The needs of citizens have been placed aside in the battle for power

Rather naively, I assumed that the ANC leadership contest would be settled at Polokwane and that the newly elected leadership could focus on getting South Africa working. I was wrong.

Far from focusing on campaign promises of "A Better Life for All," the Mbeki and Zuma factions are engaged in a low-intensity (sometimes not so low) war of attrition as they continue to vie for dominance.

The impression I have of South Africa is the same as that of the Titanic with an iceberg having already breached its hull, and while the passengers (citizens) look for some decisive action, the captain and his fellow officers continue to play a bizarre game of musical chairs on the deck.

The iceberg in this metaphor consists of the numerous challenges we confront as a nation, like crime, education, governance, HIV/Aids and the impact of skewed economic development.

Crime is at once fundamentally a human and a strategic issue. It is a profoundly human issue since the most vulnerable in society are often targeted.

Consider here how crime impacts on children. In 2006, 23 453 children were raped, 1 075 were murdered and 20 879 assaulted. It is a strategic issue since there are also economic costs. A recent survey of 620 organisations involved in the tourist industry demonstrated that 75% of foreign tour operators would send at least 50% more people to South Africa if crime could be reduced.

Moreover, with statistics like bank robberies up by 118%, business robberies up by 52.5% and cash-in transit heists up by 7.6%, are we surprised that South Africa's investment ranking by the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies is a lowly 18th place of 32 countries surveyed?

To put it further into perspective, South Africa ranks behind Zambia, Ghana, Botswana, Tanzania, Mauritania and Namibia *1.

Education, too, is in a shambles. Despite the fact that South Africa spends more on education than the world average of 4.7% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the returns hardly justify the massive investment.

In various tests of students over the years, measuring their abilities in reading, mathematics, science or computer technology, South Africa has come last *2. Indeed, we were outperformed by other, poorer, African countries such as Ghana, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt.

These deficiencies in our schooling system are reinforced at the tertiary educational level.

Only 3% of the adult population have a university degree, compared to the average of 9.2% for other emerging countries.

Even more important is the clear mismatch between the skills our graduates possess and the demands of the economy. Consider the following statistic: South Africa has one engineer for every 32 000 people, whereas countries like China and India have one engineer for every 150 people.

Should we be surprised then at the frequent power blackouts that we currently experience *3?

Poor and ineffective governance is perhaps most conspicuous at the local level. The municipalities in the North West province epitomise the problem well.

It is here, according to the Auditor-General, that a number of municipalities cannot account for more than R15 million.

Moreover, despite the pressing need on the part of its inhabitants, these municipalities only spent 39% of their capital budgets, leaving more than R1.5 billion earmarked for projects unspent. The lack of capacity at local government level is self-evident.

As for HIV/Aids, South Africa has once again regained its number one spot as the country with the greatest number of HIV-positive people. An estimated 5.3 million South Africans are HIV-positive and this is expected to rise to 5.8 million by 2010.

The human and potential economic costs of the pandemic are disastrous, with Aids accounting for 47% of deaths in the country in 2006.

Moreover, despite the enormity of the threat posed, the response of the state remains lacklustre. This, too, is related to its diminishing capacity. In July 2007, for instance, the North West had more than 1 700 vacant posts for health professionals in the public sector.

Finally, if there is one single factor that contributed to the victory of Jacob Zuma at Polokwane *4, it was skewed economic development - the idea that despite strong economic growth, this has benefited a few super-empowered individuals at the expense of the majority.

Indeed, according to the South African Institute of Race Relations, severe poverty has doubled *5 over the period from 1996 to 2005, from 1.9 million people surviving on less than $1 a day to 4.2 million.

Such wide disparities cannot exist for ever - social agitation and political conflict often arise and need to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

When faced with this multi-faceted iceberg, the political ingenuity of South Africa's political mandarins never ceases to amaze. Whenever they are forced to confront an unpleasant reality, they develop an acronym or a concept: Gear, AsgiSA, Jipsa and "developmental state" become instant solutions whilst the Titanic takes on ever more water.

Academics are asked to get on board - it is after all our patriotic duty (note here the ill-fated Native Club).

Critical interrogation of the concepts and likely outcomes if implemented is not encouraged. In fact, it is frowned upon.

Criticism is deemed unpatriotic, and therein lies the seeds of growing authoritarianism *6 on the part of the South African state, as the gulf between citizens and government widens further.

However, it need not be this way: the different factions within the ANC need to bury the hatchet and, as the ruling party, deal with the challenges that face South Africa.

The ANC also needs to make common cause with the political opposition and broader civil society. After all, we share a common fate.

Now is the time to eschew the politics of personalities and put South Africa first - and yes, this means working together.

* Professor Solomon lectures in the Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria where he is also Director of the Centre for International Political Studies (CiPS).

With acknowledgement to Hussein Solomon and Cape Times.