LETTER: President backs a loser

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s futile fixation on unity, reform and renewal within the ANC is destroying our country’s potential to become a successful constitutional democracy that respects the rule of law and provides an acceptable level of human dignity to those who have been deprived of it for so long.

We have a plethora of civil society organisations and a host of business, religious and other leaders, not to mention many respected economists and political commentators, who on a daily basis plead for the sociopolitical and economic structural reforms that would put our country on a path to economic growth, racial harmony and social cohesion.

Ramaphosa and his incompetent cabinet are tone deaf when it comes to these proposals and turn a blind eye for fear of ruffling factional feathers within the ranks of the ANC, be they the radical economic transformation crowd or other self-serving groups and individuals, and causing further inevitable fractures and dissent within that organisation.

In words and deeds, the president puts the ANC first and the country second. But he is backing a loser, and his inability to instil accountability, consequence management and transparency within the ANC-led government is a neglect of his constitutional duty and emphasises his conflicted role as party leader and head of state.

When the vixen-like, poisonous-tongued senior minister in his cabinet, Lindiwe Sisulu, publicly denounces constitutional democracy, the rule of law and insults black judges, we hear not a peep from our president in response, we have yet another example of how cadres within the party are protected — to the detriment of ordinary law-abiding citizens.

The country continues to be held ransom and captured by incompetence, cowardice, corruption and political self interest.

David Gant 
Kenilworth

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