Speeches
Message to Dr Tlou Cholo Legacy Lecture
Dr Snuki Zikalala, ANC Veterans League President South Africa’s Thirty Years of Democracy – Quo Vadis
- 11 October 2024
Minister Ronald Lamola
Family of Dr Tlou Cholo
Colleagues and comrades
Thank you for inviting me to Dr Cholo Legacy lecture to bring a message from the Veterans League.
It is appropriate to ask the question ‘’quo vadis’ or where to after thirty years of democracy. As veterans who have been involved in the struggle for democracy for over 40 years of unbroken service, we would have hoped that we would be reaping the benefits of our democracy while caring for our grandchildren.
Instead, as Nelson Mandela has warned us that “after climbing a great hill, one finds that there are many more hills to climb”. Indeed, after we overcome the apartheid regime, we have find more hills to climb, some as a result of the factors outside our control, such as geo-political circumstances and the Covid-19 pandemic. But, we have also scored some own goals, especially with allowing patronage and rent-seeking to run rampant, leading to state capture and the so-called ‘nine wasted years’’.
This has led to a lack of trust in the government and disillusionment among the people in the party that brought about their freedom. It has also led to the government of national unity. A debate rages in society about whether the ruling party’s decision to embark on the GNU was correct and what the future will be.
For the Veterans League, we acknowledge that the GNU is a contested terrain and that in today’s world, strategy and tactics is exceedingly complex. Nevertheless, we regard the establishment of a GNU as the best possible option facing the ANC at this time. It is a GNU, but it is also an ANC-led government, and the ANC has managed to maintain hegemony within the government.
This leads us to believe the ‘where to’ is more positive than negative. There are more significant opportunities for investment and job creation, and there is an opportunity for greater accountability. However, we also have structural problems that will take time to resolve, and there are threats, especially as a result of the rise of the MKP—a populist and anti-constitutionalist party that, unfortunately, is led by a former ANC President.
The responsibility to maximise the positives and mitigate the threats rests with the extent to which the ANC is able to continue to lead both the party and the country. This brings me to the issue of the ANC’s renewal. The ANC needs to renew itself or die, and if it does, so does the achievement of the national democratic revolution and the people’s trust in the ANC.
The renewal of the ANC involves, on the one hand, ridding the ANC of members who have brought the organisation into disrepute and are part of the ANC to pursue their own interests rather than those of the people. On the other hand, it involves modernising the ANC, rebuilding our structures so that new, younger and dynamic leaders can emerge, committing to service delivery and having innovative solutions to address the pressing problems of our time.
As an organisation we must consciously implement meritocratic reforms that are designed to improve the quality of leadership. We need political leaders who are motivated by desire to serve the people.
According to scholars “the basic idea of political meritocracy is that everybody should have an equal opportunity to be educated and to contribute to politics but not everybody will emerge from this process with an equal capacity to make morally informed political judgements. Hence the task of politics is to identify those with above average ability and to make them serve the community. If leaders perform well, the people will basically go along.”
Dr Cholo is one of the above-average cadres of the movement who make morally informed political judgments. As Dr Cholo will be turning 90 years on the 23 October, we wish him a blessed, happy birthday.
Dr Snuki Ziklala
President of the ANCVL