Songezo Zibi | Beyond despair: The committed, credible and sensible promise of Rise Mzansi

This is an edited extract of Songezo Zibi's speech to the Cape Town Press Club on Wednesday, 10 April 2024.  

Recently, at a meeting Rise Mzansi hosted in Alexandra, Johannesburg, a young man spoke of the dread he felt each morning. No work, no recreation, no options, no hope. 

Just a day filled with nothingness. 

He related how he stayed in bed as long as he could so that he didn't have to go out on to the street, where nothing hopeful would come his way.

"Life becomes meaningless," he said. 

"Nobody cares. Nobody sees us."

He was talking about the government, about authorities, about politicians. 

Earlier, a mother had shared her frustration with her son's drug addiction. She feels that she has failed her children - and the kids feel they have been failed by their parents, too. 

Everyone feels powerless.  

I hear a version of this each time I visit a community in any of our nine provinces. I always ask my hosts when they last ate. I'm usually told that there is only one meal a day. This is said with resignation rather than complaint. 

Hunger has become a fact of South African life - like no electricity during load shedding or, increasingly, no water. 

These are the stories of people who cannot wait - and must no longer wait - for the dignified life our Constitution promises.

This is not just an ethical and compassionate imperative, it's a practical one too. 

South Africa is the most unequal country on earth. 

None of our children will grow or thrive, or be safe, unless we build - as Rise Mzansi puts it - "a safe, prosperous, equal and united South Africa within the next generation". 

This requires smart policy choices. It requires effective, clean government. 

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But most of all it requires new leaders with the will and vision and talent to make it happen. 

These are leaders with the roots, empathy and commitment to give people hope again so that they participate in our democracy again, so that they can work - with the state's support - at bettering their own lives and communities.

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I have given a lot of thought to why the old parties stay in power, in the face of the desolation I describe above.

The first reason is that politics is broken; it has become transactive. People see it something that benefits politicians, not themselves. And so they often refuse to vote unless there is a payoff of some kind. 

Or, increasingly, they just opt out.  

The second is that there has been no viable alternative. 

People want leaders to know and understand their experience, and offer solutions coloured by empathy and compassion, and the willingness to genuinely listen; solutions that bring people together across race and class rather than drive them apart.

The parties in the Multi-Party Charter claim that they are going to "fix" South Africa; they are going to "rescue" it. 

I am struck by the Messianic tone: We will swoop in and take care of things. The time for such paternalistic politics is over in South Africa; they will never wash with voters and they won't work either.

We need new leaders who come from communities themselves and who have legitimacy within them; who will represent their interests in Parliament if elected and report back to them with diligence.

We need new leaders who ask the people what they need rather than tell them what's good for them, and who use something other than racist shock tactics to rally their support base - as the DA has recently done with Rise Mzansi by labelling us "mercenaries" and bank robbers just for having the audacity to compete in the Western Cape. 

It was to find these such new leaders that I quit my corporate life two years ago and co-founded the Rivonia Circle. 

We held workshops all over the country. We listened [and] Rise Mzansi developed organically out of this, and many of those we met are now our candidates. 

They are people who see no home in the old parties. They are determined to make their own homes. They are passionate, committed, credible and sensible.

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As a collective, we present South Africans with a new generation of leadership. We plan to go to Parliament and provincial legislatures with a strong mandate, to restore something that has been broken: The relationship of trust between elected officials and their constituencies.

Our new leadership steers a course between the rock and the hard place of South African politics: On the one side there is the ANC, a ruling party that actually has its roots among the people but has become so self-interested and corrupt that it has become totally disconnected from these peoples' needs. 

And on the other, there is the DA, a party that has alienated the majority of the voter base and so will never be able to win the votes of people now disaffected with the ANC.  

Little wonder that so many voters are seeking a "third way". 

A small but significant number will be enticed by demagogic populism of the EFF and the MK Party - in the latter's case, driven by ethnic chauvinism too. We have to offer voters a constructive alternative to this kind of protest vote.

This means we have to address land. 

For black people, land is spiritual. We bury our dead on our family land, we perform rituals to tell our ancestors where we live. 

When black people say we want land justice, it's not because we hate white people or want to take everything. 

Rather, we are asking you to see our entire being. And if nobody listens, if we don't find a way of instituting viable land reform, we leave people desperate and angry, open to being hoodwinked by corrupt populists who just want power. 

As an alternative, Rise Mzansi's approach is strong and principled. 

We won't allow ourselves to be gaslit by political opponents who insinuate that we are populist radicals just because we affirm a Constitution that already permits expropriation without compensation in some instances. 

But we won't bang on about land restitution without careful planning about how to do this in a way that benefits us all. Land reform and land justice have to be tied to informed and intelligent spatial planning and service delivery.

Our land policy, like any other we develop, is embedded in sound social democratic policy. 

And, of course, we are driven by the number one priority of delivering to South Africans the clean and effective government they deserve. 

But we are driven, too, by ethical leadership and, through this, by our mission to inspire people to become constructively involved in political life again.  

Songezo Zibi | Hunger stalks the land while politicians focus on pointless slogans

Our third way maps a future for all South Africans across the inequality divide because we see hopelessness in all quarters. 

This hopelessness corrodes the soul even when the stomach is full. 

Certainly, those of us who are privileged can make ourselves more comfortable by privatising our education, healthcare, energy or security. But we know that's not an answer for the future of our children because of the way it creates even more inequality in our society, and thus more insecurity.  

Whether we are part of a new government or on the opposition benches, we will carry on building this new movement - a truly non-racial and multigenerational coalition of South Africans committed to the social democratic values enshrined in our Constitution.