The Role of Traditional Leadership Institution, Governance, And Fight Against Covid-19

• Pages: 217-229
• Date: 01 December 2021
• Published date: 01 December 2021
• Author: Martinus, M. Selepe

Special Issue

December, 2021

European Journal of Economics, Law and Social Sciences

IIPCCL Publishing, Graz-Austria

ISSN 2519-1284

Acces online at www.iipccl.org

286

The Role of Traditional Leadership Institution, Governance, And Fight

Against Covid-19

Martinus, M. Selepe

University of Limpopo

Abstract

This paper examines the role of traditional leadership institutions, governance, with specif‌ic

reference to the f‌ight against COVID-19. The rationale behind the investigation is by Section 212

(1) of the Constitution of South Africa, 1996, which states that national legislation may provide

for a role for traditional leadership as an institution at the local level on maers aecting local

communities. For data collection, the study will rely considerably on both primary data and

secondary data. The study will use both conceptual and empirical approaches to explore the

role of traditional leaders and governance in combating COVID-19. The paper also discusses

the challenges of traditional leadership in the f‌ight against COVID-19. It further explores the

role played by the Free State Province traditional leaders as well as the role played by the

Royal Bafokeng Nation in the f‌ight against COVID-19. The recommendations of this study will

enable both traditional leaders and government to synergies to achieve the set governmental

objectives. The paper concludes by presenting the f‌indings from the literature review and the

empirical study.

Keywords: Covid-19, Traditional Leadership, Governance, Municipalities, Councillors, Role,

Traditional Councils, Pandemic and Rural areas.

Introduction

Traditional leadership is a central component of African thought. In the African con-

text, leaders are born in the royal family or consanguinity and he/she is expected to

take over when they come of age. During sickness or pandemics, the subjects look

upon the king to solve the problem. As a result of that, a king must have the wisdom

to address all his subject’s needs. With 59 million people struck by the Covid-19 pan-

demic, the South Africa indigenous societies were also not left behind by the scourge,

which led to their subjects looking at them for solutions. Although the South African

government created policies to combat the outbreak of the virus, there is lile under-

standing in the involvement and non- involvement of traditional leaders in how they

handle the spread of the virus within their local communities (Bhuda et al. 2021)

Traditional leaders eectively functioned as the only local governance structure in

rural areas, vested with signif‌icant powers and responsible for a variety of functions

such as land allocation and dispute resolution before 1994. Essentially, the institution

of traditional leadership was the form of local government with the highest authority

in a community or village. Traditional leaders did not like the new democratic local

government structures in rural areas which were debated during the early 1990s. This

was inevitable as it would mean a loss of power for traditional leaders. It is thus un-

surprising that many traditional leaders resisted the establishment of municipalities