AYABONGA CAWE: Election debates fail to get to grips with globalised crises

Natural disasters, terror attacks, blackouts and indecisive leaders are the cast in a drama akin to the reckoning predicted in Christian Blomkamp’s sci-fi movies. Remember District 9?

Cyclone Idai is a symptom of the ecological dimensions of this drama, as is the Christchurch terror attack of its ideological profile.

In response to this social crisis with its economic and political roots, society has retreated to conservative notions of liberation and post-apartheid life. It is not surprising that the Freedom Front Plus would emblazon “Slaan terug” on its election posters. Hitting back against what? More importantly, against whom, and in whose interest?

This is not a new campaign. It is part of a project (remember Tony Leon’s “fightback” campaign?) in the face of post-apartheid governance failures, to put lipstick on the apartheid pig and fashion it as a system that worked for all, rather than the tannies and ooms and their families who remain its intergenerational beneficiaries.

Despite campaigns that are relatively muted compared with previous ones, this electoral season has thrown up a mix of constructive and antagonistic debates, which for their entertainment value miss the opportunity to respond to the significance of the globalised crisis with localised outcomes.

For example, the debate on devolution of power and the return of federalism, as the IFP suggests, raises important issues about the functioning, revenue-generation capability, sustainability and suitability of the provinces and local government authorities. It is a crucial and important debate.

The moment has also made space for antagonistic debates that appeal to the dark and hidden conversations that frustrate, incense and anger many South Africans. The ANC and DA, contrary to their organisational principles of an inclusive Africanism and the free movement of people and capital, play to the gallery of anti-immigrant sentiment in the urban core.

The EFF harps on the contentious “Indian question” because it knows it’s a trope that has legs in key constituencies in KwaZulu-Natal and other places, notwithstanding the party’s professed commitment to black consciousness.

Economically, a mix of pragmatism, red herrings (such as the Reserve Bank nationalisation debate), hardline adherence to capitalism or socialism and at times empty commitment to oppose corruption, often fail to shape up to the shifting and baffling context.

This context throws up many challenges; a global recession looms as short-term bond yields outstrip 10-year yields in the US.  Weak household demand and depressed real wages in SA translate to weak company-level results and retrenchments in multiple sectors.

Moreover, binaries in analysing corruption are unable to provide an analytical and regulatory framework to understand and prevent the resurgence of other Steinhoffs, EOHs and Bosasas. It’s not easy when the criminals wear suits, enjoy share options and don’t call each other “comrade” or fill out Z83 state employment application forms.

Yet despite these shifts there is the allure of returning to the same worn-out tactics — student debt bailouts and the freezing of the user-pay principle in the controversial e-tolls project in Gauteng during the electoral season (only to potentially reverse or “reframe” these after May). The back and forth between the SA National Roads Agency and finance minister Tito Mboweni  shows the multiple hymn sheets from which the governing congregation sings.

For many South Africans beautiful smiles on posters and invasive calls from DA leader Mmusi Maimane may not be enough to entice them to join the queues on May 8, and their despondency is understandable, especially considering that many are not sure the faces on the ballot paper would give hope when the rising waters drag away homes, electricity blackouts spoil food in half-empty fridges and corporate tricksters spin their way out of jail.

• Cawe (@aycawe), a development economist, is MD of Xesibe Holdings and hosts Power Business on Power FM.