It’s not often that I agree with anything President Jacob Zuma says, but last week the two of us finally agreed on something.
In his closing address at the ANC’s Policy Conference, Zuma suggested the party’s constitution be amended to accommodate two deputy presidents.
Plus he wants the person who comes second in the race for ANC president, to automatically be one of those deputies.
I know Zuma has ulterior motives for his suggestion.
I suspect he’s worried about Cyril Ramaphosa’s growing popularity and wants to tie the man into the party, so he doesn’t run off and start his own.
Well, that’s one of the theories, anyway.
Whatever they are, I don’t believe he is making this suggestion because of his sudden wish to share power and make as many South Africans as possible feel included. But that’s an opinion for another day.
If we put the unknown motives aside for a moment and just look at the suggestion on its own, then I have to say it’s very close to what I have been thinking for years.
I’ve always wondered about democracies that exclude so many of its citizens.
Let me explain by way of a simplified example that assumes every citizen ends up voting.
Let’s say the winning political party gets 50% of the vote, the party that comes second has 35% and the third one has the remaining 15%.
What happens next is the winning party assumes power and proceeds to rule unilaterally; appointing ministers and making legislation.
But, in truth, they are only representing half of the population.
There is still 35% of citizens who feel one way and 15% who feel a different way entirely.
It amounts to the disenfranchisement of half of the population. By the way, in the case of America, it’s currently more than half of the population.
And that is one of the key failures of western democracies. Put simply, it’s not fair.
Large masses of people remain marginalised because it does not accommodate difference of opinion.
While this may be a new realisation for Zuma, I have always thought that the person who comes second in a presidential race, should automatically be the deputy president.
In that way you get the majority of citizens represented in the government.
I know we tried it before with the government of national unity and it didn’t quite work. But the reason for that is simply because egos get in the way.
The problem is that the winner may always remind his deputy of his own superiority and may not give the deputy any power to represent his own electorate.
It’s exactly what we see in Parliament all the time.
Opposition politicians are shouted down, booed and seldom given a hearing on any topic.
So the people who voted for them, whom they represent, are also not heard.
I am imagining a perfect world where logic and reason trumps the majority view, especially if that view is destructive to the nation.
So while it would be ideal to have a second in command who actually came second in the presidential race, it would require a very big man at the very top to make it work in practice.
He would have to consult with his deputy and learn to compromise; to make decisions that please as many of the citizens as possible.
And he would have to do it willingly. It’s the closest thing to pleasing most of the people most of the time.
But, instead, this fair democracy that we are supposed to be living in, is leaving most of the people feeling desperately unhappy, struggling to survive and wondering about meaningful leadership most of the time.