions, including the police, land registries and county licensing services are notoriously predatory.

Senegal is often referred to as an example of democracy in Africa. The country holds regular free and fair elections, has a vibrant civil society and a population protective of its democratic achievements. On the back of numerous anti-corruption efforts, Senegal fares comparatively well in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (67/180). However, according to a study by the Senegalese National Office to Fight Fraud and Corruption, 95.3 percent of the general public and 61.7 percent of professionals attest to the presence of corruption in their immediate environment. Although the country has had its fair share of grand corruption scandals, the term “state capture” has not yet found its way into the Senegalese vocabulary.

Having just elected a new president who has not yet made it clear whether or not he will be capable of addressing corruption, poverty and inequality, South Africans must either learn to live with uncertainty or embrace possibility. I am too cautious to suggest that we might begin to hope, but certainly, as the distance between 1994 and today widens, I see the merit in examining what is possible and looking for places where feats of imagination and acts of hard work might yet produce positive results.

The Cape Town office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation in conversation on the 2019 South African Elections “While the team had diverse views on the contested areas of South Africa’s political landscape, all agreed that a consolidation of Ramaphosa’s political power now very much depends on his new cabinet. This will not just be determined by his political will alone, but also his ability to manoeuvre through the tricky corridors of the ruling party’s house of cards.”