AfriForum fears National Dialogue will turn into monologue

Afrikaner civil society group AfriForum has not ruled out participating in the planned National Dialogue, but is concerned about an attempt to hijack the process from civil society and make it a government issue.

AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel said the idea of a National Dialogue is a great one, but it had a false start when President Cyril Ramaphosa made pronouncements on it without consultation with other stakeholders such as civil society.

Fears of government ‘capture’

“From the AfriForum side, we believe dialogue is desperately needed in the interest of everybody in the country because we are experiencing crises on many fronts. That is why we are very disappointed there was a false start, or not a positive start, to this process with President Ramaphosa’s announcement.

“Firstly, it seems as if there’s an effort by the government to capture the process and dictate the process, while the idea originally started with the Thabo Mbeki Foundation. And the announcement by the president was done without prior consultation with anybody who has been involved.”

Concerns about political loyalty

Regarding the Eminent Persons’ Group that Ramaphosa announced, Kriel said there were many good people in the group that he respected, but they were selected carefully to ensure that individuals would not criticise the ongoing mismanagement of the country.

Kriel said some of the individuals in the group, such as Roelf Meyer, were Ramaphosa loyalists.

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Call for genuine civil society leadership

“And you know the danger of appointing loyalists of the ANC and Ramaphosa is that this would no longer be a dialogue, it would become a monologue.

“But because this dialogue is so important, we will do what we can to make sure this process is not totally captured by the government and that civil society plays a bigger role,” said Kriel.

As invitations to the National Dialogue had not yet gone out, AfriForum would wait before deciding what to do.

Mbeki’s idea

The idea of a National Dialogue was initiated by former president Thabo Mbeki, who roped in other struggle stalwarts’ foundations to participate in initial discussions.

Mbeki told an SA Communist Party congress in December they would like to see the National Dialogue led by the people and civil society.

He said the pre-1994 Convention for a Democratic SA was led by political parties and that should not happen again.

Political analyst Khanyi Magubane said: “We do need a National Dialogue but not another empty talk shop. The committee needs to tell us what this National Dialogue will achieve for South Africans.”

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