tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/kleptocracy-27503/articlesKleptocracy – The Conversation2024-01-27T06:07:13Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2219002024-01-27T06:07:13Z2024-01-27T06:07:13ZJacob Zuma, the monster South Africa’s ruling ANC created, continues to haunt it<p>Former South African president Jacob Zuma is <a href="https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=23cde356c2361300JmltdHM9MTcwNTg4MTYwMCZpZ3VpZD0zMGZhN2Y5OS00MWYwLTYxYjctMjZmMS02Y2ZlNDAxMDYwYmYmaW5zaWQ9NTI0Ng&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=3&fclid=30fa7f99-41f0-61b7-26f1-6cfe401060bf&psq=uMhkonto&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2FiY25ld3MuY29tL3NhYmNuZXdzL3p1bWEtdXJnZXMtc291dGgtYWZyaWNhbnMtdG8tdm90ZS1mb3ItbmV3bHktZm9ybWVkLXVta2hvbnRvLXdlc2l6d2Uv&ntb=1">endorsing</a> the uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Party, the latest rival to the governing African National Congress (ANC) for the <a href="https://www.eisa.org/election-calendar/">upcoming national elections</a>. By doing so, he not only challenges the ANC politically, but also claims its heritage.</p>
<p>The new party – which media reports say is <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/news/politics/2024-01-07-zuma-exposed-as-brains-behind-establishment-of-mk-party/">Zuma’s brainchild</a> – uses the name of the ANC’s former military wing. The party’s launch coincided with the 62nd anniversary of the real <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/umkhonto-wesizwe-mk">uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK)</a>, formed on <a href="https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=04fd21d4aee3a8f1JmltdHM9MTcwNTg4MTYwMCZpZ3VpZD0zMGZhN2Y5OS00MWYwLTYxYjctMjZmMS02Y2ZlNDAxMDYwYmYmaW5zaWQ9NTI3Mw&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=3&fclid=30fa7f99-41f0-61b7-26f1-6cfe401060bf&psq=uMhkonto&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2FoaXN0b3J5Lm9yZy56YS9hcnRpY2xlL3Vta2hvbnRvLXdlc2l6d2UtbWs&ntb=1">16 December 1961</a> to fight the apartheid government. </p>
<p>Zuma could not have been more daring. Yet the ANC obfuscates, criticising him instead of acting decisively and expelling him. Meantime, he actively campaigns to unseat it. Why?</p>
<p>I have studied and written extensively about the politics of the ANC and its alliance partners – the Congress of South African Trade Unions (<a href="http://www.cosatu.org.za/">Cosatu</a>) and the South African Communist Party (<a href="https://www.sacp.org.za/">SACP</a>). I was also one of the editors of the <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/the-zuma-administration">book</a> The Zuma Administration: Critical Challenges. </p>
<p>In my view, the reason the ANC is cagey about taking him on, is because the party tied itself in knots <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/0fc7bb4c-b027-11e3-b0d0-00144feab7de">defending Zuma’s bad behaviour</a> in the past. The ANC created the Zuma problem. The party and its <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03161.htm">alliance partners</a> abetted his kleptocracy and facilitated his <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">capture of the state</a>. They created Zuma as a <a href="https://www.rusi.org/publication/jacob-zuma-after-battle-polokwane">populist with a penchant for rabble-rousing</a>. Now they are paralysed and can’t act against him.</p>
<p>The ANC also <a href="https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=ce02ce879565061cJmltdHM9MTcwNTg4MTYwMCZpZ3VpZD0zMGZhN2Y5OS00MWYwLTYxYjctMjZmMS02Y2ZlNDAxMDYwYmYmaW5zaWQ9NTE3NA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=3&fclid=30fa7f99-41f0-61b7-26f1-6cfe401060bf&psq=support+for+zuma&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuY2l0aXplbi5jby56YS9uZXdzL3NvdXRoLWFmcmljYS9wb2xpdGljcy9hbmMtd29udC1hY3QtYWdhaW5zdC16dW1hLWZvci1ub3ctcmVwb3J0Lw&ntb=1">fears</a> that if it expelled him, he could portray himself as a victim.</p>
<p>Decisive action against him would require the party to face up to its own demons. It would be exposed as having enabled him. </p>
<p>The ANC’s reluctance to take him on or fire him is rooted in the events of 2005. Then South African president Thabo Mbeki <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/president-thabo-mbeki-sacks-deputy-president-jacob-zuma">fired Zuma as his deputy</a> after the latter was mired in corruption allegations. Zuma’s use of this to build a case that he was a victim still haunts the ANC. It fears a repeat so close to the 2024 elections. </p>
<p>Zuma’s political pursuits now depend on a new party whose electoral strength is yet to be tested. It pales in comparison with the support he got in the past. </p>
<p>My arguments is that the political cost of not expelling him – in terms of lost votes – is greater than the cost of expelling him. By not acting against him, the ANC is failing to “renew” itself as it has <a href="https://renewal.anc1912.org.za/">promised</a> to do. This makes the party look weak and may cost it electoral support.</p>
<h2>Zuma and the ANC</h2>
<p>The ANC knew Zuma was likely to turn out this way, from as early as 1997, when it elected him deputy president to Thabo Mbeki, paving his way to the highest office in the land.</p>
<p>South African author and journalist Mark Gevisser <a href="https://www.everand.com/book/641542878/Thabo-Mbeki-The-Dream-Deferred">writes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Mbeki and those around him began to worry that Zuma possessed a dangerous combination of unhealthy ambition and poor judgment.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They were right.</p>
<p>Because of this fear, he was at first not considered for the position of deputy president. Instead, Mbeki offered the position to Inkatha Freedom Party leader <a href="https://theconversation.com/mangosuthu-buthelezi-was-a-man-of-immense-political-talent-and-contradictions-181081">Mangosuthu Buthelezi</a>. However, through Zuma’s machination, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00344890902944387">this was foiled</a>. He eventually became the deputy president. But he was bitter that he had been initially overlooked for the position.</p>
<p>During <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/the-zuma-administration">Mbeki’s presidency</a>, relations between the ANC and its <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03161.htm">alliance partners</a> became frosty. </p>
<p>The contestation was around the Mbeki government’s free market economic policies, which Cosatu and the SACP <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/04d23130-a8dc-11dc-ad9e-0000779fd2ac">condemned</a> as a neo-liberal agenda that deviated from the ANC’s aim of <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02039/04lv02103/05lv02120/06lv02126.htm">socio-economic transformation and empowerment</a> of those previously marginalised when it came to power in 1994.</p>
<p>Zuma exploited this to position himself as the centre around which <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2010-09-03-coalition-of-the-wounded-turn-on-zuma/">those allegedly wounded by Mbeki</a> could coalesce.</p>
<h2>The rise of Zuma the populist</h2>
<p>In Zuma, the <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/the-zuma-administration">alliance</a> saw someone who could represent its ideological position in the country’s policy choices. Yet, he was part of the ANC leadership that adopted Mbeki’s economic strategy and was never known to espouse leftist politics. To their dismay, he proved not to be their <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-04-20-replacing-mbeki-with-zuma-did-not-solve-our-problems-nzimande/">ideological ally in office</a>.</p>
<p>Later the same year Zuma was <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-decade-on-a-new-book-on-zumas-rape-trial-has-finally-hit-home-85262">accused of raping</a> the daughter of a friend. He was acquitted but was tainted as immoral.</p>
<p>This alone should have disqualified him from any leadership position. But it did not matter to his allies, who ensured he became the president of the ANC <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2007-12-18-zuma-is-new-anc-president/">in 2007</a>, and that of the country <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/jacob-zuma-presidency-2009-2017-march">in 2009</a>. He was, to the alliance, an <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232871908_Understanding_the_'Zuma_Tsunami'">unstoppable tsunami</a>.</p>
<p>The ANC bashed the judiciary as counter-revolutionary for unfavourable judgments against Zuma. The party claimed his prosecution was political persecution <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27756284?seq=2">at Mbeki’s behest</a>. Then ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema declared they were prepared to <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/we-will-kill-for-zuma-404646">kill and die for Zuma</a>. </p>
<h2>Leading with impunity</h2>
<p>Zuma’s eventual ascendancy to the presidency of the country in 2009 was <a href="https://www.alterinter.org/?Working-class-politics-or-populism-the-meaning-of-Zuma-for-the-left-in-SA">hailed,</a> by the alliance left – Cosatu and the SACP, as</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a victory against the neo-liberal orthodoxy of Mbeki.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Zuma did not deliver on this expectation. Yet he continued to enjoy the support of the tripartite alliance. </p>
<p>He went on to <a href="https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=905b9cd41887a59aJmltdHM9MTcwNTg4MTYwMCZpZ3VpZD0zMGZhN2Y5OS00MWYwLTYxYjctMjZmMS02Y2ZlNDAxMDYwYmYmaW5zaWQ9NTE5NQ&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=3&fclid=30fa7f99-41f0-61b7-26f1-6cfe401060bf&psq=betrayal+of+the+promise+report&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly9wYXJpLm9yZy56YS93cC1jb250ZW50L3VwbG9hZHMvMjAxNy8wNS9CZXRyYXlhbC1vZi10aGUtUHJvbWlzZS0yNTA1MjAxNy5wZGY&ntb=1">subvert</a> the criminal justice system to avert prosecution for his corruption charges. </p>
<p>The judiciary <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-judges-in-south-africa-under-threat-or-do-they-complain-too-much-45459">pushed back</a> but earned the wrath of the ANC and its alliance partners.</p>
<p>They always closed ranks to shield Zuma from accountability. He survived numerous motions of no confidence in parliament for, among other things, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2012-11-08-parties-to-file-motion-of-no-confidence-against-zuma/%22">“dangerously flawed judgment”</a> relating to his <a href="https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/president-zuma-appoints-new-national-director-public-prosecutions-25-nov-2009">appointment of Menzi Simelani</a> as head of the National Prosecuting Authority, despite evidence that he had lied to a presidential commission of inquiry.</p>
<p>Among the notable no-confidence votes against which the ANC-dominated parliament shielded Zuma was over his use of public money to renovate his private homestead <a href="https://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2016/11.pdf">at Nkandla</a>. </p>
<p>The stage was set for Zuma to wreak havoc with impunity. The alliance left only started to move away from him when it became obvious that he had outsourced the running of the country to his friends, <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/how-gupta-brothers-from-india-landed-south-africas-ruling-party-in-its-biggest-crisis-397138">the Gupta family</a>. It was too late.</p>
<p>In 2015, he <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0UO0KO/">sacked</a> the finance minister Nhlanhla Nene, only to replace him with an obscure Gupta-sanctioned appointee, with an eye on the national treasury.</p>
<p>The market tailspinned into and the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/5c0da8b2-9eb5-11e5-b45d-4812f209f861">rand plummeted</a>. Yet the ANC still defended him in parliament.</p>
<p>Towards the end of 2016, the public protector released a <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/state-capture-report-public-protector-14-october-2016">damning report</a> showing how the state had been captured at Zuma’s behest. Again, the ANC foiled attempts to remove him.</p>
<p>He only resigned on <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43066443?utm_source=Media+Review+for+February+15%2C+2018&utm_campaign=Media+Review+for+February+15%2C+2018&utm_medium=email">14 February 2018</a>. This was not so much for his misdemeanours but because he was no longer the president of the ANC.</p>
<h2>What needs to happen</h2>
<p>The ANC’s indecisiveness does it no good. Its claim that he has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuu_FEGQc0A">“walked away”</a> from the party and is therefore no longer a member is wishful thinking. He has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/zuma-says-he-will-not-vote-anc-south-africas-election-2023-12-16/">made it clear</a> he will remain an ANC member.</p>
<p>The only way to terminate his membership is to expel him. This should have happened much earlier, at least before the ANC’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-anc-marks-its-112th-year-with-an-eye-on-national-elections-but-its-record-is-patchy-and-future-uncertain-221125">112th anniversary festivities </a> earlier this month. They could have used the platform to explain the decision to cleanse the party of those who debase it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221900/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mashupye Herbert Maserumule received funding from National Research Foundation(NRF). He is affiliated with the South African Association of Public Administration and Management(SAAPAM).</span></em></p>The ANC tied itself in knots defending Zuma’s destructive bad behaviour in the past. Acting against him now would require it to own up to its sins.Mashupye Herbert Maserumule, Professor of Public Affairs, Tshwane University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2055862023-06-26T13:56:58Z2023-06-26T13:56:58ZMilitary interventions have failed to end DRC’s conflict – what’s gone wrong<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533552/original/file-20230622-29-mfl86e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Soldiers on patrol in Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, in November 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Guerchom Ndebo/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For 30 years, the Democratic Republic of Congo has suffered from communal violence, armed conflict and insecurity. Diverse actors have tried to stop it but conflict has intensified, particularly in the eastern provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri and Tanganyika. Regular armed forces and non-state armed groups have been involved in the violence. </p>
<p>In mid-April 2023, it was reported that there were <a href="https://www.radiookapi.net/2023/04/18/actualite/securite/est-de-la-rdc-266-groupes-armes-locaux-et-etrangers-recenses-par-le-p">252 local and 14 foreign armed groups</a> in the eastern Congolese provinces. </p>
<p>The Congolese state’s inability to guarantee security has created fertile ground for armed groups to emerge. Aside from violence, they engage in various illicit activities, like exploiting mineral riches. </p>
<p>Weakened by decades of kleptocratic rule and armed uprisings, the Congolese state relies on support from regional and global actors. The United Nations peacekeeping and stabilisation mission has been in the DRC for more than 20 years. In February 2023, the UN force (MONUSCO) had <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/monusco">16,316</a> men and women from 62 countries operating as intervention troops, staff officers and mission experts.</p>
<p>The East African Community completed <a href="https://www.eac.int/communique/2720-communiqu%C3%A9-of-the-20th-extra-ordinary-summit-of-the-east-african-community-heads-of-state">its deployment of troops</a> in <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/eacrf-troops-now-fully-deployed-in-drc-4191138">April 2023</a>. No sooner had they settled down than the DRC asked the Southern African Development Community to “<a href="https://www.sadc.int/sites/default/files/2023-05/EN%20-%20Communique%20of%20the%20SADC%20Organ%20Troika%20Summit%20Plus%20SADC%20Troika%20and%20TCC%2008%20May%202023%20Final_0.pdf#page=5">restore peace and security in eastern DRC</a>”.</p>
<p>More than a decade of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Felix-Ndahinda">research</a> on identity politics, indigeneity, human rights, transitional justice and peacebuilding in the region informs my view on its prospects for peace. This revolving door of military interventions raises questions about whether domestic and international actors involved genuinely examine past failures and draw useful lessons from them. Contemporary crises often reemerge from unresolved prior crises. This is the case here. </p>
<p>I argue that the DRC is being shortsighted, driven by populist pressures and political calculations. It’s making the <a href="https://theconversation.com/m23-four-things-you-should-know-about-the-rebel-groups-campaign-in-rwanda-drc-conflict-195020">M23 rebel movement</a> the single convenient target of its actions, instead of resolving its deeper and broader problems. </p>
<h2>Disrupting the peacekeepers</h2>
<p>Many of the issues that the DRC government and other regional actors have undertaken to address are well known and documented. The UN <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/document-search?keys=&field_padate_value%5Bvalue%5D%5Bdate%5D=&field_pacountry_tid=Democratic+Republic+of+the+Congo&field_paregion_tid%5B%5D=15">Peacemaker</a> database lists 19 agreements concluded since the Sirte Agreement of 1999. This preceded negotiations to end the second Congo war in 2003. </p>
<p>The DRC has committed to guarantee security for different communities, to resolve identity, citizenship and land issues, to oversee the return of refugees, and to a demobilisation process that addresses the concerns of belligerents. </p>
<p>The East African Community force’s <a href="https://www.eac.int/communique/2504-communiqu%C3%A9-the-third-heads-of-state-conclave-on-the-democratic-republic-of-congo-the-nairobi-process">mandate</a> was formulated with this in mind. The force would, in collaboration with Congolese military and administrative authorities, stabilise and secure the peace in DRC. The <a href="https://www.eac.int/communique/2720-communiqu%C3%A9-of-the-20th-extra-ordinary-summit-of-the-east-african-community-heads-of-state">initial deployment</a> of Kenyan, Burundian, Ugandan and South Sudanese troops was projected to grow to between 6,500 and 12,000 soldiers in eastern DRC.</p>
<p>The idea was to reduce tensions by enforcing a ceasefire and a withdrawal of armed groups to initial positions. Local armed groups would be demobilised in an orderly way through a political process involving talks with Congolese authorities. Finally, foreign armed groups would be repatriated.</p>
<p>What came to be known as the <a href="https://www.eac.int/communique/2504-communiqu%C3%A9-the-third-heads-of-state-conclave-on-the-democratic-republic-of-congo-the-nairobi-process">Nairobi process</a> framed the resolution of the M23 crisis within a broader goal of peacemaking. All domestic and regional armed groups active in eastern DRC would be disarmed and the emphasis was on dialogue. </p>
<p>Before long, it went wrong. DR Congo president Felix Tshisekedi bluntly <a href="https://twitter.com/StanysBujakera/status/1656066871488020480">criticised</a> the East African Community force and suggested that it might be asked to leave. </p>
<p>It seems that a comprehensive peace strategy is not an immediate priority for Congolese authorities. They have an eye on elections. These are planned for December 2023, and the current president is seeking a second term. Tshisekedi’s administration has turned the fight against the M23 and its alleged backers into a tool of <a href="https://twitter.com/PatrickMuyaya/status/1600082788895449090">popular mobilisation</a> in support of its policies. Therefore, military and diplomatic success on this front remains its priority.</p>
<h2>Towards sustainable peace</h2>
<p>Authorities in the DRC have also <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/un-peacekeepers-expected-to-leave-dr-congo-in-six-months-authorities/">announced</a> that UN peacekeepers in the country would be withdrawn by December 2023. </p>
<p>Congolese authorities have criticised the East African force and the UN mission for their unwillingness to fight the M23. The M23 is seen as representing nothing more than a masked <a href="https://twitter.com/StanysBujakera/status/1572365176770535424">Rwandan</a> (and at times <a href="https://twitter.com/StanysBujakera/status/1545118793801900039">Ugandan</a>) intervention in the DRC, and as such the biggest threat to Congolese territorial integrity. </p>
<p>The DRC’s counter strategy is to recognise some local armed groups as resistant patriots (Wazalendo) to be officially supported in fighting an external aggression. Several public officials are on <a href="https://afrique.lalibre.be/76281/rdc-le-blanchissement-des-groupes-armes-par-les-autorites-congolaise-frustre-le-processus-de-nairobi-et-luand/">record</a> expressing their support for these Mai Mai-Wazalendo fighters. </p>
<p>None of the triggers of the DRC’s recurrent crises can be addressed in this atmosphere. It’s impossible to imagine scenarios where sustainable peace can be achieved without first addressing land rights, equal citizenship claims and inclusive governance institutions catering to the needs of the entire Congolese population. </p>
<p>Enforcement of a comprehensive strategy that addresses belligerence and the disarmament of all armed groups through a combined military and political dialogue strategy, as imagined under the Nairobi process, should be the main priority of any peace initiative. Peace between peoples and countries in the region requires a genuine commitment to addressing all local, regional and international dimensions of the crises in eastern DRC.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205586/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felix Mukwiza Ndahinda 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 comprehensive strategy does not seem to be an immediate priority for Congolese authorities with an eye on elections.Felix Mukwiza Ndahinda, Honorary Associate Professor, College of Arts and Social Sciences, University of RwandaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2061012023-05-24T13:42:03Z2023-05-24T13:42:03ZCorruption in South Africa: former CEO’s explosive book exposes how state power utility was destroyed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527785/original/file-20230523-19-yugb19.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">PenguinRandomHouse</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One repeated theme of the <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/truth-power-my-three-years-inside-eskom/9781776390625#:%7E:text=De%20Ruyter%20candidly%20reflects%20on,to%20speak%20truth%20to%20power">memoir</a> Truth to Power: My Three Years Inside Eskom, by Andre de Ruyter, former CEO of South Africa’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-electricity-supply-whats-tripping-the-switch-151331">troubled power utility</a>, Eskom, is that “negligence and carelessness had become cemented into the organisation”. </p>
<p>Dirt piled up at even the newest power stations until it damaged equipment, which stopped working – and some equipment disappeared beneath a layer of ash.</p>
<p>Integrity had been displaced by greed and crime: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Corruption had metastasised to permeate much of the organisation. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As a political scientist who has, among other topics, followed corruption and kleptocracy, this book ranks among the more informative.</p>
<p>De Ruyter (or his ghost writer) delivers a pacey, racy adventure <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/truth-power-my-three-years-inside-eskom/9781776390625">thriller</a>. Chapter after chapter reads like a horror story about Eskom, whose failure to generate enough electricity consistently for <a href="https://theconversation.com/power-cuts-and-food-safety-how-to-avoid-illness-during-loadshedding-200586">the past 15</a> years has <a href="https://www.investec.com/en_za/focus/economy/sa-s-load-shedding-how-the-sectors-are-being-affected.html">hobbled the economy</a>. </p>
<p>The book is also a sobering indication that parts of South Africa now fester with organised crime.</p>
<p>This book merits its place alongside <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/crispian-olver-how-to-steal-a-city/jywy-5080-g730?PPC=Y&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgZaS7pbE3QIVS7DtCh0EGQXfEAAYASAAEgLszPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds">How to Steal a City</a> and <a href="https://jacana.co.za/product/how-to-steal-a-country-state-capture-and-hopes-for-the-future-in-south-africa/">How to Steal a Country</a>. These two books chronicle how corruption undermined respectively a city and a country to the level where they became dysfunctional.</p>
<h2>Brazen looting</h2>
<p>Another take-away is the devastating indictment of De Ruyter’s immediate predecessors as CEO, <a href="https://www.eskom.co.za/heritage/matshela-koko/">Matshela Koko</a> and <a href="https://www.eskom.co.za/heritage/brian-molefe/">Brian Molefe</a>. They appear as incompetent managers who ran into the ground what the Financial Times of London had praised as the world’s best state-owned enterprise as recently as 2001. Both <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/live-former-eskom-boss-matshela-koko-arrested-on-corruption-charges-20221027">Koko</a> and <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/molefe-singh-back-in-palm-ridge-specialised-commercial-crimes-court/">Molefe</a> have been charged with corruption – at Eskom and the transport parastatal Transet, respectively.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explosive-revelations-about-south-africas-power-utility-why-new-electricity-minister-should-heed-the-words-of-former-eskom-ceo-201508">Explosive revelations about South Africa's power utility: why new electricity minister should heed the words of former Eskom CEO</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The standard joke about corruption is “Mr Ten Percent” – meaning a middleman who adds 10% onto the price of everything passing through his hands. Under Koko and Molefe, this had allegedly ballooned into “Mr Ten Thousand Percent”. </p>
<p>For example, De Ruyter writes that Eskom was just stopped in the nick of time from paying a middleman R238,000 for a cleaning mop. </p>
<p>Corruption focused on the procurement chain. One middleman bought knee-pads for R150 (US$7,80) and sold them to Eskom for R80,000 (US$4,200). Another bought a knee-pad for R4,025 (US$209) and sold it to Eskom for R934,950 (US$48,544). The same applied to toilet rolls and rubbish bags. One inevitable consequence of corruption on such a scale was that Eskom’s debt, which was R40 billion (US$2.076 billion) in 2007 (the year that former president Jacob Zuma came to power), ballooned to R483 billion (US$25 billion) by 2020 – which incurred R31 billion (US$160 million) in annual finance charges.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Book cover showing a Caucasian man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527730/original/file-20230523-27-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">PenguinRandomHouse</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>De Ruyter reveals that the “presidential” cartel (meaning one of the local mafias) pillaged Matla power station, the “Mesh-Kings” cartel Duvha power station, the “Legendaries” cartel Tutuka power station, and the “Chief” cartel Majuba power station. He writes that the going rate for bribes at Kusile power station is R200,000 (US$10,377) to falsify the delivery of one truckload of good quality coal. <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/special-investigating-unit-secure-another-preservation-order-matter-related-corruption">Kusile</a> is one of the two giant new coal-fired power stations which Eskom is relying on to end power cuts.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-bailout-of-eskom-wont-end-power-cuts-splitting-up-the-utility-can-as-other-countries-have-shown-200490">South Africa's bailout of Eskom won't end power cuts: splitting up the utility can, as other countries have shown</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The book says a senior officer at the <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/dpci/index.php">Hawks</a>, the police’s priority crimes investigation units, tipped off De Ruyter how he was blocked in all his attempts to combat corruption at Eskom. Senior police officers, at least one prosecutor, and a senior magistrate, have also been bribed by the gangs. </p>
<h2>Noncomformist</h2>
<p>Eskom had 13 CEOs and acting CEOs in 13 years. Twenty-eight candidates, most of them black, rejected head-hunters’ offers to become CEO of Eskom. De Ruyter who was previously CEO of Nampak, took a pay cut (to R7 million) to accept the job, in the hope of accelerating Eskom’s transition from coal to renewables.</p>
<p>At the time of his appointment some commentators alleged that he was an African National Congress (ANC) cadre deployed to Eskom. The ANC’s <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> policy is aimed at ensuring that all the levers of power are in loyal party hands – often regardless of ability and probity. But De Ruyter came <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/anc-claims-de-ruyter-is-trying-to-tarnish-its-image-ahead-of-elections-in-2024-20230426">into conflict</a> with the ruling party.</p>
<p>What caught De Ruyter out was the viciousness of the political attacks on him: smears of racism and financial impropriety. He had to devote many hours of office time to refuting them: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>occupying that seat at Megawatt Park comes with political baggage. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://za.geoview.info/eskom_megawatt_park,32555009w">Megawatt Park</a> is Eskom’s head office in Johannesburg. </p>
<p>The book’s early chapters summarise how he was one of those Afrikaners with Dutch parents, who did not conform entirely to apartheid norms. The Afrikaner <em>volk</em> imposed the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/apartheid">apartheid</a> regime onto South Africa for 42 years. In his high school years he became a card-carrying member of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Progressive-Federal-Party">Progressive Federal Party</a>, a liberal anti-apartheid opposition party, antecedent of the Democratic Alliance, which is now the official opposition to the governing party. </p>
<h2>Poisoning</h2>
<p>De Ruyter’s book mentions organising a routine Eskom stakeholders’ meeting at a guesthouse in Mpumalanga province. </p>
<p>To save time, he ordered that food be served on plates to table places, instead of buffet arrangements. The guesthouse management refused, due to fear of facilitating poisoning one or more guests – only buffet arrangements could thwart that. </p>
<p>He says that in Tshwane (Pretoria), the seat of government, the National Prosecution Authority no longer orders takeaway lunches for delivery to their premises. Instead, standard procedure is that a staff member buys lunches for all at random take-away shops. </p>
<p>This sinister development culminated in De Ruyter himself being poisoned with cyanide in his coffee in his office, demonstrating how mafia-type gangs had recruited at least one Eskom headquarters staff member.</p>
<h2>Unintended consequences</h2>
<p>In several places De Ruyter also touches on other issues. The unintended consequence of some government policies, such as localisation and <a href="https://www.treasury.gov.za/comm_media/press/2022/2022110801%20Media%20Statement%20-%20PPP%20Regulations%202022.pdf">preferential procurement</a>, is that it costs Eskom two and a half times more to pay for each kilometre of transmission cable than it costs <a href="https://www.nampower.com.na/">Nampower</a> Namibia’s power utility, just across the border. </p>
<p>What stands out from this memoir is that the success of a company demands that a CEO, managers, artisans, guards, and cleaners all take the attitude that the buck stops with them – seven days a week – and act accordingly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206101/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is a member of the African National Congress, but writes this review in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>The book shows how parts of South Africa now fester with organised crime.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1780062022-03-01T15:49:00Z2022-03-01T15:49:00ZHow Vladimir Putin’s security obsession has eroded Russian living standards<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448996/original/file-20220228-25-9pjazc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6989%2C4244&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators shout anti-war slogans in St. Petersburg, Russia, decrying their country's invasion of Ukraine.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/how-vladimir-putin-s-security-obsession-has-eroded-russian-living-standards" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov famously advised young playwrights that “<a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-ed5-00002871">if in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.</a>” </p>
<p>For the past 20 years, Vladimir Putin — a deeply paranoid megalomaniac who has by now completely <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-vladimir-putin-europe-arrests-moscow-cf5dda5528937de907f8916820cfab75">isolated himself from his own people</a>, to say nothing of the world as a whole — has been progressively diverting Russia’s considerable wealth towards the construction of an all-encompassing security state. </p>
<p>Ever since the <a href="https://www.e-ir.info/2012/10/15/after-beslan-changes-in-russias-counterterrorism-policy/">2004 Beslan school massacre</a> that provided the initial pretext for this redirection, the Russian president has been hanging pistols on the walls to the exclusion of any other national project. The massacre was an Islamist, mainly Ingush and Chechen terrorist attack that resulted in the deaths of 333 people, 186 of them children.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449019/original/file-20220228-15-1y02o09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two women weep as one holds a photo of a child." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449019/original/file-20220228-15-1y02o09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449019/original/file-20220228-15-1y02o09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449019/original/file-20220228-15-1y02o09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449019/original/file-20220228-15-1y02o09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449019/original/file-20220228-15-1y02o09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449019/original/file-20220228-15-1y02o09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449019/original/file-20220228-15-1y02o09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 2004 photo, a relative of a 10-year-old girl who died alongside her mother in Beslan weeps as she holds the child’s portrait during her funeral.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This narrow channelling of the country’s resources into <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20788646">security services</a> has brought about a steady decline in living standards for ordinary citizens. Most of them aren’t fortunate enough to be employed in government ministries such as <a href="http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-11541.html">the MVD</a> (Internal Affairs, which includes FBI-like functions), the security forces (<a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/reading-russia-the-siloviki-in-charge/">the infamously unaccountable <em>siloviki</em></a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Federal-Security-Service">including the Federal Security Service known as the FSB</a>), the military, the police or connected to oligarch-run business networks with ties to Putin. </p>
<p>An FSB agent can expect to earn the ruble equivalent of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-fsb-salary-idINTRE67U2LS20100831">US$1,100 a month</a> and <a href="https://www.erieri.com/salary/job/police-officer/russian-federation">a police officer</a> about US$600-700 monthly, in addition to benefits such as housing assistance, free university education for family members and free or heavily discounted vacations. </p>
<h2>Best paid jobs out of reach for most</h2>
<p>A surgeon, meanwhile, <a href="https://therussianreader.com/2017/12/16/sixty-percent-of-russian-doctors-make-less-than-360-euros-a-month/">might make US$200-300 per month</a>
by working multiple jobs, while a teacher will have to struggle by on a measly <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1130875/average-monthly-salary-of-teaching-staff/">$100 or less</a>. Salaries for office workers fall somewhere in between. <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/wages">Generally speaking, any position worth having</a> can only be obtained through nepotism, patronage networks or bribery. </p>
<p>In Russia’s <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/socialpolicy/2021/01/18/russias-sexist-list-of-banned-professions-for-women-must-end/">paternalistic society</a>, a man with the requisite skills can sometimes find employment as a <a href="https://www.rbth.com/business/330851-female-male-jobs">car mechanic or construction worker</a>. Low-paying unskilled jobs include food services, private security and retail sales. Those who own cars often work as unofficial taxi drivers. </p>
<p>Some men, unable to find employment, <a href="http://www.ijors.net/issue9_2_2020/pdf/__www.ijors.net_issue9_2_2020_article_2_marionneau.pdf">try to survive by betting</a> on sports events. Others rely on the financial support of their wives or girlfriends — if they have them — who bring in money by working in beauty salons or engaging in informal businesses such as buying and selling clothes, cosmetics or household products. </p>
<p>But without the necessary connections and a willingness to participate in corrupt, often criminal activities, it is becoming increasingly difficult if not impossible for the average Russian to lead anything resembling a normal life.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A bearded man in a black hat man lies under a stained blue blanket and on top of large pipes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449011/original/file-20220228-23-17dezyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449011/original/file-20220228-23-17dezyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449011/original/file-20220228-23-17dezyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449011/original/file-20220228-23-17dezyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449011/original/file-20220228-23-17dezyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449011/original/file-20220228-23-17dezyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449011/original/file-20220228-23-17dezyx.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">An elderly homeless man warms himself lies on the pipe of the city heating system during a frigid day in Omsk, Russia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Evgeniy Sofiychuk)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Cost of living</h2>
<p>The cost of living in Russia — outside of <a href="https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Russia&city1=Moscow&country2=Russia&city2=Saint+Petersburg">Moscow and St. Petersburg</a>, world-class cities that are priced accordingly — is slightly less than in the West, but not by much. And given the much higher salaries in those aforementioned cities, the nationwide average of US$660 per month should be adjusted considerably downward for most regions.</p>
<p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-japan-9fbeb1c66c523f4018abb8ebc6580839">As the ruble plummets</a>, the cost of living goes up but salaries do not. Pensions barely cover the cost of monthly utilities. Social assistance, including bonuses for health-care workers exhausted by the COVID-19 pandemic, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-56199997.amp">gets diverted</a> along the way into mysterious pockets without ever reaching those in need. Health-care services are being <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/10/03/ruco-o03.html">steadily reduced</a> and hospitals closed in the interest of “maximizing efficiency.”</p>
<p>Putin constantly claims to be “operating within <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/daed/article/146/2/64/27149/Putin-Style-Rule-of-Law-amp-the-Prospects-for">the framework of the law</a>,” but the legal system in Russia is manipulated for the sole purpose of supporting and protecting the powerful. </p>
<p>Russia is an advanced, <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/education/educated-russians-curse-returns-education-russian-federation-1990s#:%7E:text=Because%20of%20a%20strong%20literary,well%20above%20the%20OECD%20averages.">highly educated nation</a> rich in both human and <a href="https://epthinktank.eu/2015/03/16/the-russian-economy-will-russia-ever-catch-up/eprs-ida-551320-russian-natural-resources/">natural resources</a>, giving it considerable economic potential. But its leadership has chosen not to invest that wealth in the development of the country but rather in the build-up of a massive security apparatus that serves only the interests of the president and those close to him. </p>
<p>The Russian state is <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/kleptocracy">a kleptocracy</a> in the purest sense of the term, and for years <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/12/uks-kleptocracy-problem">its kleptocrats</a> and the billions they’ve looted from the Russian people have been received with open arms by western countries such as <a href="https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/russian-oligarch-roman-abramovich-chelsea-premier-league-putin-225303541.html">the United Kingdom</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/guess-who-came-dinner-flynn-putin-n742696">the United States</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A grey-haired man in a navy jacket sits in a sports stadium with his hand under his chin." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449014/original/file-20220228-23-18zxqc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449014/original/file-20220228-23-18zxqc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449014/original/file-20220228-23-18zxqc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449014/original/file-20220228-23-18zxqc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449014/original/file-20220228-23-18zxqc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449014/original/file-20220228-23-18zxqc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449014/original/file-20220228-23-18zxqc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch, attends a soccer match in Sweden in 2021. Abramovich has a net worth estimated at more than $13 billion and used his fortune to buy the British soccer club Chelsea and homes in London and New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Martin Meissner)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ordinary Russians have no agency</h2>
<p>Ordinary Russians had no say in the decision to launch an invasion of Ukraine, which was the longstanding personal obsession of a president most Russians don’t support but aren’t free to oppose.</p>
<p>Teenage conscripts, told they were being sent to participate in “exercises,” <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-pows-prisoners-identification-dead/31726619.html">have reportedly been shocked</a> to find themselves on the front lines of a war facing people they never considered their enemy. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman in a blue jacket and grey pants lies on the ground crying out as police restrain her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449009/original/file-20220228-3997-1gwprbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449009/original/file-20220228-3997-1gwprbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449009/original/file-20220228-3997-1gwprbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449009/original/file-20220228-3997-1gwprbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449009/original/file-20220228-3997-1gwprbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449009/original/file-20220228-3997-1gwprbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449009/original/file-20220228-3997-1gwprbd.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">Police officers detain a demonstrator in St. Petersburg, Russia, who was protesting against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As our leaders wring their hands and bemoan the Ukrainians’ fate, they should also take <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/lavrov-russia-diplomacy-ukraine/622075/">a good look at their own roles</a> in enabling Putin and his circle to build up the war machine that has only too naturally unleashed itself on the nearest and most convenient victim. </p>
<p>The pistols could not hang indefinitely, and now they have been taken down and are being fired at thousands of innocent victims.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178006/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Foltz 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>Putin’s militarized security state has been growing since 2004 at the expense of social services and living standards for Russians.Richard Foltz, Professor of Religions and Cultures, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1712532021-11-04T15:37:07Z2021-11-04T15:37:07ZSouth Africa’s ANC dips below 50%. But opposition parties fail to pick up the slack<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430304/original/file-20211104-23-1hwhf09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africans queue to vote in the 2021 local government elections in Centurion, Tshwane, Pretoria. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s 2021 local government elections were momentous. They mark the first time that the now ruling party and erstwhile liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC), <a href="https://results.elections.org.za/dashboards/lge/">slipped below the 50% milestone</a> of the vote. </p>
<p>Overall, the parties retained their positions relative to one another. The largest was the ANC; in second place the official opposition the Democratic Alliance (DA) followed by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the Freedom Front Plus (FF+).</p>
<p>The results raise the real possibility that the ANC could be looking at another defeat in the 2024 general elections. This is despite the fact that opposition parties usually do best in municipal elections and the ANC does best during general elections. </p>
<p>The poll pointed to a steep decline in voter interest. It was the lowest percentage poll ever in <a href="https://elections.sabc.co.za/elections/2021-lge-news-flashes/csir-predicts-48-voter-turnout-for-2021-local-government-elections/">South Africa’s democratic epoch</a>. This indicates that some citizens feel alienated from the political elite regardless of party, and sceptical of the ability of any incoming municipal government to deliver. </p>
<p>It is ironic that ANC supporters punished Cyril Ramaphosa given that he’s the ANC leader who has done most to purge kleptocrats from the party and the government, and appoint new, ethical prosecutors to bring the corrupt to trial. </p>
<p>But the voters clearly want to first see the results of this before voting for the ANC again.</p>
<p>Overall, South Africa will from now on share the situation of other countries with proportional representation electoral systems – coalitions galore – unlike two party systems such as the UK and US.</p>
<h2>The fate of the Democratic Alliance</h2>
<p>Why did the Democratic Alliance (DA) get a lower vote? </p>
<p>One reason is that the <a href="https://www.vfplus.org.za/">Freedom Front Plus</a>, a conservative, Afrikaner party, is winning over Afrikaner voters from the DA. It might also be that <a href="https://www.actionsa.org.za/">ActionSA</a>, the new party of <a href="https://www.africanleadershipacademy.org/staffulty/speakers/herman-mashaba/">Herman Mashaba</a> (the former Free Market Foundation chair, and former DA mayor of Johannesburg), vacuumed up many of the DA’s black voters in Soweto, the country’s largest black urban area. </p>
<p>Then, there are various mixed messages. For example, during the 2019 election, DA activists were canvassing voters with the argument that
“if you vote for the ANC they will form a coalition with the EFF”.</p>
<p>Yet, the DA itself was simultaneously in <a href="https://theconversation.com/marriages-of-inconvenience-the-fraught-politics-of-coalitions-in-south-africa-167517">effective coalitions</a> with the EFF – the self-styled “<a href="https://effonline.org/">radical and militant</a>” party whose revolutionary views the DA is diametrically opposed to – in Johannesburg and Tshwane metropoles.</p>
<p>Another is the gap between the DA’s election slogan that it’s the party that “<a href="https://www.da.org.za/the-da-gets-things-done">gets things done</a>” and reality. For example, the DA, which has run Cape Town <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/columnists/adriaanbasson/adriaan-basson-will-de-lille-give-the-da-a-good-run-for-its-money-in-cape-town-20211003">since 2006</a>, has failed in a number of areas. One of these is in controlling pollution.</p>
<p>Cape Town’s well-heeled lake-front property owners around the Rietvlei-Milnerton Lagoon, Zeekoeivlei and Zandvlei dare not dip a toe into those lakes due to sewage contamination. Businesses and lodges that focus on water sports are shuttered.</p>
<p>The DA’s Cape Town metro government has failed over the years to launch the needed <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/news/city-of-cape-towns-water-treatment-plant-meets-halfway-mark-dbcdec2e-339e-57c1-9c86-bd55bc4a2e23">doubling of sewage treatment plants</a>. Instead, it took the illiberal step of suddenly demanding that ratepayers who asked for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-e-coli-17503">E. coli</a> measurements be denied them unless they <a href="https://www.noseweek.co.za/article/4392/We-wont-take-this-sh!t-anymore,-says-Milnerton">signed a non-disclosure contract</a>. E. coli in water <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/e-coli/symptoms-causes/syc-20372058">can cause severe illness</a>. </p>
<p>The DA will, however, be celebrating that it has retained control of the Midvaal municipality in Gauteng province and the Kouga municipality in Eastern Cape province, and won the Umngeni municipality in KwaZulu-Natal. These are its beach-heads outside the Western Cape province.</p>
<p>Another feature of the election was that local parties in some regions sustained a resilient presence over decades against the big national parties. An example was the Advisieskantoor (Advice Office) in the ostrich ranching and tourist town of Oudtshoorn.</p>
<p>One consequence of the showing by smaller parties at local level is that there are likely to be hung councils. Even prior to the most recent poll Oudtshoorn had <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-07-02-oudtshoorn-anatomy-of-a-municipal-disaster/">a year without any functioning council</a>.</p>
<p>There were some other developments worth noting.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Signs of a backlash against statutory <a href="https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/28248/03chapter3.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y">affirmative action</a> favouring Africans were prominent during electioneering by the new Patriotic Alliance and the Cape Coloured Congress parties.</p></li>
<li><p>The good showing by ActionSA, with its campaign for <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/actionsa-this-is-how-we-plan-to-address-immigration-and-revitalise-inner-cities-78bbec7c-0c6c-4b56-aaa0-817ad70907a7">tough law enforcement</a> against the African diaspora, showed, disturbingly, that xenophobia is a vote-catcher.</p></li>
<li><p>The Inkatha Freedom Party demonstrated that it will survive following the passing of the baton by its founder and longtime leader <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2019-08-24-prince-mangosuthu-buthelezi-steps-down-as-ifp-leader-after-44-years-at-the-helm/">Mangosuthu Buthelezi</a>. Intriguingly, its core votes are in the borders of the former Zulu kingdom as they stood at the start of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/shaka-zulu">King Shaka</a>’s reign. Districts he later conquered, such as <a href="https://geographic.org/geographic_names/name.php?uni=-1872847&fid=5617&c=south_africa">Tongaland</a> and chiefdoms south of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/tugela-river-and-waterfalls-drakensberg">Tugela River</a>, now mostly vote ANC.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>What now?</h2>
<p>The more splintered outcome of the poll means that there are likely to be many more coalitions that will need to be formed. But these will only last if enforced by the national executives of the parties concerned. Written treaties are not infallible – the DA and United Democratic Movement had that in Nelson Mandela Bay since the previous local election in 2016 – but will certainly minimise breakups. </p>
<p>Such contracts need to specify dispute resolution mechanisms, in addition to actual policy compromises.</p>
<p>Right now, the national executives of both the ANC and DA will be debating tough judgement calls. If they form municipal coalitions with each other, will this alienate voters to whom each marketed their party as a bulwark against the other? Also, in five years’ time, can each persuade their followers that successes were only due to them, and failures due only to their coalition partners? These hard choices will be paramount in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay.</p>
<p>Looking more broadly at the way in which the election was run, there were clear signs that cutting the budget of the electoral commission <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/iec-plans-one-voter-registration-weekend-due-to-budget-cuts-aaf09467-2c97-4713-ab82-b199609d979a">by R118 million</a> was a false economy. Elections are priceless in democracies. More thorough training, and hiring ethical and experienced election veterans, will be indispensable to the legitimacy of the coming 2024 general election.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171253/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is a member of the ANC, but writes this analysis in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>The election results raise the real possibility that the ANC could be looking at another defeat in the 2024 general elections.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1693262021-10-06T16:30:18Z2021-10-06T16:30:18ZPaid millions to hide trillions: Pandora Papers expose financial crime enablers, too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424838/original/file-20211005-25-gfjrt7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3072%2C1825&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The world's wealthiest people wouldn't be able to shield their riches from tax authorities without enablers.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Piqsels)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/about-pandora-papers-investigation/">Pandora Papers investigation</a> by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a non-profit newsroom and network of journalists based in Washington, D.C., has revealed there are still some go-to havens for those looking to hide illicit wealth.</p>
<p>The people who don’t get mentioned as much in the media coverage of the Pandora Papers, however, are the enablers devoted to helping the richest people in the world get richer and to pass on their wealth while avoiding or evading taxes. These enablers help criminals and kleptocrats launder their ill-gotten gains.</p>
<p>They may not be as wealthy as their clients, but they are paid millions to hide trillions.</p>
<h2>The wealth defence industry</h2>
<p>For many years there has been a well-established “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13563467.2020.1816947">wealth defence industry</a>” made up of a coalition of professionals — ranging from advisers and bankers to lawyers, accountants, notaries and estate agents — who use anonymous shell companies, family offices, offshore accounts and trusts to help the world’s richest people shield their wealth from tax collectors.</p>
<p>These highly compensated “enablers” are assisting oligarchs, dictators and criminals around the world. </p>
<p>There’s been <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58780561">a lot of mainstream reporting</a> on the actual crimes, abuses and financial misdeeds of malicious foreign states and wealthy individuals. But what about the intermediaries to the financial system who handle the details and provide the get-away mechanisms for the criminals?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of men gather around a selection of newspapers, one of them reading one." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424852/original/file-20211005-25-44kucm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424852/original/file-20211005-25-44kucm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424852/original/file-20211005-25-44kucm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424852/original/file-20211005-25-44kucm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424852/original/file-20211005-25-44kucm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424852/original/file-20211005-25-44kucm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424852/original/file-20211005-25-44kucm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kenyans read the morning newspapers reporting a statement issued by President Uhuru Kenyatta following reports that he’s among more than 330 current and former politicians identified as beneficiaries of secret financial accounts in the Pandora Papers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Brian Inganga)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some elites pay respected professionals and businesses to open political doors, to lobby against sanctions, to fight legal battles and to launder money and reputations. In doing so, these institutions and individuals push the boundaries of the law and degrade the principles of our democracy.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/in/Documents/finance/Forensic/in-forensic-AML-Survey-report-2020-noexp.pdf">Deloitte Anti-Money Laundering Preparedness Survey Report 2020</a>, the amount of money laundered in one year is estimated to be between two per cent and five per cent of global GDP, or from US$800 billion to US$2 trillion annually.</p>
<p>The ICIJ’s <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/">FinCEN Files</a> offer unprecedented insights into a secret world of international banking, anonymous clients and, in many cases, financial crime.</p>
<p>They show how banks blindly move cash through their accounts for people they can’t identify, failing to report transactions with all the hallmarks of money laundering until years after the fact, and even do business with clients enmeshed in financial frauds and public corruption scandals.</p>
<h2>The insidiousness of ‘dark money’</h2>
<p>Corruption and financial wrongdoing are by their nature secretive and often deeply complex. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/dark-money/basics">Dark money</a> — essentially spending meant to sway political outcomes with no information about the source of the money — buys <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/01/dark-money-10years-citizens-united/">access to courts and politicians</a>, consequently making society less fair and more inequitable.</p>
<p>What often distinguishes ordinary rich people <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/oligarchy/">from the oligarchy</a> is that all oligarchs invest in wealth defence. They use their power and wealth to amass more power and wealth, to lobby and to rig the rules around them.</p>
<p>One of the challenges in cracking down on financial crime is the global race to the bottom among tax havens that are trying to entice customers by offering more lucrative incentives and a higher degree of secrecy for companies. Enablers who are part of the wealth defence industry develop and market strategies, structures and schemes to avoid tax liabilities and regulatory scrutiny.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.openownership.org/blogs/modelling-beneficial-ownership-data/">Beneficial ownership databases</a> aimed at combating money-laundering have become an <a href="https://www.osler.com/en/blogs/risk/april-2021/canada-s-budget-introduces-long-awaited-beneficial-ownership-registry-to-combat-money-laundering">increasingly popular reform</a> around the world <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/five-years-later-panama-papers-still-having-a-big-impact/">in the aftermath of the Panama Papers</a>, which focused international attention on how corporate anonymity can enable a range of social ills. </p>
<p>As this trend continues, there’s hope that as more jurisdictions institute greater beneficial ownership initiatives and tax transparency, remaining “outlier” offshore destinations like Bermuda, <a href="https://www.caymancompass.com/2021/10/01/government-extends-beneficial-ownership-consultation/">the Cayman Islands</a> and Malta will be sanctioned into compliance by the threat of exclusion from the global financial system.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two tourists walk along a white-sand beach lined with trees and shrubs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424855/original/file-20211005-20911-y7w6j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424855/original/file-20211005-20911-y7w6j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424855/original/file-20211005-20911-y7w6j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424855/original/file-20211005-20911-y7w6j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424855/original/file-20211005-20911-y7w6j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424855/original/file-20211005-20911-y7w6j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424855/original/file-20211005-20911-y7w6j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tourists walk along the shore of Seven Mile Beach in Grand Cayman Island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/David McFadden)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Promising signs</h2>
<p>In the meantime, many jurisdictions continue to evade law enforcement agencies that chase the secret money trails of tax dodgers and criminals.</p>
<p>Due to all the obvious regulatory and enforcement gaps, and to the seeming lack of political will to address those gaps actively and practically, there are some encouraging signs suggesting governments around the world are being forced to act. </p>
<p>There’s now a growing global demand for greater transparency and accountability, combined with <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/3/19/bb-radicalchangeleaders-call-for-measures-to-tackle-inequality">calls to address the widening wealth inequity</a> as well <a href="https://hbr.org/2019/05/the-investor-revolution">as demands from investors for the adoption of ESG (environmental, social and governance) principles</a>. </p>
<p>While those factors play a role in getting the attention of senior political leaders, the cynical reality is that the probable primary motivation of these leaders is the serious and alarming trend of a <a href="https://www.oecd.org/tax/oecd-tax-revenues-fall-slightly-before-the-covid-19-pandemic-but-countries-face-much-larger-decreases-ahead-particularly-from-consumption-taxes.htm">reduction in tax revenues</a>. The endorsement of the concept of a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/countries-backs-global-minimum-corporate-tax-least-15-2021-07-01/">15 per cent minimum global tax rate</a> by G7 leaders at their June 2021 summit is a clear indication that the winds of change are coming.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Boris Johnson stands with his arms raised in front of other G7 leaders on a beach." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424849/original/file-20211005-30173-ycuwu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424849/original/file-20211005-30173-ycuwu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424849/original/file-20211005-30173-ycuwu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424849/original/file-20211005-30173-ycuwu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424849/original/file-20211005-30173-ycuwu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424849/original/file-20211005-30173-ycuwu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424849/original/file-20211005-30173-ycuwu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leaders of the G7 nations pose for a photo in Cornwall, England in June 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The current model is not sustainable. Fiscal realities, along with political pressure and necessity, will force political leaders to act. They’ll soon have to do much more than pay lip service to wealth inequality and power imbalance, which allows the wealth defence industry and their clients to subvert the system and avoid paying their fair share. </p>
<p>Greater transparency and accountability are needed to expose the enablers and to reduce the loopholes that enable wealthy individuals and criminals, along with corporate entities, to operate with impunity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169326/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Tassé 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>Highly compensated ‘enablers’ such as financial experts, lawyers, accountants, notaries, estate agents and company service providers are assisting oligarchs, dictators and criminals around the world.Marc Tassé, Professor, Accounting, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1580712021-04-06T13:31:21Z2021-04-06T13:31:21ZFormer opposition leader Tony Leon pushes South Africa’s hot buttons in new book<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393119/original/file-20210401-15-1vrpm07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tony Leon celebrates
at the Democratic Alliance's final election rally held in Johannesburg, in April 2004. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tony Leon is the most prolific of all former leaders of the Democratic Alliance (DA), South Africa’s main opposition party, as befits the chair of a communications company. </p>
<p>In his latest and fifth book, <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/tony-leon-future-tense/jrxh-7080-g790"><em>Future Tense: Reflections on my Troubled Land</em></a>, he comes across as articulate and persuasive.</p>
<p>The Democratic Alliance has, ever since its original founding as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-democratic-alliance-at-60-big-strategic-questions-lie-ahead-117129">Progressive Party in 1959</a>, opposed injustices committed by the apartheid government. Today, its support is overwhelmingly from demographic minorities. Its current challenges include ensuring black people are more visible among its top leadership. </p>
<p>Recent turmoil included veteran party leader <a href="https://www.da.org.za/people/helen-zille-2">Helen Zille</a> propelling <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mmusi-aloysias-maimane">Mmusi Maimane</a> into the leadership of the party. The other was Tony Leon’s role in <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-10-22-mmusi-maimane-inconsistent-and-conflict-averse/">pressuring Maimane to resign</a> after a series of DA tactical errors culminated in electoral losses <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-2019-poll-showed-dangerous-signs-of-insiders-and-outsiders-121758">in 2019</a>. </p>
<p>The new and most useful content in his book is in chapters 2 and 3. They provide the first insider account of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/imposter-syndrome-explains-why-first-black-leader-of-south-africas-main-opposition-party-quit-125826">ousting of Maimane</a>, the party’s first black leader, <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-10-23-breaking-da-leader-mmusi-maimane-quits/">in October 2019</a>. His meteoric rise and that of former DA parliamentary leader <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/lindiwe-mazibuko">Lindiwe Mazibuko</a>, and the attempted recruitment of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/dr-mamphela-aletta-ramphele">Mamphela Ramphele</a>, the outspoken liberation struggle activist, were viewed as the DA expanding out of its former limits, to gain African voters. Their departures deflated such hopes.</p>
<p>Leon also delves into the accompanying turmoil within the DA because of the choices made by <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-liberals-are-failing-to-wrap-their-heads-around-race-127029">Zille</a>, who has retained senior positions in the party and refused to relinquish power. </p>
<p>Leon mulls over the DA’s biggest challenge: “how to maintain its majority support among minorities, and increase its meagre voter share among the black majority” (page 21).</p>
<p>These remain unsolved conundrums for the party even after two decades of democracy. <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/racial-classification-under-apartheid-43430">African</a> voters comprise four-fifths of the electorate. For the DA to ever become the ruling party, even in a coalition, it must win over more than just <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/race-and-ethnicity-south-africa">racial minorities</a> voters.</p>
<h2>Strengths</h2>
<p><em>Future Tense</em> raises classical political issues that have been debated for over two centuries. One of the biggest is: what is the optimal blend of markets and the state in the economy? </p>
<p>A pragmatic – and not dogmatic – answer would surely be different between different countries, and between different times.</p>
<p>For example, during the 1950s, socialists like <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/jawaharlal-nehru-1889-1964">Jawaharlal Nehru</a> in India and <a href="http://nasser.bibalex.org/Common/NasserLife_en.aspx?lang=en">Gamal-Abdel Nasser</a> in Egypt knew what to do for unemployment: the state should found steel mills and textile mills to employ tens of thousands of people.</p>
<p>But in 2021, an automated and robotic steel and textile mill typically each employ far fewer workers. Jobs now lie in tourism, computer coding, and digital industries such as designing websites. These require accomplished skill sets. With protracted unemployment standing at a horrific 42% (and reaching 93% in a small country town such as Touws Rivier) this is a hot button for South Africa.</p>
<p>Another hot button topic Leon touches on is the issue of affirmative action. He points to what he sees as a contradiction – the fact that the country’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-2-bill-rights#7">Bill of Rights</a> enshrines non-racialism, yet the government pursues a policy of affirmative action. </p>
<p>Leon points out that the mechanistic enforcement of affirmative action for demographic proportionality (black people are the majority) has the consequence that “Indian” police officers (from a demographic representing 3% of South Africans) are banned from being promoted to all top tiers where there are fewer than 34 posts. This is the opposite of a non-racial society where any individual can be promoted solely on merit.</p>
<p>Much of <em>Future Tense</em> is taken up with summarising two decades of media exposés of corruption in the African National Congress (ANC) government, and the descent into kleptocracy under Jacob Zuma’s presidency between <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">May 2009 and January 2018</a>. Leon ascribes the main cause to the ANC policy of <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>. The practice makes sure that key government positions are held by party loyalists. This is similar to what the USA calls the “spoils system”. It’s been criticised as valuing party loyalty over ability, competence and probity. </p>
<p>Leon also ascribes the cause of corruption to the ANC removing the power of the Public Service Commission to promote civil servants solely on merit. </p>
<p>The weight of his arguments may be judged by the fact that the government is now publicly discussing restoring the remit of the Public Service Commission on this issue.</p>
<p><em>Future Tense</em> also discusses foreign policy. The ANC’s historical allies were the Soviet Union (Russia) and Cuba. The US, the UK, Germany and other EU states remain South Africa’s major investment and trading partners. Leon, a former ambassador to Argentina, argues that the ANC’s cold war vintage rhetoric and stances do not succeed in optimally managing the complexities of these global realities.</p>
<h2>Criticisms</h2>
<p><em>Future Tense</em> repeatedly reminds readers of how many dire predictions and prophecies of South Africa’s future have come a cropper.</p>
<p>The book offers its readers both the virtues of the liberal vision and its limitations. Virtues of the liberal vision include support for individual human rights, accepting doubt and uncertainties, and tolerating dissenting opinions. Limitations are that it sometimes opposes state interventions in the market to mitigate social injustices, and redressing some of the issues raised by identitarian politics.</p>
<p><em>Future Tense</em> has more than a chapter on millionaire and billionaire emigration from South Africa. They are supposedly driven out mostly by state affirmative action, preferential procurement and other economic policies, as well as the crime wave. But it doesn’t have even one sentence about the immigration of two million working class Africans from other countries, and what this might tell us. Leon’s closeness to the plutocratic classes is matched by his distance from acquaintance with working class realities.</p>
<p>He gives an example of how affirmative action caused the emigration of one white University of Cape Town postdoctoral fellow. But he does not mention how the university has attracted top scholars from other African countries.</p>
<p>One chapter explicitly, and the book as a whole, is suffused with the perspectives and arguments of private wealth and investment bankers.
But the contrasting arguments of the labour movement, including the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the biggest labour federation, and the research done by the NGOs supporting it, appear only in a sentence or two for dismissal.</p>
<p>Similarly, this book and the Democratic Alliance, which the author once led and is still associated with, give readers the impression that they judge South Africa’s foreign policy by the degree to which it complies with the foreign policy of the <a href="https://www.nato.int/">North Atlantic Treaty Organisation</a> countries, and have a tin ear for the importance of pan-African empathies.</p>
<p>There is no nuanced perception that western powers selectively invoke human rights violations against their targeted regimes, while enthusiastically selling armaments to human rights violators they view as business friendly.</p>
<p><em>Future Tense</em> is a good read, and should be on everyone’s bookshelf. This reviewer hopes that former South African president Thabo Mbeki and the incumbent Cyril Ramaphosa will not leave everything to their biographers, but will also write up their own memoirs. It is good to have both former presidents, as well as former leaders of the official opposition, tell us in their own words their perspectives on what happened.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is an ANC member, but writes this in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>Leon mulls over the Democratic Alliance’s biggest challenge: ‘how to maintain its majority support among minorities, and increase its meagre voter share among the black majority’.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1532762021-01-19T13:10:14Z2021-01-19T13:10:14ZTrump sees power as private property – a habit shared by autocrats throughout the ages<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379102/original/file-20210116-23-1j0yfa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C11%2C3673%2C2372&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lord of all he surveys?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trump-stands-on-the-white-house-balcony-news-photo/1229299863?adppopup=true">Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Shortly before crowds of his supporters <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/us/capitol-rioters.html">stormed the Capitol</a> on Jan. 6, Donald Trump implored them to “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/trump-speech-capitol.html">take back our country</a>.” His words echoed a long history of authoritarians who have attempted to privatize power and turn it into personal property.</p>
<p>Taking back what is yours would not, by this logic, be trespassing, terrorism or treason. Instead, it is merely setting things right. By inciting a predominantly white crowd to lay siege to an institution that was ratifying what they had been <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-12-06/donald-trump-election-fraud-lies-psychology">told was a “stolen” election</a>, Trump was trying to preserve his presidency as if it were private property – his to keep, or give away.</p>
<h2>Turning power into property</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://www.wcl.american.edu/community/faculty/profile/nicola/bio">scholars</a> of <a href="https://www.jura.uni-frankfurt.de/42780580/Zur_Person">comparative authoritarianism</a>, we have come to learn that this is nothing new. History offers plenty of egregious examples of autocrats who treated their office and powers as their private property. Louis XIV, king of France, <a href="http://doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9780719062353.001.0001">did not know how to distinguish between himself and the state</a>. According to the legend, the “Sun King” <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/286184">said that he was the state</a> or, modified in property terms, that the state belonged to him.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379103/original/file-20210116-17-1belcjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379103/original/file-20210116-17-1belcjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379103/original/file-20210116-17-1belcjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379103/original/file-20210116-17-1belcjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379103/original/file-20210116-17-1belcjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379103/original/file-20210116-17-1belcjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379103/original/file-20210116-17-1belcjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379103/original/file-20210116-17-1belcjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Sun King in all his pomp.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/louis-xiv-king-of-france-in-royal-costume-oil-on-canvas-by-news-photo/526886762?adppopup=true">Corbis Historical via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Whether autocrats come to office by chance of birth, are elected or usurp the leadership of the state, they almost habitually succumb to the temptation to regard their position not as a temporary loan, but as capital they can dispose like landlords. The way autocrats deal with tenure, succession and state assets reveals how they treat political power as private property.</p>
<p>Once elected, fairly or after manipulation, autocrats tend to wrench power from a legitimate government and, if necessary, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/new-authoritarianism/607045/">remove the time limits</a> on their term of office.</p>
<p>In the case of <a href="https://theconversation.com/statesman-strongman-philosopher-autocrat-chinas-xi-is-a-man-who-contains-multitudes-92962">China’s Xi Jinping</a>, this was achieved through <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/11/592694991/china-removes-presidential-term-limits-enabling-xi-jinping-to-rule-indefinitely">cosmetic constitutional changes</a> handled by compliant party cadres. Referendums, marred by intimidation and violence, had the same result of extending the tenures of <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6276009">Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus</a>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/04/09/algeria.election/index.html">Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Algeria</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/world/americas/16venez.html">Hugo Chávez in Venezuela</a>.</p>
<p>Brazen despots, such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/03/world/asia/uzbekistan-islam-karimov-obituary.html">Uzbekistan’s former leader Islam Karimov</a>, simply <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2015/04/karimov-uzbekistans-perpetual-president/">disregard a constitutional term limit</a>. Vladimir Putin sidestepped it by first setting up a stooge, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/15/dmitry-medvedev-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-robin-to-putins-batman">Dmitry Medvedev</a>, before faking a fresh start after manipulating the constitution. </p>
<p>When it comes to Trump, he dealt with the looming end of his term of power through denial. The lost election forced him to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ap-fact-check-trump-conclusively-lost-bbb9d8c808021ed65d91aee003a7bc64">deny it happened</a>, instead <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jan/07/donald-trump/trump-clings-fantasy-landslide-victory-egging-supp/">claiming a landslide victory</a>. Against all evidence, Trump <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-voting-rules-insight/as-trump-pushes-baseless-fraud-claims-republicans-pledge-tougher-voting-rules-idUSKBN28V1DN">decried what he claimed was electoral fraud</a>, insisted on <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-campaign-asks-another-georgia-recount-n1248538">repeated recounts</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-s-election-fight-includes-over-30-lawsuits-it-s-n1248289">filed a flurry of lawsuits</a> without merit.</p>
<p>But even <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/12/11/945617913/supreme-court-shuts-door-on-trump-election-prospects">Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices</a> could not defend his claims to what he believed to be his own: the presidency. Trump’s last call to manufacture facts that supported his denial went out to Georgia’s secretary of state to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/03/us/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia.html">find over 11,780 votes</a>.</p>
<h2>Inheritance of power</h2>
<p>Following the example of hereditary monarchies, autocrats have a penchant for <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0032321719862175?journalCode=psxa">controlling the transfer of political office</a> as property. Acting as if they “own” the power justifies the selection and anointing of an heir. It also ensures the tacit amnesty of any crime they may have committed by putting in place someone likely to absolve them and the gentle continuity of authoritarian rule to continue their legacy. </p>
<p>Hardcore versions of this include the <a href="http://doi.org/10.4324/9781315455532">Kim dynasty in North Korea</a> and the <a href="https://www.meforum.org/517/does-bashar-al-assad-rule-syria">Assad family clan in Syria</a>, in which the authoritarians guarantee continuity through their offspring. Elsewhere, it is wives – for instance <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3173094">Eva Perón in Argentina</a> and <a href="http://www.ateneo.edu/ateneopress/product/conjugal-dictatorship-ferdinand-and-imelda-marcos">Imelda Marcos in the Philippines</a>, who became powerful national figures utilizing the base of support that their spouses had amassed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379104/original/file-20210116-21-1pj5o23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and his son Kim Jong Un attend a massive military parade to mark the 65th anniversary of the communist nation's ruling Workers' Party in Pyongyang, North Korea." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379104/original/file-20210116-21-1pj5o23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379104/original/file-20210116-21-1pj5o23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379104/original/file-20210116-21-1pj5o23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379104/original/file-20210116-21-1pj5o23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379104/original/file-20210116-21-1pj5o23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379104/original/file-20210116-21-1pj5o23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379104/original/file-20210116-21-1pj5o23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">North Korean leadership is a family affair.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NorthKoreaKimSuccessionQuestions/403d9a3c6043452cb26ca0691be66b6a/photo?Query=Kim%20Jong%20Un%20Kim%20Jong-Il&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=593&currentItemNo=6">AP Photo/Vincent Yu, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile for others it is friends, such as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-chavez-maduro/venezuelas-maduro-from-bus-driver-to-chavezs-successor-idUSBRE9250PO20130306">Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela</a>, who was a Chavez loyalist, or personal physicians, such as the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01436598608419948">murderous François “Papa Doc” Duvalier in Haiti</a>, who become confidants to ruling strongman leaders and then heirs to the throne.</p>
<p>Under Soviet-style communism, the party first takes the place of power as the legitimate heir to ensure unbroken continuity. </p>
<p>Succession tends to be more difficult where reasonably reliable elections carry the risk of expropriating the holder of power. </p>
<p>Trump may have intended to eliminate this risk by combining denial of the results with court action, the spread of false narratives and the incitement to insurrection of his followers.</p>
<h2>Appropriation of public property</h2>
<p>Political authoritarianism pays off, history has shown, especially for those who <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/dictators-and-dictatorships-9781441173966/">ruthlessly commercialize their position of power</a>. They assume that by virtue of their office they are entitled to the assets of the state, or rather society, for private use. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Authoritarian leaders have tended to disdain generating a regular income, so their hidden balance sheets <a href="https://www.hudson.org/research/14020-money-laundering-for-21st-century-authoritarianism">read much like those of operational networks of organized crime</a> specializing in theft, embezzlement, fraud and bribery. Latter-day autocrats conceal, as best they can, the sources of their wealth or refuse to pay taxes. Hitler had his tax debt waved in 1935 and then <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1970/04/08/archives/hitler-revealed-as-a-tax-dodger-used-several-ruses-while-chancellor.html#:%7E:text=Through%20all%20the%20years%20before,was%20declared%20exempt%20from%20taxes.">declared that paying taxes was incompatible</a> with the political office of the Führer. Putin’s declared income <a href="https://qz.com/1594989/vladimir-putins-financial-disclosure-claims-little-wealth/">compares to that of a mid-level Russian bureaucrat</a>, while in reality, by conservative estimate, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/31/financier-bill-browder-says-vladimir-putin-is-worth-200-billion.html">his assets amount to over US$200 billion</a>. It has remained unclear until today how former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi increased his already considerable wealth during his four terms. He was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/world/europe/berlusconi-convicted-and-sentenced-in-tax-fraud.html">convicted of tax evasion</a> and balance-sheet fraud. Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet spread his and his family’s ill-gotten liquid assets <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/general-pinochet-hid-15m-in-us-banks-1.423929">in over 100 accounts</a> in the U.S. alone.</p>
<p>Trump broke with the practice of presidential candidates and presidents by persistently refusing to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/us/politics/trump-taxes.html">disclose his tax returns</a>, a refusal his lawyers justified before the Supreme Court on the grounds of “<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/20/trump-tax-returns-judge-rejects-efforts-block-manhattan-subpoena/5616510002/">irreparable harm</a>.” Trump also took advantage of his office to <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/trump-kids-profit-presidency">enrich family members</a> by providing them with business opportunities. At a cost to U.S. taxpayers, the Trump company <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/secret-service-spending-bedminster/2020/09/17/9e11e1c2-f6a0-11ea-be57-d00bb9bc632d_story.html">charged the Secret Service</a> for rooms at Trump properties. The entrepreneur-entertainer has seemingly glorified in the monetary benefits of his presidency with notions that he embodies “the Great” America.</p>
<p>It remains to be seen whether U.S. democracy will have the strength to expropriate ex-President Trump, take away from him the perks – honor, trust and profit – of the presidency and teach whoever may follow the difference between private and public property.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153276/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In claiming the election was “stolen” from him and using the office of the president to the benefit of his family, Trump dips into the authoritarian playbook to convert power into property.Fernanda G Nicola, Professor of Law, American UniversityGünter Frankenberg, Professor of Public Law, Legal Philosophy and Comparative Law, Goethe University Frankfurt am MainLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1301362020-01-23T10:25:44Z2020-01-23T10:25:44ZCorruption in South Africa: echoes of leaders who plundered their countries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311158/original/file-20200121-117921-1a946yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anti-corruption protesters march on Parliament in Cape Town in 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock/Aqua Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the shameful achievements of the African National Congress (ANC) in its 25 years of governing post-apartheid South Africa is that it’s living up to the political stereotype of what is <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060934439/in-the-footsteps-of-mr-kurtz/">wrong</a> with post-colonial Africa – unethical and corrupt African leaders who exercise power through patronage. </p>
<p>The widespread corruption in post-apartheid South Africa is epitomised by what is now referred to as <a href="https://beta.mg.co.za/article/2018-09-14-00-definition-of-state-capture/">“state capture”</a>. The effects of the entrenched corruption are exemplified by frequent power cuts <a href="https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/companies-and-deals/this-is-how-eskom-throttles-the-economy/">devastating the economy</a>. Another example is the government’s failure to <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/watch-three-hour-train-delay-for-ramaphosa-during-anc-election-campaigning-20190318">keep the trains running</a>.</p>
<p>Democratic South Africa appears to have morphed into a fully fledged predatory state. The lobby group Corruption Watch <a href="https://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/global-corruption-barometer-africa-2019/">reported last year</a> that more than half of all South Africans think corruption is getting worse. They also think the government is doing a bad job at tackling corruption.</p>
<p>Characteristics include using public office and resources to promote the private interests of ANC politicians and those connected to them. It also includes an entrenched culture of being <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-03-01-state-capture-wipes-out-third-of-sas-r4-9-trillion-gdp-never-mind-lost-trust-confidence-opportunity/">untouchable</a>.</p>
<p>Events in South Africa have echoes in countries across the continent. These range from the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51128950">Dos Santos family in Angola</a> to <a href="https://www.africanexponent.com/post/8617-mobutu-sese-seko-was-a-heartless-dictator">Mobutu Sese Seko’s</a> decades of thieving in Zaire. Mobutu is <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060934439/in-the-footsteps-of-mr-kurtz/">credited</a> with the invention of modern African kleptocracy.</p>
<p>Of course, African leaders are not the only corrupt political leaders in the world. For example, Noah Bookbinder, a former trial attorney for the US Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-alleged-abuses-power-make-2019-one-most-corrupt-years-history-former-federal-1479715">recently argued </a> that US president Donald Trump’s </p>
<blockquote>
<p>increasingly egregious abuses made 2019 one of the most corrupt years in US history.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the fact of the matter is that sub-Saharan Africa is in a league of its own. In the <a href="https://www.transparency.org/cpi2018">2018 Corruption Perception Index</a>, published by Transparency International, it appears at the bottom. The report released with the index stated that <a href="https://www.transparency.org/files/content/pages/2018_CPI_Executive_Summary.pdf">the region had</a> “failed to translate its anti-corruption commitments into any real progress”. In 2019, the region again appears at the bottom. Transparency International <a href="https://www.transparency.org/files/content/pages/2019_CPI_Report_EN.pdf">remarked</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sub-Saharan Africa’s performance paints a bleak picture of inaction against corruption.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Moral decay</h2>
<p>The ANC once represented a political tradition of opposition to apartheid <a href="http://www.mandela.gov.za/mandela_speeches/before/6105_nac.htm">rooted in altruism</a>. But the events that have unfolded since it took over running the government in 1994 suggest that it has become a corrupt machine. </p>
<p>It seems the party appears intent on following in the footsteps of the likes of the late Mobutu. </p>
<p>State corruption has taken hold with utter disregard for ethics and democratic norms in a cynical exploitation of the post-apartheid transformation agenda. For example, large-scale corruption is often framed around the liberation struggle rhetoric of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-corruption-in-south-africa-isnt-simply-about-zuma-and-the-guptas-113056">empowering black people</a>.</p>
<p>The reality is that the black elite enrich themselves and their families through government tenders and other questionable and unethical means.</p>
<p>Former president Jacob Zuma is the “poster boy” for this black kleptocracy. He and his associates, the <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/opinion-and-analysis/2017-07-22-how-to-be-a-gupta/">Gupta family</a>, captured the post-apartheid state with the sole purpose of exercising power <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=240555">to shape</a> policy making, and to control political institutions to their own advantage.</p>
<p>Dishonest politics has become a defining feature of post-apartheid politics while the legitimate fight against corruption is being made <a href="https://city-press.news24.com/News/zondo-commission-targets-blacks-20190629">analogous to racism</a>. It is a politics that is characterised by lack of ethics, morals, and logic, and has no legitimate place in a democratic society. </p>
<p>Yet it continues to trickle down to other societal institutions. Transport minister Fikile Mbalula recently <a href="https://www.heraldlive.co.za/news/2020-01-16-broken-organisation-prasa-lost-r1bn-in-two-years/">described</a> the Passenger Rail Agency of the country as a</p>
<blockquote>
<p>broken organisation, struggling to provide an efficient and committed passenger rail service.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile, South African Airways has been forced into a voluntary <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-airways-is-in-business-rescue-what-it-means-and-what-next-128409">business rescue</a> after its working capital dried up and the national treasury refused another bailout. </p>
<p>Of course, the private sector is not corruption free. Corporate businesses that have been associated with state capture <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-01-16-the-dirt-on-deloittes-consulting-deals-at-eskom-part-two/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5b0%5d=80895&tl_period_type=3&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Business%20Maverick%20Thursday%2016%20January%202020&utm_content=Business%20Maverick%20Thursday%2016%20January%202020+CID_282a9da853386128d4e197c64e93802c&utm_source=TouchBasePro&utm_term=The%20dirt%20on%20Deloittes%20consulting%20deals%20at%20Eskom%20Part%20Two">include</a> Deloitte, McKinsey, KPMG, Bain & Company.</p>
<p>The breakdown in social order reveals a dysfunctional political system that rewards sycophants, con artists, thugs, greed, and antisocial attributes. The development of this patronage network is the product of the ANC’s <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 policy</a>. This values party membership over ability and probity.</p>
<h2>Lessons from history not learnt</h2>
<p>The history of democratic South Africa shows that the ANC has failed to learn from the experiences of post-colonial Africa, and thus avoid its unsavoury parts.</p>
<p>Instead, it has chosen to walk in the footsteps of other corrupt post-colonial African leaders. Small wonder that its frustrated citizens have turned to the courts to force the government to govern in their interests.</p>
<p>The latest example of this the Makhanda High Court ruling that the Makana Municipality be dissolved and placed under administration for failing to carry out its constitutional obligations to its citizens. The court <a href="https://theconversation.com/landmark-court-ruling-highlights-crisis-in-south-africas-cities-and-towns-130140">found that </a> the ANC-run municipality had failed to “promote a healthy and sustainable environment for the community”, as required by the country’s constitution.</p>
<p>More such political collisions between the country’s cherished democratic norms and the corrupt post-colonial political elites are needed to change the current political trajectory of corruption and incompetence. That is the only antidote.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130136/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mandisi Majavu 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>In South Africa, state corruption has taken hold with utter disregard for ethics and democratic norms in a cynical exploitation of the post-apartheid transformation agenda.Mandisi Majavu, Senior Lecturer, Department of Political and International Studies, Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1045832018-10-08T15:19:36Z2018-10-08T15:19:36ZCameroon presidential poll underscores the need for term limits<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239730/original/file-20181008-72113-1boj9nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cameroonian President Paul Biya votes in the presidential elections in the capital Yaounde. He has been in power for 36 years.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE/EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The official results of Cameroon’s October 7, 2018 presidential election are due <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/cameroon-votes-as-separatists-pose-a-threat-biya-win-likely/2018/10/07/e11be120-ca01-11e8-9c0f-2ffaf6d422aa_story.html?amp;utm_term=.4cc85477087a&noredirect=on&utm_term=.28d02b799133">in two weeks</a>. But they’re not expected to yield any surprises. Paul Biya (85), who became president in 1982, is almost certain to retain power for a <a href="https://fr.euronews.com/2018/10/05/cameroun-paul-biya-brigue-un-septieme-mandat">seventh term</a>. If he wins and stays in power until 2025 – the end of his next term – he would have run the country for a whopping 43 years. His overextended rule has been marked by <a href="https://www.business-anti-corruption.com/country-profiles/cameroon/">corruption</a>, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/cameroons-presidential-election-will-the-votes-count/">patronage politics</a>, and a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43469758">largely absent president</a>.</p>
<p>The election has taken place amid a great deal of uncertainty and insecurity. Municipal and legislative elections were postponed by a year because of <a href="https://www.journalducameroun.com/en/cameroon-postpones-legislative-municipal-elections/">too volatile a space</a>, though government cited more technical reasons. Only senatorial elections were held in <a href="https://democracychronicles.org/presidential-elections-in-cameroon/">March 2018</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cameroon-separatists/anglophone-cameroons-separatist-conflict-gets-bloodier-idUSKCN1IX4RS">biggest tensions</a> have been between the English-speaking – which represent <a href="http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/cameroon-population/">20% of the population</a> – and French-speaking parts of the country. After the presidential polls opened on Sunday, <a href="https://www.whig.com/article/20181007/AP/310079953">violent confrontations</a> broke out in English speaking regions of the North West and the South West. Almost no polling took place in these regions following calls by separatists for a lockdown (stay at home), which would mean in effect that no people would leave their houses to vote.</p>
<p>Biya is almost certain to return to power given the government’s well-oiled election machine and its use of the security sector to manage dissent. Elections over the past 10 years have been <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/10/world/africa/cameroon-elections/index.html">marred by accusations of fraud</a>. These elections will be no different.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Biya’s credibility and legitimacy are increasingly being tarnished. And there is growing support for alternative candidates.</p>
<p>The election is a reminder of the importance of defined term limits for presidents. Although Cameroon’s <a href="http://confinder.richmond.edu/admin/docs/Cameroon.pdf">1996 Constitution</a> limited presidential mandates to two seven-year terms, Biya’s party repealed the term limits in 2008 so that he could extend his stay.</p>
<h2>The main contenders</h2>
<p>This year’s election has pitted Biya against <a href="http://www.crtv.cm/2018/08/liste-des-candidats-a-lelection-presidentielle-2018/">eight opposition candidates</a>. The major contenders are Joshua Osih of the <a href="http://www.africanews.com/2018/02/24/cameroon-s-main-opposition-sdf-elects-49-year-old-candidate-to-face-biya/">Social Democratic Front</a>; Maurice Kamto of the <a href="https://www.mrcparty.org/">Cameroon Renaissance Movement</a>; Cabral Libii Li Ngue candidate for <a href="https://www.lebledparle.com/actu/politique/1104138-cameroun-le-parti-univers-de-nkou-mvondo-investi-cabral-libii-comme-son-candidat-a-l-election-presidentielle">Univers party</a>, and <a href="https://akeremuna2018.com/profile/">Akere Tabeng Muna</a> of the <a href="https://www.journalducameroun.com/en/2018-presidential-election-akere-muna-kicks-off-campaign-with-convention-in-yaounde/">Popular Front for Development</a>.</p>
<p>The Social Democratic Front has become a household name in Cameroon since its inception in 1990 and its candidate, Osih, is popular.</p>
<p>For his part, Kamto who heads up the Cameroon Renaissance Movement was a former minister in Biya’s regime. He <a href="http://www.crtv.cm/2018/09/maurice-kamto-presidential-candidate-for-mrc-party/">resigned from government</a> in 2011 to form his own political party. He draws his support from the western region and the urban middle class.</p>
<p>Cabral is a young university lecturer who has been outspoken in his criticism of the regime and has captured the imagination of young Cameroonians. Muna is the son of the former vice president and an international jurist. He aligned with Kamto two days before the election.</p>
<p>Kamto and Cabral attracted large crowds at their rallies. But they are unlikely to gain a majority of votes given that the state’s machinery is stacked against them.</p>
<h2>The issues</h2>
<p>Three major issues dominated the run up to the elections: political transition, the economy, and security.</p>
<p>After 36 years as president, the opposition and other observers view Biya’s exit as long overdue. But he is unlikely to step down as has been the case of other African leaders who have overstayed their terms. And the opposition forces are not yet strong enough to force a change in leadership.</p>
<p>Cameroon is central Africa’s largest economy, producing oil, gas, timber, and cocoa. Nevertheless, it faces a range of major economic challenges. These include <a href="https://theodora.com/wfbcurrent/cameroon/cameroon_economy.html">stagnant per capita income, inequitable distribution of income</a>, <a href="https://www.business-anti-corruption.com/country-profiles/cameroon/">corruption</a>, nepotism and a <a href="https://www.businessincameroon.com/companies/1307-7263-in-cameroon-the-informal-sector-weighs-as-much-in-gdp-as-in-south-africa-and-mauritius-but-less-than-in-nigeria">large informal economy</a>. It also has substantial debt, constituting<a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/cameroon/government-debt-to-gdp"> 35% of its GDP</a>.</p>
<p>Of all the issues affecting the election, security is the biggest. For nearly two years there have been protests in the North West and South West against what Anglophones describe as general marginalisation as well as the “Frenchification” of their courts and schools. The protests have been met with a <a href="https://theconversation.com/biya-must-stop-the-killings-in-cameroon-and-lead-the-search-for-peace-100026">brutal crackdown</a> which in turn triggered an armed pro-independence insurgency.</p>
<p>On top of this <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/anglophone-crisis-looms-cameroon-presidential-election-181004081327023.html">Cameroon has been challenged</a> by the violence of Boko-Haram in the North, the instability of the Central Africa Republic in the East and the separatist movement in the South. Clashes with the separatists have already left <a href="http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/africa/Amnesty-says-scores-killed-in-Cameroon-violence/4552902-4767086-f6kq23z/index.html">400 people dead</a> and 20 000 displaced as refugees in neighbouring Nigeria.</p>
<h2>Implications for African politics</h2>
<p>Some commentators have pointed to the problem of <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/choiceless-democracy/">“choiceless democracies”</a> in Africa. Leading economist <a href="https://prabook.com/web/thandika.mkandawire/497006">Thandika Mkandawire</a> <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/200804171247.html">has noted that</a> “African leaders exhibit a wide array of unethical ways when it comes to capturing, retention, and exercising of political power, the long-term result being the tendency by a people denied the right to a free choice of their leaders to write electoral lists in blood.”</p>
<p>This is once again playing out in Cameroon. The country has a president who has captured the state to the detriment of many of his people. And people increasingly see violence as the only means through which they can have their voices heard and their needs taken into account.</p>
<p>Across Africa pessimism is replacing the mood of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/democracy-in-africa-the-ebbs-and-flows-over-six-decades-42011">1990s</a> when multi-party democracy was on the rise. Old tendencies of authoritarian leaders remaining in power beyond their term, corruption and the pillaging of public resources persist. These in turn is leading to a rise in conflict.</p>
<p>The African Union (AU) and regional intergovernmental institutions seem unable to hold leaders like Biya to account. This despite the AU’s proclamations of <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/silencing-the-guns-by-2020-ambitious-but-essential">“silencing the guns”</a> in Africa by 2020, and creating an Africa of good governance, democracy, respect for human rights, justice and the rule of law <a href="https://au.int/en/agenda2063">by 2063</a>. All Africans need to take a principled stand on presidential term limits as it is impacting on the development, peace and security of the continent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104583/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gabriel Ngah Kiven is a University of Johannesburg GES Scholar</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cheryl Hendricks 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 Paul Biya’s credibility and legitimacy are increasingly being tarnished, amid growing support for opposition candidates.Cheryl Hendricks, Executive director, Africa Institute of South Africa, Human Sciences Research CouncilGabriel Ngah Kiven, PhD candidate in Political Studies at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/956602018-04-26T10:33:07Z2018-04-26T10:33:07ZDare South Africans dream again as they celebrate Freedom Day?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216463/original/file-20180426-175035-i95fpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Quiet, but decisive action.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Andy Rain</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It was just four and a half months ago that <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cyril-matamela-ramaphosa">Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-safrica-politics/south-africas-ramaphosa-wins-election-as-anc-president-idUSKBN1EC05I">won the presidency</a> of the African National Congress (ANC) that governs South Africa.</p>
<p>Pundits said <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/mvi-hlophe/why-nkosazana-dlamini-zuma-will-be-the-next-president-of-the-anc_a_21627709/">at the time</a> that the post-colonial narrative was fixed: the ANC was irredeemably corrupt, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma would win and protect her ex Jacob Zuma and his legacy, and the decade-long nightmare of Zuma’s kleptocracy would become a decade longer and gloomier, by the end of South Africa would be bankrupt, broken and buggered.</p>
<p>But in the 128 days since Ramaphosa took over the reins, South Africans have had to learn again to imagine that they might be free, and to have hope in the future. 2018 may not feel like 1994, but it comes a close second. The will to believe is taking root. </p>
<p>Initially, and appropriately, Ramaphosa faced massive skepticism. He was deputy to Zuma’s presidency, he was one of the top six ANC officials and Zuma happened under his nose. South Africans <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-01-16-the-dangers-of-false-optimism-in-a-ramaphosa-presidency/#.WuCHaC-B3bM">were repeatedly</a> warned that he’d become leader – by a slim majority – of the same ANC that made Zuma. And that he would be weak, immobilised, imprisoned by the compromise among the <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/anc-conference/anc54-breaking-ramaphosa-elected-anc-president-12453127">top six</a> that got elected at the ANC conference to run the party.</p>
<p>Immediately after he won the ANC presidency, the beatific left tried to brand him ‘RamaZupta’, a moment of flatulent sloganeering that imploded as it came up against South Africans’ collective will to believe, and Ramaphosa’s actions. Opposition parties also suffered from a will to believe and a need to oppose. </p>
<p>The early signs were good but superficial – meetings <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1781626/anc-wants-a-new-culture-of-being-on-time-ramaphosa/">started on time</a>. Khoisan leaders on hunger strike, ignored by Zuma, were met by Ramaphosa, and <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/khoisan-four-head-home-for-christmas-after-ramophosa-meeting-20171224">left contented</a>. Small things, however, that at least hinted of bigger changes to come.</p>
<h2>Revenge is best served cold</h2>
<p>After a decade of watching, helpless, as South Africa was sliced and diced by venal hacks - whether corporate, political, local or foreign, slick or unutterably incompetent - what (most) people most wanted from Ramaphosa was vengeance. Heads needed to roll, and immediately. Bloodletting was needed, to heal the country from all that had gone before, whether in national, provincial or local spheres, in corporate boardrooms or state owned enterprises. </p>
<p>But South Africans have come to learn that Ramaphosa does not work that way. They’re learning that he’s the master of coincidence. </p>
<p>128 days ago, commentators predicted that Zuma would not step down, that he would present the State of the Nation address and so on - but the day dawned to the news that his close allies were being raided over corruption allegations. By 10pm Zuma had gone. Ramaphosa did not need to say or do anything. </p>
<p>And developments moved thick and fast with news that those who’d previously seemed untouchable, such as the <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/3-arrested-in-hawks-gupta-raids-20180214">Gupta family</a>, suddenly looked <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-net-about-to-close-on-zuma-and-his-gupta-patronage-network-90395">distinctly vulnerable</a>. The family is accused of having <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/download-the-full-state-of-capture-pdf-20161102">captured</a> the South African state, with the help of their friend, Zuma.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2018-01-25-in-full--state-capture-inquiry-to-probe-guptas-zuma-and-ministers/">Guptas</a>, with rather better-attuned political instincts than Zuma, had already <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1821809/update-1-ajay-gupta-on-the-run-sa-borders-on-high-alert/">packed up and gone </a>, leaving the odd, obscure relative to share the benches of accused as police opened dockets and <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2018-02-15-eight-accused-in-estina-farm-scandal-including-a-gupta-nephew-given-bail/">pressed charges</a>.</p>
<p>Some 120 days later, the North West province was in flames and demanding the <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1904620/violent-north-west-protests-spread-to-different-parts-of-the-province/">removal of Premier Supra Mahumapelo</a>. Coincidentally, again, the Sunday Times ran a front page story showing how Mahumapelo had allegedly defrauded a programme for aspirant black farmers to deliver 28 cows and a bull to a beaming Zuma <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/hawks-to-investigate-supras-alleged-cattle-gift-to-zuma-20180422">in 2016</a>. </p>
<p>Within a day, the formerly untouchable premier was reading from the script – I serve at the ANC’s pleasure, the ANC will tell me to stay or go, offering his head on a platter to Ramaphosa. What another lovely coincidence.</p>
<p>And in-between those coincidences? It’s barely three and a half months since Ramaphosa became president, and in that time the boards of state owned enterprises have been <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-shaking-up-south-africas-power-utility-matters-for-the-economy-90548">repopulated</a> by people who can spell governance, and former incompetent chairs and boot-lickers have been removed. And ministers know they need to perform or they’ll be fired. </p>
<p>Advisers of calibre and experience have been <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Economy/meet-trudi-makhaya-ramaphosas-new-economic-adviser-20180417">appointed</a>. Highly regarded ministers – fired by Zuma – have returned, and with a mission. </p>
<p>Tough policy issues have been tackled – most obviously, the land question. Whether the ANC needs to reform the Constitution to deal with this or not is moot: the ANC is finally facing up to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sazu3SxjaHc">‘the original sin’</a> as it must do, and is preparing to act. </p>
<p>It does appear that the ANC has grown a spine. It’s still a fragile thing, but it’s now visible. Those with dirty laundry know that the law enforcement agencies – themselves being repopulated – will be coming after them, allowing Ramaphosa to keep his hands clean of the endless <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-10-17-president-jacob-zuma-implements-his-12th-cabinet-reshuffle">purging and reshuffling</a> that marked Zuma’s decade in power.</p>
<p>There are ministers, top 6 officials and many, many more who are becoming rather nervous. Ramaphosa is sitting quietly in the background, flying economy class, sourcing investment, winning hearts and minds, and watching. Moving chess pieces quietly, but decisively. Knowing that coincidence has yet to run dry.</p>
<h2>South Africanism</h2>
<p>What matters most in all this are South Africans. They fought back, against the stagnant ANC through trade unions and NGOs, through foundations and the media, through academics and lawyers, they fought Zuma’s slide into the moral abyss. Citizens created the context for Ramaphosa to win.</p>
<p>South Africans refused to fit anyone’s narrative. For racists, the classic narrative is of decline into ‘big man leaders’ and ‘tin pot generals’. For the left, the narrative is remarkably similar, of big corporates and politicians out to screw the working class and benefit the tiny few at the top.</p>
<p>In both cases, the narrative failed. South Africans are more complex, more resilient, and frankly better than that. They are not overwhelmingly racist nutters or ideologues. In their diversity, South Africans still want what they wanted in 1994, and what the ANC promised – a <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/1994-national-elections-manifesto">better life for all </a>. </p>
<p>On Freedom Day – a public holiday that marks the first day on which all South Africans could vote – it is worth remembering that for all those who benefit from separating South Africans – by race, or ethnicity, or age, or nationality, or sexuality, or identity – the vast majority are decent, ordinary people who want a decent life, for themselves and for everyone else.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa seems to be reminding South Africans that politics is ultimately about thinking, planning and executing. It is not about plunging greedy fists into the trough, but about serving the public. It is not about the grand gesture, but about getting the job done, efficiently. By doing so, he is taking the racist post-colonial narrative and giving it a good kicking, while South Africans cheer.</p>
<p>Coincidence will not be enough, and no doubt Ramaphosa will suffer setbacks. But after 128 days of good fortune and clear minded action, it does seem that South Africa has emerged, blinking, into the sunlight, and may again hope and dream. That’s quite a gift for Freedom Day.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95660/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Everatt 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 Cyril Ramaphosa’s term in office so far, makes it seem that South Africa can hope and dream again. That’s quite a gift for Freedom Day.David Everatt, Head of Wits School of Governance, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/941962018-04-16T13:56:19Z2018-04-16T13:56:19ZWeaning African leaders off addiction to power is an ongoing struggle<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215044/original/file-20180416-540-1cwprob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni refuses to relinquish power.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Stringer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Some African countries have recorded democratic victories in the past 12 months. Ethiopia has a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-ethiopias-new-leader-could-be-a-game-changer-94424">new leader</a> whose ascent holds great promise for change, despite the country’s <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/article/ethiopia-100-election">problematic 2015 election</a>. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/30/liberia-george-weah-salary-change-constitution-racism">Liberia</a> and <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/sierra-leones-new-leader-bio-starts-work-as-president-20180405">Sierra Leone</a> have new leaders.</p>
<p>But elsewhere on the continent, leaders continue to disregard their countries’ own constitutions and laws governing presidential tenure. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Joseph Kabila has been in power <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/07/joseph-kabila-will-not-stand-in-next-drc-elections-aide-says">since 2001</a>. He refuses to go even though he was meant to step down in December 2016. In Uganda, Yoweri Museveni has clung to power since <a href="http://www.africareview.com/news/UG-lawmakers-pave-the-way-for-Museveni-stay-in-power/979180-4093204-ug1sqi/index.html">1986</a>. Denis Sassou Nguesso has ruled Congo for <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14121193">almost 30 years</a>. </p>
<p>Their refusal to step down at the appointed time flies in the face of several governance blueprints adopted as African countries shifted away from liberation politics to the new post independence <a href="https://theconversation.com/democracy-in-africa-the-ebbs-and-flows-over-six-decades-42011">struggle for democracy</a> in the early 2000s.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/organisation-african-unity-formed-and-africa-day-declared">Organisation of African Unity</a> was transformed into the <a href="https://au.int/">African Union</a> in 2001 with this shift in mind. The continent adopted progressive governance tools like the <a href="https://au.int/en/organs/aprm">African Peer Review Mechanism</a>. This was spearheaded by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki as a tool for African countries to review one another’s performance. </p>
<p>Numerous African countries adopted and agreed to uphold the terms of the African Union Charter on Democracy, <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/7790-treaty-0034_-_african_charter_on_democracy_elections_and_governance_e.pdf">Elections and Governance</a>. It came into force in 2012 and was designed to guard against undemocratic governance.</p>
<p>These plans promised a great deal. They were designed to usher in good governance, democracy and security. It was hoped Africa’s image as a continent of ignorance, poverty, disease, misrule and corruption could be erased.</p>
<p>The rhetoric pointed in the right direction. But not all African leaders were willing to be swept by this wave of democratic reforms. Some are quite simply addicted to power, as shown by their reluctance – if not outright resistance – to leave at the end of their legal terms.</p>
<p>Leaders continuing to overstay their welcome undermines Africa’s attempts at overhauling its leadership and negates the noble intentions of the AU’s founders.</p>
<h2>Term limits</h2>
<p>Term limits regulate leadership succession. They are meant to counteract leaders’ temptation to overstay their welcome. This helps to consolidate and legitimise democratically elected leadership. </p>
<p>Of course, they’re not enough. Regular transfer of power as seen in countries like Mauritius, Ghana, Botswana and Zambia, among others, cannot guarantee political and socio-economic stability. Other ingredients such as accountable, legitimate leadership are critical. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214725/original/file-20180413-540-1oiql55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214725/original/file-20180413-540-1oiql55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214725/original/file-20180413-540-1oiql55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214725/original/file-20180413-540-1oiql55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214725/original/file-20180413-540-1oiql55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214725/original/file-20180413-540-1oiql55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214725/original/file-20180413-540-1oiql55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Botswana president Ian Khama recently stepped down.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Felipe Trueba</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But regular transfers of power give citizens hope that new policies, programmes and approaches will be adopted by the new leadership. In turn, this could overturn numerous political, social, economic impacts of uninterrupted strangleholds on power in Africa. </p>
<p>The benefits of frequent power transfers are evident in African countries that have them, such as <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/electoral-commission-confirms-senegal-ruling-coalition-landslide-20170805-2">Senegal</a>; <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-botswana-politics/botswanas-khama-steps-down-as-president-after-a-decade-at-helm-idUSKBN1H70DO">Botswana</a> and <a href="https://guardian.ng/news/mauritius-gets-new-pm-opposition-demands-new-election/">Mauritius</a>. Incumbents are kept on their toes because there’s a real chance they can be removed from power if they fail to govern properly. </p>
<p>Term limits have recently become controversial and divisive. Some leaders have used dubious constitutional amendments to extend their stay in power. Usually, governing parties and their leaders almost exclusively pass such amendments with minimal or no opposition participation. That’s what happened in Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and Congo Republic. </p>
<p>Similarly, despite constitutional provisions and regular elections, countries such as Angola, Togo, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea are virtually de facto one party or one leader repressive states wherein resignation, retirement and term limits are meaningless.</p>
<p>Leaders have different reasons for refusing to leave office. In some countries, the answer lies in a lack of succession planning to transfer power. In others, leaders blatantly refuse to resign because of their despotic and kleptocratic tendencies. They abuse their states’ minerals, oil and money with their <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/african-leaders-take-the-blame-for-the-continents-resource-curse">families and friends</a>. Stepping aside would cost them these “benefits”.</p>
<p>For instance, the eventual departure of Angola’s Eduardo Dos Santos from office after decades in power has <a href="https://theconversation.com/stability-in-southern-africa-hinges-on-how-leaders-gain-and-lose-power-89980">left his family exposed</a>. His children stand accused of amassing billions during their father’s many terms. </p>
<p>Without strong constitutional safeguards and a democratic culture to counter the negative consequences of the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2012-04-13-anc-must-renew-itself-and-root-out-sins-of-incumbency">“sins of incumbency”</a> – as corruption associated with state power is often described by South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress – can be menacing. It breeds <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Big-Men-Little-People-Leaders/dp/081477542X">“Big Men, Little People”</a>, to borrow a phrase from the title of a book by journalist Alec Russel.</p>
<h2>Weaning leaders off power addiction</h2>
<p>Perceptive leaders know when to leave office, whether through resignation or <a href="http://www.africanews.com/2018/03/31/botswana-president-ian-khama-steps-down-after-end-of-tenure//">retirement</a>. Botswana’s past and current presidents have established this practice despite the country’s continued <a href="http://www.thepatriot.co.bw/analysis-opinions/item/3585-single-party-dominance-not-good-for-democracy.html">one-party domination</a>.</p>
<p>With the emergence of a strong democratic culture, South Africa has experienced the opposite of such presidential power mongering. Two presidents were recalled by their political party the ANC, albeit for different reasons. Thabo Mbeki readily <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2008-09-21-mbeki-resigns-before-the-nation">accepted his fate</a> when he was told to pack up and go, although he was not accused of any specific wrong doing. Jacob Zuma remained defiant and only stepped aside when faced with the very real prospect of a vote of <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-02-13-anc-want-motion-of-no-confidence-against-zuma">no-confidence</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/nana-akufo-addo-sworn-ghana-president-170107124239549.html">Ghana</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37086365">Zambia</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/namibia-grown-up-after-a-generation-into-independence-but-not-yet-mature-74571">Namibia</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/buharis-victory-in-nigerian-election-has-global-significance-39416">Nigeria</a>, <a href="https://www.constitutionnet.org/news/presidential-elections-malawi-towards-majoritarian-501-electoral-system">Malawi</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/magufuli-has-been-president-for-two-years-how-hes-changing-tanzania-86777">Tanzania</a> are other African states where regular transfer of power has occurred.</p>
<p>African voters are not blameless. They habitually relax their vigilance on leaders and fail to hold them to account after elections. This, coupled with winner-take-all election systems, renders some African countries vulnerable to autocratic, despotic and non-accountable leaders who would rather die in office than leave.</p>
<p>What, then, is the solution? It may be time for ordinary voters across the continent to begin to collaborate through non-governmental organisations and other cross-border institutional mechanisms to share experiences and begin to enforce durable continental democracy. Africa needs democracy from below.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94196/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kealeboga J Maphunye receives funding from National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, NIHSS, South Africa. </span></em></p>Not all African leaders are willing to be swept by the democratic reforms of the early 2000s.Kealeboga J Maphunye, Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of South Africa (UNISA), University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/844412017-09-24T06:44:41Z2017-09-24T06:44:41ZSouth Africa’s ruling ANC faces dreadful choices as voters grow more sceptical<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187060/original/file-20170921-17987-pnce5n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's governing party, the ANC, faces a crucial, decisive but potentially divisive leadership choice.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s governing African National Congress is caught between the mythological monsters <a href="https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-moral-or-point-of-the-story-of-Scylla-and-Charybdis-in-Homers-Odyssey">Scylla and Charybdis</a> as it heads towards its crucial 54th national elective conference in <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/54th-national-conference">December</a>. In choosing its new leader the party’s factions could push its leadership succession battle to a finale that produces a credible winner and leads to the party’s purported <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2017/07/02/ancs-journey-of-self-correction-and-healing-has-begun-cyril_a_23012604/">self-correction</a>. But the process could just as easily split the party further and damage its already dented 2019 electoral prospects. </p>
<p>Either way, the ANC of 2017 faces dreadful choices.</p>
<p>Amid this comes the rallying call for <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/opinion-and-analysis/2017-09-18-how-the-ancs-premier-league-is-shifting-to-back-a-unity-ticket/">unity</a> at the conference.</p>
<p>But “unity” has become an over exploited catchall for ANC provincial power brokers and candidates. For unity to work beyond the conference, mountains of looting and corruption will have to be swept under a carpet of compromise and inclusion. </p>
<p>The most likely outcome is that South Africa’s cynical and savvy new electorate will be left underwhelmed which is why the outcome of the December conference will affect the ANC’s subsequent election prospects more directly than any of its six preceding meetings since 1991. These were <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/53rd-national-conference-mangaung">Mangaung (2012</a>, <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/52nd-national-conference-polokwane">Polokwane (2007)</a>, <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/51st-national-conference-stellenbosch">Stellenbosch (2002)</a>, <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/50th-national-conference-mafikeng">Mafikeng (1997)</a>, <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/49th-national-conference-bloemfontein">Bloemfontein (1994)</a> and <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/48th-national-conference-durban">Durban (1991)</a>. The last two – Mangaung and Polokwane – laid the foundation for the party’s current woes.</p>
<h2>Road to self-destruction</h2>
<p>Previous leadership contests – structured equally by actual voting by delegates and deal making – have shaped the character of the organisation. </p>
<p>Jacob Zuma’s Pyrrhic 2007 victory in Polokwane to become ANC president brought in the fleeting belief that the ANC was reconnecting with the people and that it was set to drive <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/the-african-national-congress-and-the-regeneration-of-political-power/">“radical” change</a>. </p>
<p>Its dramatic impact was matched only by the 1991 conference in Durban – held after the unbanning of the ANC but before it assumed power in the 1994 elections. </p>
<p>The contest in Durban was precarious. Different groupings – former exiles and political prisoners on the one hand, and those who had remained to lead the liberation struggle internally on the other – had to be accommodated. Compromises were reached. Among others, Cyril Ramaphosa became secretary-general and Jacob Zuma deputy secretary-general. This united front was accepted widely.</p>
<p>In 1994, Ramaphosa retained his position, while Thabo Mbeki slipped into the deputy presidency and Zuma became the national chairperson. Mbeki, Zuma and Ramaphosa now constituted a triangle of power that set the tone for turmoil in the decades to come. Mbeki leapfrogged Ramaphosa to become president of the ANC in 1997. The effect of this was to side-line Ramaphosa from the main succession line, and to open the door to Zuma’s ascendance. This in turn established the tracks for future power trysts and discreditation.</p>
<p>As the country’s president from 1999 Mbeki became maligned by the left for championing <a href="http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=2816">neo-liberal policies</a>. Yet he won a second term. The resolutions at the 2002 conference showed a state that was confident of its abilities to eradicate the social scourges of the day. But Mbeki <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=qNA4wTl5pjkC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=Zunami">baulked at entrusting this project</a> to his deputy Zuma who was already implicated in arms deal corruption. The only way to stop Zuma would have been to bring charges – a decision that was unpalatable in the prevailing climate because the charges would have come across as being politicised.</p>
<p>The transition from Mbeki to Zuma catalysed the process of self-destruction in the ANC. Zuma’s formal rise to power followed his involvement in the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-05-03-zuma-corruption-and-the-arms-deal-the-gift-that-just-keeps-on-giving/">arms deal saga</a>. Multiple scandals followed, including a <a href="http://www.jonathanball.co.za/component/virtuemart/khwezi-the-remarkable-story-of-fezekile-ntsukela-kuzwayo-detail?Itemid=6">rape case</a> in which he was acquitted, and detailed allegations that he facilitated <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/329757088/State-of-Capture-Public-Protector-Report#from_embed">state capture</a> by his networks of family and associates.</p>
<p>In his second term, Zuma’s loyalists bent on mobilising for their <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/dominance-and-decline/">“turn at the trough”</a>, entrenched their hold on power, fusing the ANC’s succession contests with guarding access to political power and state resources.</p>
<p>The ANC has gone into all previous conferences reasonably secure about its electoral support. Leadership elections in the previous rounds have not been accompanied by concerns over whether or not the choice of leadership would pose any electoral risk.</p>
<p>That’s changed. Corruption in government has become a major issue for the electorate and public trust in state institutions is <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2016-08-22-bumpy-political-ride-ahead-what-the-effs-coalition-refusal-means-for-south-africa">evaporating</a>. This loss of support was evident in the <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/195876/new-poll-shows-anc-is-losing-support-below-50/">2014 and 2016 elections</a>.</p>
<p>Yet, depending on the leaders it chooses, the ANC runs the risk of either ceding its outright electoral majority nationally, and even potentially in provinces beyond the Western Cape – the only province it does not run – to <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-06-14-coalition-politics-a-common-enemy-a-divided-future/#.WcLd-2dfB2A">opposition coalitions</a>. Or becoming dependent on questionable small parties to forge governing coalitions.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/new-survey-data-shows-zuma-cost-the-anc-dearly-in-the-2016-election-75811">Opinion surveys</a> over the last year all show a singular direction: the need to cleanse state of Zumaist influences, and minimal tolerance of corruption. Yet the ANC succession campaigns have been vacillating, often ignoring the dangling sword.</p>
<p>This means that for the first time since its unbanning the ANC requires foundational renewal and correction. Its supporters and general electorate are no longer content with conference resolutions that simply promise to root out corruption, as was the case in Mangaung 2012.</p>
<h2>Quest for unity</h2>
<p>These realities leave the ANC with unpalatable choices: does it maintain unity in its leadership contest and avoid angry fall-outs – and even another split? ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/anc-scrambles-for-unity-20170625-3">assumes that</a> unity can be infused by electing</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a leadership that will send a signal that we are serious about stopping looting from our people. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet efforts to drive unity have put little emphasis on exorcising corruption and correcting the ANC.</p>
<p>Several unity initiatives have been aired since the run-up to the <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/5th-national-policy-conference-2017">ANC’s mid-year policy conference</a> in June. For example, in a poorly sponsored initiative Zuma, as president, proposed that the loser of the presidential race automatically become the <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/06/30/president-zuma-uses-opening-of-anc-policy-conference-to-call-for-unity">deputy president</a>.</p>
<p>Subsequent bilateral meetings between ANC provincial executives have attempted forging united fronts in multiple guises. Proposed amendments to the <a href="http://www.power987.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/ANC-Document.pdf">ANC constitution</a> (to be deliberated at the conference, just prior to the final nominations in December) include several options to accommodate a greater number of top ANC officials.</p>
<p>Even the ANC parliamentary caucuses’ stance in August 2017’s <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2017/08/07/secret-ballot-the-motion-against-zuma-will-still-be-defeated_a_23068726/">opposition driven vote of no confidence</a> was a manifestation of the “unity above all” mantra. It pointed to the type of ANC that might follow if unity prevails over the substance of governance.</p>
<p>Weaknesses that followed that vote included further declines in <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/09/20/eskom-meets-minister-s-deadline-to-respond-to-trillian-questions">state-owned entities</a> (South African Airways, and the power utility Eskom, for example), evidence of the capture of the National Treasury and attempted capture of the <a href="https://mg.co.za/tag/public-investment-corporation">Public Investment Corporation</a>, while private sector associates to the Gupta-Zuma network <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/.../2017-09-12-bell-pottingers-british-business-collapse">went into tailspins</a>.</p>
<h2>High stakes</h2>
<p>None of the preceding conferences could prepare the ANC for the decisions, including leadership choices, that the December conference is required to deliver. The stakes are high and the delegates’ task unenviable.</p>
<p>They will be presiding over an ANC that squirms in Scylla’s clutches, amid differences over the theme of unity. Simultaneously, they will be fighting to avoid the crosscurrents of Charybdis’ whirlpool. This, as the electorate demands that the ANC show integrity and accountability. Unity above all might entail unpalatable compromises. A <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/09/20/motlanthe-not-having-zuma-as-president-would-create-new-environment">post-Zuma order</a> that still bears the Zuma imprint may not be good enough, even if keeps the ANC united.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84441/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Booysen 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>For the first time since its unbanning the ANC needs to find a new direction. Its supporters and South African voters are no longer content with resolutions that promise to end to corruption.Susan Booysen, Professor in the Wits School of Governance, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/828512017-08-27T09:55:21Z2017-08-27T09:55:21ZElection unlikely to herald the change Angolans have been clamouring for<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183460/original/file-20170825-28527-g0bt4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">João Lourenço, set to become Angola's president, is unlikely to bring any major changes.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Manuel de Almeida </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On 23 August Angolans went to the polls to elect a new parliament, and for the first time in the lives of a great majority of the population, a new president. José Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled the country for 38 years, did not run this time as his party’s top candidate. </p>
<p>Instead, the MPLA, the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) fielded Defence Minister, <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/who-is-angolas-next-president-joao-lourenco/a-40218458">João Lourenço</a>, as its presidential candidate. So the <em>mais velho</em> (old man) has <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1505928.stm">finally</a> left. This in itself is a significant moment, considering how difficult it appears for <a href="https://qz.com/1059007/angola-election-jose-eduardo-dos-santos-will-step-down-as-angola-elects-its-first-new-leader-in-38-years/">some African leaders</a> to relinquish power. </p>
<p>Despite this, it’s likely that the elections will bring more of the same, and only slow and gradual improvements — if at all — of <a href="https://www.cmi.no/news/1671-angola-from-boom-to-bust-to-breaking-point">the lives of most Angolans</a>. Lourenço is very much a product of the system. He has the backing of the party and the armed forces, which is an improvement over dos Santos’ previous intended successor, (former) vice-president, <a href="https://www.africa-confidential.com/whos-who-profile/id/3227/page/3">Manuel Vicente</a>. </p>
<p>Vicente was pushed through against the party’s will as dos Santos’ running mate in the 2012 elections. He had no “liberation credentials”, and is <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38996879">under investigation</a> for the corruption of a magistrate in Portugal. It would also appear that, for now, any plans for <a href="https://www.makaangola.org/2013/07/dos-santos%c2%92-son-shapes-his-own-government/">dynastic succession</a> are off the table. </p>
<p>Some Angolan commentators have called Lourenço “dull”, and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w172vgh8cd1mg4v%22">“not previously known for his intellectual capacities</a>. But, compared to <a href="https://www.makaangola.org/2016/10/incompetence-and-corruption-sinks-angolas-development-bank/">some</a> of his MPLA comrades, he has a reputation of relative probity. Nevertheless he is unlikely to be willing – or able – to <a href="https://www.voaportugues.com/a/cabinda-padre-congo-duvida-que-eleicoes-tragam-mudancas/3996126.html">change</a> the current political economic dispensation.</p>
<h2>Corruption</h2>
<p>Lourenço campaigned under the motto ”<a href="http://www.angop.ao/angola/pt_pt/noticias/politica/2016/11/50/Melhorar-que-esta-bem-corrigir-que-esta-mal-novo-lema-estrategico-MPLA,62faa988-79c5-4357-9c58-2716650c8f23.html">improve what is good, correct what is bad</a>“ and vowed to tackle corruption. </p>
<p>Legal frameworks to combat corruption already exist, such as the 2010 <a href="http://www.angop.ao/angola/pt_pt/noticias/politica/2011/10/46/Lei-Probidade-Publica-vem-reforcar-mecanismos-combate-corrupcao,72965749-90f9-48c7-9eff-1a028c953b97.html">law on public probity</a> and anti-money laundering <a href="http://cdn2.portalangop.co.ao/angola/en_us/noticias/economia/2016/0/2/Angola-BNA-implements-measures-prevent-money-laundering,93c706db-6098-497d-87ea-fd84ae765db9.html">measures</a> in the banking sector. But despite repeated high-level declarations of a "zero tolerance” policy, dos Santos, his family and his close entourage remain the <a href="http://africanarguments.org/2017/08/14/angola-elections-ruling-family-dos-santos-worth-billions-what-happens-when-dad-steps-down/">prime beneficiaries</a> of the misappropriation of public funds. This tendency has become even more marked in the past three years, with the president’s family openly multiplying their private gains from publicly funded investments. The <a href="https://southernafrican.news/2016/11/18/isabel-dos-santos-defends-appointment-to-sonangol/">appointment</a> of dos Santos’ daughter, Isabel dos Santos, at the head of state oil company Sonangol is the most glaring example of this. </p>
<p>Such “eating of commissions” in all productive sectors of the economy would have to be tackled to address the profound <a href="http://africasacountry.com/2016/03/the-economic-crises-in-angola/">economic, political</a> and <a href="http://www.africanews.com/2016/05/16/angola-s-health-crisis-deepens-after-slump-in-oil-causes-budget-cuts/">social</a> crisis the country has faced since the fall of world oil prices in late 2014. </p>
<p>But it’s doubtful Lourenço will be able to institute such a change, especially as dos Santos has “locked in” by decree his latest appointments. These include the heads of the army and state security forces, as well as those of his children Isabel and José Filomeno ‘<a href="http://expresso.sapo.pt/internacional/2016-07-17-O-destino-de-Zenu">Zénú</a>’ dos Santos, at the helm of Sonangol and the Sovereign Wealth Fund. </p>
<p>Dos Santos has granted himself and his entourage <a href="https://www.makaangola.org/2017/06/lifelong-immunity-from-prosecution-for-the-president/">lifelong immunity</a> from prosecution and remains president of the MPLA. This ensures that whoever succeeds him is likely to depend on him and his family economically, and is unlikely to go after the family’s ill-gotten gains.</p>
<h2>Election outcome</h2>
<p>Although election day was peaceful and orderly, there was reportedly widespread abstention (20%) and targeted voter disenfranchisement. Some voters turned up at polling stations only to hear they had been registered at a different place, often kilometres away. On 25 August the nominally independent National Electoral Commission <a href="http://www.dw.com/pt-002/cne-atualiza-resultados-mpla-vence-elei%C3%A7%C3%B5es-em-angola-com-617/a-40238976">announced “provisional” results</a> with the MPLA as the winner with 61% of the vote, down from 72% in 2012 and 81% in 2008. </p>
<p>Parallel counting from the voting stations, by contrast, shows opposition parties winning in many urban areas. This tallies with some pre-election opinion polls and the general public mood. In a truly open contest — which it <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2010.507572">was</a> <a href="https://www.makaangola.org/2017/08/a-teoria-da-fraude-eleitoral-em-angola/">not</a> — the MPLA would probably have lost Luanda and some provincial capitals, even if at national level it would likely still have come out on top. </p>
<p>The results are thus likely to be fiercely <a href="http://www.dw.com/pt-002/angola-t%C3%A9cnicos-da-oposi%C3%A7%C3%A3o-contestam-apuramento-da-cne/a-40232826">contested</a>, though given the politicisation of the judiciary and the electoral organs, the MPLA is likely to emerge as the winner in the end, albeit with a significantly reduced majority. </p>
<p>It remains to be seen whether the end of dos Santos’ rule will also mean turning the page on the <em><a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100492980">Sistema dos Santos (System dos Santos)</a></em>, and a change in the ways in which the Angolan political economy works. For the MPLA, losing key urban districts, and probably in a free contest only just scraping past the 50% mark nationwide was something hitherto unthinkable, especially for the party’s old guard who still think the MPLA has a destiny to lead Angola for the coming 25 years. Perhaps this poor showing might prove a wake-up call and strengthen reformist tendencies within the party, and provide some incentive to start a constructive dialogue with the opposition.</p>
<p>But the regime has so far been remarkably resilient to crises. The <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2013.798541?src=recsys&journalCode=cjss20">political awakening</a> of a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/13/angola-repression-generates-more-dissent-politics-mpla">growing number</a> of Angolans over the past years has <a href="https://www.voaportugues.com/a/abel-chivukuvuku-pica-candidato-mpla-novo-pedido-debate/3964756.html">strengthened</a> <a href="http://www.angonoticias.com/Artigos/item/55128/eleicoes-2017-samakuva-reitera-governo-inclusivo-e-participativo">opposition parties</a> in their <a href="http://www.africanews.com/2016/02/29/angola-opposition-kicks-against-management-of-yellow-fever-epidemic//">positions</a>, yet it will require continued <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/02/angola-15-activist-your-support-got-us-out-of-prison/">pressure</a> and <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/a-trial-in-angola-increasingly-seen-as-a-farce/a-19131740">activism</a>, and more than a change of the figurehead at the top, to fundamentally reorder Angola’s social, political, and economic relations — which is what Angolans are increasingly <a href="https://qz.com/538237/ordinary-angolans-are-asking-where-did-all-the-oil-riches-go/">clamouring</a> for.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82851/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Schubert's current research is funded by the Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS) as part of a project called "War and State Formation in Africa". His research in Angola has previously been funded by the Theodor-Engelmann-Stiftung, Basel; the Janggen-Pöhn-Stiftung, St. Gallen, the Heringa Stichting, Utrecht; the Bolsa Rui Tavares, Lisbon and Brussels; and the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. </span></em></p>Angola’s president-elect, João Lourenço, has a reputation for relative probity. But, he’s unlikely to rock the boat as Eduardo dos Santos remains party chairman.Jon Schubert, Senior research fellow: Civil War and State Formation, Global Studies Institute, Université de GenèveLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/828582017-08-24T19:28:48Z2017-08-24T19:28:48ZThose who brought Zuma to power shouldn’t be forgotten, or forgiven<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182996/original/file-20170822-30494-lc6f1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The SACP and Cosatu have spoken out against South Africa's President Jacob Zuma.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flcker/GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is now a matter of record – rather than an issue for serious debate – that the presidency of Jacob Zuma has been an unmitigated disaster for South Africa. </p>
<p>Zuma’s stewardship – if his tenure since 2009 can be dignified with such a description – has been one long narrative of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-20/jacob-zuma-blamed-for-south-africa-s-woes">national decline</a>. The fact that he remains in office is testament to the moral and intellectual decay of the governing African National Congress (ANC) over the course of his presidency. </p>
<p>That the party which produced such giants of the liberation struggle as <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/chief-albert-john-mvumbi-luthuli">Albert Luthuli</a>, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/his-life-and-legacy-oliver-tambo">O.R. Tambo</a> and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/nelson-rolihlahla-mandela">Nelson Mandela</a> should have repeatedly endorsed the leadership of such a compromised individual provides cause for great sadness at the humbling of a once great political movement.</p>
<p>But, as his presidency staggers on it has become noticeable that some in the ANC’s “broad church” are beginning to peel away in disgust. Over the last two years veterans of the movement have expressed dissatisfaction with the party’s direction and there have been frequent <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2016-04-06-anc-veterans-tell-president-zuma-to-step-down">calls for Zuma to stand down</a>. </p>
<p>There have been two unsuccessful attempts to unseat him at meetings of the ANC’s National Executive Committee (in <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/jacob-zuma-faces-confidence-vote-161128125939169.html">November 2016</a> and <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/breaking-motion-of-no-confidence-tabled-against-zuma-at-anc-nec-20170527">May 2017</a>. And eight motions of no confidence have been tabled against him in parliament. In the latest, 26 ANC MPs voted with the opposition, with a further <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-40869269">nine abstaining</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, the ANC’s alliance partners, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), have both <a href="http://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1473832/full-statement-sacp-calls-for-zumas-resignation/">called for his resignation</a>. Cosatu even barred Zuma from attending its gatherings, an unprecedented humiliation for an <a href="https://www.thesouthafrican.com/zuma-barred-from-speaking-at-any-official-cosatu-events/">ANC leader</a>. </p>
<p>Yet these expressions of revulsion at Zuma’s leadership should be placed within their proper historical context. It is important to recall the role these two organisations had in helping facilitate this disaster in the first place.</p>
<h2>Complicity and fantasy</h2>
<p>Between 2005 and 2007 the SACP and Cosatu were <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2007-12-18-zuma-is-new-anc-president">fervent cheerleaders</a> for Zuma in his successful campaign in 2009 to supplant Thabo Mbeki and become ANC president, and thus <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/jacob-zuma-presidency-2009-2017-march">president of the country</a>. The left projected their own ideological fantasies onto Zuma: they saw in him hope for a “left turn” and a repudiation of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/south-african-communist-party-sacp">neo-liberal economics</a> which they associated with Mbeki. </p>
<p>This was always a bizarre position. There was nothing in Zuma’s record to inspire confidence that he would engineer a shift to the left. As the country’s deputy president from 1999 to 2005, he failed to strike a single dissenting note about the ideological direction of <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.za/publications/other/gear/all.pdf">Mbeki’s macro-economic policy</a>, far less set out an alternative left-wing prospectus.</p>
<p>There was also a significant body of evidence suggesting his politics were highly reactionary, with strong overtones of <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2010.00847.x/full">sexual and ethnic chauvinism</a> which should have set alarm bells ringing for any self-respecting socialists. </p>
<p>For example, Zuma was acquitted of a rape charge <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2016-10-09-breaking-news-khwezi-jacob-zumas-rape-accuser-has-dead-family-confirms">in 2006</a> after deploying a defence that was deeply sexist and patriarchal. Zuma also uttered the notorious comment which would come to haunt him – that he had intercourse with his accuser knowing she was HIV positive but took a shower afterwards as a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4879822.stm">precaution against infection</a>. This was a comment so steeped in ignorance that it should have immediately disqualified him from ever holding high political office.</p>
<p>But it didn’t end there. Throughout the rape trial his supporters gathered outside the court each day to hurl vicious sexist abuse at his accuser. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/may/09/southafricasonemanwrecking">“Burn the Bitch”</a> was a favourite. Her name and address were also circulated in a contempt of court, actions that paved the way for harassment which eventually caused her to <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2006-05-11-zumas-rape-accuser-flees-south-africa">leave the country</a>. </p>
<p>Not once when addressing his supporters at the end of each day’s proceedings, did Zuma condemn the abuse, or reproach his supporters. Instead, in a display of machismo, he chose to whip up the mob with <a href="http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Will-Zumas-Letha-umshini-wami-Bring-my-Machine-gun-song-win-him-second-term-20120514">militaristic anthems</a> from the ANC armed struggle era. All of this in a country blighted by <a href="https://theconversation.com/gender-based-violence-in-south-africa-whats-missing-and-how-to-fix-it-78352">violence against women</a>.</p>
<h2>Rise of kleptocracy</h2>
<p>Zuma also commenced his presidency with <a href="http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2017/04/21/zuma-and-npa-appeal-hearings-against-reinstatement-of-783-criminal-charges-to-be-consolidated">783 unresolved charges</a> of fraud, money laundering and embezzlement hanging over him relating to the notorious arms deal scandal of the late 1990s and early 2000s. But the SACP and Cosatu leadership chose to view those charges as evidence of a <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/cosatu-admits-they-could-be-wrong-about-zuma-251585">“conspiracy”</a> against Zuma and an attempt to sabotage a socialist presidency.</p>
<p>They would now prefer their unconditional support for Zuma to be considered merely as an unfortunate historical footnote which has not tarnished their ideological credentials. They are wrong. Their willingness to overlook such egregious failings was a cynical betrayal of progressive values. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182999/original/file-20170822-22283-1e3tdad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182999/original/file-20170822-22283-1e3tdad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182999/original/file-20170822-22283-1e3tdad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182999/original/file-20170822-22283-1e3tdad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182999/original/file-20170822-22283-1e3tdad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182999/original/file-20170822-22283-1e3tdad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182999/original/file-20170822-22283-1e3tdad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Julius Malema, once a staunch Zuma supporter, is now his fierce critic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Equally, Julius Malema, now the leader of the <a href="http://www.effonline.org/">Economic Freedom Fighters</a>, has sought to reinvent himself as a passionate opponent of Zuma. Yet as head of the ANC Youth League back in 2006-2007 he championed Zuma’s candidacy with a messianic fervour usually laced with threats against his opponents such as the infamous <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/kill-for-zuma-gets-life-of-its-own-406340">“shoot to kill for Zuma”</a> slogan.</p>
<h2>Mea culpa</h2>
<p>Ten years on the chickens have come home to roost, and the grim reality of the Zuma presidency is now visible. The South African state has become little more than a plaything of the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2016-03-24-00-the-gupta-owned-state-enterprises">Zuma patronage</a> network. This descent into kleptocracy has been documented in <a href="https://www.outa.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2.-REPORT.pdf">rich detail</a> by a number of <a href="https://www.outa.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2.-REPORT.pdf">reports</a>. </p>
<p>Consequently, the SACP and Cosatu have been compelled to recognise that Zuma and his corrupt support networks are indeed a cancer in South African politics, shamelessly enriching themselves in a country still defined by <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=10334">poverty</a> and extreme inequality with <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-06-01-sa-unemployment-rate-rises-to-14-year-high/#.WZ1FgrpFzug">unemployment at 27.7%</a> in the first quarter of 2017, and youth <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=9960">unemployment standing at 38%</a> </p>
<p>The SACP and Cosatu may have found their voices over the last six months in lamenting this appalling record. But this has been a deathbed conversion, occurring much too late to carry any real conviction.</p>
<p>The monster that is the Zuma presidency has wrought massive damage on South Africa and is rightly reviled. The role of the SACP and Cosatu as architects of that debacle should be neither forgotten nor forgiven.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82858/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Hamill 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 twilight of Jacob Zuma’s ruinous presidency coincides with growing revulsion at his misrule of South Africa. But, it’s important that his erstwhile supporters acknowledge their complicity.James Hamill, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/802062017-06-28T14:55:28Z2017-06-28T14:55:28ZANC policy papers point to a party in a panic about losing power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176035/original/file-20170628-7303-1nn0cgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The documents released ahead of the policy conference of South Africa’s governing African National Congress <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/5th-national-policy-conference-2017">(ANC)</a> expose a panicking party that sees enemies everywhere. While previous policy conferences addressed real policy issues, all energies are now focused on retaining state power as the leadership faces damning claims of <a href="http://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">capture by a kleptocratic elite</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/documents/discussion-documents/any-author/2017">discussion documents</a> show a party that professes a desire for self-correction and renewal. But, it seems to have neither the guts, nor the necessary internal balance of forces to do so.</p>
<p>At the same time the documents point to deepening paranoia and an increasingly authoritarian tendency. In combination, they seem to emanate from a parallel universe where the party’s interests have become elevated above those of the South African society at large. </p>
<p>Some of the text show a party that’s going through the motions. There’s trotting out of lofty ideals left over from when it still occupied the <a href="https://theconversation.com/anc-take-heed-even-big-brands-die-if-they-abandon-their-founding-values-79506">moral high ground</a>. It’s a rhetoric that used to be meaningful and powerful. But it’s been emptied out by the ANC’s increasing failure to harness the state’s resources for the good of all. </p>
<p>For example, one of the documents <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/sites/default/files/National%20Policy%20Conference%202017%20Organisational%20Renewal.pdf">“Organisational Renewal and Organisational Design”</a> claims:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[the ANC’s vision] is informed by the morality of caring and human solidarity, [and its mission] is to serve the people of South Africa.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Beyond this nostalgia for what it used to be, the ANC documents display little sense of the depth and severity of the political, constitutional, economic and governance crisis facing South Africa. What does come across strongly, however, is a party that feels beleaguered and panicky about possible loss of state power.</p>
<h2>Party and state are conflated</h2>
<p>The “Organisational Renewal…” document issues the following admonition:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>it is in the interests of the movement to… undergo a brutally frank process of introspecting and self-correction.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This sentiment is overtaken by disappointment over the party’s poor performance in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/sharp-tongued-south-african-voters-give-ruling-anc-a-stiff-rebuke-63606">2016 local government elections</a>. Several pages are dedicated to investigating how other liberation movements became defunct. It transpires that the primary emergency is “to ensure that the ANC remains at the helm” of government. </p>
<p>Of course political parties are about getting and holding on to power. But because of the ANC’s habit of conflating party and state, there seems to be no understanding that its feeling of destiny – that it should rule “until Jesus comes” as President Jacob Zuma <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2016-07-05-zuma-repeats-that-anc-will-rule-until-jesus-comes">put it</a> – won’t dictate the will of the people.</p>
<p>Parties get reelected because they demonstrably govern in service of the will of the people. If the ANC should demonstrate that, it will be returned to power <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2017/04/21/anc-could-lose-power-in-2019-if-zuma-stays-or-dlamini-zuma-takes_a_22048928/">in 2019 </a>. If not, it won’t.</p>
<p>There is an admission that the,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>moral suasion that the ANC has wielded to lead society is waning; and the electorate is starting more effectively to assert its negative judgement.</p>
<p>Significant sections of the motive forces seem to have lost confidence in the capacity and will of the ANC to carry out the agenda of social transformation [due to] subjective weaknesses [in the party]. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>These weaknesses are identified but in a way that skirts around the extent and depth of <a href="http://47zhcvti0ul2ftip9rxo9fj9.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Betrayl-of-a-promise.pdf">state capture</a>. More and more evidence, including hundreds of thousands of leaked <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/news/2017-05-28-here-they-are-the-emails-that-prove-the-guptas-run-south-africa/">emails</a>, have emerged that an Indian family of business people, the Guptas, has over the past numbers of years gained a hold over Zuma and a network of ANC leaders. This grip stretches from national to local level, and from government departments to state-owned enterprises. </p>
<p>But in the ANC documents black capitalists are blamed for “corrupt practices including attempts to capture institutions of political and state authority…” <a href="https://mg.co.za/tag/gupta-family">The Guptas</a> only get an opaque acknowledgement with reference to lobbying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[T]he lobbying process engineered by clandestine factionalism destabilises the organisation… Factionalism’s clandestine nature makes it a parallel activity…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But it’s almost as though the document’s authors don’t believe their own diagnosis, or the implications of the party’s “subjective weaknesses”. The document becomes contradictory. Even as it admits that the “motive forces” … “still desire such change and are prepared to work for it”, it starts to cast suspicion:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the mass of the people can, by commission or omission, precipitate an electoral outcome that places into positions of authority, forces that can stealthily and deceitfully chip away at the progressive realisation of a National Democratic Society.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The people are the problem, not the party</h2>
<p>That “the people”, rather than a party that’s lost its way, are in fact the problem becomes more ominously clear in the document on <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/sites/default/files/National%20Policy%20Conference%202017%20Peace%20and%20Stability.pdf">“Peace and Stability”</a>. Leninist vanguardism makes the party still feel it knows best, and that the people are useful fools. </p>
<p>It’s worth quoting the whole section to see the extent of the paranoia in the ANC and the array of enemies it creates to avoid confronting the enemy within. </p>
<p>According to the document, the main strategy used by foreign intelligence services is to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>mobilise the unsuspecting masses of this country to reject legally constituted structures and institutions in order to advance unconstitutional regime change. The alignment of the agendas of foreign intelligence services and negative domestic forces threatens to undermine the authority and security of the state. </p>
<p>Their general strategy makes use of a range of role players to promote their agenda and these include, but are not limited to: mass media; non-governmental organisations and community-based organisations; foreign and multinational companies; funding of opposition activities; judiciary, religious and student organisations; infiltration and recruitment in key government departments; placement of non-South Africans in key positions in departments; prominent influential persons…</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A small clique vs South Africa</h2>
<p>The proposed organisational renewal is to bolster the ANC secretary-general’s powers. Even this belated and lacklustre attempt to reduce the ANC president’s control over the party is compromised, as the clarion call of the discussion documents is “Let us deepen unity!”.</p>
<p>That’s why the actual enemies cannot be confronted, those that have insidiously corrupted the very life and soul of the party. Instead, a worrying paranoid and authoritarian tendency emerges. Its targets are journalists, judges, church and business leaders, activists, opposition parties, foreigners and intellectuals. </p>
<p>Nowhere is the fact confronted that Zuma, president of the ANC and the country, has ceded South Africa’s sovereignty to a foreign family, or that state-owned entities and government departments are being repurposed to enrich a small clique at the expense of <a href="http://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">South Africa’s people</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80206/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christi van der Westhuizen is an associate of the Democracy Works Foundation.</span></em></p>Documents released ahead of the policy conference of South Africa’s embattled governing ANC show it hasn’t the guts or internal balance of forces, for self-correction and renewal.Christi van der Westhuizen, Associate Professor, Sociology, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/761612017-04-12T16:56:13Z2017-04-12T16:56:13ZSouth Africa’s crisis: Calling things by their true name<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165099/original/image-20170412-25894-xggbyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters hold banners during a mass protest in Pretoria calling for President Jacob Zuma to step down.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kim Ludbrook/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Frustrated by the promiscuous use of the accusation of “corruption” to cover all sins, in recent days some scholars of contemporary South African politics have offered alternative framings. Indeed, it is helpful to look beyond the details of venality, and identify some deeper patterns. But there is a risk that the result could be to inadvertently and wrongly take the edge off a sense of urgency. </p>
<p>At this moment of crisis, there are two mis-framings in particular that potentially have pernicious consequences. The first is an over-eagerness to describe any and all shortfalls vis-à-vis “good governance” in binary terms – as “proof” that a rule-bounded polity and economy has been entirely overtaken by patronage. The second is a conflation of the distinction between patronage and predatory kleptocracy. Both end up, inadvertently, downplaying the magnitude of what is at stake.</p>
<p>To illustrate the hazards, I will draw on a recent piece by Nic Cheeseman in which he <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africans-are-learning-that-theyre-not-that-exceptional-after-all-75884">says</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s time to look to the rest of the [African] continent for evidence on how the crisis within the country’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) is likely to unfold. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Cheeseman says that South African President Jacob Zuma understands politics through a patrimonial lens. Zuma has “set about entrenching himself in power by promoting loyalists within the party and the state. This while condoning corruption and sacrifice policy for patronage.”</p>
<p>Cheeseman continues: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Putting this process in its historical context is important: it makes it clear that while Zuma has been a disaster, it would be naïve to think that he is the sole source of the ANC’s problems – or that his removal will solve them. It also shows that South Africa is not exceptional, and instead faces similar problems to many other countries on the continent.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And Cheeseman adds:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One small silver lining to this cloud is that we can use the experience of other states to better understand the prospects for South Africa. One thing we know from Kenya and Nigeria is that the kind of politics practised by the president quickly embeds clientelism within key parts of the government and bureaucracy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A binary framing of the tension between rule-boundedness and patronage along the above lines underplays the differences between the patterns of governance in low-, middle- and high-income settings. It also underrates the ways in which these differences are aligned with systematic differences in the ways in which polities and economies function. </p>
<p>Measured in <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?year_high_desc=true">purchasing power parity</a>, South Africa’s current per capita income is four times that of Kenya. It is twice that of Nigeria, and similar to that of middle income Brazil and Thailand. Also worth noting is that it is less than one quarter that of Australia or the United States.</p>
<p>These differences in income are mirrored in the most robust available <a href="http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.aspx#reports">estimates of variations</a> in the quality of governance. South Africa’s 2015 scores on both government effectiveness and control over corruption are somewhat above both the global median. The country scores better than middle-income Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Thailand and Turkey. South Africa’s scores are way higher than those of lower-income Kenya and Nigeria. </p>
<h2>Personalised patronage</h2>
<p>The point is not simply an empirical one. As Nobel prize-winning economist Douglass North and his colleagues have <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=1107684919">explored</a> in depth, underlying a continuum in the balance between personalised patronage and impersonal rule-of-law institutions is the reality that political, economic and institutional development co-evolve. </p>
<p>An initial platform of institutional stability provides a basis for economic and political actors to organise. Their greater strength provides in turn a basis for further strengthening of institutions. Over time, polities and economies become increasingly complex, and are underpinned by increasingly complex (and increasingly impersonal) rules. </p>
<p>Unlike the other African countries to which Cheeseman refers, as a middle-income country South Africa’s economy and polity continue to be anchored (albeit imperfectly) in impersonal rules. This relative rule-boundedness is underpinned by three things:</p>
<ol>
<li>the size of its middle class, </li>
<li>the complexity of its economic organisations, and </li>
<li>(so far) the shared commitment across most of the diverse political spectrum to constitutional mechanisms for resolving conflict. </li>
</ol>
<p>The forces that can mobilise in support of rule-boundedness are thus far more powerful than they are in Kenya or Nigeria. </p>
<p>In fairness to Cheeseman, it is worth noting that he does identify these differences, though his focus is on similarities between South Africa and other African countries. It is also worth noting that, as I have <a href="http://www.effective-states.org/wp-content/uploads/working_papers/final-pdfs/esid_wp_51_levy_hirsch_woolard.pdf">argued</a> in joint work with Alan Hirsch and Ingrid Woolard, unless South Africa’s extremes of inequality are addressed, the stresses on the country’s institutions will continue to be large.</p>
<p>But one has to recognise that there is a continuum between rule-boundedness and patronage. That underscores that on both the economic and political dimensions South Africa potentially has a long way further to fall from its current messy institutional realities. And for a middle-income country such as South Africa, should the forces committed to rule-boundedness lose out entirely, the downside is much deeper than in lower-income countries.</p>
<h2>Jobs for the boys</h2>
<p>This brings me to the second dangerous mis-framing – a conflation of the distinction between patronage and kleptocracy. As Harvard’s Merilee Grindle explored in her brave book, <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674065703">Jobs for the Boys</a>, patronage itself functions along a spectrum. Here is how she put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Patronage systems are not synonymous with bad governance. Ministers and other high level officials have the capacity to use their appointment power to attract highly qualified staffs to carry out specific policy initiatives … Managers with discretion over hiring have significant opportunities to create islands of excellence. Discretion in hiring can provide means for escaping the rigidity of personnel laws and regulations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Inherent in the flexibility that makes patronage systems available for a variety of goals is the problem of their instability and politicisation considerable potential for unwise use and the undermining of the public purposes of government. The fatal weakness of patronage systems is that they are capricious, not that they are inevitably incompetent.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At the limit of this capriciousness is predatory kleptocracy. </p>
<p>As I have <a href="https://workingwiththegrain.com/2014/11/17/puzzling-over-anti-corruption/">argued</a> elsewhere, “state capture” goes beyond patronage – both in kind, and in consequence. It involves predation without restraint. </p>
<p>As theorists of grand corruption sometimes like to put it, “a fish rots from the head down”. Once predatory kleptocracy takes hold, a downward economic and political spiral can unfold rapidly. That is why it is so urgent to call what is happening by its true name.</p>
<p>Rule-boundedness and patronage fall along a continuum. Most middle-income countries are located somewhere in the middle. They depend for their functioning not on “good governance” but on complex, “good enough” economic and political institutions.</p>
<p>The tension between rule-boundedness and patronage is a game of inches, one which plays out incrementally over the medium term. But at the far end of the continuum lie predatory kleptocracy and institutional breakdown. If the forces currently struggling to protect South Africa’s imperfect, but functional institutions were to lose to predatory kleptocracy, then watch out below.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76161/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Levy receives funding from the Effective States and Inclusive Development research programme, based at the University of Manchester, and funded by Dfid.</span></em></p>On both economic and political dimensions South Africa potentially has a long way further to fall from its current messy institutional realities.Brian Levy, Academic Director in the Graduate School of Development Policy and Practice, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/728322017-02-10T16:21:40Z2017-02-10T16:21:40ZZuma’s speech: the story of a country that’s fallen for the ‘politics of the belly’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156387/original/image-20170210-23347-1ld08dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Jacob Zuma during his 2017 state of the nation address to a joint sitting of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Sumaya Hisham</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africans have yet again been treated to a grotesque bastardisation of the idea of a <a href="http://www.gov.za/SONA2017">state of the nation address</a>.</p>
<p>In its proper sense, a state of the nation address ought to be a signpost down the road of history. By history we mean the serious business of moulding society.</p>
<p>Leaders who are in the business of shaping society begin by articulating a clear vision of the future into which they wish to take their societies.</p>
<p>In this sense, a state of the nation address offers the opportunity to assess the distance travelled from the starting point to a visualised destination.</p>
<p>Such a down-the-road assessment must do two things: gauge the national mood honestly as an expression of the people’s commitment to the direction their country is taking, and lay out a practical programme of action to inspire the nation towards a better future.</p>
<p>It is not <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-safrica-zuma-idUSKBN15O2FQ">the spectacle</a> of white shirts – parliamentary security – wrestling with red overalls – worn by the Economic Freedom Fighters – that rendered Jacob Zuma’s 2017 state of the nation address grotesque. Nor is it the surrealism of Zuma’s female ministers hurling insults in parliament that were being broadcast on national television. It is its historical meaninglessness, its dishonesty, and its deceptive big-bangism.</p>
<h2>Zuma’s empty speeches</h2>
<p>His <a href="http://www.gov.za/SONA2017">speeches</a> are historically meaningless in that none have been a milestone of any professed historical mission. Unlike other presidential hopefuls in the civilised world, Zuma did not climb to the highest office on the back of a grand promise – to make South Africa great again, for example.</p>
<p>Zuma rode to South Africa’s seat of power, the Union Buildings, on a bandwagon of<a href="http://ewn.co.za/2015/10/19/Zuma-I-am-a-victim-of-unregulated-media"> victimhood</a>, dancing and singing songs that glorify the machine gun. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lof6XJ8b1SU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>What he would do when he reached the seat of power remained a vague idea whose fragments were scattered in the politically sozzled heads of all manner of his fellow joyriders.</p>
<p>It is for this reason that, for the past eight years of Zuma’s reign, it is hard to tell what exactly have his successive state of the nation addresses have been about. We have forgotten them so quickly because they are not part of any identifiable historical mission. They all fell into an ahistorical vacuum.</p>
<p>When Zuma goes, future generations will struggle to find a <em>telos</em> (purpose or goal) associated with his tenure as president of South Africa. The best they will probably find are traces of <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/329757088/State-of-Capture-Public-Protector-Report#from_embed">kleptocratic proclivities</a>.</p>
<p>The dishonesty of this year’s state of the nation address is conspicuous by its nakedness. Towards the end of last year Statistics South Africa reported that unemployment in South Africa had <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-can-expect-zero-growth-its-problems-are-largely-homemade-62943">risen to 27%</a> based on the narrow definition which excludes discouraged work seekers. This significant piece of negative information was deliberately omitted from Zuma’s address.</p>
<p>The idea was to paint a rosy picture that fits into the propaganda of <a href="http://www.sanews.gov.za/features/national-development-plan-moving-south-africa-forward">“moving South Africa forward”</a>. It is this mentality that made Zuma make the projected lacklustre <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/02/09/zuma-upbeat-on-economic-growth">economic growth of 1.3%</a> sound like progress – even though last year he told us his government aimed to register an annual <a href="http://www.gov.za/speeches/sona-numbers-%E2%80%93-february-2016-11-feb-2016-0000">growth rate of 5% by 2019</a>. A pipe dream indeed!</p>
<h2>An honest account of the state of the nation</h2>
<p>For a state of the nation address, honesty ought to be expressed through a truthful representation of the actual conditions and feelings of the people. The true picture of South Africa right now, which Zuma used his speech to conceal, is that of a depressed society under a <a href="https://theconversation.com/ministers-call-for-zuma-to-resign-signals-internal-rebellion-in-south-africas-cabinet-69663">directionless government</a> that is mired in <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-patronage-and-state-capture-spell-trouble-for-south-africa-64704">endless scandals</a>, in a context of rising unemployment and hopelessness among the young and old.</p>
<p>South Africans are living through a period of profound social confusion. The rich and the poor are united by their fear of the future under a menacing and out-of-touch leadership. Only those who benefit from <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-state-capture-is-a-regressive-step-for-any-society-56837">Zuma’s patronage network</a> feign optimism. These are the scoundrels who have been trying very hard to divert the nation’s attention from government corruption to the bogyman called <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2017/01/23/Disinformation-scandal-the-truth-behind-the-white-monopoly-capital-propaganda-assault">“white monopoly capital.”</a></p>
<p>Zuma’s latest <a href="http://www.gov.za/SONA2017">state of the nation address</a> cannot inspire South Africans due to its essentially deceptive big-bang logic. Its crux is that what could not be done in eight years can be done in <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MailGuardian/posts/1244919475550895">Zuma’s remaining two years</a>. </p>
<p>While South Africans are not hearing the phrase <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2017-02-10-reaction-to-government-radical-stance-on-transformation-outlined-in-sona">“radical socio-economic transformation”</a> for the first time, the suddenness of its promises gives them a window into the head of a president who harbours a fundamental disrespect for the intelligence of the people he leads. He seems to take South Africans for a bunch of gullible ignoramuses who swallow every lie that drops from above.</p>
<p>Platitudes about the need to redistribute land to black people, or for blacks to have a fair share of the economy, have peppered almost every state of the nation address since Zuma took over. But for some weird reason he, although left with only two years in office, expects South Africans to believe that his rosy promises will fall on black people like a big-bang bolt from the blue sky.</p>
<p>While the few already empowered elites of the <a href="http://blackbusinesscouncil.org/">Black Business Council</a> seem set to get a good cut from the announced 30% subcontracting of government’s mega infrastructure projects, there is no pretence in Zuma’s speech that the ANC’s so-called “masses of our people” will get a dignified share – beyond temporary, body-destroying hard labour.</p>
<p>When the gloss of radicalism that covers Zuma’s 2017 state of the nation address has been scratched, South Africans find themselves confronted with the roughness of a president who has lost the plot, a morally hollow man who lies at the centre of the country’s parliamentary chaos. </p>
<p>It is the sad story of an African country whose promising start has been shuttered by what political scientists <a href="http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0745644376.html">call</a> “the politics of the belly.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72832/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Prince Mashele 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 Zuma’s speech is historically meaningless in that it is not a milestone of any professed historical mission.Prince Mashele, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/592672016-05-17T11:56:49Z2016-05-17T11:56:49ZWhy Julius Malema’s EFF doesn’t offer South Africans a way out of poverty<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122141/original/image-20160511-18157-rrjp0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"> Julius Malema, leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), greets supporters at the launch of the party's local election manifesto in Soweto. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Cornell Tukiri</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In “<a href="http://whynationsfail.com/summary/">Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty</a>”, economist Daron Acemoglu and political scientist James A Robinson argue compellingly that the key to economic growth and prosperity lies in strong and inclusive institutions. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Inclusive economic institutions, such as those in South Korea and the United States, are those that allow and encourage participation by the great mass of people in economic activities that make best use of their talents and skills and enable individuals to make the choices they wish.
To be inclusive economic institutions must feature secure private property, an unbiased system of law, and a provision of public services that provides a level playing field in which people can exchange and contract; it must also permit the entry of new businesses and allow people to choose their careers.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The authors go on to say: “Secure property rights are central, since only those with such rights will be willing to invest and increase productivity.” </p>
<p>In the same way that inclusive institutions spur economic growth and prosperity, <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21552589">extractive institutions</a> that “are structured to extract resources from the many by the few and that fail to protect property rights or provide incentives for economic activity” doom a country to perpetual poverty.</p>
<p>Understandable anger about the excessive inequality in South Africa lies at the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/founding-economic-freedom-fighters-eff">heart of the rise</a> of Economic Freedom Fighters (<a href="http://effighters.org.za/">EFF</a>). The party is the most successful of the three splinters from the governing <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/">African National Congress</a> (ANC) since 1994. The others are the <a href="http://udm.org.za/history/">United Democratic Movement</a> and the <a href="http://www.congressofthepeople.org.za/content/page/History-of-cope">Congress of the People</a>. The EFF made headway by engaging in aggressive rhetoric and <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2016-05-15-of-revolution-and-constitutionalism-the-perceived-antagonism-is-artificial/?utm_source=Daily+Maverick+First+Thing&utm_campaign=285bd8935d-First_Thing_13_May_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c81900545f-285bd8935d-128215025#.Vzm54pN95E5">proclaiming</a> an African socialist revolution.</p>
<p>The problem is not that the EFF’s analysis of South Africa’s problems is completely inaccurate – the party has a valid point about the necessity of free education, for example. The problem is how the EFF wants to address these issues and where it gets its economic policies from.</p>
<h2>The manifesto</h2>
<p>In its <a href="http://effighters.org.za/documents/economic-freedom-fighters-founding-manifesto/">founding manifesto</a> the party outlines seven “nonnegotiable cardinal pillars”, which include building state capacity, the nationalisation of strategic sectors of the economy and the expropriation of land without compensation.</p>
<p>The EFF’s local government election <a href="http://www.effonline.org/#!eff-elections-manifesto-2016/u0hoz">manifesto</a> spells out this vision in more detail. Its manifesto is a combination of lavish promises and magical thinking with regard to basic economic concepts.</p>
<p>But first and foremost, the party’s manifesto is a continued attack on South Africa’s economic institutions. Among other things, the EFF wants to abolish the tender system that is used, for example, to determine who can build a road at the lowest cost. </p>
<p>Doing so would diminish competition among businesses. Rather, the EFF wants to directly employ residents to do the same job, thus creating the same patronage network it criticises in the ANC. How this should lead to less corruption remains a mystery.</p>
<p>Another aspect of the election manifesto is even more worrying. The EFF writes that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A minimum of 50% of basic food items and goods would have to be produced within a municipality. A minimum of 40% of all investments in its jurisdictions should be owned and controlled by community trusts or invest a minimum of 40% of their profits in the municipality.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The party envisions nothing less than a society where municipalities are organised in chiefdoms rather than being part of a modern nation state.</p>
<h2>The Venezuela option</h2>
<p>In a eulogy after the death of former Venezuelan president and fellow commander-in-chief, Hugo Chavez in 2013, Malema <a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/party/julius-malema-pays-tribute-to-hugo-chavez">praises</a> the comrade following his visit to Venezuela in 2010 where he <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/2010/04/25/now-malema-visits-venezuela">studied</a> the country’s nationalisation programme: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Chavez was able to lead Venezuela into an era where the wealth of Venezuela, particularly oil was returned to the ownership of the people as a whole.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Venezuela has some of the world’s <a href="http://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp-country/de_de/PDFs/brochures/BP-statistical-review-of-world-energy-2014-full-report.pdf">largest proven oil reserves</a> that, in conjunction with a tenfold increase in crude oil <a href="http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/Historical_Oil_Prices_Chart.asp">prices</a> between 1998 and 2008, enabled Chavez to enact a series of populist socialist policies.</p>
<p>But when the oil price started to <a href="http://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart">fall in 2014</a>, the party in Venezuela was, quite literally, over.</p>
<p>On April 29 Empresas Polar, the country’s largest producer of beer, <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/beer-becomes-the-latest-scarcity-in-a-venezuela-wracked-by-shortages-1461963129">stopped producing</a> because it ran out of barley. This is only the latest in a long list of shortages that includes basic necessities, such as baby food and toilet paper. Things have turned so badly that three meals a day have become a luxury many people can no longer <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/venezuelan-crisis-leaves-families-empty-fridges-n563516">afford</a>.</p>
<p>The reason for this shortage is that many international firms suffered billion-dollar losses and <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanielparishflannery/2015/02/18/how-venezuelas-economic-crisis-hurts-u-s-companies/#78ed62b42502">abandoned their operations</a>. </p>
<p>Russ Dallen, head of investment bank Latinvest, <a href="https://next.ft.com/content/4ccbeb90-0e11-11e6-b41f-0beb7e589515">summarised</a> the situation in Venezuela in grim words:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The worst shortage is of medicine and medical equipment. To be sick in Venezuela right now is a death sentence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The EFF is trying to follow the Venezuelan model by heavily <a href="http://effighters.org.za/policy/nationalisation-of-mines/">promoting</a> the nationalisation of “minerals, metals, banks, energy production and telecommunications” as its core economic agenda.</p>
<p>Even if nationalisation along the lines of the EFF document were legally possible – and it is not – the numbers simply do not add up. Primary mineral exports <a href="http://www.chamberofmines.org.za/industry-news/publications/facts-and-figures">contribute</a> about 30% of South Africa’s total merchandise exports. This is well below the 95% oil <a href="http://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/about_us/171.htm">contributes</a> to Venezuela’s exports. And it is less than clear that any state-owned entity will turn profits. Take power utility Eskom, for example, which would be insolvent without government <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-02/south-africa-said-to-favor-vodacom-sale-over-telkom-in-bailout">bailouts</a>, or national carrier SAA, which is currently in need of <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/business/companies/gordhan-withholds-saa-bailout-2016275">yet another guarantee</a> from the National Treasury. Nationalisation will not be enough to finance the EFF’s lavish promises.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122145/original/image-20160511-18128-pycb33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122145/original/image-20160511-18128-pycb33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122145/original/image-20160511-18128-pycb33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122145/original/image-20160511-18128-pycb33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122145/original/image-20160511-18128-pycb33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122145/original/image-20160511-18128-pycb33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122145/original/image-20160511-18128-pycb33.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">Julius Malema is enamoured with Robert Mugabe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Philimon Bulawayo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reservoir of resentment</h2>
<p>What the EFF is trying to do is tap into a reservoir of accumulated apartheid injustice. Freelance journalist Louise Ferreira <a href="http://thoughtleader.co.za/louiseferreira/2015/11/09/on-whiteness-and-white-guilt/">summarised</a> aptly: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>White prosperity was built on the oppression and dehumanisation of black bodies.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The scars of the apartheid regime’s crimes, in particular of the forced resettlement of millions of people, are still <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/06/south-africa-racially-divided-survey">visible today</a>. In 1994 the ANC set out to redistribute 30% of farmland to black farmers by the end of 2014, but <a href="https://next.ft.com/content/7d361764-b832-11e4-b6a5-00144feab7de">only 5%</a> of land has actually been transferred.</p>
<p>This lack of transformation is what makes the EFF attractive to so many. Early on, Malema picked up on the <a href="http://www.afrobarometer.org/press/south-africans-increasingly-discontent-countrys-democracy-0">discontent</a> South Africans had begun to feel towards democracy. </p>
<p>He was <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/south-africa-treasonous-remarks-by-eff-leader-julius-malema-met-anc-criminal-charges-1556629">recently quoted</a> saying that “white monopoly capital has stolen our land,” and one of the EFF’s <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2016/04/30/12-promises-of-what-an-EFF-municipality-will-do-for-voters%E2%80%9A-by-Julius-Malema">key promises</a> is that, similar to Zimbabwe, it will <a href="http://www.biznews.com/leadership/2016/02/15/malema-sa-needs-zimbabwe-style-land-expropriation-without-compensation/">expropriate land</a> without compensation.</p>
<p>Malema has never made a secret of his <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2014/01/09/malema-slams-capitalism-praises-mugabe">man-crush</a> on Zimbabwe’s ruthless dictator Robert Mugabe:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There’s no system that has worked successfully for Africans, except the Zimbabwean system. The Zimbabweans today can be hungry and poor, but at least they own property.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What he fails to understand, however, is that without capital, and in particular foreign capital, the only thing people can do with their land is subsistence farming that will offer neither them, nor their children, a way out of poverty.</p>
<p>The EFF’s entire economic policy, it seems, consists of weakening the very institutions that economists have identified as key drivers of economic growth.</p>
<p>But without inclusive institutions, South Africa will be turned into a kleptocracy akin to countries like Venezuela and Zimbabwe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59267/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Co-Pierre Georg 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>Understandable anger about the excessive inequality in South Africa lies at the heart of the rise of the radical Economic Freedom Fighters. The problem is how the party wants to address these issues.Co-Pierre Georg, Senior Lecturer, African Institute for Financial Markets and Risk Management, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.