South Africa does not need a strongmen president. Just strong institutions and strong, timeous action and leadership at crucial times like this weekend.
Editor’s Note by Mazwi Xaba
In his historic address to the AU, former US president Barack Obama underlined the importance of strong institutions – as opposed to strongmen leaders – for the development of our continent.
With the pivotal presidential elections in the fast-backsliding formerly great democracy two months away, he must be ruing the many missed opportunities he had to strengthen important institutions of democracy, such as the post office system his successor is now using.
Obama could have done more to unite and strengthen his own party, which won the popular vote but lost the election against Donald Trump.
I write here not to bury Obama and Trump together, or to praise them.
I’d like to sympathise and commiserate with another president who has been walking a party-state tightrope for the last two years, trying to rebuild a string of institutions.
President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke about strong institutions in Parliament this week. Obvious ones in need of repair are the prosecutions agency and the police, but there’s also the 108-year-old institution (his party) that needs attention.
Ramaphosa is right. He can’t be running around arresting people.
What he can, and must continue doing, is strengthen key institutions – while not forgetting the party that’s long overdue for renewal.
Africa and the world do not need strongmen.
And South Africa doesn’t need a strongman president. Just strong institutions and strong, timeous action and leadership at crucial times like this weekend.
The Independent on Saturday