NICHOLAS WOODE-SMITH: Saving Eskom should spur opposition parties to join forces

Opposition parties should prioritise saving SA over their petty personal politics. Rather than wasting energy competing to be SA’s second-largest party they should be focusing on working together to improve the country for everyone.

A crucial project opposition parties could be working on together is finding a practical and positive solution to Eskom’s woes and solving the electricity crisis.

Instead of jostling for petty positions of power and squandering any remaining goodwill on Twitter, opposition parties could and should be focusing on addressing the collapsing grid by presenting a united vision.

Between the DA, ActionSA, the IFP, the Freedom Front Plus and many other smaller parties is an energy and will that could be dedicated towards lobbying for privatisation of electricity in SA and the abolishment of Eskom’s destructive monopoly.

Eskom isn’t failing just because of ANC corruption and incompetence. It is failing because its position as a government monopoly makes incompetence and corruption inevitable. Eskom wasn’t as efficient as rose-tinted glasses would make one remember pre-1994. Even though it wasn’t collapsing, its central planning and disastrous price structure established the foundation of its demise.

Monopolies fail because everything needs competition to hold it accountable, incentivise competence and act as a replacement in times of failure. If Eskom had competitors we could just use them when Eskom fails to keep the lights on. In fact, if Eskom had competitors we probably wouldn’t need alternatives at all because there would have been a motivation to be competent in the first place.

Eskom fails because of its monopoly. It has no competition to forge good behaviour, and no alternative electricity producers to act as damage control in times of failure.

Unseating ANC

The ANC is in the same position. For decades it has had a veritable monopoly in politics and acts like it. It governs with impunity, knowing that it can get away with vast malpractice and corruption. The ANC hasn’t been incentivised to do a good job because it knew it would keep winning elections.

And it will keep winning so long as the opposition doesn’t take its role seriously. That means focusing on the prize rather than the fight. That prize is unseating the ANC and implementing the policies SA needs to thrive.

Opposition parties that share the essential and reasonable values of free markets, liberty and a desire for good governance should work together. They cannot win the lion’s share of the votes individually. Only a strong coalition will unseat the ANC. And only then will we be able to implement the policies SA needs to recover and thrive.

Most fundamental of those policies is the abolishment of Eskom’s monopoly and the privatisation of the electricity industry. Private competitors will not suffer the lack of incentive and draw of corruption that state monopolies inevitably face. Rather, they will test each other and forge each other into better entities through the fires of competition.

Party politics could and should work that way too. But competition doesn’t mean ridicule, infighting and sabotage. Opposition parties are ultimately different, but just as all electrical companies have the goal of feeding the grid and making a profit, all opposition parties should have the goal of unseating the incumbent and implementing better policies.

Infighting epidemic

Competition between opposition parties should encourage virtue, not feed hate and resentment. While they compete over some votes and positions this should never be at the expense of the grand project: saving SA. This project can only be achieved through a strong, united coalition of reasonable parties.

While many of these parties already exist in coalition local governments countrywide, there is an epidemic of infighting and petty vindictiveness. This should stop. And it can stop with the establishment of a joint project between all willing parties.

Opposition parties must work together towards electricity privatisation. This can be done through voting together in the legislature, driving joint publicity campaigns (which will also aid in the realisation that we’re all in this together) and even implementing stopgap electricity privatisation measures in municipalities where such coalitions govern.

The grid is collapsing. SA is collapsing. We need electricity privatisation as much as we need a united coalition to usher it in. This core project can be exactly what we need to convince disparate parties to come together and make a positive change in the country.

• Woode-Smith is a political analyst, economic historian and author.