BRENDA MADUMISE-PAJIBO | Now is the time for national unity

With no outright winner in the national and some provincial government elections, pundits, political analysts and political parties are in high gear and must examine different governing permutations that may take the country forward.

The forward movement we envisage must, as a matter of justice, benefit the totality of South African people and the nation, not personal, private, corporate or partisan interests.

We therefore should not be focused on which coalition will work best but rather our focus should be on what is the effective governance and administrative model that will foster confidence, trust and the certainty that its execution would be seamless and in which fiscal prudence is central while corruption is eschewed.

We live in a turbulent country. We live in uncertain times. Our politics will be turbulent, our economy may become more turbulent. Crime levels are desperately unacceptable, and our unemployment rate is troubling and debilitating. Gendered violence is widespread, pervasive and eerily normalised. The disparities and inequalities in our country are inexcusable. We cannot be a people in a hurry to form coalitions and parcel out positions to each other as political parties.

People in a hurry break things. We don’t have the luxury to break things. We have the responsibility and obligation to fix things to make our country a better place for all.

The answer to this quagmire stares us in the face. We cobbled a national strategic plan (NSP) on gender-based violence (GBV) not too long ago. It offers us a workable framework.

The NSP advocates for a multisectoral approach to a multifaceted complex challenge of gendered violence and inequality. From conceptualisation to planning, execution and resourcing, it requires a co-ordinated multisectoral approach. The NSP recognises GBV and femicide is a societal issue that demands interventions that are co-ordinated and executed by society.

We need the same approach in forming a government after the elections. We need a government that is multifaceted and multisectoral in form and content. The driving motivation for political parties is that our stories matter and so do the storytellers. No single political party has a monopoly on our stories and storytellers.

Our stories can only be told through a multiparty lens that is morally impelled to get its facts right, decide what should be done and execute with precision and compassion. If there was a time for a government of national unity, it is now.

Madumise-Pajibo is a director at Wise4Afrika