South Africa’s political system is in turmoil. A long-running power struggle between President Thabo Mbeki and his former deputy, Jacob Zuma, saw the Zuma-camp taking control of the governing political party, the ANC. Three weeks ago the ANC’s executive committee, now controlled by the Zuma-camp, fired Mbeki and appointed Kgalema Motlanthe as caretaker president until the 2009 elections.
Mbeki went quietly. But Mbeki’s supporters, estimated to comprise 40 percent of the ANC, are restless. There are signs the ANC might split with former Defence Minister, Mosiuda Lekota, leading disgruntled right-wingers out of the party.
So what has led to this turmoil and what are its likely outcomes?
The causes of the turmoil lie in Mbeki’s policies and style of government. Mbeki, as leader of the ANC-right has been working to systematically build a black elite through his Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy. This has created a prospering black middle class and a group of affluent businessmen, called the “Gucci comrades”, who depend on ANC patronage and crony capitalism for their good fortune. But at the same time, ANC promises to uplift the majority of blacks out of poverty were forgotten. In fact unemployment and poverty expanded under ANC rule. Herein lie the seeds of conflict between ANC-right and ANC-left.
Mbeki’s approach to left-wing dissent was to buy off dissenters with government jobs and patronage. Dissenters not accepting the buy off would have their careers destroyed. In this way Mbeki made sure no leader could emerge to mobilize the country’s poor. For years Mbeki stabilized his party’s rule in this way, and with the ANC solidly entrenched in power, corruption grew.
A key person making the system work for Mbeki’s was his right hand man and “fixer’, Jacob Zuma. But Zuma became a liability when he was accused of rape and corruption.
Mbeki’s mistake was to fire Zuma, because he was a man who knew too much about how the Mbeki-system worked. Try as he might, Mbeki was unable destroy Zuma in the way he had destroyed so many others before. Instead Zuma manoeuvred himself into becoming a rallying point for the ANC-left.
When the courts tried to pursue Zuma for corruption the ANC Youth League threatened to go to war and said they would “kill” for Zuma. The case against Zuma finally collapsed when Judge Chris Nicholson accused Mbeki of using the legal system to harass his opponents. Dating back to the 1980s Nicholson was a left-ANC activist. Nicholson’s ruling triggered Mbeki’s dismissal.
Mbeki’s dismissal dramatically raised the political temperature. The question now being asked is whether the ANC will split.
A good news scenario would be that Lekota succeeds in splitting the ANC. With elections due in April 2009 this would create conditions for a real political opposition party. It would not matter if Zuma were leader of the new government or leader of the opposition – at least South Africa would have a real opposition, something that has been lacking since 1994. This would be good for democracy.
A bad scenario would be that Zuma entrenches the left-ANC in power through an Mbeki-style system co-option, patronage, and fear.
Dr Louw,
I’ve just come back from 3 or so weeks in and out of South Africa, mainly in Cape Town. It was only my second trip but I arrived just as the most recent stoush between Mbeki & Zuma broke out. I have a post at my Crikey blog The Northern Myth (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2008/09/28/australia-is-soboring/) that refers to some of these events. While I was in SA for business unrelated to the current crisis (a birding conference and giving seminars to the law faculty at UCT) I spent a bit of time talking to South Africans (black, white & coloured in the unfortunate nomenclature used in SA) about these events and most were horrified at the prospect of a Zuma-led government…which appears to be a foregone conclusion after the upcoming 2009 elections.
I did a long interview, that I have yet to transcribe, with a professional-class Afrikaans South African who is in the process of moving he and his family to Australia – predictably Perth. He is gutted about what has happened to his suburb and city (Cape Town) as recently as the last twelve months. He also related that he knew of at least 6 of his friends who were moving their families to Australia, Canada, the US and the UK etc. One of the issues he raised is that the BEE policy is effectively forcing a brain-drain from the country – because absolute preference is given to blacks against white or coloureds…
What most disturbed me about Nicholson’s judgment, as I note in my post, was that he made damning judgments (which as you note bought down Mbeki’s government) without giving Mbeki, or the others against whom adverse findings were made, any right of appearance…in Australia this would never have happened and Nicholson’s judgment wouldn’t be allowed to stand on appeal.
Thanks for the post – I think that things in SA are tenuous at best and that there is every chance that the country could descend into chaos…quickly.
Bob Gosford
The Northern Myth