“Globally, South Africa is viewed as a country that successfully moved from the apartheid era to democracy – therefore, South Africa is capable of playing a role in leading peaceful negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.”

These are the words of Professor Derick de Jongh, Director of the Albert Luthuli Leadership Institute at the University of Pretoria (UP), during a recent LeadUP webinar titled ‘Beyond 2023: How current trends in African politics are reshaping a continent’ when asked whether South Africa had taken a leadership posture in leading peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

“We have overcome many atrocities; we have been able to show the world that our Constitution and judiciary are solid,” Prof De Jongh said. “We stand for freedom and equality, and we fight all forms of inequality; from that perspective, I do believe that we can play a role. But the question is, should we?”

However, Prof De Jongh added, South Africa is far from playing a role in leading peaceful negotiations.

“We have our own internal political problems and we need to rediscover our own moral path,” he said. “We need to show leadership in that respect; we need to demonstrate that we care for society and common good. As the saying goes, ‘Charity begins at home,’ so let’s first focus on our problems and challenges. With that said, this doesn’t take away from the fact that South Africa could potentially help out, but we have more leadership challenges that we need to focus on internally.”

Prof Nicola de Jager, Associate Professor of Political Science at Stellenbosch University, detailed the impact that South Africa’s non-aligned stance has had on US-South Africa relations, saying there is an appetite for fence-sitting and that South Africa’s actions are showing indications of supporting Russia.

“We have seen recent visits to Moscow by the heads of our army; this has caused the US to distrust South Africa,” she said. “This will have a negative impact on our economy and result in many people being unemployed. Basically, South Africa stands to lose almost R60 billion a year in exports, and sectors such as the automobile industry will see major job losses.”

She added that the US is moving away from wanting to work with the ruling government, but still wants to work within South Africa, and that the way forward is to interact with the private sector, civil society and those supporting democracy.

Prof De Jongh believes that the cause of the problem for Africa, especially South Africa, could be the issue of governance. 

“Are we having good solid governance in Africa? I think it is problematic at the moment. There’s a narrow understanding of who we are accountable to and what we are accountable for.”

Leadership lies in collaborations and collectives, he added.

“Our government needs to realise that you do not govern on the bases on personal, party or private interest, but the broader public interest, otherwise there is no transparency at all,” Prof De Jager said. “Another reason democracy seems to fail in Southern Africa is that, post-independence and post-democratic transition, there’s been no turnover for the political power and there is no realistic possibility of that happening, a case being that of ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe. This makes people think that democracy has failed them.”

Prof Christopher Isike of UP’s Department of Political Sciences said everything has to do with the foundations of democracy and governance; if there is a negative shift from these, there won’t be any order.

“We need to ask ourselves why states were created, and what kind of governance system and democracy we can adopt for African states to work.”