LETTER: President deserves better than accusations of self-preservation

Here’s the question, not for us in SA a philosophical one, but the ever-pressing political challenge: we speak of “the national interest”, but how does a national interest exist outside the programme of the democratically elected governing party?

Do we mean it falls short of an absolute standard of probity and efficiency? Or that it fails to measure up against alternative political agendas, nativism, communist nationalisation, neoliberalism?

It seems unarguable today that the national interest must be to eliminate corruption, put departments in capable ministerial hands strictly on merit, and abolish cadre deployment, even though it is a mystery how all of this could be achieved at once in the reality of SA’s persisting party-state.

Plainly the media would serve no purpose tamely endorsing every move the government makes. But President Cyril Ramaphosa’s painstaking efforts to rebuild and strengthen party unity deserve better than leader columns that see his reshuffle as crude self-preservation, and rather consider it for what it is — statecraft. When did SA have a surfeit of that?

The ANC is split. If the ANC is split it is because the country is split; if the country is split, the people are split and the forces of law and order are split. Handling that, and restoring balance and calm, is the national interest always. Success in it becomes vital at this time in SA, where this one party is likely to be in government for as far ahead as anyone can see.

Paul Whelan
Umhlanga

JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an e-mail with your comments. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Send your letter by e-mail to letters@businesslive.co.za. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.