Johannesburg's political landscape is being shaped by desperation

It was Jim Collins who wrote famously about the theory of corporate decline in How the Mighty Fall - And Why Some Companies Never Give in (2009), the inverse of Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't, the blockbuster book published in 2001.

- Songezo Zibi

I was reminded of the lesser-known but equally insightful sequel by the announcement of Helen Zille's candidacy for mayor of Johannesburg two weeks ago. It was a crystallising moment in the context of South Africa's political development.

I believe Johannesburg and the country are deep in Stage 4 (grasping for salvation).

Today the economy is a bowl of dust. We are now one of the world's leaders in unemployment and its cousin, inequality. Despite trillions of investments over the years much of which was wasted or stolen national infrastructure is crumbling, while critical institutions of state are on their knees because of the election and appointment of incompetent and inexperienced people to run them.

The collapse has now infested critical network infrastructure previously taken for granted, such as water. This is even in high-end suburbs like Bryanston and Hyde Park in Johannesburg.

By the time the City of Johannesburg elected Kabelo Gwamanda as its mayor, the writing was long on the wall. It was an astonishing statement of political dysfunction and a masterclass in sustained, public self-destruction.