ANC PRESIDENCY
TONY LEON: Contenders to succeed Zuma offer dismal prospects of growth reform
Top duo represent ‘evil of two lessers’, which is not exactly a recipe for dynamic or even dynastic change
Is SA capable of making the deep and swift reforms needed to lift growth, restore business confidence, create jobs and dent poverty? And who might lead this process of urgent renewal? On the leadership question, the answer — reading the tea leaves of the finally open contest of contenders for the ANC presidency — is pretty dismal. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma offers stale and clichéd rhetoric and slogans from six decades ago. Her chief rival, Cyril Ramaphosa, has offered few ideas in the public space at all about where he would lead the country and what economic course he would set for it. Both are likely to fall back on the myth of "collective decision-making". In Dlamini-Zuma’s case, she will be in hock to the state looters and plunderers who have presided over the economic degeneracy of the country these past eight years. She might be more focused on better administration than her wayward former husband. But that’s hardly a big ask: in the opinion of his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, Dlami...
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