tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/political-patronage-25994/articlesPolitical patronage – The Conversation2022-10-27T14:40:44Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1929662022-10-27T14:40:44Z2022-10-27T14:40:44ZMultiparty democracy is in trouble in South Africa – collapsing coalitions are a sure sign<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491881/original/file-20221026-15-okhb7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mpho Phalatse was toppled as mayor of Johannesburg following a no-confidence vote in September. A high court reinstated her. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Luba Lesolle/Gallo Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s 28-year-old, continuously transforming multiparty democracy was reminded of its own fragility when, in September, a coalition running its biggest city, Johannesburg, collapsed. The speaker and the mayor lost their jobs. A new coalition took office, only to be removed by a high court verdict <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2022-10-25-court-reinstates-das-mpho-phalatse-as-city-of-johannesburg-mayor/">three weeks later</a>. This was followed by the ousting of the mayor of the adjoining metropole of <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/live-joburg-ekurhuleni-council-sittings-with-motion-of-no-confidence-in-mayor-20221026">Ekurhuleni</a>. </p>
<p>This isn’t the first time that the administration of a city has fallen apart due to coalition politics. Acrimonious scenes have <a href="https://theconversation.com/local-council-turmoil-shows-south-africa-isnt-very-good-at-coalitions-128489">played out</a> across the country in metropoles such as Nelson Mandela Bay and Tshwane, large towns such as <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/da-booted-out-of-power-in-knysna-after-motions-of-no-confidence-succeed-20220831">Knysna</a>, and hamlets such <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/cederberg-municipality-embroiled-in-political-fracas-as-coalition-collapses-20220721">Cederberg</a> in the Western Cape.</p>
<p>These seemingly anarchic moves are becoming more common as the party political struggle intensifies between the African National Congress (ANC), which still dominates South Africa’s politics even though it’s in <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-voters-are-disillusioned-but-they-havent-found-an-alternative-to-the-anc-171239">decline</a>, and the biggest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA). </p>
<p>The ANC is increasingly conducting coalition wars to retain and regain power while the DA is trying to consolidate its claim to the power that the ANC is ceding. Within a few years, particularly since the <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/glen-mashinini-final-results-municipal-elections-4-nov-2021-0000">2021 local government elections</a>, the two parties, along with a host of micro-parties, have invented <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/da-signs-five-year-agreement-with-coalition-partners-dreams-big-for-2024-20211216">local-level rules of the game</a> that do not sit well with the precepts of multiparty democracy. </p>
<p>What’s there to learn from these events?</p>
<p>In my view the <a href="https://theconversation.com/marriages-of-inconvenience-the-fraught-politics-of-coalitions-in-south-africa-167517">unfolding party-political mayhem</a> of constituting, dissolving and reconstituting municipal coalition governments reflects the transition from <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.18772/12021026451">one-party dominance</a> towards what may become a fractionalised and alternating multi-polar party system. </p>
<p>This reflects a decay of multiparty democracy in South Africa as it was practiced in the time the ANC still held a dominant position. Multiparty democracy in this epoch constituted a type of inter-party truce that accepted the ANC’s predominant position. Nevertheless, it helped organise popular representation in government and offered a constructive way of channelling popular political energy.</p>
<h2>Coalitions in South Africa</h2>
<p>South Africa is no stranger to <a href="https://mistra.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/MISTRA-Marriages-of-Inconvenience-layout-FA-chap-10.pdf">coalition politics</a>. The <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-african-government-national-unity-gnu-1994-1999">1994 Government of National Unity</a> – the first after the end of apartheid – was in essence a grand coalition. The province of KwaZulu-Natal evolved through a coalition government between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party, and the DA gained power in Cape Town in 2006 <a href="https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA666097549&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00360767&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E6a82e027">through a multiparty coalition</a>. </p>
<p>The 1994 coalition worked because of the need for national reconciliation. The other two had an interparty competitive edge, reminiscent of contemporary contests. In KwaZulu-Natal the ANC used coalitions to access provincial government and help it gain the upper hand. It worked largely because it linked into a clear shift of power between two major parties. </p>
<p>At municipal level, the DA multiparty coalition worked because of a few factors. Firstly, meticulous coalition management and an internal conflict resolution mechanism was put in place. Secondly, there was a new sense of team building as the DA took shape in the aftermath of the dissolution of the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781403978868_9">New National Party</a>.</p>
<p>These conditions and sentiments are largely absent today.</p>
<p>Coalitions formed more recently have not been consensual instruments. They have not led to constructive co-governance as is the case in many other parts of the world, where coalition government has become <a href="https://theconversation.com/marriages-of-inconvenience-the-fraught-politics-of-coalitions-in-south-africa-167517">institutionalised</a>. Examples like <a href="https://denmark.dk/society-and-business/government-and-politics">Denmark</a> and <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/a-history-of-germanys-coalition-governments/g-41818483">Germany</a> come to mind, or closer to home <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/lesotho-after-may-2012-general-elections-making-the-coalition-work">Lesotho</a> and <a href="https://mistra.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/MISTRA-Marriages-of-Inconvenience-layout-FA-chap-10.pdf">Madagascar</a>, albeit with a competitive edge and only intermittently constructive.</p>
<p>Constructively institutionalised versions of coalition governments emerge where there is a sense of shared national interest and policies. </p>
<p>In contemporary South Africa coalitions are weaponised as extensions of elections. Power that was not won at the polls is pursued under rules determined by power and patronage. Accountability is erratic as aberrant leaders and micro-parties become kingmakers.</p>
<p>The result is erratic changes in power. The tone of the current tranche of metropolitan disruptions was set by <a href="https://www.polity.org.za/article/mpho-phalatse-says-ancs-days-are-numbered-in-joburg-2022-10-17">Johannesburg</a> and <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=coalition+nelson+mandela+bay&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=coalition+nelson+man">Nelson Mandela Bay</a> where small parties flipped, enticed by the bigger parties. And it’s highly likely that these changes won’t be the last of the current term.</p>
<h2>The drivers</h2>
<p>The chaotic changes are being driven by a number of factors.</p>
<p>The first is the self-interest of small and micro parties. An ideal form of multiparty democracy offers sound competition between functional political parties to determine the fate of governance in political systems. In most cases a system of proportionality is in place. But in South Africa micro-parties wield disproportionate power. </p>
<p>Bands of micro-parties that hold very small numbers of seats individually are elevated to the status of (vacillating) power blocs. They very often <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2021-07-07-disunited-we-stand-coalition-politics-in-south-africa-is-jinxed-when-politicians-behave-badly-in-pursuit-of-power/">call the shots</a>. They gain a major political voice, hold entire municipal administrations to ransom, and are inclined to change coalition allegiance. </p>
<p>The second factor is the emergence of opportunistic, power-obsessed leaders who <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-05-08-the-pros-and-cons-of-coalitions-in-sa/">run amok</a>. Many of them are serial <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2021-07-07-disunited-we-stand-coalition-politics-in-south-africa-is-jinxed-when-politicians-behave-badly-in-pursuit-of-power/">flip-floppers</a> who go wherever the next, improved offer of position and patronage-infused municipal portfolio takes them. They anoint and abandon coalitions with the bigger DA and ANC whenever convenient.</p>
<p>For this new league of power players, party politics is not about proportionality or size of constituency. Brute kingmaker power, even on the basis of one or two council seats, rules supreme: importance is estimated in terms of value to the bigger parties that need to top up sub-50% vote proportions. </p>
<p>Another factor driving the current disruptive patterns has to do with the internal politics of both the ANC and DA: these contribute to the ambiguous rules of inter-party contest. As the ANC has increasingly become dominated by <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/opinions/voices/cyril-ramaphosa-the-anc-is-accused-number-one-for-corruption-20200823">corrupt leaders</a>, and the DA is losing its black leaders to <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/former-da-midvaal-mayor-bongani-baloyi-joins-actionsa-20220124">new, smaller parties</a>, the two main actors have increasingly engaged in free-for-all recruitment and co-option. </p>
<p>The game is complicated by the ANC not ceding power gracefully, a phenomenon bolstered by its state power. It also benefits from the inability of the DA to <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/other/breaking-news-mbali-ntuli-resigns-from-the-democratic-alliance/ar-AAVb3jG">transcend its credibility problems</a> among the majority black population.</p>
<p>In addition, <a href="https://www.dandc.eu/en/article/populism-common-southern-africa-where-former-liberation-movements-have-become-dominant#:%7E:text=Political%20populism%20is%20common%20in%20Southern%20Africa%2C%20where,still%20struggling%20with%20the%20hardships%20of%20unequal%20societies">widespread populism</a> combined with <a href="https://theconversation.com/pressure-groups-offer-the-best-hope-for-south-africas-democracy-181712">protest and direct action</a> heighten the complexity of the transition away from ANC one-party dominance.</p>
<h2>The fallout from one-party dominance</h2>
<p>The current poverty of multiparty democracy in the country has its roots in the ANC’s roughly 28-year dominance.</p>
<p>This has seen a suppression and delegitimation of the opposition, arguably made worse as the ANC has <a href="https://ebin.pub/dominance-and-decline-the-anc-in-the-time-of-zuma-1868148858-9781868148851.html">faltered</a> in the wake of <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">state capture</a> – the repurposing of the state for corrupt ends <a href="http://47zhcvti0ul2ftip9rxo9fj9.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Betrayal-of-the-Promise-25052017.pdf">under former president Jacob Zuma</a> – and the blatant fleecing of state resources for party political gain.</p>
<p>Most opposition has been driven into a new political underground. Instead of expressing opposition systemically through support for an alternative political party, multitudes of South Africans choose to either <a href="https://mistra.org.za/mistra-strategics/when-wedding-bells-ring-coalitions-without-concord-analysis-of-south-africas-2021-local-elections-and-coalitions/">abstain from voting</a> or to live their political lives in a shadow world that <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/publication/ad474-south-africans-trust-institutions-and-representatives-reaches-new-low/">transcends political parties</a>.</p>
<p>Instead of lobbying their elected representatives to, for example, allocate land, people take the law into their own hands. They simply <a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/31087/">settle on unused state land</a>. Increasingly the state and the political parties are bypassed because they are seen to be ineffective. This is a part of South Africa’s intricate system of transitioning away from one-party dominance, but also inherently anarchic.</p>
<p>This shadow world comes with failing multiparty democracy in which coalitions help discredit political parties.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192966/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Booysen is Director of Research at the not-for-profit think tank the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA), and has edited the book, Marriages of Inconvenience: the politics of coalitions in South Africa, for MISTRA. </span></em></p>In South Africa coalitions are weaponised as extensions of elections.Susan Booysen, Visiting Professor and Professor Emeritus, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1874622022-07-22T15:25:31Z2022-07-22T15:25:31ZAngola’s Eduardo dos Santos: a divisive figure in life - and in death<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475634/original/file-20220722-228-ecstnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jose Eduardo dos Santos. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">epa-efe/Tiago</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is unlikely to be consensus on what <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/president-jos%C3%A9-eduardo-dos-santos-1942">José Eduardo dos Santos</a>, Angola’s former longtime president who died earlier this month in Barcelona, Spain, will represent in the memory of Angolans.</p>
<p>While he has been credited for steering his country through a decades long <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/angolan-civil-war-1975-2002-brief-history">civil war</a>, his rule was marred by authoritarianism, high levels of corruption, and the securitisation of the state.</p>
<p>Critics were not tolerated and inequality marred attempts at post-conflict reconstruction. The failure to significantly diversify the country’s economy beyond its heavy reliance on oil has continued to haunt his successor, <a href="https://www.angola.or.jp/2020/08/24/biography-pr-joao-lourenco-en/">João Lourenço</a>. </p>
<p>Dos Santos was not a man known for his speeches or for intense public engagement. The most common way that he was encountered was through his face being on the country’s banknotes, an ironic reminder of the <a href="https://www.plataformamedia.com/en/2020/06/26/jose-eduardo-dos-santos-is-still-the-richest-man-in-angola/">wealth he seemed to personally control</a>. </p>
<p>Outside election cycles, Dos Santos was a withdrawn president. He stayed in his presidential homes, trusting only a small group of advisers and preferring to give verbal instructions rather than written ones. Angolans generally only saw him in the media and occasionally at official events if they were allowed to be present. </p>
<p>His silence allowed people to project their beliefs onto him, rather than ever be sure of an insight into his own thoughts. It was precisely this distanced silence, therefore, which produced his aura of power and the cult of personality that surrounded him.</p>
<h2>Absent but omnipresent</h2>
<p>Dos Santos came to power in September 1979 <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/president-jos%C3%A9-eduardo-dos-santos-1942">at the age of 37</a>. He quickly came to inhabit his presidential position, side-lining many of the original prominent leaders of the governing People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Popular-Movement-for-the-Liberation-of-Angola">MPLA</a>), while installing his own people in positions of power. </p>
<p>His understanding of the workings of state institutions, presidential power and financial flows became apparent as the MPLA found itself increasingly unable to counteract its own president, causing frictions between party and leader.</p>
<p>Oil funds were used to ensure the viability of the MPLA’s war effort against the rebel movement Unita through the purchase of weapons and food. They also became a means of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43664097#metadata_info_tab_contents">disbursing patronage and favours</a>, tying the elite to the president’s whims. The fear of losing access to financial support in a country where to be poor meant having almost nothing acted as the ultimate threat for the elites.</p>
<p>By the end of the country’s civil war <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/angolan-civil-war-1975-2002-brief-history">in 2002</a>, decisively won by the MPLA led by Dos Santos, the presidency had almost rendered other decision-making structures irrelevant. The new <a href="https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Angola_2010.pdf?lang=en">2010 constitution</a> further embedded presidential powers. These had been informally accumulated during the 1980s and strengthened in the 1990s. This included the elimination of the position of prime minister as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Angola/Government-and-society">head of the government</a>.</p>
<p>Dos Santos inspired loyalty and fear. A number of factors made this possible. These included his long stay in power <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2022/07/08/former-angolan-president-jose-eduardo-dos-santos-dies-at-79//">(1979 to 2017)</a> as well as the creation of a parallel security state answerable almost exclusively to him. People were wary of phones being tapped, of acquaintances working for intelligence services, and the internet being monitored.</p>
<p>This fear created a relationship to the presidency in which it was understood as socially remote from ordinary Angolans; but seemingly omnipresent due to the belief in the office’s capacity to collect information about the most banal of everyday actions and statements.</p>
<p>These beliefs often seemed to be realised in the late days of Dos Santos’s rule when activist circles were infiltrated. This led to <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2015/11/angola-trial-of-15-activists-after-five-months-in-detention-a-travesty-of-justice/">arrests and show trials</a> of those questioning state policies and the political system.</p>
<p>One of the long-term legacies of his rule is a paranoid and authoritarian political system. It does little to serve the needs of the majority and centres too much power in the presidency.</p>
<p>Attempts at opening up the political space and producing an engaged civil society <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2017/09/26/profile-angolas-eduardo-dos-santos-guerilla-fighter-to-democratic-president//">were dampened if not openly crushed</a>. Despite leading the country into its most-prolonged period of peace since 1961, when the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-61792-3_13">insurrection against Portuguese colonial rule began</a>, Dos Santos’s style of rule was detrimental to the growth of a vibrant democracy. Criticism was treated as a threat. Security forces were readily used to harass critics and opposition.</p>
<h2>Oil dependence, corruption and inequality</h2>
<p>Dos Santos’s economic legacy, more than his political one, attracted the most attention abroad. During his final years and his retirement in 2017, the accumulation of wealth by his family, especially his eldest child, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59616316">Isabel dos Santos</a>, generated significant criticism from Angolans and foreigners.</p>
<p>His children’s actions were viewed by many as symbolic of the broader scourge of corruption that had come to characterise Angola’s political economy. This, under the pretence of building a “national bourgeoisie”.</p>
<p>At the heart of Dos Santos’s power and Angola’s wealth stood oil. While many understood the country’s continued reliance on oil during the civil war period (1975-2002), Dos Santos’ inability to encourage significant diversification of the economy during the decade long post-conflict oil boom was perhaps one of his greatest failures.</p>
<p>If poverty was already extreme for many Angolans, the failed promises of the oil boom only made the period that followed worse. With <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/what-triggered-oil-price-plunge-2014-2016-and-why-it-failed-deliver-economic-impetus-eight-charts">the crash of oil in 2015</a>, <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/angola/overview#:%7E:text=Since%202015%2C%20the%20oil%20sector,GDP%20decline%20of%209.9%20percent.">the country has experienced</a> austerity, rising unemployment and worsening social conditions. This situation could have been alleviated if more focus had been placed on building alternatives to the oil industry.</p>
<h2>Legacy unclear</h2>
<p>Dos Santos died five years after leaving office in self-imposed exile, abandoned by his previous political allies, especially those belonging to his own generation of the anti-colonial struggle.</p>
<p>His body is now <a href="https://www.expatica.com/es/general/spanish-court-refuses-to-hand-over-dos-santos-body-192519/">in litigation in a Spanish court</a> and is the subject of a close dispute between different wings of his family and the Angolan state. President João Lourenço <a href="https://nation.africa/africa/news/angola-declares-7-days-of-national-mourning-after-jose-eduardo-dos-santos-death-3874220">decreed seven days of national mourning</a> and insists on holding a state funeral. Dos Santos’s children have accepted to bury him in Angola, but only after the 2022 election as they seek to leverage the political significance that his body symbolises. </p>
<p>The dispute is evidence of the power Dos Santos’s wielded in life and now in death. On the eve of the Angola’s <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2022/06/04/angola-to-hold-general-elections-on-august-24//">August 24 elections</a>, his funeral would be a means for Lourenço to gain electoral advantage and redeem himself in the face of public criticism for the attacks carried out against Dos Santos and his children.</p>
<p>For Lourenço and the hard-core of the MPLA, Dos Santos’ body is a political asset with the potential to appease internal divisions, negotiate with his children, and calm popular dissatisfaction with Lourenço’s and the party’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/angolas-president-has-little-to-show-for-his-promise-of-a-break-with-the-authoritarian-past-167933">performance since 2017</a>.</p>
<p>Amid the political dispute over the body and general elections, Dos Santos’s political legacy will continue to divide Angolans immensely for a long time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187462/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claudia Gastrow has previously received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Research Council of Norway, and the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gilson Lázaro receives funding from the Norwegian Embassy programme for research.</span></em></p>Dos Santos was a withdrawn president. His silence produced an aura of power and the cult of personality that surrounded him.Claudia Gastrow, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, University of JohannesburgGilson Lázaro, Research associate, Catholic University of AngolaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1836832022-06-21T14:13:54Z2022-06-21T14:13:54ZWant to run for office in Kenya? Here’s how much it’ll cost you<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464816/original/file-20220523-12-mixc6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Candidates are always willing to outspend each other to boost their visibility during the campaigns amid fierce competition for the elective posts.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporters-of-kenyan-presidential-candidate-raila-odinga-news-photo/826021938?adppopup=true">Fredrik Lerneryd/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Kenya’s constitution provides for election of the president and 47 governors to head the executive organs at national and county levels, respectively. Also to be elected are legislators: 47 senators, 290 MPs and 1,450 members of county assemblies. There is fierce competition for these posts, not just between parties but between individuals within a party; and the more a candidate spends, the higher the chances of winning a seat. Karuti Kanyinga is a governance and development expert. We asked him how much it costs to run for office, and what the high cost signals for Kenya’s participatory democracy.</em></p>
<h2>How much does it cost to win a legislative seat?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.iebc.or.ke/uploads/resources/SrIlWeBWMH.pdf">Election Campaigns Financing Act</a> recognises a number of campaign-related expenses that may arise, from party primaries to general elections. These include venue hiring, publicity material, advertising, campaign personnel and transportation. Candidates may also incur social costs, like contributing medical assistance and school fees to communities. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://nimd.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/WFD_NIMD_2021_The-cost-of-politics-in-Kenya-1.pdf">study</a> – based on discussions and interviews with key informants from across the country – estimates that a candidate will this year spend about 39 million Kenya shillings (roughly US$390,000) on average to win a senate seat in the 9 August polls. The amount does not include support that a candidate may get from the sponsoring political party. </p>
<p>It took an average of US$350,000 to win a similar seat in the 2017. The 12.3% cost difference between 2017 and 2022 is attributed to the increasing cost of living, and inflation in general. </p>
<p>Kenya has 47 counties, implying successful senators will spend a total of 1.8 billion shillings (US$18 million) to win their seats.</p>
<p>To successfully run for the Woman Representative seat, an aspirant needs US$240,000 this year – 4.8% higher than the US$228,000 that a successful candidate spent five years ago. Kenya’s parliament has 47 such representatives, implying total spending in excess of US$11 million by the successful candidates.</p>
<p>An MP will require an average of US$222,000 to win in the August polls, up from $182,000 in 2017. The parliament has 290 elected MPs, implying a collective US$64.4 million (KSh6.4 billion) to fill the seats.</p>
<p>The least expensive political seat in Kenya is that of Member of County Assembly, at US$31,000 this year, or a total of US$45 million (KSh4.5bn) for the 1,450 electable seats. </p>
<p>Candidates interviewed for this study said voters generally viewed them as moneybags every time they organised meetings in their constituencies. The demands for money increased in tandem with approaching elections.</p>
<p>For Ghana, which returned to multiparty elections in 1992 – the same year as Kenya – the <a href="https://www.wfd.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Cost_Of_Politics_Ghana.pdf">cost of election</a> increased by 59% between 2012 and 2016. But the US$85,000 that a candidate required to win a parliamentary seat in the 2016 general election was only 46.7% of what a Kenyan counterpart would spend a year later, in 2017, to clinch a similar seat.</p>
<p>Within East Africa, a 2020 <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348732689_PRE-CAMPAIGN_SPENDING_FOR_UGANDA_ELECTIONS_2021_Ballot_Paper_or_Bank_Note">study</a> in Uganda found that candidates spent between US$43,000 and US$143,000 to be elected to parliament in the 2016 general election. </p>
<h2>What drives these costs?</h2>
<p>The first driver is the allure of elective office. Kenya pays an MP a monthly package of at least US$10,000 – including basic allowances. <a href="https://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/poverty/33EF03BB-9722-4AE2-ABC7-AA2972D68AFE/Global_POVEQ_KEN.pdf">Over 36%</a> of Kenya’s population live below the poverty line, earning less than US$1.9 per day or US$57 monthly.</p>
<p>The second driver is <a href="https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5766&context=masters_theses">patronage and connections</a>, that have also been linked to theft of public resources. Upon winning election, a patron-client network chain ensues that connects the politician to higher levels of the state and senior politicians to the grassroots. This enables the politician to draw development resources and also provides an opportunity for self-enrichment through contracts with public institutions. </p>
<p>Third, pressure from voters demanding handouts also drives up the cost of politics in Kenya. In many of the interviews, respondents pointed out that voters openly demand money from candidates before agreeing to attend their meetings. Voters demand payment because some of those elected rarely engage with voters after elections. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/vote-buying-is-a-big-problem-in-kenya-how-to-curb-it-before-the-2022-elections-171630">Vote buying is a big problem in Kenya. How to curb it before the 2022 elections</a>
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<p>The fourth driver of cost has to do with wrong perceptions of roles. In the past, voters judged elected leaders on the basis of the development projects initiated or number of people helped to access government jobs. The current <a href="http://www.kenyalaw.org/lex/actview.xql?actid=Const2010">constitution</a> casts the roles of elected leaders as oversight of the executive; making laws; and representation of the people. But voters still demand the “development record” of aspiring MPs. To prove their worth, the aspirant is compelled to contribute to projects and assistance funds.</p>
<p>Fifth, some candidates are willing to outspend others during the primaries of dominant parties or coalitions in order to secure a ticket. Getting a ticket of dominant party reduces the chances of losing the election.</p>
<p>Lastly, there is limited oversight of election financing. The Election Campaign Financing Act restricts the sources of campaign funds but doesn’t place caps on them. Last year, MPs <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/economy/national-assembly-rejects-iebc-cap-polls-spending-3508264">rejected</a> an attempt by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to <a href="https://www.iebc.or.ke/uploads/resources/iGNrE6ZL95.pdf">change</a> the law and introduce spending caps.</p>
<h2>What’s the impact of high costs?</h2>
<p>Capable candidates who lack access to sizeable resources get excluded from politics. Our study shows Woman Representative candidates who won their race spent almost three times as much as those who were unsuccessful. Similarly, victorious senators spent more than double what losers spent. In the race for National Assembly, successful candidates spent 50% more than those who did not win.</p>
<p>High costs have also led to a non-functioning representative democracy. Political seats mostly go to those who lead in contributions to development projects, donations to groups, and raising funds for individuals in need. The transactional nature of politics reduces opportunities for debate and dialogue between elected officials and their constituents.</p>
<p>Once the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281451951_MONETARY_CLOUT_AND_ELECTORAL_POLITICS_IN_KENYA_-_Presidential_Elections_in_Focus">heavy spenders</a> win elections, they turn to the executive and to the public sector institutions for contracts and rent-seeking opportunities. The use of an electoral seat as a source of patronage in the constituency is linked to national level patronage networks, which in turn is the basis for corruption in the public sector. These networks help to entrench abuse of office, especially because political actors have to continue amassing resources for their support bases. </p>
<p>High costs also lead politicians to neglect their functions. Re-election bids begin almost immediately after elections as leaders, without seeking opinions of their constituents, initiate “development projects” aimed at boosting their visibility at campaign time.</p>
<p>A final impact of money politics is that elected officials do not always provide effective oversight of the use of resources by the executive at the national and county level. This would be an exercise in futility, given that some intend to access those resources for personal or political gain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183683/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karuti Kanyinga does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The transactional nature of politics reduces opportunities for debate and dialogue between elected officials and their constituents.Karuti Kanyinga, Research Professor, Institute for Development Studies (IDS), University of NairobiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1798912022-04-02T08:25:49Z2022-04-02T08:25:49ZRising vigilantism: South Africa is reaping the fruits of misrule<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454388/original/file-20220325-23-10rx82p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of South Africa’s anti-migrant “Operation Dudula” group march in Jeppestown, Johannesburg. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michele Spatari / AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Once relegated to the margins of South African politics, anti-immigrant activism has gone mainstream. Several anti-immigrant groups, including <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60698374">Operation Dudula</a>, the <a href="https://satrucker.co.za/tag/atdf/">All Trucker Foundation</a> and the <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/news/were-not-xenophobic-says-south-african-first-president-mario-khumalo-e9f129df-61ee-47a9-8794-fd100e994f1d">South Africa First Party</a>, have become reference points for national debate.</p>
<p>Reflecting forms of radical protectionism, they channel the frustrations of South Africans with <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-capture-in-south-africa-how-the-rot-set-in-and-how-the-project-was-rumbled-176481">corruption</a>, <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/speaking-notes-delivered-police-minister-general%C2%A0bheki-cele-mp-occasion-release-%C2%A0quarter">crime</a>, and <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=14957">unemployment</a>. The results are campaigns to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9k_XR1aRSI">‘clean’ the country of immigrants</a>, home invasions and <a href="https://twitter.com/ReggieReporter/status/1505828159874383873?s=20&t=8PDjo7hP7OWz92uCR9fPEA">widespread threats and violence</a>.</p>
<p>This is not a response to an immigration crisis. Immigrant numbers are <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/south-africa-immigration-destination-history#:%7E:text=The%20government's%20statistical%20agency%2C%20Statistics,in%20the%202001%2D06%20period">not higher than they have been for a decade</a>. This is a crisis of constitutional credibility. </p>
<p>Anti-immigrant activism is politics by other means, with violence likely to become common amid fundamental ruptures in governance. After years of unfulfilled promises, a youthful citizenry <a href="https://theconversation.com/here-are-five-factors-that-drove-low-voter-turnout-in-south-africas-2021-elections-173338">has lost considerable faith in formal electoral politics</a>. </p>
<p>Popular embrace of nationalism, street justice, and anti-immigrant activism reflects the ascendency of an extra-legal order. That regime is a mix of formal institutions and local fiefdoms held together by patronage and coercion. That system is now unravelling. </p>
<h2>Perils of indirect rule and patronage</h2>
<p>During the apartheid era, local gangsters often made alliances with the apartheid state. Some justified their violence and venality as a strategy to make the country ungovernable. This latter group – the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00020189908707905">‘comrade tsotsis’</a> (young thugs so-called for claiming to being anti-apartheid activists) – later connected with the post-apartheid governing party, the African National Congress (ANC). This allowed them to maintain local influence with the <a href="https://mg.co.za/editorial/2022-03-31-editorial-theres-a-crisis-coming/">tacit permission of the ANC</a>. The opposition Inkatha Freedom Party has similarly relied on its sometimes violent <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504630.2020.1814235?casa_token=VkRbWmqNdfYAAAAA%3A1k0OuQHkjXcGSx1EFT9tRnSUyVei75c3eemaIErOdkcd_cL5WYsI3E77Swx94CX1MZvzGwzs4MVQ">network of hostel leaders</a>.</p>
<p>This created a system of ‘indirect rule’, reflecting a similar logic to the colonial administration where local ‘chieftains’ worked in complex patronage networks to keep public order. But, where the gangsters once worked under the national government, the police and officials now appear to answer to vigilantes, participating in Dudula raids under ‘<a href="https://twitter.com/newzroom405/status/1505500039774638080?s=21">sole authority of the local community</a>’. </p>
<p>The post-apartheid system of indirect rule has been expedient for the governing party. Rather than extend its presence into cities whose populations <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315867878-13/south-africa-tortured-urbanisation-complications-reconstruction-ivan-turok">swelled in the post-apartheid era</a>, it <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02589346.2019.1692520">closed party offices</a>. </p>
<p>Under the country’s party list system, locally elected municipal councillors <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2020-11-27-direct-elections-bill-will-give-real-power-to-the-people/">are often absent or powerless</a>. Viewed from the perspective of the historically neglected <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03736245.1982.10559651?journalCode=rsag20#:%7E:text=Positioned%20just%20to%20the%20west,3">black residential areas</a> and informal settlements, elected officials are often more committed to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pad.1642">pleasing the party than the people they ostensibly represent</a>.</p>
<p>The dominant parties maintained this system of indirect rule, relying on civic associations, local chiefs and other ‘community leaders’ to deliver votes and maintain order, over two decades.</p>
<p>Unwilling or unable to displace them from local positions of authority, national, provincial, and municipal governments negotiate with them, further entrenching their power. The challenge now is that the political and economic resources the three spheres of government used to maintain this system are dwindling.</p>
<p>South Africa’s economic crisis means there are fewer government tenders available, and less money for social programmes. More importantly, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-59166081">the dip in ANC support below 50% in the 2021 elections</a> means party and bureaucratic bosses now face uncertain futures. Amid this, upstarts seeking opportunities and jockeying for position engage in new alliances, mobilisation and violence. </p>
<h2>Cause for anxiety</h2>
<p>To be sure, more is going on than a crumbling patronage system. South Africans would generally prefer less immigration. There has been no time in the last two decades <a href="https://www.africaportal.org/publications/deadly-denial-xenophobia-governance-and-global-compact-migration-south-africa/">where they have broadly welcomed newcomers</a>. <a href="https://repository.hsrc.ac.za/handle/20.500.11910/18951">COVID has exacerbated concerns about immigration</a>, as <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2021-12-05-south-africas-youth-unemployment-crisis-the-clock-is-ticking-and-its-five-minutes-to-midnight/#:%7E:text=The%20latest%20official%20data%20reflect,four%20of%20the%20under%2D25s">youth unemployment hovers near 70%</a>.</p>
<p>There is clearly cause for anxiety. Politicians with <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/434851/south-africa-does-not-have-a-viable-economic-recovery-plan-analyst/">few plans for addressing this gap</a> have capitalised on these attitudes.</p>
<p>Yet, these widespread trends do little to explain the violence in specific places, at particular times, or why it is so difficult to counter. Anti-outsider violence is <a href="http://www.xenowatch.ac.za">not universal</a> nor always aimed at immigrants alone. </p>
<p>It is also not easily explained by poverty. Many of the poorest areas have remained peaceful while more prosperous ones have not. Instead, violence tends to occur repeatedly in specific neighbourhoods, because of localised political power games.</p>
<h2>Outsourcing state authority</h2>
<p>One example from <a href="https://www.ijcv.org/index.php/ijcv/article/view/3118/pdf">our research</a> in Mamelodi, outside Pretoria, the country’s seat of national government, illustrates this point.</p>
<p>Its population growth has outpaced any kind of state intervention, police control, <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-73073-4_5">or service provision</a>.</p>
<p>Working together, two groups have filled the political and regulatory vacuum. One is the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SouthAfricanNationalCivicOrganisation2015/">South African National Civic Organisation</a>. The other, the Phomelong Residents Association, is a local informal group headed by self-appointed leaders. Those wanting to build, do business, or even transport goods through the area pay them or get out.</p>
<p>To finance their protest and political activities, the two groups plunder foreign-owned shops and businesses. Like the self-financing armies of old, protesters are given licence to loot. One leader <a href="https://www.ijcv.org/index.php/ijcv/article/view/3118/pdf#page7">reported that</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>when protesters feel hungry, they go and get food from shops to eat or take home to cook; and if shops here are closed they go to shops in other locations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Through the distribution of resources and the eviction of foreigners, the associations legitimate their form of rule, positioned as gangster intermediaries. With popular support, they then demand attention by the municipal authorities. Cleverly, their leaders borrow the language of continued black deprivation and the need for <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-03-14-carl-niehaus-tables-radical-economic-transformation-plan-ahead-of-ace-magashules-campaign-for-anc-president/">‘radical economic transformation’</a> to legitimise themselves.</p>
<p>Another example of this indirect rule is Philani, a poor area largely neglected by city government, outside eThekwini in KwaZulu-Natal. In early 2019, the Delangokubona Business Forum <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/afr/news/stories/2019/5/5cda7da04/refugees-affected-by-xenophobic-attacks-in-south-africa-in-need-of-urgent.html">displaced and kidnapped about 50 foreigners</a> living in the area.</p>
<p>Claiming to champion <a href="http://www.thedtic.gov.za/financial-and-non-financial-support/b-bbee/broad-based-black-economic-empowerment/">‘black economic empowerment’</a>, they accused foreigners of blocking the economic advancement of poor black citizens.</p>
<p>They extracted ransoms from their families and friends, while negotiating with the government for their safe return. Successful on both counts, they positioned themselves as intermediaries and peacemakers – the <em>de facto</em> local authorities.</p>
<p>As in other cases in the country, these groups <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-02-09-mafia-style-business-forum-halts-multi-million-road-project/">effectively create multi-faceted protection rackets</a>. Increasingly (and <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/bogus-mk-veterans-who-were-just-5-years-old-during-apartheid-smoked-out-as-verification-kicks-into-gear-20220317">implausably</a>) claiming to be military veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle, they use violence to create instability and instil fear to extract resources and establish legitimacy. </p>
<p>These actions create powerful local forces that demand payment from any state development projects in the areas they control. This way, the state is able to preserve the appearance of authority and constitutionalism while allowing someone else to do the dirty work of keeping people in line. But trouble ensues when the developers can no longer pay or other parties are eyeing the booty – money, houses, businesses, and votes. </p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Given the legacy of indirect rule, it is unclear who the government can call to rein in the violent leaders who effectively govern some <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/townships">townships</a>. Or, indeed, if it has the desire or popular legitimacy to do so. Impunity for past misdeeds has emboldened these groups, strengthening them so much that police respond to them rather than the other way around.</p>
<p>Authority to decide who lives where, who does what, and what are appropriate standards of behaviour rests with them – rather than the constitution or town councils.</p>
<p>South Africa’s <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/nap/index.html">national action plan on xenophobia</a> calls for <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-has-a-plan-to-fight-prejudice-but-its-full-of-holes-114444">conversations and dialogue with these groups</a>. This is precisely the system they have manipulated to entrench their power. </p>
<p>Ending violence against foreigners and true economic recovery can only happen by first recognising – and addressing – the hazards of South Africa’s crumbling system of indirect rule.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179891/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Loren B Landau has received funding from the national research foundation, the Mellon Foundation, Porticus Foundation, and USAID </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jean Pierre Misago does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ending violence against foreigners can only happen by first recognising – and addressing – the hazards of South Africa’s crumbling system of indirect rule.Loren B Landau, Co-Director of the Wits-Oxford Mobility Governance Lab, University of the WitwatersrandJean Pierre Misago, Researcher, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1688632021-10-06T14:18:00Z2021-10-06T14:18:00ZSouth Africa’s president needs to show more urgency in stopping rogue spies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424226/original/file-20211001-23-ezg0he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The office responsible for surveillance uses equipment that's outdated and ineffective.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The parliament of South Africa’s oversight committee on intelligence recently tabled its 2019/2020 <a href="https://pmg.org.za/tabled-committee-report/4715/">annual report</a>. The engrossing and depressing read documents the failings of the country’s spy agencies in unflinching detail. If not addressed, these failings may leave the country exposed to even more serious crime and national security threats than it has faced already.</p>
<p>The spy agencies were <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/site/files/documents/379/Day_330_-_YY2._Mufamadi,_FS_-_25.01.2021.pdf">weakened</a> during former president Jacob Zuma’s <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">term</a>. The report shows that these weaknesses have not been addressed adequately under President Cyril Ramaphosa.</p>
<p>The report incorporates reports from Bess Nkabinde, the judge responsible for granting the country’s intelligence services permission to intercept communications. This is in terms of the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Act, 2002 (<a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/2002-070.pdf">Rica Act</a>. The oversight committee’s report also included that of the Auditor General.</p>
<p>Nkabinde’s report is damning of the Rica process and its weaknesses. The law requires the spy agencies to apply for interception warrants to a special judge (currently Nkabinde) to intercept communications to solve serious crimes or counter national security threats. </p>
<p>Nkabinde’s report – which should not be read apart from the committee’s entire report – shows just how deep the failings are in the intelligence services. Fixing these failings will need to go beyond reforms to the Act.</p>
<p>Nkabinde expressed concern about</p>
<blockquote>
<p>unceasing unlawful interception of communication of private and public officials.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She noted that allegations by News24 journalists that the crime intelligence division of the South African Police Service had <a href="https://select.timeslive.co.za/ideas/2021-09-13-parliament-hears-of-disturbing-unlawful-interception-of-communication/">spied</a> on them were not far-fetched.</p>
<h2>Weakness</h2>
<p>A serious weakness she highlighted was that she had to rely on the word of the intelligence agency applying for an interception warrant that the details in the application are true. The fact that the surveillance target is not informed of the request – as doing so would defeat the objectives of secret surveillance – amplifies this danger. In contrast, countries such as the <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/sh/w6y420sbgll850r/AAAmK5khNk5nsq_9-Xq17RQoa/Constitutional%20Court?dl=0&preview=200129+R2K+Privacy+International+amicus+application.pdf&subfolder_nav_tracking=1">United States, Canada, and Japan</a> require that people who are being monitored be informed within between 30 to 90 days after surveillance.</p>
<p>This weakness can lead to South Africa’s intelligence agencies lying about why they need to intercept someone’s communications. Recently, the Constitutional Court <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2021/3.html">identified</a> this problem as one of several deficiencies that parliament needs to address when reviewing the surveillance Act. The judgement has triggered a government <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2021/3.html">review</a> of the Act.</p>
<p>Nkabinde highlighted other serious problems with the Rica process. </p>
<p>She cited a report by the police. It states that the interception equipment housed in the <a href="http://www.ssa.gov.za/">Office for Interception Centres</a> – the office that undertakes Rica intercepts – is outdated. The equipment breaks down regularly and is limited to old style, unencrypted forms of communication such as voice and SMS (cellphone text messages).</p>
<p>Consequently, according to the police <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/521130/intelligence-report-reveals-shocking-reality-around-the-interception-of-communication-in-south-africa/">report</a>, “…approximately 99 percent of the target’s communication is lost”. This makes it highly unlikely that the surveillance law will achieve its goals.</p>
<h2>Interception capabilities run down</h2>
<p>What is confounding is that the parliamentary oversight committee has known about the incapacity of the office for years. Nearly every year since 2013, the committee has <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/stopping-the-spies/">noted</a> with concern that <a href="http://www.ssa.gov.za/">National Communication</a>, into which the interception office falls, was under-resourced and using outdated technology.</p>
<p>It is difficult not to conclude that the government under former president Jacob Zuma ran down the interception office deliberately. This, to prevent it from contributing effectively to curbing <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">massive corruption</a> and <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/shadow-state/">capture of the state</a> by private business interests which characterised his tenure.</p>
<p>Other weaknesses are not specific to the Rica process. These include the ease with which covert counter-intelligence projects can be set up. This includes the illegal ones set up by <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/site/files/documents/379/Day_330_-_YY2._Mufamadi,_FS_-_25.01.2021.pdf">the Special Operations Unit of the State Security Agency</a>.</p>
<p>Rogue spies can then access a secret services account to fund these projects with ease. The lax controls exist because an apartheid era law, the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/secret-services-account-amendment-act">Secret Services Account Amendment Act</a>, governs the account. Those who want access to it merely have to show that intelligence operations are covert and in the national interest, which is not defined, thus open to misinterpretation and abuse.</p>
<p>A related weakness is that the spy agencies receive <a href="https://pmg.org.za/tabled-committee-report/4715/">qualified audits</a> as a matter of course. They have resisted subjecting covert operations to conventional audits, claiming that would jeopardise secrecy.</p>
<p>So, they can talk up or even invent criminal or national security threats to establish dubious or illegal covert operations. Then, they can justify the overuse of surveillance, and draw on the secret services account for funds. The account provides them temporary cash advances to pay for operational expenses – like paying sources.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/site/hearings/date/2019/4/11">Testimony</a> at the <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">judicial commission</a> into allegations of state capture under Zuma <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA5ohWqrF8s">points to these dangers</a>.</p>
<p>A perverse result of improper surveillance is that rogue spies may pay insufficient attention to legitimate threats and overstate their successes, to keep the money flowing into the account.</p>
<h2>Inadequate controls and covert surveillance</h2>
<p>The Auditor General <a href="https://pmg.org.za/tabled-committee-report/4715/">decried</a> the inadequate internal controls on covert operations, and insufficient evidence for reported achievements. </p>
<p>With these abuses in mind, the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">High Level Review Panel on the State Security Agency</a>, appointed by President Ramaphosa in 2018 to investigate abuses in the agency under Zuma, <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/site/files/documents/379/Day_330_-_YY2._Mufamadi,_FS_-_25.01.2021.pdf">argued</a> for a review of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/act142of1992.pdf">Secret Services Account Amendment Act</a>. It also argued for the need to introduce auditable methods for accounting for the expenditure of temporary monetary advances. </p>
<p>The panel <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/site/files/documents/379/Day_330_-_YY2._Mufamadi,_FS_-_25.01.2021.pdf">said</a> as a matter of urgency, the Ministry and State Security Agency would need to work with the Auditor General to find an acceptable way to enable the “unfettered auditing” of the agency’s finances, including for covert operations, so that the agency’s annual audits can live up to scrutiny.</p>
<p>Administrative oversight of intelligence is also in a terrible state, which enables opportunities for illegal surveillance. The intelligence committee’s report <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/521130/intelligence-report-reveals-shocking-reality-around-the-interception-of-communication-in-south-africa/">points out</a> that the spy agencies largely ignore the findings of the <a href="https://www.igis.gov.au/">Inspector General for Intelligence</a> – who oversees the agencies. That’s because the findings are mere recommendations and not enforceable. </p>
<p>This problem has led to a situation where, <a href="https://pmg.org.za/tabled-committee-report/4715/">according to the parliamentary oversight committee</a>, the implementation rate of the Inspector General’s recommendations was either only 2% or zero percent.</p>
<p>The Inspector General <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/376438399/Dintwe-Affidavit">went to court</a> in 2018 to challenge the office’s lack of powers, independence and resources. There is little evidence that the government has done anything about these problems since then.</p>
<h2>Closing spying loopholes</h2>
<p>It is damning that journalists had to resort to litigation to force the government to close the loopholes in the law that enabled illegal spying. </p>
<p>President Cyril Ramaphosa and his government need to show more urgency in closing the other loopholes that rogue spies continue to exploit.</p>
<p>Failure to do so is likely to mean that illegal spying will continue and even flourish. Then the predatory elite – which thrived <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Zuma-Years-South-Africas-Changing/dp/1770220887">under Zuma</a> – could reassert control over the levers of state once again, with truly terrible consequences for South Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168863/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Duncan receives funding from Luminate and the Open Society Foundation for South Africa. She was a member of the High Level Review Panel on the State Security Agency. </span></em></p>The judge responsible for authorising the covert monitoring of communications has found that claims by journalists that they were being spied on were credible.Jane Duncan, Professor, Department of Journalism, Film and Television, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1679332021-09-17T12:42:57Z2021-09-17T12:42:57ZAngola’s president has little to show for his promise of a break with the authoritarian past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421542/original/file-20210916-15-lrg5m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Joao Lourenco, the President of Angola. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Clemens Bilan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/9/26/angola-swears-in-joao-lourenco-as-president">four years</a> since João Lourenço was sworn in as Angola’s third president. He succeeded former president José Eduardo dos Santos, who had governed the southern African nation <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/president-jos%C3%A9-eduardo-dos-santos-1942">for 38 years</a>.</p>
<p>Lourenço promised to initiate a wide range of much-needed reforms. This included curbing corruption and diversifying Angola’s oil-dependent economy. Many Angolans saw his presidency as the beginning of a more open and accountable government.</p>
<p>He has taken <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/country/angola/freedom-world/2020">a number of steps in this direction</a>. He opened up the political space by meeting longtime critics of Dos Santos’ government, including the investigative journalist <a href="https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/case-of-rafael-marques-de-morais/">Rafael Marques de Morais</a>. Lourenço also criticised violent security responses to peaceful anti-government demonstrations and urged state owned media to report outside the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) party line. Other steps he took included easing down on repression, and creating a freer environment for the press and civil society. </p>
<p>These gained him significant political support from opposition parties and society at large. </p>
<p>However, four years into his presidency and a year to the end of his first term, the optimism his election generated has dwindled as his electoral promises have not become reality. </p>
<p>His flagship policies, such as tackling corruption and diversify Angola’s economy away from oil dependence, have stalled. And some of his initial liberalising moves are being reversed. These include his openness to civil society, the call for an end to heavy-handed security responses against protesters and partisan reporting by public media outlets. This is leaving Angola’s authoritarian political system largely unchanged. </p>
<p>In addition, the economy has not grown under Lourenço and economic diversification is yet to happen. As <a href="https://novojornal.co.ao/economia/interior/se-o-sector-petrolifero-se-movimenta-contra-nos-toda-a-economia-entra-em-stress--vera-daves-de-sousa-104026.html">acknowledged</a> by Finance Minister Vera Daves de Sousa in late August:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>if the oil sector moves against us, the whole economy goes into stress.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is important because, as was the <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-of-democracy-in-africa-changing-leaders-doesnt-change-politics-144292">case with Zimbabwe</a>, it shows that change in leadership does not necessarily engender political and economic change.</p>
<h2>What’s wrong in the state of Angola</h2>
<p>The power structure in Angola <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/angola-the-fall-of-the-dos-santos-clan/a-45646757">was shaped</a> during the course of Dos Santos’ nearly four-decade long presidency. It gives extensive powers to the president, who is also the leader of the ruling party, the MPLA. It also ensures the dominance of the party in government and state institutions.</p>
<p>Following his inauguration in 2017, Lourenço <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-angola-politics-idUSKBN1CW10S">replaced</a> most of Dos Santos’ loyalists in government and in the governing party with close associates. He appointed allies to key positions in the army, police, intelligence services, government, state-owned companies and the party.</p>
<p>Recently, he initiated and enacted a <a href="https://theconversation.com/angolas-constitution-is-under-review-but-a-great-deal-has-been-left-undone-165544">Constitutional Revision Law</a> that effectively keeps the Angolan judiciary hostage to political power. It also retains the president’s prerogative to appoint key judicial officers. These include the attorney general and his deputies as well as the presiding judges and deputy presiding judges of the highest courts.</p>
<p>In addition, oversight institutions remain toothless as the president and the ruling party have the prerogative to appoint candidates to serve on them. They often dominate these institutions and their processes by virtue of their combined numbers. These include the Constitutional Court, the National Electoral Commission and the entity responsible for media regulation. </p>
<p>On top of this, there has been a progressive closure of the political space over the past two years. The security services have become <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/02/04/angola-security-forces-kill-protesters-lunda-norte-province">more repressive</a>. This has been especially so against young activists who have been protesting against the high cost of living and high unemployment. </p>
<h2>Same old authoritarian practices</h2>
<p>State-owned media (television, radio and press) have reverted to their old ways of partisan reporting. For instance, Adalberto Costa Junior, <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/angolan-opposition-unita-elects-leader-191331499.html">the leader of Unita</a>, Angola’s main opposition party, has not been interviewed by public media outlets since his election two years ago. </p>
<p>The government has almost absolute control over television since it <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202107230385.html">suspended</a> some private television companies. Other TV channels were ordered <a href="https://cpj.org/2021/05/angola-suspends-3-tv-channels-for-alleged-improper-registration/">to close for allegedly operating illegally </a>.</p>
<p>There is a multiparty system in Angola. But opposition parties don’t have much say in parliament. The ruling party <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/world/africa/angola-election-dos-santos-president-lourenco.html">has the numbers</a> to approve or block any legislation or policy that does not advance its interests. </p>
<p>This has allowed the MPLA <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-covid-19-cant-be-blamed-for-angolas-failure-to-have-local-governance-144685">to consistently delay the implementation</a> of elected local government. Under the current system of centralised governance, the ruling party gets to appoint all state officials at subnational level (provincial governor, municipal and district administrators). </p>
<h2>Preparing for next year’s elections</h2>
<p>Lourenço’s popularity, and that of the ruling party, <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/pt/angola/20210220-sondagem-aponta-l%C3%ADder-da-unita-mais-popular-que-jo%C3%A3o-louren%C3%A7o">continues to decline</a>. This is due to the cumulative effects of a <a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/countries/southern-africa/angola/angola-economic-outlook">severe economic crisis</a> which started in 2014, the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. </p>
<p>The President and the MPLA seem to be devising strategies to ensure their continued stay in power. These include: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>keeping a highly contested official at the helm of the National Electoral Commission, </p></li>
<li><p>the creation of new provinces, and</p></li>
<li><p>the approval of a controversial electoral law, which prevents votes from being counted at district, municipal and provincial levels. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>This raises serious concerns about the transparency of the general elections <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202108230386.html">due next year</a>. In the end, Lourenço sent the controversial electoral law back to parliament for further discussion following mounting criticism from opposition parties and civil society.</p>
<p>The main opposition forces have been capitalising on these and other failures to criticise Lourenço’s government while advancing strategies to challenge the hegemony of the ruling party. One such initiative is the political alliance being formed by Unita, the Democratic Bloc and PraJá Servir Angola to run in the upcoming elections as a United Patriotic Front. This should potentially make the general election <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202108230386.html">next year</a> more competitive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167933/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Albano Agostinho Troco does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The optimism Angolan president João Lourenço’s election generated four years ago has dwindled as electoral promise after another have failed to materialise.Albano Agostinho Troco, NRF/British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow under the SA-UK Bilateral Chair in Political Theory, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1677242021-09-15T09:07:47Z2021-09-15T09:07:47ZShadow states are the biggest threat to democracy in Africa: fresh reports detail how<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420728/original/file-20210913-16-1legi69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The militarisation of the Zimbabwean government raises serious questions about who really wields political power - President Emmerson Mnangagwa or army leaders.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mujahid Safodien/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The capture of democratic political systems by private power networks is arguably the greatest threat to civil liberties and inclusive development in Africa. That’s the conclusion of two new reports that address the issue of threats to democracy on the continent.</p>
<p>The first <a href="https://www.democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa">report</a> is published by Ghana’s <a href="https://afrobarometer.org/our-network/core-partners/ghana-center-democratic-development-cdd-ghana">Centre for Democratic Development</a>. It focuses on the capture and subversion of democratic institutions in Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique and Nigeria. </p>
<p>These case studies reveal that even in more democratic states such as Benin and Ghana, ruling parties can “hijack” democracy and appropriate its benefits. They do this by capturing the institutions of democracy itself. This includes electoral commissions, judiciaries, legislatures and even the media and civil society. </p>
<p>The net effect is to undermine transparency and accountability. This in turn facilitates the abuse of power, especially in more authoritarian contexts.</p>
<p>The second <a href="https://www.democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa">report</a> was curated by <a href="https://democracyinafrica.org/">Democracy in Africa</a> and takes a slightly different approach. It looks at how unelected networks can infiltrate and subvert state structures. </p>
<p>In particular, it maps the emergence of shadow states in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. These case studies show that networks of unelected businessmen, civil servants, political fixers and members of the presidents’ families wield more power than legislators.</p>
<p>By mapping how these networks are organised across different groups and countries, the report reveals how influential and resilient certain groups have become. It also shows how many shadow states have been integrated into transnational financial and – in some cases – criminal networks.</p>
<p>This is not an “African” issue. Similar processes have been identified in a number of different countries and regions. These include <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00856401.2012.702723">Bangladesh</a>, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/3490dbb8-4050-11e7-9d56-25f963e998b2">Brazil</a> and the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/5/13/21219164/trump-deep-state-fbi-cia-david-rohde">US</a>. But this does not mean that the need to recognise and confront these issues is any less pressing. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/chieftaincy-conflicts-in-ghana-are-mixed-up-with-politics-whats-at-risk-166602">Chieftaincy conflicts in Ghana are mixed up with politics: what's at risk</a>
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<p>States with higher levels of democracy capture are prone to becoming more authoritarian, corrupt and abusive.</p>
<h2>Democracy capture and the shadow state</h2>
<p>According to politics professor <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/emmanuel-gyimah-boadi-178880">Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi</a>, democracy capture <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa/">occurs when</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>a few individuals or sections of a supposedly democratic polity are able to systematically appropriate to themselves the institutions and processes as well as dividends of democratic governance. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, democracy capture expands the idea of “<a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa/">state capture</a>” to include all political institutions and democratic activities including civil society and the media. </p>
<p>The term is widely used in South Africa to refer to the undue influence of special interest groups <a href="https://www.sastatecapture.org.za/">over state institutions</a>.</p>
<p>Indeed what is striking about this process is the well-structured networks that encompass a broad range of individuals from government to the security forces, traditional leaders, private businesses, state-owned enterprises, and their family members. According to a <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/ivor-chipkin-shadow-state/svsw-5528-g590">separate study</a> by South African academics <a href="http://www.gapp-tt.org/personnel/ivor-chipkin/">Ivor Chipkin</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/mark-swilling-213526">Mark Swilling</a>,
what distinguishes these actors is their privileged “access to the inner sanctum of power in order to make decisions”.</p>
<p>One helpful way of conceptualising these networks is the idea of <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191828836.001.0001/acref-9780191828836-e-302">shadow states</a> developed by the influential
political scientist <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429047268-8/business-conflict-shadow-state-case-west-africa-william-reno">William Reno</a>.</p>
<p>For Reno, a shadow state is effectively a system of governance in which a form of parallel government is established by a coalition of the president, militias, security agencies, local intermediaries and foreign companies. In extreme versions such as <a href="https://www.scholars.northwestern.edu/en/publications/corruption-and-state-politics-in-sierra-leone-2">Sierra Leone</a> real power no longer lies in official institutions of government such as the legislature.</p>
<p>This kind of shadow state is characterised by the existence of private armies and a severely limited, almost imaginary, formal state. </p>
<p>More recently, researchers have identified manifestations of the shadow state in <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hussein-Solomon/publication/252882619_The_Shadow_State_in_Africa_A_Discussion/links/5759308008ae9a9c954af80f/The-Shadow-State-in-Africa-A-Discussion.pdf">countries</a> that are not in the middle of civil war and have stronger formal political systems. Good examples include <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa/">Kenya</a> and <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa/">Zambia</a>. </p>
<p>In these cases, the shadow state is more oriented towards hampering the activities of opposition parties and ensuring impunity for its members.</p>
<h2>Africa is not a country</h2>
<p>The nine case studies featured in the two reports show that the extent of democracy capture varies significantly. It is lower in states like Ghana, where robust electoral contestation among rival parties has seen multiple transfers of power. It’s much higher in states such as Zimbabwe, where the government has never changed hands.</p>
<p>The shape and resilience of unelected power networks also varies in important ways. In Uganda, the shadow state is run by an axis of President Yoweri Museveni’s family, a “military aristocracy” and interlocutors in the business community. </p>
<p>In Benin, President Patrice Talon has exploited the weakness of the legal system, the judiciary and the legislature to expand his power. Through this process he has turned one of the continent’s most vibrant democracies into a near political monopoly.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guinea-has-a-long-history-of-coups-here-are-5-things-to-know-about-the-country-167618">Guinea has a long history of coups: here are 5 things to know about the country</a>
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<p>The picture is different again in the DRC. International military alliances were critical to the way that former presidents <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/laurent-kabila">Laurent Kabila</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2011/11/22/profile-joseph-kabila-2">Joseph Kabila</a> took and held power. This led to a shadow state that has been more profoundly shaped by transnational smuggling networks and <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa/">the activities of the security forces</a>.</p>
<p>The situation in Zambia is also distinctive. Under former president Edgar Lungu, the security forces were less relevant than the nexus between politicians, government officials and businessmen. This led to rampant corruption and mismanagement. But it did not prevent a transfer of power <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-edgar-lungu-and-his-party-lost-zambias-2021-elections-166513">in 2021</a>.</p>
<p>In contrast, in Zimbabwe the government has been progressively <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa/">militarised</a>, penetrating further areas of the state and the economy. This raises serious questions about whether President Emmerson Mnangagwa – or army leaders – holds real power.</p>
<p>It is, therefore, important to map the shadow state on a case-by-case basis because no two networks are the same. The differences between them reveals who really holds power.</p>
<h2>The consequences</h2>
<p>Shadow states have a negative impact on democracy and accountability. But the damage they do goes well beyond this. It undermines inclusive development through three related processes:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>creating a culture of impunity, which facilitates corruption and diverts resources from productive investments </p></li>
<li><p>manipulating government expenditure and other public resources and opportunities to sustain the patronage networks and ensure the shadow state’s political survival </p></li>
<li><p>creating monopolistic or oligopolistic conditions that increase prices and enable companies with links to the shadow state to make excessive profits.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The result is that resources and investment are systematically diverted into private hands. </p>
<p>In Uganda, Museveni issues <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa/">tax waivers</a> to business allies in return for election support. This denies the treasury hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. </p>
<p>In Zimbabwe, <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa/">companies in league with the ruling party</a> and the military have used these connections to establish near monopolies in key sectors of the economy that exploit the public. In one case, this led to <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/features/africa/2018-12-13-the-politics-of-petrol-in-zimbabwe/">severe fuel shortages</a> that artificially inflated prices.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africans-hold-contradictory-views-about-their-democracy-159647">South Africans hold contradictory views about their democracy</a>
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<p>When added to the billions of dollars lost through straightforward corruption, theft and fraud, it is clear that these processes represent one of the most significant barriers to inclusive development in Africa. Unless these networks are challenged, they will continue to keep citizens in poverty while enriching those connected to the shadow state.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://afrobarometer.org/our-network/leadership/henry-kwasi-prempeh">Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh</a>, executive director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development, co-authored this article</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167724/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nic Cheeseman has received funding from CDD-Ghana and the Rift Valley Institute.</span></em></p>The extent of democracy capture varies markedly between countries. It’s much higher in states such as Zimbabwe, where the government has never changed hands.Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1675172021-09-14T16:10:37Z2021-09-14T16:10:37ZMarriages of inconvenience: the fraught politics of coalitions in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420279/original/file-20210909-21-zmb5t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Athol Trollip, from the DA, third from left, and his deputy Mongameli Bobani, from the UDM, extreme right, help clean up a street in 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">by Werner Hills/Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The popularity of the African National Congress (ANC), which has governed South Africa since <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-african-general-elections-1994">the end of apartheid in 1994</a>, has slipped in successive elections from its high of over <a href="http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/arc/2291_94.htm">60%</a>. First it declined to under <a href="https://www.elections.org.za/NPEDashboard/app/dashboard.html">60% </a>, then to below <a href="https://www.eisa.org/eu/eu2016main.htm">50%</a> in the cities of Tshwane, Johannesburg, and Nelson Mandela Bay in 2016. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, the Democratic Alliance (DA), the official opposition, shows no sign of benefiting from the ANC’s slack – hardly reaching even 30% of the votes cast. Instead, the ANC’s numbers have been absorbed by small, mostly new parties.</p>
<p>Inevitably, South Africa is in for many decades of coalitions. This is the central theme of a new <a href="https://mistra.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/MISTRA-Marriages-of-Inconvenience-layout-FA-chap-10.pdf">book</a>, <em>Marriages of Inconvenience: The Politics of Coalitions in South Africa</em>, which takes a forward-looking view of the country politics but also a historical one.</p>
<p>Political scientist <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/susan-booysen-197872">Susan Booysen</a> and the <a href="https://mistra.org.za/">Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection</a>, the independent think tank, have done themselves proud by assembling a team of 15 scholars to publish this authoritative 528 page volume. It shows both the nation’s track record of previous municipal and provincial coalitions, and what factors will influence future successes and failures in the new round of coalitions that will come after the <a href="https://www.enca.com/news/local-government-elections-be-held-1-november">1 November 2021 local government elections </a>.</p>
<p>South Africans ought, at the least, to remember their former Government of National Unity <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-african-government-national-unity-gnu-1994-1999">between 1994-97</a>: this was a grand coalition of the then three largest parties in Parliament – the ANC, National Party, and the Inkatha Freedom Party – diverse in policies, but united in the intention to defuse the threat of continued civil war. </p>
<p>From 1983-89 South Africa was in a low-level civil war, including rioting, petrol-bombing, assassinations, wildcat general strikes, and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/covert-operations">massacres</a>.</p>
<p>The political future will be markedly different, the authors say. In short, voters face a mix of parties winning an outright majority in some towns, but increasingly requiring coalitions to hold power in other towns. For this reason, South Africa will increasingly, but variably and intermittently, enter into interparty coalition arrangements in the years to come. (p.6)</p>
<h2>Lessons from elsewhere</h2>
<p>Part of this book examines coalitions in other countries, whose lessons South Africa could heed. At one extreme, Mauritius had a coalition which lasted 15 years (p.453). At the other, Italy has suffered 30 prime ministers after World War II - of whom only four lasted five years or more. Belgium took 13 attempts over 493 days to negotiate a coalition in 2019; after their 2010 election, they took 541 days to succeed in forming a coalition. (p.462)</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-two-books-have-to-say-about-the-political-lifespan-of-south-africas-anc-103377">What two books have to say about the political lifespan of South Africa's ANC</a>
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<p>South Africa’s political parties would do well to learn from Ireland, where the three largest political parties negotiated a coalition treaty over one hundred pages long. This stipulated measures and mechanisms for conflict resolution, plus agreed compromise policies on health care, education, housing, and foreign policy.</p>
<h2>Sobering experiences</h2>
<p><a href="https://mistra.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/MISTRA-Marriages-of-Inconvenience-layout-FA-chap-10.pdf">Marriages of Inconvenience</a> examines South Africa’s sobering experiences with coalitions in the Western Cape and Kwazulu-Natal; and in Nelson Mandela Bay, Tshwane, Johannesburg, and Cape Town.</p>
<p>The rarest of all the country’s coalitions – so far – have been short ANC-DA coalitions in Beaufort West and Kannaland, (pp.52, 60) though these parties are adjacent on the country’s political spectrum. The most unlikely have been the Johannesburg, Tshwane, and Mandela Bay DA-Economic Freedom Front “confidence and supply agreements”. This is political science jargon for a minimalist agreement where one party agrees to vote with the other only on votes of no confidence, and on passing the annual budget.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421853/original/file-20210917-27-mzohjk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421853/original/file-20210917-27-mzohjk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421853/original/file-20210917-27-mzohjk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421853/original/file-20210917-27-mzohjk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421853/original/file-20210917-27-mzohjk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1147&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421853/original/file-20210917-27-mzohjk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1147&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421853/original/file-20210917-27-mzohjk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1147&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Nelson Mandela Bay, in the Eastern Cape, provides readers with a grim lesson of all the reasons to wish to minimise or best of all avoid coalitions. Two authors in this book have each previously written a book about this city’s governance. The DA, African Christian Democratic Party, Congress of the People, Freedom Front Plus, and the United Democratic Movement (UDM) did indeed have a “co-governance agreement” between them both on substantive issues, such as not allocating public works jobs on party lines, through to procedures for consultation. (p.269)</p>
<p>Eagerness for power left both the DA and ANC vulnerable to extortion from the smallest parties. The UDM (with only two councillors) and the Patriotic Alliance (with only one councillor) both in turn demanded - and got – the mayoralty.</p>
<p>The UDM’s <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/obituaries/obituary-mongameli-bobani-port-elizabeths-mayor-who-was-both-loved-and-loathed-20201112">Mongameli Bobani</a>’s first action on becoming mayor was to demand lists of all contracts up for tender, and all vacant managerial positions – flashing red lights. He fired the city manager, and appointed a further seven acting city managers, in his attempts to get his way. (pp. 383-4)</p>
<p>All DA appeals to UDM national leader <a href="https://www.pa.org.za/person/bantubonke-harrington-holomisa/">Bantu Holomisa</a> to replace Bobani fell on deaf ears. The inevitable result was the collapse of the DA-led coalition; a collapse of the following coalition; then a period with no mayor. This put many day-to-day operations into a tailspin.</p>
<h2>Dangers of political interference</h2>
<p>This is not the only instance where the vulnerability of municipal staff to political threats from their mayor hurt South Africa. Prior to 2000, the post of city manager - then called <a href="https://open.uct.ac.za/handle/11427/16765">town clerk</a> – was on permanent staff. This was then changed to a maximum contract of five years, to expire one year after municipal elections.</p>
<p>The city manager is the CEO of the entire administration of a metropolis, where the buck should stop when anything malfunctions or ceases to work.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-stands-to-win-or-lose-if-south-africa-were-to-hold-all-elections-on-the-same-day-145333">Who stands to win or lose if South Africa were to hold all elections on the same day</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Since 2000, the city manager has been appointed on a contract limited to a maximum of five years (p.297). This means that no city manager may dare refuse an illegal order from a mayor about appointments or tenders for fear of their contract not being renewed, or even being fired from their career job.</p>
<p>In practice, the situation is worse – municipal managers average only three and a half years before they are squeezed out by their political bosses; in the large <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/government-system/local-government">metropolitan councils</a> they average a mere 15 months before being purged. (p.277). The consequences are devastating – the bleeding away of competent leadership, and appointment of unqualified and sometimes unethical party hacks to, for example, run the sewage treatment plant.</p>
<p>Political interference in appointments and tenders are the prime drivers of corruption. South Africa urgently needs to return to city managers as permanent staff as speedily as possible. This will require a statutory revision.</p>
<p>Another lesson from the book is that all political parties in the country centralise power. No municipal nor provincial coalition will survive unless it is supported by the national leadership of all the political parties involved.</p>
<p>This book will be valuable on every bookcase. It could not be more timely – the country is now a mere two months away from the next local government election, in which there are certain to be far more coalitions than ever before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167517/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is an ANC member, but writes this review in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>South Africa’s political parties would do well to learn from Ireland, where the three largest political parties negotiated a coalition treaty that stipulated mechanisms for conflict resolution.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1649682021-07-22T14:54:44Z2021-07-22T14:54:44ZViolence in South Africa: an uprising of elites, not of the people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412684/original/file-20210722-13-1conxh7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trucks and business were looted and burnt during recent riots in South Africa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Stringer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>From time to time, South Africa is rudely reminded that its past continues to make its present and future difficult. It does not always recognise this reality when it sees it.</p>
<p>The latest – and most shocking – reminder is the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/7/13/violence-and-looting-escalates-in-south-africa-as-zuma-jailed">violence</a> which followed the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma. The mayhem devastated KwaZulu-Natal, the home of Zuma and his faction of the governing African National Congress (ANC), and damaged Gauteng, the economic heartland which also houses <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1021-14972020000100001">hostels</a> in which working migrants from KwaZulu-Natal live. </p>
<p>The violence was seen as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/unrest-is-being-used-to-subvert-south-africas-democracy-giving-in-is-not-an-option-164499">new threat to the democracy established in 1994</a>. But, while it was severe, it was a symptom of a past the country has yet to face, not a future it did not see coming. Even the one aspect which was new – the scale of violence in KwaZulu-Natal – was a product of realities which have been evident for years.</p>
<p>Destructive violence is frightening. In South Africa, it is even more alarming because its middle class, which <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/prisoners-of-the-past/">monopolises the debate</a>, assumes that it is only a matter of time before the country is engulfed in conflict. This makes it important to point out that, as severe as the violence was, it does not mean that the country’s democracy is in deep danger.</p>
<p>The South African mainstream, which expected democracy to usher in a perfect country and is repeatedly angered that it didn’t, ignores a core reality – that <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338545954_Power_in_Action_democracy_citizenship_and_social_justice_by_Steven_Friedman">democracies are tested all the time</a>. For people who like power – who exist in all societies and at all times – there is nothing natural or necessary about democracy. It forces them to obey rules they would rather ignore, listen to voices they would rather not hear, and allow others to take decisions they would prefer to take. </p>
<p>This means that there is nothing fatal about democracy being tested – it always is. The question is whether it passes the test. The violence did test democracy. Whether President Cyril Ramaphosa is right that it was a <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/president-ramaphosa-attempted-insurrection-failed-gain-popular-support">failed insurrection</a> is open to debate. But the violence was aimed at ensuring that democracy did not work. Democracy survived the assault. Whether this test strengthens it depends on whether the issues which caused the violence are addressed. And that depends on understanding what the test was.</p>
<h2>Elite uprising</h2>
<p>The violence has been widely seen as an expression of anger and frustration by people living in poverty, which has been much worsened in South Africa by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-pandemic-has-triggered-a-rise-in-hunger-in-south-africa-164581">impact of COVID-19</a>. But there was no revolt of the poor – it was an assault on democracy by elites. </p>
<p>The KwaZulu-Natal violence was frighteningly new because much of it did not follow the familiar pattern of conflict in South Africa and other countries. While there was looting, a common response to conflict by people living in poverty, there was also an assault on infrastructure, destruction of businesses and the “disappearance” of <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/unrestsa-more-than-a-million-bullets-stolen-from-container-in-durban-most-still-missing-20210716">large stocks of bullets</a>. None of this squares with what we might expect people fighting poverty to do during a conflict.</p>
<p>Nor was the violence a popular uprising. There were no large public demonstrations. The scale of the KwaZulu-Natal violence was huge but you don’t need many people to set fire to electricity installations or factories. The damage could have been done with minimal public support and almost certainly was. This was an uprising of elites, not of the people, although some joined the looting as we would expect people in poverty to do. </p>
<p>Ironically, the claims that this was about poverty or the COVID-19 lockdown blame the people for something the elites did.</p>
<p>But which elites? It will take a while before we know exactly what happened. But there are two elements in reports of the violence which suggest that it was a product of realities which have been evident to researchers for years.</p>
<p>First, although South Africa’s democracy is the product of a <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/The_Small_Miracle.html?id=GSMvAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">negotiated settlement</a>, it followed armed conflict between the minority government and the forces fighting for majority rule. This makes the country another example of what some academics call “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4146925">war transitions</a>”: change from one political system to another where there are armed people on both sides of the divide.</p>
<p>In these cases, the textbook idea that <a href="https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190679545.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190679545-e-13">only the state uses violence</a> and does this within rules which are clear to all does not apply. Some people still have weapons and armed networks, whether they are inside or outside the government, and are not necessarily bound by the rules.</p>
<h2>Unsettling reality</h2>
<p>This has been a South African reality since 1994. It shows in constant factional battles between state intelligence operatives, in divisions between ex-combatants <a href="https://www.news24.com/witness/news/mkmva-defies-anc-call-to-disband-20210706">in the fight against apartheid</a>, in security companies and criminal gangs whose members bore arms before 1994. </p>
<p>Their political loyalties may lie with members of the faction, not the governing party, let alone the state. Their networks may be devoted not only to a common political goal but also to gaining wealth and economic influence. This has made keeping order far more difficult. It can also make creating disorder easier.</p>
<p>The second is that local councillors allegedly played an important role in the violence. This too would reflect a long-standing reality. Attention to corruption in South Africa focuses on national government, but local and regional networks devoted to getting richer at public expense are far more deep-rooted. There is a <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-17-this-is-us-those-trying-to-tear-south-africa-apart/">clear link</a> between them and violence – KwaZulu-Natal in particular has seen <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-fails-to-get-to-the-bottom-of-killings-in-kwazulu-natal-128167">repeated killings of councillors or local officials</a> who tried to resist corruption.</p>
<p>Both the people under arms and the local networks had ample reason to mobilise their power for harm – Zuma’s imprisonment may well have signalled that power had shifted in ways which threatened the survival of the networks. They may not have been trying an insurrection, which means they were trying to seize power. But they were doing whatever they could to ensure that their networks survived.</p>
<h2>Unfinished business</h2>
<p>So, while the scale of the violence may have been new, its origins are not. They are deeply embedded in South Africa’s unfinished business, its inability to create a single source of public order or to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-corruption-in-south-africa-isnt-simply-about-zuma-and-the-guptas-113056">change an economic balance of power</a> which ensures that ambitious people with the means to destroy see their networks as the only route to wealth.</p>
<p>The violence wreaked its damage because South Africa’s journey to democracy remains incomplete. It sends a sharp message that the country must look its past far more squarely in the eye and find ways to change it before it can be confident about avoiding more of what happened in KwaZulu-Natal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164968/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Friedman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The violence wreaked its damage because South Africa’s journey to democracy remains incomplete. It sends a sharp message that the country must look its past far more squarely in the eye.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1634352021-07-18T07:47:40Z2021-07-18T07:47:40ZHow Frelimo betrayed Samora Machel’s dream of a free Mozambique<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408677/original/file-20210628-17-1xx8348.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Samora Machel, Mozambique's founding president. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sahm Doherty/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Forty-six years ago, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/death-samora-machel">Samora Machel</a>, the leader of Mozambique’s liberation movement and the country’s first president, stood before a euphoric crowd at Machava Stadium and <a href="https://cedis.fd.unl.pt/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DECLARA%c3%87%c3%83O-DE-INDEPEND%c3%8aNCIA-DE-MO%c3%87AMBIQUE-DE-25-DE-JUNHO-DE-1975.pdf">declared</a> the</p>
<blockquote>
<p>complete and total independence of Mozambique. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He inspired the people of Mozambique to imagine and build a new nation in which development, social justice, and solidarity with – and care for – the oppressed took centre stage.</p>
<p>Four decades later, Machel’s declarations ring hollow. His words and the new dawn they heralded have since disintegrated.</p>
<p>I’m a Mozambican political sociologist. I have been a keen observer of the country’s changing economic, social and political structures since the early 1990s. </p>
<p>The declaration of independence in 1975 proclaimed a social contract that contained the ideals of freedom. These included economic and social justice, eradication of hunger and poverty, health and education for all, equality of all people regardless of ethnicity, race and gender, emancipation of women, the rule of law and human rights. </p>
<p>But Frelimo has squandered the enormous political capital it enjoyed at independence. The party remains in power by using violence, intimidation, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr41/1019/2019/en/">harassment and threats</a>. Generalised <a href="https://cipmoz.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/CIP-Custos_da_Corrupcao.pdf">lawlessness</a> characterise Mozambique today.</p>
<p>Governance crises and deep rooted <a href="https://cipmoz.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/CIP-Custos_da_Corrupcao.pdf">corruption</a> permeate all aspects of political, economic and social life. <a href="https://www.iese.ac.mz/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/CIESE19-BernhardWeimer.pdf">Popular discontent</a> with the Frelimo government is on the rise. This explains the armed conflict in <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/24/mozambique-opposition-group-raids-hospitals">central</a> and <a href="https://www.dw.com/pt-002/guerra-em-cabo-delgado-erro-hist%C3%B3rico-que-a-frelimo-n%C3%A3o-consegue-remediar/a-57226829">northern</a> regions. </p>
<h2>The context</h2>
<p>Mozambique was the first country in southern Africa to become <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Southern-Africa/Independence-and-decolonization-in-Southern-Africa">independent</a> through armed insurrection. This threatened the white minority regimes of Southern Rhodesia (today’s Zimbabwe) and <a href="http://psimg.jstor.org/fsi/img/pdf/t0/10.5555/al.sff.document.crp2b20027_final.pdf">South Africa</a>. Both feared that Mozambique would become a haven for the liberation movement guerrillas of the respective countries. It was, therefore, in their interests to topple the Frelimo government. </p>
<p>As Mozambique celebrated independence the regime of Ian Smith in Zimbabwe conducted air raids in southern and central Mozambique. Civilians were killed and communication systems, <a href="http://web.stanford.edu/group/tomzgroup/pmwiki/uploads/3004-1979-04-KS-a-DIR.pdf">bridges and crops were destroyed</a>. </p>
<p>The Rhodesian regime also teamed up with Portuguese malcontents who still had interests in Mozambique, to create a surrogate terrorist movement, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Apartheids-Second-Front-Africas-Neighbours/dp/0140523707">Renamo</a>.
When the Rhodesian regime fell and Zimbabwe became <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Zimbabwe">independent in 1980</a>, the South African apartheid regime stepped in to finance Renamo’s operations. Its 16-year war of destabilisation consisted of acts of terrorism that produced <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mozambique-Revolution-Under-Joseph-Hanlon/dp/0862322448">profound psychological trauma</a>. </p>
<p>The war of destabilisation and natural disasters created the need for foreign aid. Working with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Frelimo introduced structural adjustments in 1987. These programmes involved <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Peace-without-Profit-Rebuilding-Mozambique/dp/0852558007">economic liberalisation and deregulation</a>. </p>
<p>The programmes involved widespread privatisation of state-run companies, massive layoffs and unemployment and cuts in government spending on social services. The cost of food, water, housing, electricity, transport and telecommunications went up. Poverty and inequality increased.</p>
<p>At the same time Frelimo elites set about building an extensive patronage system. </p>
<h2>Natural resources</h2>
<p>In my view Frelimo political elites have presided over the natural resource mismanagement, looting and environmental crimes. </p>
<p>In the past 20 years many rural communities have been <a href="https://mistra.org.za/mistra-publications/land-in-south-africa/">forcibly removed from their homes</a> to make room for agribusiness, mining, oil and gas companies. </p>
<p>In addition, natural ecosystems have been plundered. The deforestation of central and northern regions has left areas subject to vicious cycles of droughts, <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2019/04/24/how-rampant-deforestation-made-mozambique-more-vulnerable-cyclone-idai">cyclones and floods</a>.</p>
<p>In 2013, the Environmental Investigation Agency <a href="https://eia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/EIA-First-Class-Connections1.pdf">investigation</a> found that 93% of logging in Mozambique was illegal. </p>
<p>But the most marked exploitation of natural resources followed the discovery of large reserves of natural gas in Palma district, Cabo Delgado province.</p>
<p>Local rural communities have been dislocated and impoverished. The transfer of the Afungi peninsula in Palma district, where the French company Total has been constructing its liquefied natural gas infrastructure, was marked by government threats, intimidation, coercion and <a href="https://landportal.org/fr/library/resources/industria-extractiva-e-comunidades-locais">lack of transparency</a>. </p>
<p>Without just compensation and meaningful free, prior and informed consent, communities that for centuries relied on fishing for their livelihood were <a href="https://landportal.org/fr/library/resources/industria-extractiva-e-comunidades-locais">evicted from their fishing grounds forever</a>.</p>
<h2>State of human rights</h2>
<p>The Mozambican declaration of independence committed the new nation to upholding the rights enshrined in international and regional human rights covenants. Yet, human rights organisations document violations of fundamental human rights protected under international law year after year. </p>
<p>In Cabo Delgado, nearly 1 million internally displaced people are in <a href="https://www.emergency-live.com/stories/mozambique-islamist-attacks-create-humanitarian-crisis-in-cabo-delgado-1-2-million-people-without-health-care/">desperate need</a> of having their basic needs met. This includes shelter, water, sanitation and education. </p>
<p>Those suspected of aiding the enemy are disappeared, tortured and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr41/3545/2021/en/">killed</a>. </p>
<p>Journalists attempting to cover the conflict face intimidation and harassment, arbitrary arrests, and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/02/21/mozambique-media-barred-insurgent-region">torture</a>.</p>
<p>The 1975 declaration of independence also proclaimed the complete “emancipation of women”. But most women in Mozambique live under deplorable conditions, stripped of their rights, humanity and <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/news/freeing-women-and-girls-violence-mozambique">dignity</a>.</p>
<h2>Poverty and inequality</h2>
<p>In the declaration of independence, Frelimo proclaimed that the new government would fight and eliminate all the “faces of colonialism and underdevelopment”. These included diseases, illiteracy and hunger. It said health services network would be extended throughout the country. Frelimo also <a href="https://cedis.fd.unl.pt/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DECLARA%C3%87%C3%83O-DE-INDEPEND%C3%8ANCIA-DE-MO%C3%87AMBIQUE-DE-25-DE-JUNHO-DE-1975.pdf">promised to</a> promote the spread of education at all levels.</p>
<p>These promises have not been met. The Frelimo government has overseen <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46420748_Poverty_is_not_being_reduced_in_Mozambique">growing poverty and inequality</a>. It presides over low human development indices, especially in rural areas, particularly in the central and northern regions. Among these are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>health (child mortality, nutrition),</p></li>
<li><p>education (years of schooling, enrolment), </p></li>
<li><p>living standards (water, sanitation, electricity, cooking fuel, floor, assets), and </p></li>
<li><p>unemployment (notably of youth). </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Corruption is rife. An egregious example was the revelation of the country’s biggest ever financial scandal in 2016. Senior government officials acquired secret and illegal loans from Switzerland’s Credit Suisse International and Russia’s VTB Capital. It later emerged in court that <a href="https://cipmoz.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Privinvest-informa-ao-tribunal-ingle%CC%82s-que-pagou-milho%CC%83es-de-do%CC%81lares-a-Filipe-Nyusi.pdf">more than US$17 million had been paid in bribes</a> to the Frelimo party and two serving ministers at the time – defence and finance.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>The ideals of the struggle for freedom outlined in the 1975 declaration of independence are lost and forgotten. </p>
<p>In my view Frelimo has made a mockery of the ideals of liberation. Mourning, not celebration, is suitable for the occasion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163435/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Matsinhe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Frelimo, which governs Mozambique, has squandered the enormous political capital it enjoyed at independence. It now remains in power through violence, intimidation, harassment, and threats.David Matsinhe, Losophone Research Specialist/Adjunct Professor in African Studies, Carleton UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1502102020-11-24T15:02:03Z2020-11-24T15:02:03ZAfrica’s oldest surviving party – the ANC – has an Achilles heel: its broken branch structure<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370342/original/file-20201119-15-1aiubck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Enthusiastic ANC supportets celebrate a recent election victory.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Yeshiel Panchia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Democracies are precarious endeavours, as events around the world are showing.</p>
<p>In most, political parties hold sway over whether the system delivers the will of the people, or doesn’t. So how political parties are organised plays a big role in the health, or ill health, of democratic states.</p>
<p>In South Africa, the issue of how the governing African National Congress (ANC) is <a href="http://joeslovo.anc.org.za/sites/default/files/docs/ANC%2054th_National_Conference_Report%20and%20Resolutions.pdf">held accountable by its members</a> has come to the fore in recent weeks. Ace Magashule, ANC secretary-general, has reminded the public that it is party branches which <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2020-11-13-ace-magashule-says-he-will-not-be-removed-as-anc-secretary-general/">elect and remove </a> ANC leaders.</p>
<p>The trouble is that the ANC’s branch structure, designed initially as a means of <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/constitution-anc">grassroots democracy at work</a>, is <a href="http://cdn.24.co.za/files/Cms/General/d/887/9d7dcecac64248138eb938093109d975.pdf">in a mess</a>. This is best exemplified by the collapse of branches in the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/anc-top-brass-visit-embattled-branches-in-north-west-20201123">North West province</a>. </p>
<p>Another problem is that most South Africans, since the dawn of democracy in 1994, have shown diminishing interest in politics and <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-2019-poll-showed-dangerous-signs-of-insiders-and-outsiders-121758">voting</a>. </p>
<p>I calculate by comparing the number of citizens with the estimated number of party members that, at most, 1% or 2% of citizens sign up as members of a political party. That’s because South Africa has around <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=12362">58 million people</a>. </p>
<p>The ANC is the biggest party, with <a href="https://mybroadband.co.za/forum/threads/article-audited-membership-of-the-anc-youth-league-stands-at-366-435-and-not-600-000.367972/">600,000 members</a>. The Inkatha Freedom Party’s historical claims of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Inkatha-Freedom-Party">over a million members</a> are obviously false, because it gets <a href="https://www.elections.org.za/NPEDashboard/app/dashboard.html">fewer votes than that</a>. (It’s theoretically possible for a party to get fewer votes than its membership, but it’s unlikely.)</p>
<p>The Democratic Alliance or <a href="https://www.da.org.za/">DA</a>, the official opposition, keeps its membership numbers as tightly held as a Kremlin secret. In the absence of inside knowledge, I will infer a ballpark figure: they probably have over 100,000 members.</p>
<p>If we assume that the DA is the second biggest party with about 100,000 members, all the rest smaller, it appears that fewer than 2 million South Africans belong to any political party.</p>
<p>But usually most of those members don’t attend their party branch meetings. Where a party directs its branches to hold monthly meetings, typically only between 15 and 25 out of 100 members will attend an average meeting.</p>
<p>Enthusiasm for politics also routinely oscillates – at a peak in the run-up months to an election; then dying back once the election is over.</p>
<p>The African National Congress, which has governed South Africa since the end of apartheid <a href="https://origins.osu.edu/article/south-africa-mandela-apartheid-ramaphosa-zuma-corruption">in 1994</a>, is representative of other parties in witnessing these hard facts of political life. Gwede Mantashe, when secretary-general of the party, <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/anc-leadership-pronouncements-unacceptable-mantashe-11879321">sounded concern</a> – the branches are supposed to be the power-house of the party, but all too often fizzle out between election years.</p>
<p>ANC branches probably peaked with enthusiasm and numbers between its unbanning along with other liberation movements <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02039/04lv02103/05lv02104/06lv02105.htm">in 1990</a> and the first universal franchise elections <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/04597239308460952?journalCode=tssu20">of 1994</a>. The party’s membership of 600,000 is now down from <a href="https://www.news24.com/News24/ANC-has-a-million-members-20100209">over a million in 2010</a>.</p>
<p>While there may not be a tight correlation between party members and voters, member numbers are usually broadly proportional to the number of probable voters.</p>
<h2>‘Ghost members’ and gate-keeping</h2>
<p>Superimposed on these universal facts of political life are the ugly machinations of power contestation. These often take the opposite forms of ghost members and gate-keeping.</p>
<p><a href="https://reviewonline.co.za/219561/ghost-anc-members-probed-in-provinces/">“Ghost members”</a> typically come about through the machinations of wealthy aspirant politicians who can cheerfully pay 100 people to join, as the minimum for an ANC branch in good standing, as well as pay each of their R20 (about US$1.30) annual membership fees. Such a ghost branch will then nominate a voting delegate to an elective conference to vote for their patron politician to some higher office. After the election, the branch will fizzle out for the next five years.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/mashatile-denies-allegations-of-branches-gate-keeping/">“Gate-keeping”</a> refers to hostile politicians at a regional or provincial level removing members in good standing from membership lists, until a branch falls below the threshold of 100 members. The aim is to deny a branch the right to send a delegate to the elective conference, if the branch is likely to vote against the gate-keepers’ preferred candidate.</p>
<p>Where a branch is deemed “no longer in good standing”, a few members will seek to join a nearby branch. But most will be demoralised and drop out.</p>
<p>Another problem stems from the <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/constitution-anc">ANC constitution</a> requiring a quorum of half of the members in good standing to a branch annual general meeting (AGM) or to elect a voting delegate. One middle class branch had to call its AGM seven times before it could get 50 members under one roof at the same time to vote. Less scrupulous branches will take the attendance register from door to door until they accumulate 50 signatures, and then hold their election.</p>
<h2>Tackling membership malpractices</h2>
<p>The ANC has taken steps unprecedented by any other South African party to <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/54th-anc-national-conference/1761176/anc-national-conference-credentials-reports-by-the-numbers/">counteract these malpractices</a>. At the branch meetings to elect Cyril Ramaphosa or Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as leader of the party <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-leadership-race-will-go-down-to-the-wire-heres-why-88667">in 2017</a>, each member had to produce their identity document, which was digitally imaged, date-stamped and had geo-location added (personal observation).</p>
<p>This was done to prove that all who signed the attendance register were physically present at the same time on the same premises. The device had an automatic shut-down at 21h00.</p>
<p>Three years later, the ANC migrated its membership lists from the usual paper system to an <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/anc-launches-new-online-membership-system/">online system</a> where each member directly signs on with Luthuli House, the head office in Johannesburg. The intention is that this will short-circuit any gatekeepers at a regional or provincial level. Currently, the system has teething troubles.</p>
<p>The ANC is long overdue to revise its constitution to provide a mechanism for quorums used by many statutory and other entities. Where attendance is below a quorum, the meeting is adjourned for seven days, with no changes to the agenda. When reconvened, that meeting is deemed to be quorate, regardless of actual numbers in attendance. This would prevent demoralised members from coming in vain to meeting after inquorate meeting.</p>
<p>These valiant efforts will not address the problem of low attendance at routine branch meetings. Whereas political parties have resorted to starting all large rallies with a pop concert, this cannot be done at branch meetings.</p>
<p>In Africa, the ANC is the <a href="https://www.africanliberty.org/2012/01/08/africas-oldest-political-movement-celebrates-centenary/">oldest surviving party</a>, and the DA the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-democratic-alliance-at-60-big-strategic-questions-lie-ahead-117129">eighth-oldest</a>. As historical achievements are not always a guide to future performance, both need to touch base with their supporters before the 2021 local government elections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150210/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is an ANC member, but writes this article in his personal capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>The trouble is that the ANC’s branch structure, designed initially as a means of grassroots democracy at work, is in a mess.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1486672020-10-30T10:39:26Z2020-10-30T10:39:26ZWhy South Africans need to give political parties more money<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365522/original/file-20201026-17-14d1w06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">African National Congress treasurer Paul Mashatile wants more money for political parties from the government. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Antonio Muchave/Sowetan/Gallo Images/Getty Images)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If South Africans fear that funding political parties is a waste of money, they may care to think about the costs of not funding them. But, if they want value for their cash, the way parties get money needs to change.</p>
<p>Party funding is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH4nH34uCnw&feature=push-fr&attr_tag=uukiywZT28kHrB_G%3A6">back on the agenda</a> in South Africa after the treasurer of the governing African National Congress (ANC), Paul Mashatile, said taxpayers needed to <a href="https://www.enca.com/news/anc-calls-greater-public-funding-political-parties">give parties more money</a>. Finance minister Tito Mboweni says he is willing to <a href="https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/mboweni-funding-anc-state-capture-11-october-2020/">listen to the argument</a>. Almost inevitably, parts of the media known better for jerking knees than for thought <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7g6X74Tc7k">denounced this as a waste</a>.</p>
<p>Mashatile’s reason for asking for more money was interesting. He said that, since Parliament <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/political-party-funding-act-6-2018-english-setswana-28-jan-2019-0000">passed a law</a> in January 2019 forcing parties to say who their large funders were, private donors were <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7g6X74Tc7k">reluctant to give</a> (despite the fact that the law has yet to take effect). </p>
<p>Usually, big donors love nothing more than to reveal that they have given to a cause – they might hope for a plaque or ceremony. And, if they are giving out of a sense of political commitment, they might be proud for the world to know they are supporting something in which they believe.</p>
<p>If, as Mashatile says, they run for the hills if they believe their identity will be known, it is unlikely that they are giving because they want to help. Their more likely aim is to buy influence.</p>
<h2>Buying political influence</h2>
<p>When <a href="https://www.elections.org.za/content/Political-party-funding/Private-funding-of-political-parties/">a law</a> forcing parties to say where they got their funds was first floated, it was the official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) which <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africas-new-political-party-funding-bill-is-good-news-for-democracy-99034">balked</a>. It said its donors would stop giving if their names were mentioned because they would fear victimisation by the government.</p>
<p>The claim never had much credibility. A government determined to victimise funders of its opponents would have long ago found out who these donors were. It is not likely to victimise them if what it could find out for itself is now on an official form.</p>
<p>It now turns out that it is the governing party, the ANC, not any in opposition, which says its donors are being scared away. This shows that the desire for secrecy is not born of a fear of victimisation but a dread of being found out. The Democratic Alliance is the party of government in the <a href="https://www.da.org.za/government/western-cape">Western Cape province</a> and more than a few municipalities, raising the possibility that its donors wanted secrecy not because they were scared of bullying, but because they did not want the public to know that they were channelling money to parties in local and provincial government.</p>
<p>All this sends a clear message. Private party funding is more often than not an attempt by the moneyed to ensure that government serves them, <a href="http://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/iss-sida-2.pdf">not voters</a>. While some give because they believe, many donors want to turn democracies into their property.</p>
<p>In South Africa, money has been used to buy political influence for <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-corruption-in-south-africa-is-deeply-rooted-in-the-countrys-past-and-why-that-matters-144973">at least two centuries</a>. During the democratic period – since the end of apartheid <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/business/south-africa-economy-apartheid.html">in 1994</a> – cash has been repeatedly given to parties and politicians. It is naïve to believe that the purpose is not to ensure that the politicians in government listen to the people who fund them, not those who vote for them.</p>
<p>Since parties always need money – lots of it – forcing them to depend on private money inevitably means throwing them into the hands of donors who will demand favours for their cash. So, South Africans either have generous public funding for parties, or they might as well not bother to vote because whoever they choose will serve not them but whoever has bought them.</p>
<h2>Problematic funding model</h2>
<p>But, while the ANC is on strong ground when it urges more public funding, its argument is much shakier if it wants that to happen under the rules which now govern funding.</p>
<p>South Africa’s taxpayers already fund parties. A fund managed by the Independent Electoral Commission gives them money in proportion to their <a href="https://www.elections.org.za/content/Parties/Party-funding/">last election result</a>.</p>
<p>The first problem with this is that accountability for the funds does not seem strong. There is no point in giving parties public money to ensure that they serve the people unless they are held to account for how they spend it. Since parties can only use the money for specified purposes, they must give the electoral commission annual financial statements to show how they spent it. But no one outside the commission sees these.</p>
<p>In Germany, which Mashatile mentioned as a model, parties do receive generous funding but they must produce detailed, publicly available reports on how the funds are spent so that people can see <a href="https://www.loc.gov/law/help/campaign-finance/germany.php#:%7E:text=Germany%20has%20provided%20public%20funding,causing%20frequent%20changes%20in%20legislation">how their money is being used</a>.</p>
<p>More importantly, perhaps, the formula used in South Africa (and many other countries) is unfair (and happens to favour the ANC). Parties are funded in proportion to their share of the vote at the last elections. The reason seems like common sense: it does not seem right to vote as much money to a party which wins 57% of the vote as one which scrapes only one seat.</p>
<p>But the formula assumes that voters feel the same way now as they did at the last election. They may have changed their mind and most funding may be going to a less popular party. Most important in South Africa is that, since 1994, breakaways from parties (particularly the ANC) have been motors of democratic progress: breakaways from the ANC have reduced its share of the vote <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-2019-poll-showed-dangerous-signs-of-insiders-and-outsiders-121758">since 2009</a>, making politics more competitive and open to voter influence. The formula means a breakaway which took 40% of the party with it would get no funding until after the next election.</p>
<h2>Need for change</h2>
<p>This argues for a formula which does not reward success at the last elections. There are more than a few ideas on how that could work.</p>
<p>One is that parties get subsidies not in proportion to their votes but to the number of people who support them financially. The size of the donation would not matter – the apple seller who contributes a pittance counts for the same as the mogul who gives a fortune. This would force parties to persuade lots of people to fund them. And it would show how many people cared enough about a party to give it something – anything – to help it get public money. So, it tests current, not past, support.</p>
<p>Another builds on an idea already in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africans-are-finally-set-to-know-who-funds-their-political-parties-110843">yet to be implemented law</a>. It sets up a fund for multiparty democracy to which private donors can give if they want to support party politics. An independent board would invite parties to apply for these funds. In principle, a similar vehicle could be set up to distribute public money to parties.</p>
<p>These are only two ideas; there are more. But South Africa needs not only more party funding, but a new way of handing it out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148667/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Friedman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Since parties always need money, forcing them to depend on private funders means throwing them into the hands of donors who will demand favours for their cash.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1449732020-08-28T09:52:47Z2020-08-28T09:52:47ZHow corruption in South Africa is deeply rooted in the country’s past and why that matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354560/original/file-20200825-22-1jf4r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former South African government minister Nomvula Mokonyane, a leading member of the ruling ANC, at the commission probing grand corruption.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Luba Lesolle/Gallo Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When South Africans express shock at corruption, few seem to know that it is perhaps the country’s oldest tradition.</p>
<p>Citizen <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/opinions/voices/cyril-ramaphosa-the-anc-is-accused-number-one-for-corruption-20200823">anger</a> about corruption, a constant theme in South African political debate, reacts to a very real problem. This was underlined recently by news that well-connected people had <a href="https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/madonsela-and-who-boss-slam-covid-19-corruption-in-sa/">enriched themselves</a> at the expense of efforts to contain COVID-19. What is not real is the widespread belief that corruption is both new and easy to fix.</p>
<p>Reactions to corruption portray it as a product of African National Congress <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/08/anc-corruption-south-africa-failure-polls">(ANC) rule</a> (or majority rule for those who cling to the prejudice that black people cannot govern). In this view, it will disappear when the governing party gets serious about corruption or loses power. </p>
<p>In reality, however, corruption has been a constant feature of South African political life for much of the past 350 years. It is deeply embedded and it will take a concerted effort, over years, not days, to defeat it.</p>
<h2>Colonialism, apartheid and corruption</h2>
<p>Corruption in South Africa dates back to <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0259-94222017000300062">colonisation in 1652</a>. Jan van Riebeeck, the Dutch East India company employee who was sent to colonise the Cape, got the job because he was given a second chance after he was fired for ignoring the company ban on using his office to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jan-van-Riebeeck">pursue personal financial interests</a>. </p>
<p>The period of Dutch rule he began, which lasted <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-africa-1900s-1900-1917#:%7E:text=Increased%20European%20encroachment%20ultimately%20led,South%20Africa%20by%20the%20Dutch.&text=The%20Cape%20Colony%20remained%20under,to%20British%20occupation%20in%201806.">until 1795</a>, was marked by tax evasion and <a href="https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/92175">corruption by public officials</a>. Under British rule, which followed that of the Dutch, public spending was <a href="https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/103674">directed to serve private interests</a>. The most prominent colonialist of the time, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cecil-john-rhodes">Cecil John Rhodes</a>, was forced to resign after he gave a friend an 18-year monopoly catering contract for the government-run railways (JL McCracken; The Cape Parliament 1854-1910. London, Oxford University Press, 1967, p.115). </p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paul-Kruger">Paul Kruger’s Transvaal Republic</a>, the Afrikaner-governed state against which the British <a href="https://theconversation.com/concentration-camps-in-the-south-african-war-here-are-the-real-facts-112006">fought</a> at the turn of the century, was riddled with nepotism and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org.za/site/wp-content/uploads/Apartheid-Grand-Corruption-2006.pdf">economic favours for the connected</a>. The British administration which replaced it served the interests of mine owners on whom it <a href="https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/103674">bestowed special privileges</a>. What today is called <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-09-14-00-definition-of-state-capture/">“state capture”</a>, the use of the state to serve private interests, was common to Afrikaner and British rule.</p>
<p>Given this history, it is not surprising that corruption was a constant feature of the apartheid period. Black people were its chief victims, since they had no rights and so no way of protecting themselves against abuse. But they were not the only ones, as politicians and officials used government power for personal gain. </p>
<p>The most corrupt period in the country’s history was the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070500370555">last few years of apartheid</a>, when the attempt to combat the successful international sanctions campaign made corruption, protected by government secrecy, the core government strategy. This was often done with the collusion of private businesses.</p>
<h2>Blurring the lines</h2>
<p>By the time majority rule was achieved <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/04597239308460952?journalCode=tssu20">in 1994</a>, corruption had become deeply embedded in the way the government operated and in how business related to the government. This directly affected the way South Africa was governed after 1994, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/1324909/Mandela-accuses-ANC-of-racism-and-corruption.html">despite the efforts</a> of Nelson Mandela and his deputy, Thabo Mbeki.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354564/original/file-20200825-22-uxuf7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354564/original/file-20200825-22-uxuf7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354564/original/file-20200825-22-uxuf7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354564/original/file-20200825-22-uxuf7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354564/original/file-20200825-22-uxuf7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354564/original/file-20200825-22-uxuf7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354564/original/file-20200825-22-uxuf7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former South African president Jacob Zuma and French arms company Thales, represented by Christine Guerrier, appear at the High Court in Durban on corruption charges.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Felix Dlangamandla/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A particular feature of the last years of apartheid was a blurring of the public and private which was continued into the new order in at least two ways. </p>
<p>The first was obviously corrupt – the illicit networks which operated during the last years of apartheid recruited people in the new government: former enemies quickly became business partners. </p>
<p>The second was more complicated. It was widely assumed that the ANC would soon govern but its senior officials lacked the means to live the lifestyle expected of people of standing. Businesses, for motives both pure and impure, stepped in to help with cars, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/archive-files/mark_gevisser_a_legacy_of_liberation_thabo_mbekbook4me.org__0.pdf">homes and private schools</a>.</p>
<p>When businesses realised they would need black business partners, the only candidates they knew were the political activists with whom they negotiated. So, it was to them that they offered the shares and seats on boards which were essential if business was to adapt to new political realities.</p>
<p>The seeds of post-1994 corruption were, therefore, deeply planted in the country’s past. But corruption since then is also a symptom of another way in which the past was carried over into what was meant to be a new society. Before 1994, the groups which controlled the state used it to ensure that they controlled the economy too. </p>
<p>British rule gave English-speaking mine-owners special favours which allowed them to run the economy. After 1948, white Afrikaner rule was used to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/089692059602200309">build the power and wealth of Afrikaans-owned business</a>. But the post-1994 democracy has offered black business at best a role as junior partners of their white counterparts. Corruption has, therefore, become the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-corruption-in-south-africa-isnt-simply-about-zuma-and-the-guptas-113056">means</a> which some black people who want to rise to the top use to seek to achieve the dominant role enjoyed by previous business classes whose group controlled the state.</p>
<p>Corruption is also a symptom of the fact that the settlement which brought democracy left intact an economy which is highly concentrated so that <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-corruption-in-south-africa-isnt-simply-about-zuma-and-the-guptas-113056">new entrants find it hard to make their way in</a>. Some turn to politics to achieve the middle- or upper-middle class life they are denied by an economy they cannot penetrate, no matter how hard-working and enterprising they are. It therefore answers a widespread need, which may explain why the corrupt networks are deep-rooted, particularly at the local and provincial level.</p>
<h2>Tackling corruption</h2>
<p>So, corruption is far more deeply rooted than current accounts would have us believe. Reformers such as <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/ramaphosa-promises-corruption-crackdown-at-maiden-sona-20180216">President Cyril Ramaphosa</a> confront a widespread reality which, because it reflects patterns which go back many years and springs from the exclusion of many from the benefits which democracy was meant to bring, is tenacious and can survive shocks.</p>
<p>Removing a few high-profile people will not change much because the networks will survive, as they have done since the departure of former president <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43658953">Jacob Zuma</a> and the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-22513410">Gupta family</a>, who were meant to be the cause of all the problems.</p>
<p>None of this means that sharply reducing corruption in South Africa is impossible. But a successful attempt to do this will need more than the instant cures favoured by the national debate – <a href="https://mg.co.za/news/2020-07-30-the-corrupt-must-go-to-jail/">some high-profile convictions</a> and barring people accused of corruption from public office.</p>
<p>Deep-rooted problems created over centuries demand thorough-going solutions which will take time to work. While this requires more patience and understanding than the national debate seems willing to offer, the alternative is many more years of public railing at corruption while the problem remains because its causes have been ignored.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144973/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Friedman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Corruption has been a constant feature of South African political life for much of the past 350 years; solutions will also take time.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1358432020-04-26T06:48:22Z2020-04-26T06:48:22ZBook raises poignant questions about the future of Nelson Mandela’s party<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329463/original/file-20200421-82714-ydedz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The African National Congress fought against the evils of apartheid, but couldn't escape the sins of power itself.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Yeshiel Panchia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>My instinctive reaction on first laying my eyes on Mcebisi Ndletyana’s new <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/anatomy-of-the-anc-in-power">book</a>, <em>Anatomy of the ANC in Power: Insights from Port Elizabeth, 1990-2019</em>, was to wonder if the African National Congress (ANC), which has governed South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994, was destined to atrophy.</p>
<p>The book is set to heighten the debate about the future of the party, whose dominance has been in decline since 2009. Ingenuously titled, it adds to the growing body of knowledge on <a href="https://theconversation.com/southern-africas-former-liberators-offer-rich-lessons-in-political-populism-70490">liberation movements in power</a>. </p>
<p>It explains how the party, which had fought against the injustice of the brutal system of apartheid, became so absorbed by the sins of incumbency when it came to power. </p>
<p>The book is a distillation of analytical savvy, intellectual prowess, wit and the fine pen of an outstanding pundit.</p>
<p>The political scientist Anthony Butler and sociologist Roger Southall have bemoaned analyses of the ANC for lacking practical and intuitive knowledge of its institutional life, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/583309/pdf">complexity and informal networks</a>. Ndletyana’s book attempts to fill that void.</p>
<p>As emeritus professor of historical studies Chris Saunders has <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/hist/v58n2/07.pdf">put it</a>, the </p>
<blockquote>
<p>ANC’s history is a large mosaic of many different parts. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But can these different parts be knitted together into a complete historical narrative?</p>
<h2>Making history</h2>
<p>The history of political organisations is made every day of their existence, and continues even after their demise. The ink that writes history does not dry up. </p>
<p>Ndletyana gives the history of power politics in the ANC interpretation. He answers the vexing question that Joel Netshitenzhe, a national executive committee member of the party, <a href="https://www.ortamboschool.org.za/2019/03/01/ethical-leadership-in-social-transformation-debating-the-notion-of-state-capture-by-joel-netshitenzhe/">asked in 2018</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>how do liberation movements lose sense of idealism that included a preparedness to pay the ultimate price?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The book analyses the internal workings of the ANC, starting at the time when it reestablished itself inside the country, after it was unbanned in 1990, and ends in 2019. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329464/original/file-20200421-82641-d498gu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329464/original/file-20200421-82641-d498gu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329464/original/file-20200421-82641-d498gu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329464/original/file-20200421-82641-d498gu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329464/original/file-20200421-82641-d498gu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329464/original/file-20200421-82641-d498gu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329464/original/file-20200421-82641-d498gu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>It covers the two decades of the ANC in power. It is, therefore, wide-ranging and large in scope. I am not aware of any other other book that has gone to this length in analysing the ANC in power.</p>
<p>Port Elizabeth – the populous seaport city in the Eastern Cape province – is the contextual setting of the narrative. It has since been renamed Nelson Mandela Bay or simply called The Bay. </p>
<p>The place has always been the fulcrum of political activism, from the earliest days of African nationalism. This, coupled with the ANC’s popularity there, gives the historical reason for its choice as the scene for the book’s narrative.</p>
<p>The strength of the book comes from its causal processes approach and ethnography as a means used to gather information, including studying theoretical literature, official documents and archival materials.</p>
<p>Ndletyana argues that the decline of the ANC, as shown in various electoral outcomes, especially from 2009, is the function of its very political dominance as a governing party. It created the illusion of invincibility. </p>
<h2>Oligarchic tendencies</h2>
<p>When the ANC took control in Port Elizabeth in 1995, it reconfigured its internal workings to align them with the structure of power in the governance of the municipality. The party became the city government and city government became the party.</p>
<p>This spawned oligarchic tendencies and marked the onset of the scramble for the resources of the city. The platform for this is factionalism – a phenomenon which started to show glaringly in the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/52nd-anc-national-conference-polokwane-2007">ANC’s 52nd national conference</a> in 2007 in Polokwane, when Jacob Zuma replaced then ANC president Thabo Mbeki. </p>
<p>Ndletyana shows how these tendencies belie the essence of democracy, including the party’s self-characterisation as a leader of society. His view is that these aberrations are a</p>
<blockquote>
<p>manifestation of systematic weaknesses occasioned by the party’s inability to adapt to being a party-in-government.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course, being unable to adapt to being in power and sustaining political dominance by keeping a hand in the cookie jar – sheer corruption, which has assumed proportions of <a href="https://sastatecapture.org.za/">state capture</a> – are two distinct factors. But, in building the thesis of his book, to explain the decline of the ANC in Port Elizabeth, Ndletyana talks of these as conflations in a blended way, not as binaries. This makes the narrative plausible.</p>
<p>This is ingenuity of thought and interpretation, coupled with a no-holds- barred approach – a function of unencumbered scholarship. The book may ruffle the feathers of those it implicates. </p>
<p>They are revealed as hurdles to the reform of the party. Their resistance goes to the extent of sabotaging the electoral prospects of the party to protect their sanctuaries, which are sustained through access to municipal resources. </p>
<p>This is how the ANC lost the “jewel of the crown” – Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality – in the 2016 local government elections. This is where the ANC had enjoyed historical popularity. The Democratic Alliance performed better than the ANC, and cobbled together a coalition to form government. The ANC lost because it had hollowed out its political capital. </p>
<h2>Self-correction</h2>
<p>But can the party of Nelson Mandela self-correct? Ndletyana is understandably unconvinced. That’s because attempts to reform the party are thwarted by those wielding an invisible hand in the affairs of the government, to maintain their networks of patronage.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329468/original/file-20200421-82650-11lot7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329468/original/file-20200421-82650-11lot7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329468/original/file-20200421-82650-11lot7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329468/original/file-20200421-82650-11lot7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329468/original/file-20200421-82650-11lot7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329468/original/file-20200421-82650-11lot7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329468/original/file-20200421-82650-11lot7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Former ANC leader and South African President Nelson Mandela.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Piere Verydy/AFP/GettyImages</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Unfortunately, this mirrors the state of the ANC nationally, which is at war with itself. The greed of unscrupulous leaders and party members is in contestation with its historical mission of social justice. Ndletyana lays bare this insidiousness of power.</p>
<p>The distinction of his book lies in the strength and clarity of elucidation. It engages the reader in a topic of profound historical significance. But its resonance is in the problems of the day. </p>
<p>I strongly recommend the book to anybody with an interest in South Africa’s future. After reading it, they’ll no doubt wonder: will the ANC survive the future, or is it destined for inevitable demise?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anc-spy-bible-a-real-life-south-african-thriller-but-too-much-left-unsaid-134803">'ANC Spy Bible': a real-life South African thriller, but too much left unsaid</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135843/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mashupye Herbert Maserumule received funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF) for his postgraduate studies. He is affiliated with the South African Association of Public Administration and Management (SAAPAM)</span></em></p>The book is set to heighten the debate about the future of the party, whose dominance has been in decline since 2009.Mashupye Herbert Maserumule, Professor of Public Affairs, Tshwane University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1354432020-04-07T15:55:48Z2020-04-07T15:55:48ZNew book shows how corruption took root in democratic South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326009/original/file-20200407-144186-11yi47n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The ANC, which has governed South Africa since 1994, has failed to deal decisively against corruption in its midst. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Yeshiel Panchia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In evidence before a <a href="https://sastatecapture.org.za/">commission</a> of inquiry investigating corruption, South Africans have been treated to shocking revelations about brazen looting of state coffers. Ín his new <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/anatomy-of-the-anc-in-power">book</a>, Anatomy of the ANC in Power: Insights from Port Elizabeth, 1990—2019, Mcebisi Ndletyana shows how the governing African National Congress (ANC) failed to enforce a strict moral code to guide its conduct in government when it took power <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-african-general-elections-1994">in 1994</a>, which laid the ground for malfeasance. Below is an edited extract from the book.</em></p>
<p>“Amandla, ANC, ANC!” (Power, ANC, ANC!), the chants reverberated throughout the municipal chamber. It was just after 3pm on 6 November 1995. The commotion was unusual for the customarily restrained municipal council proceedings. </p>
<p>It marked a similarly rare occasion. </p>
<p>For the first time in its 134-year history, the port city of Port Elizabeth, on eastern shore of South Africa, had elected a black man, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/christopher-nceba-faku">Nceba Faku</a>, as its 53rd mayor. Faku’s election, on an ANC ticket, followed a string of white males who had occupied the mayoralty since the establishment of the municipality in 1861. Unlike his predecessors, Faku had served two stints in prison and was once denounced as a terrorist for his role in the struggle against apartheid.</p>
<p>His election was truly a signal that the democratic change that started in the country <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-african-general-elections-1994">in 1994 </a>, had not only permeated throughout the structures of governance, but was also irreversible.</p>
<p>In reality though, local government remained largely untransformed throughout the 1990s. New legislation was still relatively absent. This lacuna allowed for the continued application of old apartheid practices. One of these was allowing councillors to adjudicate over the allocation of tenders. Previous councillors had abused this to advance their own their business interests. </p>
<p>The new democratic city council proceeded in a similar fashion, and council regulations allowed councillors to enter into business contracts with the municipality. Before doing so, however, they had to secure consent from the council and exempt themselves from any decision-making process related to their interests. </p>
<p>But, councillors did not always seek consent to bid for municipal work.</p>
<h2>Licence to loot</h2>
<p>Using the opportunity offered by their presence in council for business interests, or to generate alternative sources of income, was enticing for the new councillors. They only received allowances. For those to whom the allowance was the only source of income, being a councillor was an attractive opportunity to augment one’s income.</p>
<p>It was common for councillors, says Errol Heynes – who was deputy mayor at the time – to be approached by business people with bribes to vote for their being awarded a tender. According to Mthetheleli Ngcete, who was one of the councillors, some councillors approached them with stacks of money showing that they had been bribed.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325228/original/file-20200403-74261-pt7mz5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325228/original/file-20200403-74261-pt7mz5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325228/original/file-20200403-74261-pt7mz5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325228/original/file-20200403-74261-pt7mz5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325228/original/file-20200403-74261-pt7mz5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325228/original/file-20200403-74261-pt7mz5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325228/original/file-20200403-74261-pt7mz5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Involvement in business also pitted councillors against each other. Some clashed over the same business deal. A prominent example happened in the late 1990s, over the plot of land where the <a href="https://www.suninternational.com/boardwalk/">Boardwalk Casino and Entertainment World complex</a> stands today. </p>
<p>It involved two companies, Emfuleni Resorts and Siyalanda Property Development. Siyalanda Property Development was publicly associated with councillor Sicelo Kani, while unconfirmed names of some councillors were connected to Emfuleni Resorts. Both companies made a bid for the same plots. The council could not decide, for a considerable period of time, which of the two companies should be sold the plots. </p>
<p>The council seemed to prefer selling to Emfuleni, whereas the executive committee appeared to favour Siyalanda. Emfuleni eventually built the casino, following a court decision in February 2000. Instead of insisting on buying the land, Emfuleni had switched to the easier option of leasing, to which the municipality agreed.</p>
<p>Before the lengthy wrangle was resolved, however, it had wrought serious damage on the ANC. In the midst of the impasse the executive committee was reshuffled. Five of its members – Mandla Madwara, Rory Riordan, Mcebisi Msizi, Khaya Mkefa and Errol Heynes – were removed. The dismissal was unceremonious. </p>
<p>They were not directly informed of their removal, but read about it in the newspapers. Madwara, Msizi and Heynes were, at the time, away in China on council business. Mike Xego, a prominent local ANC leader, narrates the story rather theatrically:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Bagxothwa bese China. Kogqitywa bafowunelwa kwathiwa “buyani sanuba sayenza na lonto ben” iyele apho. Anisena magunya". [They were fired whilst in China and phoned to come back immediately since they had no standing anymore].</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The ANC justified the reshuffle on the grounds of supposed poor performance by the five councillors. Heynes was personally blamed for the ANC’s poor showing amongst coloured voters in the 1999 national elections that had taken place earlier that year. The term <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Coloured">‘coloured’</a> is an apartheid-era label used to refers to people of mixed European (‘white’) and African (‘black’) or Asian ancestry. </p>
<p>Madwara and his colleagues accepted the decision, but rejected the supposed reasons for their removal. The claim that Madwara and his colleagues were fired on account of poor performance was spurious. It assumed that their performance would have been evaluated. None of them were. Ngcete, who succeeded Madwara as chairperson of the municipalily’s executive committee, also does not recall ever being subjected to a performance evaluation when he was a councillor.</p>
<h2>No accountability</h2>
<p>Close scrutiny of the municipal performance disputes the assertion of poor performance. The mayor, Faku, with whom they occasionally disagreed, was complimentary about their performance. In his mayoral speech, made on 23 September 2000 – a year after the reshuffle – Faku singled out Madwara and Riordan as deserving of special praise for gaining the Port Elizabeth Municipality “the reputation as one of the most competent municipalities in the country”. </p>
<p>Ismael Momoniat, deputy director-general at the country’s National Treasury, recalls Riordan as a particularly competent city treasurer (as they were called then). As a result, according to Heynes, the municipality enjoyed a triple-A rating, which meant that its finances were sound, had reserves and could easily borrow.</p>
<p>Incompetence had nothing to do with the reshuffle. The real reasons, according to Mabhuti Dano, were their involvement in business and lack of accountability. They had used their positions in the executive committee, Dano explains, to advance their business interests.</p>
<p>Even if Madwara and his colleagues had business interests, they were not the only ones in positions of influence with such. The mayor, Faku, was a director at the construction company, Murray and Roberts, but survived the chop. Just as the 1990s came to a close, it became apparent that disputes were not settled objectively, but were swayed by personalities and factional support one enjoyed within the organisation.</p>
<p><em>Mcebisi Ndletyana’s book, <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/anatomy-of-the-anc-in-power">Anatomy of the ANC in Power: Insights from Port Elizabeth, 1990 - 2019.</a>, is published by HSRC Press.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135443/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mcebisi Ndletyana receives funding from the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences.</span></em></p>The election of Port Elizabeth’s first black mayor in 1995 signalled that the democratic change that had started in 1994 was irreversible. But problems lay ahead.Mcebisi Ndletyana, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1304852020-01-24T10:31:49Z2020-01-24T10:31:49ZPublic approval is Ramaphosa’s only defence against his enemies in the ANC<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311618/original/file-20200123-162228-1wcmeha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Cyril Ramaphosa's efforts to fix South Africa are being undermined from within his own party, the ANC.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What are South Africans to make of the murmurs that its governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), plans to recall Cyril Ramaphosa as president of the republic at its next National General Council <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/no-ngc-can-remove-ramaphosa-mantashe-20190510">in June</a>? That’s where the party will meet to review if government has implemented its policies.</p>
<p>Apparently the motivation for the removal will be that Ramaphosa has <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancs-anniversary-statement-damp-squib-or-new-benchmark-for-south-africa-129644">not implemented</a> the party’s 2017 national conference <a href="https://cisp.cachefly.net/assets/articles/attachments/73640_54th_national_conference_report.pdf">resolutions</a>. </p>
<p>The mere suggestion of a recall is not surprising. The ANC has recalled two of its four previous presidents, <a href="https://www.news24.com/MyNews24/YourStory/Why-Mbeki-was-fired-20080921">Thabo Mbeki</a> in 2008 and <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2018-02-13-anc-confirms-it-has-recalled-jacob-zuma/">Jacob Zuma</a> early last year. And, like his predecessors, Ramaphosa has <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/politics/2019-06-07-ramaphosa-and-magashule-when-will-the-dam-break-here-is-vrye-weekblads-view/">formidable detractors</a> within the party who see him as a menace to their livelihood and freedom. </p>
<p>There’s no doubting their determination to throttle the success of this presidency. But Ramaphosa’s detractors are unlikely to succeed in their rumoured bid. And, their failure will not be because they’ve suddenly become weak within the administration. </p>
<p>On the contrary, ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule, Ramaphosa’s main nemesis, is much stronger now than he’s ever been. He has appointed multiple individuals to bolster his grip. These are all individuals who’ve been marginalised by Ramaphosa’s presidency on account of malfeasance and, as a result, are similarly opposed to his presidency. They include former cabinet ministers Nomvula Mokonyane, Malusi Gigaba and Des van Rooyen. </p>
<p>Conversely, Ramaphosa’s influence in the ANC’s administration has been weakened by the departure of Zizi Kodwa, Senzo Mchunu and Fikile Mbalula from the ANC’s headquarters to cabinet. </p>
<p>The odds against Ramaphosa’s removal lie in several factors. These relate to the weakness of the supposed gripe, its timing and the likely backlash. </p>
<h2>A weak case</h2>
<p>The complaint that Ramaphosa’s presidency has not implemented its conference resolutions, especially on the <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2018-12-04-parliament-gives-go-ahead-for-land-expropriation-without-compensation/">expropriation of land without compensation</a>, and <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-06-06-no-nationalisation-of-reserve-bank-anc-top-six/">nationalisation of the South African Reserve Bank</a>, is unconvincing and self-implicating.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa has been persistently vocal on the land question and parliament is currently <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/property/360438/here-is-south-africas-new-land-expropriation-without-compensation-bill/">considering a bill</a> to give effect to the resolution. Deliberations on the bill consider both fair and reasonable compensation as well as expropriation in the instance of refusing a fair price. Both these considerations are in line with the caution of the resolution that the land question be handled in a way that redresses the injustice of dispossession, without disrupting food supply.</p>
<p>A similar commitment is evident on the central bank. Ramaphosa has reiterated the intention to put the bank under public ownership, but only if there’s <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-06-20-cyril-ramaphosa-reaffirms-mandate-of-central-bank/">money to buy out the private shareholders</a>. For any criticism on this point to gain support within the rank-and-file of the ANC, it must make a case for urgency and identify funds that should be diverted from what most would view as more pressing matters. </p>
<p>This will be difficult. Firstly, it’s proving hard to show that public ownership of the bank will allow government to influence the bank’s decisions. Even under state ownership, the resolution insists that the bank should still remain independent, which is also guaranteed by the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/act108of1996s.pdf">Constitution</a>. This questions the rationale for insisting on ownership without influence. </p>
<p>The truth is that the idea had little to do with policy. It was originally mooted by those wanting to protect the <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/opinion-and-analysis/2017-07-22-how-to-be-a-gupta/">Gupta family</a> as allegations of <a href="https://beta.mg.co.za/article/2018-09-14-00-definition-of-state-capture/">state capture</a> mounted. The family’s beneficiaries in the ANC sought to gain control of the central bank so that its regulatory powers could be used to punish commercial banks that were <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2018/09/17/standard-bank-on-closing-gupta-accounts-we-were-at-risk">closing the family’s accounts</a>. </p>
<p>These efforts backfired. The Gupta proxies could not mount a convincing argument for removing the independence of the central bank. Now they have a resolution that is meaningless, but are simply insisting on fake bravado. </p>
<p>Besides the weakness of their gripe, Ramaphosa’s detractors are vulnerable on the same point they wish to use against him. There’s little movement on organisational reforms. These relate to, among others, modernising registration for party membership by taking it online to minimise manipulation. Another is to bolster the powers of the party’s <a href="https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/anc-call-disbandment-integrity-committee/">integrity commission</a> by making its recommendations binding, as resolved by conference. </p>
<p>These are all administrative matters that are handled by the secretary-general, Magashule. He is actually guilty of the charge that he seeks to throw at Ramaphosa. </p>
<h2>Bad timing</h2>
<p>Nor is the timing for removing Ramaphosa suitable. Local government elections are scheduled for <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/06/27/cabinet-approves-committee-to-oversee-2021-local-government-elections">next year</a>. Most ANC-controlled municipalities are plagued by <a href="https://theconversation.com/local-government-in-south-africa-is-in-crisis-how-it-can-be-fixed-97331">maladministration</a>, and corruption <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/corruption-in-anc-led-municipalities-affects-service-delivery-moerane-commission-hears-20171011">is rife</a>. </p>
<p>The blame lies squarely with the ruling party. </p>
<p>Take the Eastern Cape’s Makana municipality, for instance. The party ran that municipality into the ground and the provincial government, which has the responsibility to intervene, did nothing. It took the High Court to stem the rot by <a href="https://theconversation.com/landmark-court-ruling-highlights-crisis-in-south-africas-cities-and-towns-130140">ordering</a> that the Council be dissolved and the municipality put under administration for “failing to promote a healthy and sustainable environment for the community”.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa is currently leading an initiative that involves all levels of government to aid struggling municipalities. This initiative will most likely become the mainstay of the election campaign next year. The ANC is desperate to improve on the <a href="https://www.elections.org.za/lgedashboard2016/leaderboard.aspx">lowly 54%</a> it received in 2016. </p>
<p>The various steps he’s taken, combined with his broader reform agenda, makes anyone who suggests his removal look deranged. Most in the ANC may be wrongheaded, but still want to remain in power. To retain power, they accept that they need Ramaphosa. </p>
<p>That said, Ramaphosa’s reelection at the next ANC conference in 2022 is not guaranteed. </p>
<h2>Big risks ahead</h2>
<p>Prospects of Ramaphosa’s reelection hinge on his public ratings. He is more popular <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-02-24-voters-like-cyril-ramaphosa-more-than-they-like-the-anc-survey/">outside the ANC</a>. That’s why the ANC elected him in 2017: to win the 2019 election. </p>
<p>Once it appears that Ramaphosa no longer enjoys better public ratings, he stands a high risk of not being reelected party president, especially if the membership system remains unchanged. Most current members are rented – paid by one faction or another – to vote in one way or another. </p>
<p>Given this risk, it goes without saying that Ramaphosa needs to accelerate reforms. Most urgent is improving operations at the power utility <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-energy-crisis-has-triggered-lots-of-ideas-why-most-are-wrong-130298">Eskom</a>. Power blackouts are the biggest source of unhappiness, and are spoiling the public mood. More importantly they disrupt <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/features/2019-02-28-what-is-eskom-costing-sas-economy/">economic activity</a>, leading to retrenchments. This, in turn, stifles the major promise of his presidency – <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-06-20-ramaphosa-promises-two-million-jobs-for-youth-in-the-next-10-years/">job creation</a>. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, reducing unemployment will take a while to achieve. This then makes fighting corruption, and the actual conviction of those implicated, key issues that will retain public support behind him. And he needs to urgently to take drastic measures to strengthen law enforcement agencies. National director of public prosecutions Shamila Batohi continues to face resistance, for instance, from some prosecutors within the National Prosecution Authority. They are stifling attempts at <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/im-still-gobsmacked-by-extent-of-state-capture-devastation-npas-hermione-cronje-20200118">prosecuting cases arising out of state capture</a>. </p>
<p>Ultimately, though, it is critical that Ramaphosa appreciates that salvation lies outside the ANC rather inside. He has to please the public more than his party. Public approval is his defence against enemies within.</p>
<p><em>The author’s new book, Anatomy of the ANC in Power: Insights from Port Elizabeth, 1990 to 2019, will be published by the HSRC Press in March 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130485/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mcebisi Ndletyana received funding from National Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences. He is affiliated with CASAC. </span></em></p>Ramaphosa’s detractors are unlikely to succeed in their rumoured bid. And, their failure will not be because they’ve suddenly become weak within the administration.Mcebisi Ndletyana, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1301402020-01-20T09:37:46Z2020-01-20T09:37:46ZLandmark court ruling highlights crisis in South Africa’s cities and towns<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310852/original/file-20200120-69555-ebzvvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The town of Makhanda, formerly Grahamstown, and surrounds have suffered serious neglect by the local municipality. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A high court in South Africa has passed a <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/makana-municipality-to-be-dissolved-placed-under-administration-court-orders-20200114">landmark ruling</a> with far-reaching implications for municipalities that fail to carry out their constitutional duty to citizens.</p>
<p>The Makhanda High Court granted an application by the Unemployed People’s Movement that the <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/ec-municipalities/ec-municipalities/makana-local-municipality">Makana Local Municipality</a> be dissolved. The court ordered that
the <a href="https://provincialgovernment.co.za/provinces/view/1/eastern-cape">Eastern Cape provincial government</a>, under which the municipality falls, appoint an administrator to run its affairs. It will be the second time this has happened. </p>
<p>In 2014 the city was placed under administration for <a href="https://www.thedailyvox.co.za/service-delivery-lessons-from-the-makana-municipality/">three months</a>. This was because it was financially vulnerable, wasn’t maintaining infrastructure and service delivery had crumbled. At one point residents went without water for nine days. </p>
<p>That intervention failed to fix the problems. </p>
<p>Last year citizens turned to the judiciary, signalling that they were no longer willing to give government a chance to fix the problem. They are hoping that the judiciary can help solve the crisis of governance. </p>
<p>South Africa’s <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng-07.pdf">Constitution</a> stipulates that local government must ensure the provision of services to communities in a sustainable way, promote a safe and healthy environment and encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations.</p>
<p>Municipalities are the third tier of government after provinces and the national government. This tier is also the closest level to ordinary citizens, and as such, forms the basis of the relationship between government and citizens. </p>
<p>Judge Igna Stretch said in her judgment that the conduct of the Makana municipality had been </p>
<blockquote>
<p>inconsistent with the 1996 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa … [by] failing to promote a healthy and sustainable environment for the community.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The ruling is a victory for activists who have been embroiled in a long-running battle against the dysfunctional and incompetent municipal council run by the African National Congress (ANC). The party governs the country and most municipalities. </p>
<p>This is the first time in South Africa’s democratic history that citizens have been able to argue successfully in court that local government is not living up to its constitutional obligations. The ruling effectively opens the door for others to challenge poor service delivery due to incompetent and dysfunctional governance. </p>
<p>The precedent-setting ruling is set to cause jitters in municipalities around the country. It might see more municipalities being challenged in court. It signals that when internal structures of accountability are dysfunctional the courts can provide recourse for citizens. </p>
<p>It could have broader implications too. South Africans will elect new local councils next year. The court’s ruling fundamentally undermines the ANC’s electoral claim that it’s creating a <a href="https://africacheck.org/reports/anc-2019-election-manifesto-factcheck/">“better life”</a>. It signals that the party effectively failed at fulfilling the constitutional mandate given to it by the electorate. </p>
<h2>Decades of decline</h2>
<p>The current crisis in Makana has been in the making for almost a decade. The seriousness of the situation surfaced in 2011 when it became apparent that the municipality had cash-flow problems. By 2013 there were clear signs that it was in <a href="https://www.grocotts.co.za/2019/03/28/turning-around-makana-municipality/">distress</a>. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/features/2019-04-18-makana-municipality-is-a-city-in-deep-crisis/">2014</a> the municipality was put under administration for a period of three months. This meant that an administrator, and not municipal executives, would oversee its day-to-day business.</p>
<p>Despite this, the situation never improved. Financial vulnerability, failure to maintain critical infrastructure, and a dysfunctional billing system continued. The delivery of basic services, such as clean water, <a href="https://www.dispatchlive.co.za/news/2018-09-21-residents-mull-diverting-rate-payments/">gradually ground to a complete halt</a>: </p>
<p><em>“The city’s decrepit water and sewerage infrastructure has resulted in massive leaks of both fresh treated water, and sewage flowing down suburban roads and past schools.</em></p>
<p><em>Uncollected rubbish decomposes in piles on every street in Grahamstown east and informal rubbish dumps have multiplied across the city.</em></p>
<p><em>The roads are potholed; cattle, donkeys and other stray animals wander unchecked in roads, including national and regional roads such as the N2 which circumnavigate the city.”</em></p>
<p>The council is barely able to spend <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/features/2019-04-18-makana-municipality-is-a-city-in-deep-crisis/">2% of its budget</a> on maintaining critical infrastructure. And amid a major water drought, the council effectively <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/disasters/2131699/rescue-our-broken-town-makhanda-residents-plead/">“chased away” NGOs</a> willing to help by not paying them.</p>
<p>The Makana municipality has been unable to address the <a href="https://www.dispatchlive.co.za/news/2014-09-03-names-behind-makana-fiasco/">decline</a> in governance, financial mismanagement, as well as rampant corruption.</p>
<p>Makana is <a href="https://theconversation.com/local-government-in-south-africa-is-in-crisis-how-it-can-be-fixed-97331">not unique</a>. Only 18 of the country’s 257 municipalities received a clean audit from the Auditor-General in <a href="https://www.agsa.co.za/Portals/0/Reports/MFMA/2019.06.25/2019%20MFMA%20Media%20Release.pdf">2017/18</a>. </p>
<p>The South African Local Government Association <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/news/salga-concerned-about-high-number-section-139-interventions-municipalities">is increasingly concerned</a> about the parlous state of financial management and performance by municipalities.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201906/agsareport.pdf">The root cause of this collapse</a> is that governance systems are built on patronage, rather than the principles of good governance. Appointments are political rather than based on merit, and executive and municipal positions become collateral for political support. </p>
<h2>Systems left unfixed</h2>
<p>In 2015 <a href="https://www.dispatchlive.co.za/news/2014-09-03-names-behind-makana-fiasco/">a forensic investigation report</a> detailed corruption and maladministration, implicating senior officials and <a href="https://www.grocotts.co.za/2015/10/01/peter-left-a-legacy-of-corruption-mxube/">then executive mayor of Makana Municipality, Zamuxolo Peter</a>. </p>
<p>But those implicated have not been held <a href="https://www.rnews.co.za/article/da-grahamstown-lays-charges-for-slow-progress-on-kabuso-report-offenders">to account</a>. </p>
<p>The national ANC leadership attempted <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/decade-of-corruption-leaves-former-south-african-city-of-saints-in-the-dumps-11731531">some intervention</a>, replacing the Executive Mayor, but it left an ineffective municipal council in place. </p>
<p>Makana provides a good example of how patronage in a party-dominant political system undermines good governance. This hampers the ability of municipalities to fulfil their constitutional mandate of delivering services for citizens’ benefit. </p>
<p>The ANC is very aware of this <a href="https://anceasterncape.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/JR-Presentation-on-ANC-Discussion-Documents-March-2017.pdf">problem</a>. Yet, it is incapable of addressing it.</p>
<h2>Party’s poor response</h2>
<p>The Eastern Cape government has said that it intends to appeal the groundbreaking Makana court ruling, claiming it violates the <a href="https://www.algoafm.co.za/article/local/103339/bhisho-considers-appealing-makana-court-ruling">principle of separation of powers</a>. The decision is clearly driven by the ANC which runs the province and is concerned that the ruling will be used against it ahead of the local government elections. </p>
<p>The decision to <a href="https://www.grocotts.co.za/2020/01/16/government-may-appeal-makana-judgment/">“test the judgment to its fullest”</a> will effectively see the provincial government seeking ways to overturn a ruling that holds politicians accountable for their governance failures. </p>
<p>Instead of rooting out a culture of patronage and lack of accountability in the municipalities it governs, the ANC would rather turn the issue into one of alleged judicial overreach. </p>
<p>Unless it changes, its <a href="http://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/south-african-elections-declining-dominance-anc-aopub/">ongoing electoral decline</a> may turn into a spectacular fall come the 2021 elections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130140/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joleen Steyn Kotze receives funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>The precedent-setting ruling may cause jitters in dysfunctional municipalities around the country.Joleen Steyn Kotze, Senior Research Specialist in Democracy, Governance and Service Delivery at the Human Science Research Council and a Research Fellow Centre for African Studies, University of the Free StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1248102019-11-14T15:30:51Z2019-11-14T15:30:51ZGhana’s small political parties have found a way to stay afloat<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300846/original/file-20191108-194646-1qunem8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Elections in Ghana are dominated by the NPP and the NDC</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the past 27 years, Ghana has witnessed three democratic changes of government. National electoral contests have been decided between two main parties, on either side of the political spectrum. There are also a number of minor parties, some of which trace their ideological and philosophical foundations to the independence leader, Kwame Nkrumah. In the most <a href="https://www.ec.gov.gh/reports-and-publications/election-results.html">recent</a> election, the smaller, Nkrumahist parties got only 1% of the vote and are barely staying afloat. </p>
<p>So why haven’t they fallen away entirely? </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14662043.2019.1624291">My analysis</a> suggests that the answer lies in patronage. I argue that party patronage plays a major role in the electoral strategies of the Nkrumahist minor parties. The parties tend to exploit or use ‘blackmail’ or ‘coalition’ potentials for leverage.
Elections in Ghana have experienced keen competitiveness, and the winning margin between winners and losers fluctuates between 1% and about 4%. </p>
<p>Consequently, the votes of third parties are sought after by the two dominant parties. </p>
<h2>Ghana’s de facto two-party system</h2>
<p>Like the previous republics, Ghana’s Fourth Republican dispensation which started in 1993, nurtured and consolidated a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2018.1503091">de facto two-party system</a>. </p>
<p>Since the return to civilian politics in the early 1990s, the electoral landscape has been controlled by two political parties – the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party. With the exception of the first parliament, subsequent parliaments and the presidency have been dominated by the two major parties. These parties have alternated power at the presidential level. </p>
<p>Yet, <a href="https://www.ec.gov.gh/political-parties.html">several</a> other parties have been registered by the electoral commission. Among them are the People’s National Convention, Convention People’s Party and the Progressive People’s Party, which are Nkrumahist. </p>
<p>These parties, at various election cycles, have run for the presidency and parliament. </p>
<p>In the maiden <a href="https://www.ec.gov.gh/elections-results/2-1992-presidential-election-results.html?path=">1992</a> elections, the combined votes of all parties representing the Nkrumahist platform in presidential elections was about 11%. The parties’ electoral strength in the most recent <a href="https://www.myjoyonline.com/ghana-news/2016results.php">2016</a> elections was about 1%. In parliament, the parties held 4% of seats in 1992 and by the 2016 election, the parties had no seat. </p>
<p>The declining fortunes of the Nkrumahist parties in national elections were evident by the time Ghana returned to the polls for the sixth time, yet they fielded candidates in the seventh national elections in 2016. </p>
<h2>Nkrumahist tradition</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kwame-Nkrumah">Kwame Nkrumah</a>, the party that he founded and those parties that his vision, ideology or philosophy inspired dominated electoral politics in Ghana until the Fourth Republic. On the political spectrum, the main party to the left was the Convention People’s Party, a splinter group from the United Gold Coast Convention. From 1949, until it was toppled in a military coup in 1966, it was the only party with a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24393408?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">large nationwide following</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24393408?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents/https://www.modernghana.com/news/269887/the-danquah-dombo-busia-tradition.html">second tradition</a> was to the right of the political spectrum. Its leaders included the lawyer and statesman J.B. Danquah, who led the United Gold Coast Convention in the 1951 election. Chief S.D. Dombo was the leader of the largest opposition party, the Northern Peoples’ Party, and K.A. Busia led the united opposition group, the United Party.</p>
<p>Since the inauguration of the <a href="http://countrystudies.us/ghana/100.htm">Fourth Republic</a> in 1993 however, the Nkrumahist parties have failed to capture the presidency or the parliament. Nonetheless, the parties have survived by using party patronage as an organisational resource.</p>
<p>The power to appoint citizens to serve in the public sector is vested in the president of the governing party. Power patronage has been used in all political administrations in Ghana. In 1992, then military ruler Jerry Rawlings and his newly formed National Democratic Congress party formed an alliance with the Nkrumahist National Convention Party. </p>
<p>This saw the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41653734?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">nomination</a> of the party’s leader, Kow Arkaah, as vice-president. His appointment was a strategic manoeuvre to consolidate minority party votes in order to defeat the New Patriotic Party. Several other leading members were roped into the government after the election was won.</p>
<p>Similarly, in 1996, the opposition New Patriotic Party formed an <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23493574">alliance</a> with the People’s Convention Party. They lost the election however.</p>
<p>In the year 2000, the New Patriotic Party won their first national election. Then president John Kufuor appointed a leading member from the Convention People’s Party, <a href="https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/politics/meet-dr-papa-kwesi-nduom-of-ppp.html">Papa Kwesi Nduom</a>, as a minister of state. The only member of parliament from the party, Freddie Blay, was named a deputy speaker of parliament and voted regularly with parliamentarians from the governing party. He later <a href="https://www.peacefmonline.com/pages/politics/politics/201402/191502.php">resigned</a> from the Convention People’s Party and is currently the chairman of the governing New Patriotic Party.</p>
<p>Leading members of other Nkrumahist minor parties have also benefited from patronage that keeps their parties afloat. A former presidential candidate of the People’s National Convention, Edward Mahama, now <a href="https://www.myjoyonline.com/politics/2019/May-20th/appointment-of-ambassador-at-large-killing-pnc-mornah.php">serves </a> as an ambassador at large for the current government. Another leading member, Abu Ramadan, was also openly courted and <a href="https://www.myjoyonline.com/news/2017/march-10th/akufo-addo-appoints-abu-ramadan-as-deputy-nadmo-boss.php">appointed</a> as a deputy director-general of Ghana’s national disaster organisation. </p>
<h2>Competitive elections and party patronage</h2>
<p>Ghana’s democratic achievements are unique within the African context. Party patronage could be negative or positive to the political system. In the Ghanaian case, the non-material patronage system suggests that it has the potential to contribute to the stability of the political system. </p>
<p>The two main parties have at different times included the members of the minor parties in the governing of the state. The expertise that members of the Nkrumahist minor parties bring on board has contributed to the policy goals of the governing parties. On the other side, the individual members of the minor parties have benefited through their appointment to public sector offices. </p>
<p>Underlying the successes of pluralist politics are two major parties. Essentially, electoral contest is decided between the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party. Yet, the existence of minor parties cannot be discounted. The continuance of the Nkrumahist minor parties in Ghana can only be understood within the wider context of competitive elections and party patronage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124810/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George M. Bob-Milliar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Minority parties in Ghana have found ways to stay relevant in elections despite their declining electoral numbersGeorge M. Bob-Milliar, Senior Lecturer, History and Political Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1161802019-05-01T09:42:33Z2019-05-01T09:42:33ZSouth Africa’s black middle class is battling to find a political home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271553/original/file-20190429-194627-1inzf5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">None of South Africa's political parties are offering middle class black people a home.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s black middle class is growing numerically – and growing politically restive. But does it see the world differently from others? Does this translate into voting behaviour? </p>
<p>These questions require close consideration because the black middle class is already a critical constituency in some of the country’s wealthier provinces such as Gauteng, and is looking for a political home that’s stable and serves its class interests.</p>
<p>The post-apartheid project was meant to unlock the economic energies of all South Africans. But sluggish economic performance, coupled with a decade of <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-09-14-00-definition-of-state-capture">state capture</a> and the scorn former President Jacob Zuma felt towards <a href="https://www.news24.com/Archives/City-Press/Zuma-scolds-clever-blacks-20150429">“clever blacks”</a>, has left the black middle class angry and wary. </p>
<p>They are angry at their exclusion from mainstream economic activity, where “boardroom racism” and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-business-must-tackle-its-deeply-rooted-prejudice-94686">racial ceiling are clearly at work</a>. And they are wary that unless they are members of the governing African National Congress (ANC’s) “charmed circle”, their chances of accessing state funds – normally required to help grow and stabilise the indigenous bourgeoisie after liberation – are at best slender. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-03-10-anc-poll-says-it-is-winning-white-voters/">recent survey</a> conducted for the ANC and which the party has not released publicly, asked over 3 000 Gauteng voters a range of questions about attitudes to politics past and present. The survey <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-03-10-anc-poll-says-it-is-winning-white-voters/">showed</a> that there are stresses and strains in the body politic in general, many of which are most acutely felt by the black middle class.</p>
<p>As a young man from Johannesburg put it in a focus group:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The one thing that is changing that is killing the ANC is the individuals inside. There literally is a clique, if you belong to this clique within the party, you will be all right and if you are against any of their ideas, you are pushed to the side.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The implications for the ruling party are clear: if its policy of appointing party loyalists to government positions <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">(cadre deployment</a> and state capture (or even overt patronage) remain the order of the day, the black middle class will simply withdraw all support from the ANC. This would be a dire indictment of the ruling party.</p>
<h2>Definition challenges</h2>
<p>Many academics, correctly, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2017.1379700">spend a lot of time</a> worrying about the precision of various definitions of (middle) class. These range from occupation to income and education to consumption, through to subjective self-identification. They also correctly bemoan the clumsiness of survey attempts to measure class <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqkBEv58wzs">in all its nuances</a>. </p>
<p>While accepting the weaknesses of most definitions, we nonetheless need to develop and use what we can to try to understand if such a class exists, and what its political behaviour might be.</p>
<p>In this case, we started with a household income in excess of R11 000 a month. This is scarcely a princely income, but analysed in the context of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/race-and-ethnicity-south-africa">“black African”</a> income generally, it certainly includes the “middle stata”. </p>
<p>To make the definition more nuanced we included those who self-identified as upper-middle class (or, in less than 2% of cases, “upper class”). </p>
<p>As the voting intention graphic below shows, even with this rough and ready definition, there seem to be different political dynamics at play for the black middle class.</p>
<h2>Voting patterns</h2>
<p>The graph makes a number of key issues clear. Firstly, the ANC has held – or regained - the loyalty of the majority of black middle class Gautengers, but only just. Where 63% of non-middle class black Africans in Gauteng (who were registered to vote) told us they will vote ANC, this dropped to 56% among the black middle class. Their loyalty is remarkable, given the past decade.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271485/original/file-20190429-194609-18v3jfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271485/original/file-20190429-194609-18v3jfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271485/original/file-20190429-194609-18v3jfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271485/original/file-20190429-194609-18v3jfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271485/original/file-20190429-194609-18v3jfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271485/original/file-20190429-194609-18v3jfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271485/original/file-20190429-194609-18v3jfm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Part of the reason is the state of the Democratic Alliance (DA), the leading opposition party. The DA should be the natural home for an emergent and ambitious middle class, with its talk of equal opportunities, its general dislike of <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Economy/Cadre-deployment-contradicts-NDP-DA-20130508">cadre deployment</a> and its strident attacks on ANC corruption. However, the DA is deeply divided - over race. </p>
<p>The DA committed policy <em>seppuku</em> as the election approached, with its members and <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/mmusi-maimane-feels-pressure-as-white-privilege-race-row-rocks-da-20180506">commentators freely attacking party leader</a> Mmusi Maimane over the issue for fear of alienating their traditional, rather tribal, white voter base. Any mention of race, or redress, or race-based inequality, it seems, was to be banished - while asking those at the receiving end of racism to vote DA. </p>
<p>The signal to black middle class South Africans was clear: fears that the DA remained a “white” party, or a party in hock to white interests, remained; and they were unlikely to be terribly welcome. This remarkable pre-election behaviour split the uneasy alliance of those previously opposed to Zuma and everything he and the ANC represented before Cyril Ramaphosa became the party leader. It seems to have driven those who dipped their toes in DA waters back to the ANC fold, or into the arms of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) or - for a significant number - into the political wilderness.</p>
<p>The ANC has never been able to sustain a strong appeal to higher educated or higher income voters. The DA has now fallen back dramatically in these areas, and the graphic makes it clear that the EFF hold more appeal to black middle class voters than the DA. Whether this is because of their <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/politics/2121794/malemas-membership-of-exclusive-inanda-club-divides-opinion/">strident opposition</a> to racism, or is done to fire warning salvos across the bows of both ANC and DA, the result is that the DA and EFF are fighting for the same small portion of black middle class votes - which are unavailable to the ANC - albeit from vastly different ideological positions. </p>
<p>The ANC continues to enjoy the lion’s share of black middle class votes from those willing to vote. But for how long?</p>
<h2>The apathy</h2>
<p>While 67% of black middle class voters do intend to vote, a third will stay at home on 8 May, cursing all political parties for failing to represent their interests, according to the survey. Chunks of the black middle class may vote, but far from enthusiastically. And a great many will not vote.</p>
<p>Among those who said they would vote, according to our survey results, 17% “don’t know” (or won’t tell) who they will vote for – even though many had previously overcome their unhappiness at the perceived “whiteness” of the DA:</p>
<p>And, as commentator Nkateko Mabasa <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2019-04-23-as-i-experience-class-mobility-will-i-protect-my-interests-like-the-das-black-middle-class/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=SaveLater&utm_campaign=daily-email-alert">puts it</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>although most black South Africans will continue to regard the DA as a white party … there is a growing number of black middle-class liberals who are tired of being ashamed for being regarded as “coconuts” [black on the outside, white on the inside].</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Maimane was a very powerful magnet for black middle class voters, but as his party rounded on him over race, white privilege and the need to maintain the white vote, Ramaphosa has inevitably exerted his own magnetic pull. He is charismatic and emblematic of what the black middle class can achieve. It is therefore no surprise that DA support in this key segment has all but evaporated. </p>
<p>Those who will never forgive the ANC its past sins are either opting out or voting EFF. The question for the future is whether any current party can reflect the needs and aspirations of the black middle class - who, importantly, are black as well as middle class - or whether they represent the social base of some not-yet formed political party.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116180/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Everatt received funding from donors for this survey, conducted on behalf of the African National Congress (Gauteng).</span></em></p>The black middle class are angry at their exclusion from mainstream economic activity.David Everatt, Head of Wits School of Governance, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1130562019-03-07T13:36:49Z2019-03-07T13:36:49ZWhy corruption in South Africa isn’t simply about Zuma and the Guptas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262419/original/file-20190306-100799-1p74up8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The collapse of VBS Mutual Bank in South Africa shows that corruption is endemic.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tiso Blackstar</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Corruption in South Africa isn’t simply a matter of bad morals or weak law enforcement. It’s embedded in processes of class formation – specifically, the formation of new black elites. This means corruption is primarily a matter of politics and the shape of the economy.</p>
<p>In a recently published <a href="https://www.swop.org.za/single-post/2019/02/18/Working-Paper-10-The-Political-Economy-of-Corruption-open-access">paper</a>, I attempt to shed fresh light on the unconvincing narratives that have been presented in the media, NGOs and academic circles about the events of the past 10 years. </p>
<p>These narratives generally depict events as a struggle between two opposing forces. On the one side are a network of politicians, officials, brokers and businessmen centred on former President Jacob Zuma and the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-22513410">Gupta family</a>. All are bent on looting, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-09-14-00-definition-of-state-capture">state capture</a> and self-enrichment. On the other are a band of righteous politicians and citizens. This group is seen as drawing together the “old” ANC, activists, “good” business and citizens in general. They are intent on rebuilding institutions and good governance, the rule of law, international credibility and fostering growth and development.</p>
<p>I argue that a much deeper set of social forces underlies and shapes the struggles within the governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), and the society more broadly. These political struggles are inseparable from struggles over the shape of the economy. </p>
<h2>Limited access</h2>
<p>The primary process to change the economy has been the drive to accelerate the emergence of new black elites. But institutional interventions, such as <a href="https://www.thedti.gov.za/economic_empowerment/bee_sector_charters.jsp">black economic empowerment</a>, have been insufficient.</p>
<p>Already, during the <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki-mr-0">Thabo Mbeki period</a> as well as the presidency of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/nelson-mandela-presidency-1994-1999">Nelson Mandela</a>, an alternative informal political economic system was emerging at national, provincial and local levels. Through this, networks of state officials, ambitious entrepreneurs as well as small time operators, were rigging tenders or engaging in other kinds of fraud so as to sustain or establish businesses, or simply to finance self-enrichment.</p>
<p>Because of a number of factors there was little alternative for channelling the aspirations and burning sense of injustice of black elites and would be elites in post-apartheid South Africa. These factors include the <a href="https://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/on-the-right-to-property/">property clause</a> in the <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng.pdf">Constitution</a>, the conservative strategies adopted by the ANC government and the fact that large corporations and white owned businesses dominated the economy. </p>
<p>This means that opportunities are few, demand is high and competition is fierce. In this context, the state is where people who are locked out are most likely to gain some access.</p>
<p>This links to the issue of violence. The emergence of new elite classes is often a ferociously contested, ugly and violent affair. South Africa is no different from many other post-colonial countries – or indeed the histories of the Euro-American elites that currently dominate the globe.</p>
<p>In South Africa this violence takes the form of burning down homes and state facilities, intimidation, assault, the deployment of the criminal-justice system to protect some and target others, and, increasingly, <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/fewer-political-killings-in-kzn-this-year-18649806">assassination</a>.</p>
<p>I argue that this set of practices constitutes an informal political economic system. By a system I don’t mean a structure which is centrally coordinated or planned. What I’m referring to is a pervasive and decentralised set of interlocking networks that reinforce and compete with one another in mutually understood ways, and include the use of violence as a strategic resource.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262420/original/file-20190306-100805-1u9p8rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262420/original/file-20190306-100805-1u9p8rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262420/original/file-20190306-100805-1u9p8rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262420/original/file-20190306-100805-1u9p8rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262420/original/file-20190306-100805-1u9p8rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1058&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262420/original/file-20190306-100805-1u9p8rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1058&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262420/original/file-20190306-100805-1u9p8rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1058&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former South African president Jacob Zuma in court on corruption charges.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Rogan Ward / Pool</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This system preceded Zuma’s presidency, and extended far beyond the Zuma-Gupta network. The recent revelations about corruption at the <a href="https://www.sastatecapture.org.za/">Zondo commission</a> into state capture, <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/features/cover-story/2018-12-21-scandal-of-the-year-vbs--a-most-unsophisticated-bank-heist/">VBS mutual bank</a> or in the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/How-Steal-City-Mandela-Account/dp/1868428206">book</a>, <em>How to steal a city</em> by Crispian Olver, make this abundantly clear.</p>
<p>It should also be abundantly clear that the informal political-economic system necessarily entangles President Cyril Ramaphosa’s core network of institution builders.</p>
<h2>Ramaphosa’s challenge</h2>
<p>Ramaphosa’s key challenge is to build a stable coalition within the ANC so as to embark on his project of institution building. His trajectory, and the future shape of corruption in South Africa, will be determined by the character of the coalition he can forge – or that will be forced on him – among party barons within the ANC.</p>
<p>For the purpose of building institutions and attracting investment, it will be necessary to establish as stable a coalition as possible. This means it will have to be a broad coalition. One thing is sure: the coalition will include corrupt figures. It already does. The informal system of patronage politics will remain pervasive. </p>
<p>Even so, Ramaphosa’s power is <a href="http://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/anc-top-six-to-handle-plot-to-unseat-ramaphosa/">precarious in the ANC</a>. The odds are stacked against success in establishing stability. For the medium-term the trajectory of politics is likely to be characterised by multiple contestations over material opportunities, political power and symbolic representation. This will give rise to an increasingly volatile, unstable and violent political space.</p>
<p>To return, then, to the prevailing narrative and its misreading of the politics of corruption. </p>
<h2>Deep structural issues</h2>
<p>The problem with the narrative is that it assumes it’s possible simply to remove some “rotten apples”“, and it sets standards Ramaphosa cannot possibly match. </p>
<p>Perhaps, though, it is a useful fiction for the mobilisation of civil society, journalists and judges, which at the very least may contribute to containing corruption?</p>
<p>There is some validity in this. Yet it fails to direct attention to the deep structural issues which give rise to corruption as an aspect of class formation. </p>
<p>The only long-term and stabilising solution would be to draw into the formal system some of the purposes of the informal system. This would require a much more fundamental redistribution of assets and wealth, which could be deployed in the large-scale formation of a new black business class, primarily located in manufacturing and agriculture, as well as to fixing the education crisis. The result would be the formation of professional, scientific and technical middle classes.</p>
<p>This kind of solution will not emerge from the Ramaphosa administration, which is much more fixed on reproducing the policies of the Mbeki era. The problem is that these were what created the opportunity for the rise of Zuma in the first place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113056/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karl von Holdt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond his academic appointment. </span></em></p>Much deeper social forces underlie the struggles within the governing ANC and society over the shape of the economy.Karl von Holdt, Senior Researcher, Society Work and Politics Institute, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1101012019-01-21T13:41:38Z2019-01-21T13:41:38ZSouth African commentators often don’t understand the ANC – or the country<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254504/original/file-20190118-100276-1a9rknv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">African National Congress supporters during the recent ANC Election manifesto launch in Durban.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Regular media as well as social media in South Africa have much to say about the governing African National Congress (ANC). But much of the commentary fails to understand the party – or the country.</p>
<p>This was evident when the ANC launched its election manifesto at <a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosa-sets-out-a-bold-vision-for-south-africa-but-can-he-pull-it-off-109784">a January rally in Durban</a>. Two reactions to the event mirror constant themes in the ANC commentary. Both miss important realities.</p>
<p>The first is related to former president Jacob Zuma’s role at the ANC manifesto launch. The second is the manifesto’s position on the South African Reserve Bank. </p>
<p>Much was made of the fact that Zuma was an honoured guest and reportedly received the <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/politics/2062149/watch-crowd-at-anc-manifesto-launch-goes-crazy-for-zuma/">loudest cheers</a>. For some, this showed that the ANC has not distanced itself from Zuma and <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-net-about-to-close-on-zuma-and-his-gupta-patronage-network-90395">patronage politics</a>. For others, it meant that he and patronage politics were making a comeback. Neither fear is valid.</p>
<p>What the current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, really thinks of Zuma is revealed by his speech to ANC activists a few days before the launch. He <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-01-08-cleaning-up-mess-of-last-nine-years-ramaphosa-says-anc-had-lost-its-way-under-zuma/">said:</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the past nine years, we started losing our way, corruption started settling in, we started weakening our institutions, or government processes started weakening. But fortunately, before we could go over the precipice, we realised that we have to wake up and pull the country back.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ramaphosa did not mention Zuma by name – he didn’t have to. His audience knew that “nine years” was the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jacob-Zuma">period Zuma spent in office</a>. </p>
<p>The speech was an unprecedented public criticism of Zuma’s record: ANC presidents do not denounce their predecessors in public. It signalled clearly that Zuma is not respected by the ANC leadership and is not about to regain his influence.</p>
<p>So why did the Ramaphosa-led ANC invite Zuma, say flattering things about him and promise to assign him tasks? Because the ANC remains divided. </p>
<h2>Symptoms of division</h2>
<p>One symptom of division is a loud pro-Zuma faction in KwaZulu Natal province, which is happy to disrupt meetings to show support for Zuma. A decade ago it <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/crowd-heckles-mbeki-305916">loudly heckled former president Thabo Mbeki</a> at the reburial ceremony of ANC stalwart Moses Mabhida.</p>
<p>Since a repeat would be embarrassing, the threat was defused by including Zuma in the event and downplaying differences between him and Ramaphosa. The “special tasks” are likely to consist mainly of joining a council of elders with no power. The intention was to defuse Zuma’s role, not enhance it.</p>
<p>The reaction to Zuma’s presence at the ANC launch was consistent with a pattern since Ramaphosa was elected. Commentators and citizens on social media repeatedly complain that Zuma supporters occupy posts in <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/features/2018-10-18-cabinet-ministers-why-are-these-rogues-still-in-office/">the cabinet</a>. </p>
<p>This ignores two realities. First, in an ANC whose leadership is divided between supporters of Ramaphosa and Zuma, excluding the latter from the cabinet would mean political suicide. Second, as it did at the manifesto rally, Ramaphosa’s faction is aware of the fact that it has to accommodate its opponents.</p>
<p>The Zuma supporters do not occupy important Cabinet posts and have been unable to prevent the government from pursuing its anti-corruption programme. </p>
<p>Accurate analysis would recognise what the ANC is, not what commentators would like it to be.</p>
<h2>Misreading the central bank clause</h2>
<p>The second example is reaction to a clause in the <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/01/12/must-read-the-anc-s-2019-elections-manifesto">ANC manifesto</a> which says it favours more flexible monetary policy. This, it says, should be implemented “without sacrificing price stability”, but should</p>
<blockquote>
<p>take into account other socioeconomic objectives, such as employment creation and economic growth.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This was interpreted to mean that the ANC would tell the central bank to make cheap money available – and that the bank would be forced to do <a href="https://city-press.news24.com/News/anc-targets-reserve-bank-mandate-wants-more-flexible-monetary-policy-20190114">what politicians tell it</a> to do. </p>
<p>In reality, the clause meant exactly the opposite.</p>
<p>A key consequence of the ANC’s divisions is pressure from the Zuma faction for <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-odd-meaning-of-radical-economic-transformation-in-south-africa-73003">more radical economic policy</a>: its aim is to get hold of resources, not to fight poverty. But it knows that this in an effective stick with which to beat Ramaphosa’s faction. </p>
<p><a href="https://africacheck.org/factsheets/factsheet-south-africas-official-poverty-numbers/">Poverty</a> and <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-04-04-poverty-shows-how-apartheid-legacy-endures-in-south-africa/">inequality</a>, which are still largely racial, continue. So Ramaphosa’s faction cannot dismiss demands for radical change; they would be accused, credibly, of turning a blind eye to minority privilege. So they do accept demands for change – and try to manage them in a way that ensures they do not damage the markets or business confidence.</p>
<p>The central bank is a prime example. Ramaphosa’s faction is being pressed to end <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-07-14-00-nobodys-buying-ancs-reserve-bank-story">private shareholding of the bank</a>. This would not affect the decisions it takes. But it would be seen as hostile to the markets. </p>
<p>There is also pressure to change the bank’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-central-bank-row-points-to-dangerous-levels-of-intolerance-79884">very narrow mandate</a>, which <a href="https://www.resbank.co.za/AboutUs/Mandate/Pages/Mandate-Home.aspx">instructs</a> it to “protect the value of the currency in the interest of balanced and sustainable economic growth in the Republic.” A number of central banks are explicitly enjoined to take jobs and growth into account. </p>
<p>The manifesto aims to deflect both pressures. It says nothing about buying out the shareholders or changing the mandate. It simply repeats the government position on the bank which was spelled out nearly a decade ago by the then Finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, in a <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.za/comm_media/press/2010/2010021701.pdf">letter</a> to then governor of the bank, Gill Marcus.</p>
<p>The Ramaphosa faction’s move to protect the bank’s independence has been seen as an attempt to end it.</p>
<p>This, too, is no isolated incident. </p>
<h2>Fallacy of a pro-business agenda</h2>
<p>Since Ramaphosa took over, mainstream economic commentators have assumed that he was elected to do what conservatives in the marketplace want. Any sign that the government is not pursuing a strongly pro-business agenda is assumed to mean that it is a prisoner of communists. This ignores the reality in the country as well as in the ANC.</p>
<p>As long as poverty and inequality persist, and poor people are almost all black, no party leader who wants to win a national election can afford to ignore most voters’ needs. Governments cannot conform to the very narrow view of their role in supporting the economy. </p>
<p>The real question – whether plans to tackle poverty are likely to work – is ignored in the attempt to turn the ANC into a right-of-centre party and to wish away poverty in South Africa.</p>
<p>In both cases, we need analyses based on concrete reality – not wishful thinking.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110101/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Friedman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A great deal of analysis on South Africa and the ruling ANC seems to be based on wishful thinking, not concrete reality.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1098902019-01-15T15:10:32Z2019-01-15T15:10:32ZBold steps Mnangagwa should be taking instead of fiddling with the petrol price<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253840/original/file-20190115-152986-1z00z45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Zimbabwe erupted in violent protest after the government doubled the price of petrol. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Aaron Ufumeli</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When economically challenged rulers try to run nations, especially fragile ones, they can easily make mistakes. </p>
<p>In the past few weeks demonstrators have taken to the streets of Khartoum and Omdurman to protest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s removal of subsidies that have long kept <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/sudan-official-death-toll-protests-rises-24-190113065645372.html">bread and fuel affordable</a>. </p>
<p>Now it’s Zimbabwe’s turn. Just before flying off to Russia last weekend, President Emmerson Mnangagwa <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/zimbabwes-president-hikes-fuel-prices-to-tackle-shortages-20190113">doubled the price of petrol</a>. Doing so brought already impoverished urban Zimbabweans out onto the streets of the capital Harare as well as Bulawayo and a dozen other cities and towns. Protesters blocked roads with tyres, trees and rocks, stopped bus transport, attacked the police, threw canisters of tear gas back at security forces and <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/deaths-in-zimbabwe-fuel-protests-says-security-minister-20190115">generally ran amok</a>. </p>
<p>At least five people <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/military-deploys-in-zimbabwe-fuel-hike-protests-5-killed/2019/01/15/d44875f6-18aa-11e9-b8e6-567190c2fd08_story.html?utm_term=.2af9f13b1349">were reported</a> to have been killed. Flights into Harare <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/africa/2019-01-14-fastjet-cancels-flights-as-zimbabwe-unrest-continues-countrywide/">were cancelled</a> and the government <a href="https://www.techzim.co.zw/2019/01/econet-and-telone-shut-down-the-internet-completely-now-its-darkeness/amp/?__twitter_impression=true">closed down the internet</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1085088020640997376"}"></div></p>
<p>Mnangagwa’s excuse for raising prices so abruptly is not clear. Possibly he thinks that more costly petrol will bring more cash into national coffers that are mostly bare. Or perhaps he believes that more petrol will pour into the country via the pipeline from Beira in Mozambique if it is more valuable. Both ideas are barmy. </p>
<p>Before flying off to Russia, Mnangagwa said that the fuel price rise was intended to reduce shortages of fuel that, he indicated, were caused by rises in the use of fuel and what he called <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/anger-as-mnangagwa-raises-gas-prices-in-zimbabwe-20190113-2">“rampant” illegal trading</a> – accusations that make no sense whatsoever. Making petrol purchasing more expensive for poor Zimbabweans – the majority of the nation’s people – simply adds to their hardship and further slows an already crippled economy.</p>
<p>Instead Mnangagwa should do everything his government can to reduce the shortage of real (rather than fake) cash that is crippling the local economy, reducing local production and corporate and consumer cash flows, and driving an already weakened economy <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/01/12/zimbabwe-plans-new-currency-as-dollar-shortage-bites-finance-minister">further into recession</a>.</p>
<p>He should also be focused on taking a number of other bold steps to try and reverse the collapse of the country’s economy. Among them are bringing state looting to a halt.</p>
<h2>The cash crisis</h2>
<p>The US dollar is the official currency of commerce. But because Zimbabwe’s economy has essentially ground to a halt, it has few means of bringing new dollars into the country. That, and the steady money laundering of real dollars by high-level officials of the ruling Zanu-PF party, has drained the country of <a href="https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/10/looting-of-state-resources-to-blame-for-economic-crisis/">currency</a>. </p>
<p>The government has printed $1 bond notes — known as <a href="https://businesstimes.co.zw/dollars-vs-zollars-zim-puts-accounting-standards-to-test/">zollars</a> – for Zimbabweans to use instead of real dollars. They are supposed to be exchangeable at par, but in 2019 they are worth as little as a third of a paper dollar. Many merchants refuse to accept zollars at all.</p>
<p>Bond notes now trade on the black market at 3.2 per dollar, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-14/no-currency-just-a-currency-crisis-zimbabwe-s-woes-deepen">according</a> to the Harare-based ZimBollar Research Institute.</p>
<p>The stress has also spread to financial markets, with locals piling into equities to hedge against price increases. </p>
<p>Mnangagwa may be <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-15/with-president-mnangagwa-in-russia-zimbabwe-descends-into-chaos">attempting to obtain loans</a> from Russia and from shady Central Asian countries <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2016/02/04/kazakhstan-at-twenty-five-stable-but-tense-pub-62642">like Kazakhstan</a>. But what the president should be doing is prosecuting and imprisoning his corrupt cronies. That could limit the flight of dollars from Zimbabwe. </p>
<p>He also needs to trim the bloated civil service of excessive patronage appointments. Most of all, if he dared, he should be cutting military expenditures. Zimbabwe has no imaginable need for its large and well equipped a security establishment.</p>
<p>Such bold measures could return confidence to the country’s corporate and agri-business sectors. If coupled with reduced military and other expenditures, and bolstered by funds no longer being transferred overseas, Zimbabwe’s long repressed economy could take off from a very low base.</p>
<h2>Poor leadership</h2>
<p>Raising petrol prices in a land where but a few months ago supplies of petrol were short and motorists <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-27/zimbabwe-suffering-worst-economic-crisis-in-a-decade/10433028">queued for hours and days</a> outside stations is neither politically nor economically wise. The newly aroused protesters will not readily melt away. Putting such a hefty extra charge on an essential commodity, and doing so just when Zimbabwe’s parlous economy was beginning to show signs of stability, shows few leadership skills and little common sense.</p>
<p>Inflation has soared since the national election in July, almost reaching the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=sudan+70%25+inflation&rlz=1C1NHXL_enZA711ZA711&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiwn7u4oO_fAhVMUBUIHVJzAKEQsAR6BAgEEAE&biw=1283&bih=638">Sudanese level of 70% a year</a>. Foreign capital and domestically reinvested capital is avoiding the country. </p>
<p>On top of this, exporters are struggling under draconian Reserve Bank regulations. Only Chinese purchases of ferrochrome, other metals and tobacco, keep the economy ticking over, albeit in an increasingly dilatory manner.</p>
<p>A further drain on confidence and economic rational thinking is the Reserve Bank’s allocation of whatever hard currency there is to politically prominent backers of the president. That is how arbitrage during President Robert Mugabe’s benighted era helped to enrich his entourage while sinking the Zimbabwean economy and impoverishing its peoples.</p>
<h2>Work that needs to be done</h2>
<p>Mnangagwa’s regime has much more work to do to stimulate sustainable economic growth. He will need to restore the rule of law, badly eroded in Mugabe’s time, put some true meaning into his <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/africa/2018-11-20-socialites-laying-low-as-zimbabwes-government-cracks-down-on-big-spenders/">“back to honest business”</a> promise, and widely open up the economy. That would mean eliminating most Reserve Bank restrictions on the free flow of currency and allowing the entire Zimbabwean economy once again to float.</p>
<p>Most of all, Mnangagwa needs to rush home from Russia and Asia and rescind or greatly reduce the price of petrol. After so many years of repression and hardship, Zimbabweans are out of patience.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109890/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Rotberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s decision to double the price of petrol shows very poor judgement and bad leadership.Robert Rotberg, Founding Director of Program on Intrastate Conflict, Harvard Kennedy SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/896992018-01-08T09:18:17Z2018-01-08T09:18:17ZWhy Rwanda’s development model wouldn’t work elsewhere in Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200946/original/file-20180105-26142-cm4fig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paul Kagame has exercised firm personal control over Rwanda's politics since becoming president in 2000.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Phillip Guelland</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rwanda is often touted as an example of what African states could achieve if only they were better governed. Out of the ashes of a horrific genocide, <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rwandas-paul-kagame-saviour-or-dictator-bjdhp22nv">President Paul Kagame</a> has resuscitated the economy, curtailed corruption and maintained political stability.</p>
<p>This is a record that many other leaders can only dream of, and has led to Rwanda being cited as an economic success story that the rest of the continent would <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/1208900/rwanda-rising-new-model-economic-development">do well to follow</a>.</p>
<p>In countries like <a href="https://www.tuko.co.ke/253319-kenya-a-dictator-paul-kagame-uhuru-leader-jubilee-vice-chair.html#253319">Kenya</a> and <a href="https://www.thestandard.co.zw/2017/12/04/mnangagwa-zimbabwes-kagame/">Zimbabwe</a> some have argued that their leaders should operate more like Kagame. In other words, that job creation and poverty alleviation are more important than free and fair elections.</p>
<p>In response, critics have sought to puncture Kagame’s image by pointing to <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/rwanda-paul-kagame-americas-darling-tyrant-103963">human rights violations</a> committed under his leadership. This is an important concern. But the notion that the Rwandan model should be exported also suffers from a more fundamental flaw: it would not work almost anywhere else because the necessary conditions – political dominance and tight centralised control of patronage networks – do not apply.</p>
<h2>The Rwandan model</h2>
<p>Many of the achievements of Kagame and his governing <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/Geno15-8-03.htm">Rwandan Patriotic Front</a> party are impressive. He took over a deeply divided nation in desperate need of economic and political reconstruction in 1994. Since then, Kagame has established firm personal control over Rwandan politics, generating the political stability needed for economic renewal.</p>
<p>Instead of sitting back and waiting for foreign investors and the “market” to inspire growth, the new administration intervened directly in a process of state directed development. Most notably, his government kick started economic activity in areas that had previously been stagnating by investing heavily in key sectors. It has done so through party-owned holding companies such as <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/business/21718000-crystal-ventures-has-investments-everything-furniture-finance-rwandan-patriotic">Tri-Star Investments</a>.</p>
<p>Combined with the careful management of agriculture, these policies generated <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/rwanda/overview">economic growth of around 8%</a> between 2001 and 2013. Partly as a result, the percentage of people living below the poverty line fell from 57% in 2005 to <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/04/5-things-to-know-about-rwanda-s-economy/">45% in 2010</a>. Other indicators of human development, such as <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/sites/all/themes/hdr_theme/country-notes/RWA.pdf">life expectancy</a> and <a href="https://en.unesco.org/countries/rwanda">literacy</a>, have also improved.</p>
<h2>An example for Africa?</h2>
<p>Despite the impressive headline figures, a number of criticisms have been levelled at the Rwandan model.</p>
<p>Most obviously, it sacrifices basic human rights – such as <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/08/04/rwanda-kagame-efficient-repression/">freedom of expression and freedom of association</a> – to sustain the ruling party’s political hegemony. The Rwandan system therefore involves compromising democracy for the sake of development. That decision may be an easy one to make for those who enjoy political power, but is often rejected by the opposition.</p>
<p>Less obviously, the use of party-owned enterprises to kick start business activity places the ruling party at the heart of the economy. It also means that when the economy does well, the already dominant Rwandan Patriotic Front is strengthened. This empowers Kagame to determine who is allowed to <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/ruling-partys-business-arm-dominates-rwandan-economy-20170730">accumulate economic power</a>, which in turn undermines the ability of opposition leaders and critics to raise funds.</p>
<p>These arguments have been around for some time. But they have done little to dampen the allure of the Rwandan model for some <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-07-07-00-like-it-or-not-rwanda-is-africas-future">commentators</a> and <a href="http://en.igihe.com/news/kenya-s-kenyatta-congratulates-kagame.html">leaders</a>. </p>
<p>Given this, the strongest argument against exporting the Rwandan model is not that it is undemocratic and gives the ruling party tremendous economic power. It’s that it won’t actually work.</p>
<h2>Can’t work everywhere</h2>
<p>One of the most rigorous efforts to understand the political conditions that made the Rwandan model possible has emerged from the <a href="http://www.institutions-africa.org/">African Power and Politics</a> research project led by David Booth, Tim Kelsall and others. They argue that Kagame’s government is an example of <a href="http://www.institutions-africa.org/page/developmental-patrimonialism.html">“developmental patrimonialism”</a>. In this system, the potentially damaging aspects of patrimonial politics are held in check by a leader who enjoys tight control over patronage networks. These include jobs for the boys, waste and inefficiency.</p>
<p>This authority needs to be established both internally and externally. External political control is required because the threat of electoral defeat by a strong opposition party may force the government to prioritise short-term survival over long-term investments. Internal control is required because the absence of checks and balances on the ruling party is likely to exacerbate corruption.</p>
<p>When these conditions hold, elements of patrimonialism may be economically productive by generating resources that are channelled back into the system. In the Rwandan case, the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s economic and political dominance has not undermined development because the funds generated through party-owned enterprises have often been <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270777957_Developmental_Patrimonialism_The_Case_of_Rwanda">reinvested in the economy</a>.</p>
<h2>Unintended consequences</h2>
<p>The problem is that these conditions don’t hold in most African states. With a few exceptions such as Chad and Angola, the ruling party cannot aspire to the level of dominance witnessed in Rwanda because the opposition is too strong for this degree of political control to be sustained. In <a href="http://africanarguments.org/2017/06/13/why-do-opposition-coalitions-succeed-or-fail/">Kenya and Zimbabwe</a>, for example, the opposition has consistently won a large share of the legislative and presidential vote. </p>
<p>In addition, even some states that feature more dominant ruling parties have consistently failed to impose economic discipline on their governments. Instead, entrenched clientelism and internal factionalism have typically undermined anti-corruption efforts. This is true for both <a href="http://africanarguments.org/2017/08/14/angola-elections-ruling-family-dos-santos-worth-billions-what-happens-when-dad-steps-down/">Angola</a> and <a href="https://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/answer/overview_of_corruption_and_anti_corruption_in_chad">Chad</a>, hurting efforts to reduce poverty and boost economic growth.</p>
<p>Shorn of the internal and external political control required to make it work, the application of the Rwandan model elsewhere would generate very different results.</p>
<p>Extending the control of the ruling party over the economy is more likely to increase graft and waste than to spur economic activity. And efforts to neutralise opposition parties are likely to be strongly resisted, leading to political instability and economic uncertainty.</p>
<p>What this means is that if other countries on the continent try to implement the Rwandan model, the chances are that they will experience all of its costs while realising few of its benefits.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89699/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nic Cheeseman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Rwandan model can’t be replicated easily given that it depends heavily on political dominance and tight, centralised control of patronage networks.Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/892482017-12-18T17:03:17Z2017-12-18T17:03:17ZThe ANC has a new leader: but South Africa remains on a political precipice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199756/original/file-20171218-27554-19f1lki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cyril Ramaphosa, the new president of South Africa's governing party, the ANC, and potentially the country's future president. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rumours that President Jacob Zuma has instructed the South African National Defence Force to draw up plans for implementing a <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1756940/sa-presidency-rejects-reports-of-state-of-emergency-regulations-draft/">state of emergency</a> may or may not be true. Nonetheless they are evidence of South Africa’s febrile political atmosphere.</p>
<p>But any assumption that <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/anc-conference/anc54-breaking-ramaphosa-elected-anc-president-12453127">the election</a> of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cyril-matamela-ramaphosa">Cyril Ramaphosa</a> as the new leader of the African National Congress (ANC), after winning the race against Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, will place South Africa on an even keel are misplaced. Indeed, the drama may only be beginning.</p>
<p>It’s useful to look back to 2007 when President Thabo Mbeki unwisely ran for a <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/i-asked-mbeki-to-stand-for-a-third-term-to-stop-zuma-kasrils-20171108">third term as ANC leader</a>. His unpopularity among large segments of the party provided the platform for his <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Zuma-sweeps-to-resounding-victory-20071218">defeat by Zuma</a> at Polokwane. Within a few months the National Executive Committee of the ANC latched onto an <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAKZHC/2008/71.html">excuse</a> to ask Mbeki to <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/thabo-mbeki-resigns-south-africa%E2%80%99s-second-democratic-president">stand down as president of the country</a> before the end of his term of office. Being committed to the traditions of party loyalty he complied, resigning as president some eight months before the Constitution required him to do so.</p>
<p>The question this raises is whether South Africa should now expect a repeat performance following the election of a new leader of the ANC. Will this lead to a party instruction to Zuma to stand down as president of the country? And if it does, will he do what Mbeki did and meekly resign?</p>
<p>There’s a big difference between the two scenarios: Mbeki had no reason to fear the consequences of leaving office. Zuma, on the other hand, has numerous reasons to cling to power. This is what makes him, and the immediate future, dangerous for South Africa, and suggests the country faces instability.</p>
<h2>Why Zuma won’t go</h2>
<p>It is not out of the question that Zuma may say to himself, and to South Africa, that he is not going anywhere. He is losing <a href="https://theconversation.com/dramatic-night-in-south-africa-leaves-president-hanging-on-by-a-thread-57180">court case</a> after <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21732538-judges-keep-finding-against-south-africas-embattled-president-jacob-zuma-loses-two">court case</a>, and judicial decisions are increasingly narrowing his legal capacity to block official and independent investigations into the extent of <a href="http://ewn.co.za/Topic/State-Capture">state capture</a> by business interests close to him.</p>
<p>With every passing day, the prospects of his finding himself in the dock, <a href="https://theconversation.com/president-zuma-loses-bid-to-dodge-783-charges-but-will-he-have-the-last-laugh-85703">facing 783 charges</a>, including of corruption and racketeering, also increase. </p>
<p>Zuma will have every constitutional right to defy an ANC instruction to stand down as state president until his term expires following the next <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/newsmaker-2019-elections-results-will-be-credible-20171015-2">general election in 2019</a>, and the new parliament’s election of a new president. In terms of the <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.za/legislation/bills/2002/b16.pdf">South African Constitution</a>, his term of office will be brought to an early end only if parliament passes a vote of no confidence in his presidency, or votes that, for one reason or another, he is unfit for office.</p>
<p>But today’s ANC is so divided that it cannot be assumed that a majority of ANC MPs would <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-happening-inside-the-anc-not-parliament-is-key-to-why-zuma-prevails-82399">back a motion of no confidence</a>, even following the election of <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201712040357.html">Ramaphosa</a> as the party’s new leader. </p>
<p>In other words, there is a very real prospect that South Africa will see itself ruled for at least another 18 months or so by what is termed <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2007-06-27-anc-debates-two-centres-of-power">“two centres of power”</a>, with the authority and the legitimacy of the party (formally backing Ramaphosa) vying against that of the state (headed by Zuma).</p>
<h2>Throwing caution to the wind</h2>
<p>As if that is not a sufficient condition for political instability, we may expect that Zuma will continue to use his executive power to erect defences against his future prosecution. He will reckon to leave office only with guarantees of immunity. Until he gets them, Zuma will defy all blandishments to go. And if he does not get what he wants, he may throw caution to the wind and go for broke.</p>
<p>Hence, perhaps, the possibility that he is prepared to invoke a state of emergency.</p>
<p>The grounds for Zuma imposing a state of emergency would be specious, summoned up to defend his interests and those backing him. They would be likely to infer <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-pressure-mounts-on-south-africas-jacob-zuma-he-blames-an-old-enemy-western-intelligence-agencies-69599">foreign interference</a> in affairs of state, alongside suggestions that <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/zuma-again-denounces-the-monopoly-of-white-economic-power-11988619">white monopoly capital</a>, whites as a whole as well as nefarious others were conspiring to prevent much needed <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2017-12-15-know-your-candidate-dlamini-zuma-beats-the-ret-drum/">radical economic transformation</a>. Present constitutional arrangements would be declared <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africans-should-be-worried-by-anc-talk-of-a-colour-revolution-87019">counter-revolutionary</a> and those defending them doing so only to protect their material interests. </p>
<p>After a matter of time, such justifications would probably be declared unconstitutional by the judiciary. It is then that there would be a confrontation between raw power and the Constitution. If such a situation should arise, we cannot be sure which would be the winner.</p>
<h2>South Africa’s army</h2>
<p>It is remarkable how little the searchlight that has focused on state capture has rested on the Defence Force. Much attention has been given to how the executive has effectively co-opted the <a href="https://theconversation.com/leaked-emails-ramaphosas-hypocrisy-on-spying-by-the-south-african-state-83605">intelligence</a> and <a href="http://www.ngopulse.org/article/2016/09/29/political-interference-weakening-rule-law-sa">prosecutorial service</a>, as well has how the top ranks of the police have been selected for political rather than <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/15/world/africa/south-africa-police-commissioner-under-investigation-is-suspended.html">operational reasons</a>. </p>
<p>It seems to have been assumed that South Africa’s military is simply sitting in the background, observing political events from afar. But is it? Where would its loyalties lie in the event of a major constitutional crisis? </p>
<p>The danger of the present situation is that South Africa might be about to find out.</p>
<p>Were the military to throw its weight behind Zuma the country would be in no-man’s land. Of course, there would be a massive popular reaction, with the further danger that the president himself would summon his popular cohorts to <a href="https://theconversation.com/anc-military-veterans-and-the-threat-to-south-africas-democracy-76118">“defend the revolution”</a>. </p>
<p>And South Africans should not assume that Zuma would be politically isolated. Those who backed Dlamini-Zuma did so to defend their present positions and capacity to use office for personal gain. If they were to rise up, the army would then be elevated to the status of defender of civil order.</p>
<p>What is certain is that in such a wholly uncertain situation the economy would spiral downwards quickly. Capital would take flight at a faster rate than ever before, <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=10658">employment</a> would collapse even further, <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=10334">poverty</a> would become even further entrenched. </p>
<h2>Reasons to be hopeful</h2>
<p>Is all this too extreme a scenario? Hopefully yes. There are numerous good reasons why such a fate will be averted. </p>
<p>Zuma’s control over the ANC is waning, as is his control over various state institutions, notably the National Prosecuting Authority. And the country has a checks and balances in place: there is a vigorous civil society, the judiciary has proved the Constitution’s main defence and trade unions and business remain influential. </p>
<p>Even so, it remains the case that what transpires now that the ANC’s national conference is over will determine the fate and future of our democracy. South Africa is approaching rough waters, and a Jacob Zuma facing an inglorious and humiliating end to his presidency will be a Jacob Zuma at his most dangerous.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89248/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall receives funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>South Africa’s ruling ANC has a new leader - Cyril Ramaphosa. But this doesn’t mean that the country is out of the woods. Political instability remains a real possibility.Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/893172017-12-18T13:15:42Z2017-12-18T13:15:42ZVintage Zuma delivers a vengeful swansong, devoid of any responsibility<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199689/original/file-20171218-27607-1xxomej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African President Jacob Zuma sings before his opening address at the 54th National Conference of the governing ANC.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The hope was that in <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/anc-conference-2017/2017-12-16-in-full--president-jacob-zumas-final-speech-as-anc-president/">opening</a> the <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/54th-national-conference">54th National Conference</a> of the African National Congress (ANC), South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma would rise to the occasion, seize the moment of his last address as party president with honesty and leave something worthy of history. For posterity to cherish.</p>
<p>It sounded as though he was taking the bull by the horns when he referred to <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/jackson-mthembu-ending-slate-politics-cant-happen-like-instant-coffee-20151108">slate politics</a> as the function of ANC factionalism, which he acknowledged had fractured the governing party, including corrupting its systems and processes. Slate politics are the reason for internecine contests for leadership positions in the ANC, which, as he correctly pointed out, rob the ANC of good leadership.</p>
<p>But, in the end, his narcissistic streak shaped his swansong. It was largely couched in aspirational rather than diagnostic terms. For a political report of a leader whose 10-year tenure was coming to an end, it left much to be desired. </p>
<p>He claimed that he was leaving behind a stronger ANC, a statement he could only make if he’s suffering from delusions of grandeur, or because he’s indulging in self-gratification. Which ever it was, it exposed the dishonesty of the <a href="http://www.thenewage.co.za/anc-political-report-by-outgoing-president-jacob-zuma/">political report</a> he subsequently delivered, which was cluttered with rhetorical ploys and lacked a coherent theme for the august event. In truth, the divisions in the ANC are at their worst under him. So is its governing <a href="http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=2051">Tripartite Alliance</a> - with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-communist-party-strips-the-anc-of-its-multi-class-ruling-party-status-88647">South African Communist Party</a> and labour federation <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/zuma-banned-from-speaking-at-cosatu-events-9300206">Cosatu</a> - that it leads.</p>
<h2>An attack on democracy</h2>
<p>Zuma missed the purpose of a valedictory address – to guide the future in the wake of leadership changes. Instead, he became vengeful, taking issue with what he termed ill-discipline in the organisation. Here he was referring to members who <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/just-in-anc-free-state-pec-several-branches-barred-from-attending-elective-conference-20171215">take the ANC to court</a> for violating its own constitution and processes. He suggested that they should be dismissed from the organisation immediately. </p>
<p>This is a strange way of dealing with issues, particularly for a president in a constitutional democracy who spent <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jacob-gedleyihlekisa-zuma">half of his life</a> selflessly fighting for a more just system of organising society. The idea that someone’s membership of an organisation be immediately terminated when they take it to court to protect their rights is at variance with the principle of the supremacy of the constitution. </p>
<p>Zuma’s suggestion violates the right to external recourse for those aggrieved by internal organisational processes. That it’s even entertained by some in the leadership of the ANC demonstrates the extent of the crisis under Zuma. This is because ideas such as these pose a danger to the party’s <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/what-anc">foundational values</a> - of unity, non-racialism, non-sexism and democracy - as well as to the future of democracy in the country. That is because the ANC, despite its waning electoral performance, remains <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-anc-has-remained-dominant-despite-shifts-in-support-base-63285">politically dominant</a>. Thus, what happens inside it ultimately affects the running of the country, hence it’s imperative <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-countrys-constitutional-court-can-consolidate-and-deepen-democracy-54184">internal party democracy</a> be entrenched in the ANC.</p>
<p>Had Zuma looked objectively and honestly into what led some members to take the ANC to court, his report would have perhaps managed to get to the core of the morass.</p>
<h2>Factional till the end</h2>
<p>Zuma also squandered the last opportunity he had to remove himself from petty factional politics of the ANC and assert himself as a unifier and a statesman. This was his chance to echo the voice of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/oliver-reginald-kaizana-tambo">Oliver Tambo</a>, the revered leader of the ANC who is attributed with holding the organisation together during its turbulent years as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-anc-is-celebrating-the-year-of-or-tambo-who-was-he-85838">banned organisation</a>. </p>
<p>But he blew it by making a point of graciously thanking three senior members of the ANC who are leaders of the factions behind <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-11-03-anc-leadership-race-dlamini-zuma-supporters-in-battle-to-secure-the-final-prize-the-eastern-cape/">Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s presidential campaign</a>. These were the ANC Women’s League President <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/the-judiciary-carries-itself-as-if-its-being-lobbied-ancwl-president-20171209">Bathabile Dlamini</a>, ANC Youth’s League <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/anc-conference-2017/2017-12-16-maine-accuses-judges-of-seeking-to-influence-outcome-of-anc-conference/">Collen Maine</a>, and ANC military veterans leader <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-12-16-mkmva-boss-launches-scathing-attack-on-judiciary">Kebby Maphatsoe</a>.</p>
<p>On top of this, his political report lacked the valedictory message of hope for the future. It tinkered at the edges, and largely misrepresented the reality about the state of the ANC. Instead, he fanned the flames of revenge, particularly against those who have consistently tried to hold him accountable. </p>
<p>He made references to corruption, but deflected attention from his alleged implication in it. He set out to create the impression that South Africans are outraged only about corruption in the public sector, not what’s happening in the private sector. A veiled retort to those who have questioned his moral credentials and ethical leadership was that: if you don’t talk about corruption in the private sector, you shouldn’t talk about it in the public sector.</p>
<p>And rather than denouncing slate politics and factionalism, he stuck to lamenting their existence. I believe that the only reason he mentioned them at all was because they have led to splinter groups that have affected the ANC <a href="https://www.power987.co.za/news/read-its-been-an-honor-zumas-full-speech">“quantitatively and qualitatively”</a> . If slate politics hadn’t led to the current malaise, I doubt he would have made any reference to organisational maladies, which have in fact been spawned and sustained by his leadership over the past 10 years.</p>
<p>Zuma has bequeathed the ANC (and the country) a highly divided party, one that is factionalised and a threat to its own existence. Even when history gave him the opportunity to apologise for the mess his leadership has left the country in, the vintage Zuma didn’t want to take responsibility. </p>
<p>It is now left to those picking up the baton to take on the challenging task of returning the ANC to its foundational values of selflessness and service and its stature as a leader of society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89317/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mashupye Herbert Maserumule received funding from the National Research Foundation(NRF) for his post-graduate studies. He is a member of the South African Association of Public Administration and Management(SAAPAM). He is the Chief Editor of the Journal of Public Administration.</span></em></p>Zuma’s last address to South Africa’s governing party, the ANC, as its president, betrayed his strange way of dealing with issues. He came across as delusional and self-indulgent.Mashupye Herbert Maserumule, Professor of Public Affairs, Tshwane University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.