South Africa's 'Triple Crisis of Governance' and Societal Leadership Vacuum

Abstract

This article demonstrates that corruption, illegality and insecurity, which escalated with the ruling African National Congress' (ANC's) deconsecration of South Africa's stateness, are reigning under the grip of the "triple crisis of governance" and societal leadership vacuum. It argues that South Africa's defiled stateness has allowed for the ceding of public/state power and authority to non-state actors, intolerance of state-society subsidiarity, abuse of state power, industrial-scale corruption and persecution of whistleblowers. The article cites tales of persecution and killing of whistleblowers and the extraordinarily high proportion of public distrust of key state institutions and the political system that created an ominous societal leadership vacuum as indicators of the "triple crisis of governance" and deconsecrated stateness. It holds that political party state governance is not absolute; instead, it is "relational" and "situational," requiring citizenry legitimacy and public trust, which are vested with state-society subsidiarity, without which control of public/state power and authority would be impossible outside the use of force, violence or fraudulent means. This article concludes that having ceded public/state power and authority to non-state actors and deconsecrating stateness, the ANC allowed for the consolidation of an ominous societal leadership vacuum under which the South African democratic experiment would not endure. Therefore, the ANC's solace about lost votes not accruing to opposition parties is delusional because an increasing majority of South Africans are now willing to forego electoral democracy and to settle for an unelected but effective government that guarantees security, legality, rule of law and accountability. This article recommends that institutions of society embark on nationwide campaigns to sanctify South Africa's stateness and counter the phenomenon of defiled statehood by reinvigorating the vibrancy of citizenship in the democratic experiment. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Tsheola, J.P., Sebola, M.P., Mamabolo, M.A. 2023. South Africa's "Triple Crisis of Governance" and Societal Leadership Vacuum. Insights into Regional Development, 5(4), 23-35. http://doi.org/10.9770/IRD.2023.5.4(2) JEL Classifications: R5 Additional disciplines: political sciences