It's mind-boggling how much control the constitution affords - and without checks and balances, writes Letepe Maisela.
The events unfolding in our country can be associated with the presidential powers awarded by our constitution, sans any tangible checks and balances to protect the broader society.
On paper, our constitution probably looks and sounds good, but in practice it has not lived up to expectations.
To challenge any assertions about its transformative qualities keep in mind that we, as South Africans, still live in one of the most unequal societies in the world, for example.
There are more shortcomings but the main objective of this column isn't to lay bare those to
our readers.
I want to deal with only one of its main flaws - that being the mammoth powers our constitution confers on our Presidency.
This is the sum total of our leadership problems - in the past, the present and probably the future.
Our benign constitution is the main reason that on that fateful Thursday, December 10, 2015, South Africans woke up to find themselves without a finance minister.
The ANC issued a curt statement saying President Jacob Zuma simply "exercised his constitutional prerogative to appoint a new minister".
What happened next was a financial disaster of monumental proportions. Its ripple effects are being felt to this day.
This could soon be repeated, and there will be no recourse for a nation that could be greatly compromised by such a move.
Under our much-revered constitution, the presidential powers are absolute and cannot
be challenged.
The president enjoys a "constitutional prerogative" that had long got me thinking: what type of constitution gives a president of a democratic country like South Africa the right to take such drastic measures without consultation, and without checks and balances
in place?
Off I went in search of that
little yellowish and greenish booklet with the legendary The South African Constitution embossed on its cover page.
According to Chapter 5, Section 83 of our constitution, the president is the head of the state and head of the national executive.
The powers the constitution entrusts to the president are mind-boggling. These include the appointment of the deputy president, cabinet ministers and their deputy ministers.
Constitutionally speaking, the president also has powers to remove them from office if he wakes up one morning on the wrong side of the bed. This happened during Thabo Mbeki's term as president when he removed his deputy president, now our incumbent President Jacob Zuma, from office. The latter has had his fair share of dismissals.
Cascading downwards, our constitution gives the president the power to appoint ambassadors, and diplomatic and consular representatives.
The heads of our Chapter 9 institutions, which are in place primarily to support and safeguard our newfound democracy, are also appointed by the president.
Among them are the Human Rights Commission, the auditor-general, the public protector, the Electoral Commission of South Africa and the Commission for Gender Equality. One would have thought that the Chapter 9 institutions should have been left out of the loop of presidential nominatory powers, as this somewhat compromises their true independence from the executive.
In the same breath, the president appoints the country's chief justice and the deputy, which also should have been left out in the quest to strengthen judicial independence.
Still in the justice arena, the president further appoints the national director of public prosecutions and the police chief.
If the president's plate is not overladen enough, he is responsible for appointing provincial premiers.
The presidency also has a hand downstream in the appointment of heads of parastatals, and board chairpersons and members.
As I have stated, the list is mind-boggling.
This brings me back to the contentious issue about our constitution, which is revered worldwide as a model of modern democracy on the African continent.
While it garners raving accolades and reviews the world over, in my non-judicial opinion it has back home dismally failed the test of ensuring presidential accountability by providing a balanced proportion of powers awarded to that office.
And I am in good company with this prognosis.
In a keynote address delivered by former Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke at Unisa on November 14, 2014, he also lamented the concentration of powers in the Presidency. His lordship pondered over whether perhaps the constitution should have provided that most of those strategic appointments be made by the
"deliberate collective rather than by an individual functionary".
He said this questioning "how best we may shield appointments of public functionaries to institutions that guard our democracy from the personal preferences of the appointing authority".
Sticking his clean-shaven head right into a hornets' nest, he candidly suggested that the presidential powers be reviewed.
Instead of analysing the veracity of his sayings, some of his detractors rather played the man instead of the ball.
They questioned his impartiality as a deputy chief justice. Some dismissed him simply as your quintessential case of sour grapes since he was "overlooked" by the incumbent president for the position of chief justice.
I agreed with him then and I still do today.
What he uttered then was the naked truth and his words have come back to haunt us as the latest developments with regard to the firing of the finance minister
have shown.
For a single individual to have access to such unfettered power cannot be healthy for our young democracy.
The point I am trying to make is that South Africans cannot just blame Zuma for performing what the country’s constitution permits him to do.
I have come to believe that our constitution, which concentrates so much power into the office of
the Presidency, was designed for saintly Mandela.
The unintended consequences of it landing in the hands of ordinary mortals like Zuma and Mbeki before him were never pre-empted.
Handed the most potent powers to wield by our constitution there was always a danger of its excessive application.
The US's constitution also confers massive amounts of power on the American president.
However, the US's comes with serious checks and balances exercised by Congress. For instance, though the president, like ours in South Africa, appoints the chief justice, this has to be approved by the senate. Proof of that was seen recently when Donald Trump failed to annul Obama Care.
Theirs places certain constraints on presidential powers amounting to a veto.
South Africa can no longer afford to hand over to our next president of South Africa such constitutionally unfettered powers.
It does not matter whether our next president is going to be Cyril Ramaphosa, Julius Malema, Gwede Mantashe, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma or Maimane Mmusi.
* Maisela is a management consultant and published author.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.