tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/nkandla-24684/articlesNkandla – The Conversation2022-11-25T21:26:17Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1953902022-11-25T21:26:17Z2022-11-25T21:26:17ZHow to impeach a president: Ramaphosa case puts new rules to the test in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497400/original/file-20221125-14071-mujdhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cyril Ramaphosa</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Xabiso Mkhabela/Xinhua via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/news/atm-welcomes-impeachment-process-against-ramaphosa-98e69a75-5a82-4f79-9063-9b98cdf5fd1f">faces possible impeachment</a> in the country’s parliament over the illegal stashing of thousands of US dollars at his farm <a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosa-scandal-looks-set-to-intensify-the-ancs-slide-ushering-in-a-new-era-of-politics-185719">in 2020</a>. This is not the first time there’s been a threat of impeachment of a president in post-democratic South Africa. His scandal-prone predecessor, Jacob Zuma, <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/south-african-president-jacob-zuma-defeats-impeachment-vote-1339127">survived an impeachment vote in 2017</a> over the illegal use of public money to renovate his private residence. There is, however, a difference in the process being followed this time. It is the first since parliament adopted rules to guide the process for the impeachment of a president in 2018, following a Constitutional Court <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2017/47.html">judgment</a>. Richard Calland explains.</em></p>
<h2>First steps</h2>
<p>This is the first time a process of a motion being tabled and an independent panel being established has been used. That alone makes it a very significant moment. How the panel interprets and then applies “the law” will set an important precedent. It may be subject to judicial review, especially if the panel finds that there is insufficient evidence for the impeachment process to proceed to a full parliamentary inquiry. </p>
<p>The process is triggered when a party with parliamentary representation tables a motion in the National Assembly requesting impeachment.</p>
<p>In this instance, this was done by a small party with <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/national-assembly">only two seats</a>, the African Transformation Movement (<a href="https://www.pa.org.za/organisation/atm/">ATM</a>), in terms of section 89 of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996">constitution</a>. </p>
<p>Section 89 is one of two parliamentary routes by which a sitting president (or their government) can be removed from office. The other is in terms of section 102 of the constitution, which is a vote of no confidence – a purely political, and, therefore, subjective matter. Several such motions of no confidence were tabled against Jacob Zuma, but he survived them all, as the ruling <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/African-National-Congress">African National Congress</a> whip held the line. </p>
<p>Section 89 contains three specific grounds for “impeachment” (although the section does not use the word). The National Assembly may remove the president from office (with a supporting vote of at least two thirds of its members), only when the president: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>has committed a serious violation of the constitution or law </p></li>
<li><p>has committed serious misconduct </p></li>
<li><p>or suffers from an inability to perform the functions of office. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The fact that this is a parliamentary process, triggered by a particular section 89 motion, and that it requires an objective test to be met, is of very great significance because it requires that an evidence-based finding be made in relation to one or other of the three grounds. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-11-22-house-approves-rules-on-impeaching-a-president/">new rules</a> now provide for a two-stage process to establish whether such evidence exists to justify the removal of the president from office. </p>
<p>The first step is that after the motion has been tabled in parliament, the National Assembly must set up a panel to conduct a “preliminary enquiry relating to a motion proposing a section 89 enquiry.”</p>
<p>The underlying purpose of the panel is to prevent spurious or vexatious impeachment attempts to proceed without any proper evidential basis. </p>
<p>Accordingly, the panel must be composed of “three fit and proper, competent, experienced and respected South Africans, which may include a judge, and who collectively possess the necessary legal competence and experience.” </p>
<p>Parties represented in parliament can nominate people to serve on the panel, whereafter the Speaker of the National Assembly makes the appointment. In this case, the Speaker has appointed former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo as the chair.</p>
<p>The motion tabled by the African Transformation Movement seeking Ramaphosa’s impeachment, as leading law reporter Franny Rabkin <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/opinion-and-analysis/insight/2022-11-20-an-impeachment-case-to-answer-for-phala-phala-saga/">has pointed out</a>, provides tramlines within which the panel must stay when performing its mandate. This limits the evidence and the allegations that the panel is authorised to consider. </p>
<p>The motion is relatively limited in its target area. It confines itself to the specifics of the mysterious theft of money at Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm, and his immediate response to the theft. </p>
<p>Hence, <a href="https://www.concourt.org.za/index.php/judges/former-judges/11-former-judges/66-chief-justice-sandile-ngcobo">Ngcobo</a> is likely to be fastidious with regard to confining the panel’s deliberations. Any evidence or allegation relating to a matter not rooted in the original motion is likely to be disregarded. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosa-scandal-looks-set-to-intensify-the-ancs-slide-ushering-in-a-new-era-of-politics-185719">Ramaphosa scandal looks set to intensify the ANC's slide, ushering in a new era of politics</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The panel’s overriding legal responsibility is <em>not</em> to determine whether there is a “prima facie” case – meaning that “at face value” there would appear to be a case to answer. Rather, it is whether there is “sufficient evidence” of one or other of the three grounds for removal from office set out in section 89. </p>
<p>In this case, the third ground – incapacity – does not arise. Instead, the question for the panel is whether there is sufficient evidence of serious misconduct or a serious violation of the law. </p>
<p>The word “serious” here is very significant. If Ramaphosa has broken the law or behaved inappropriately or unwisely in his response to the theft, that will not be enough to meet the test, unless it is “serious”. </p>
<h2>A high bar</h2>
<p>It seems to me that the test of “sufficient evidence” is a subtle but qualitatively higher one than “prima facie”, because the panel is required to consider the evidence presented by the African Transformation Movement and then the president’s response, and to make a finding. </p>
<p>In turn, this means that the chair of the panel and his two colleagues face a rather tricky task because the rules place severe limits on the scope of their investigation. </p>
<p>What the rules say is “in considering the matter” <a href="https://pmg.org.za/tabled-committee-report/3467/">the panel</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>may, in its sole discretion, afford any member an opportunity to place relevant written or recorded information before it within a specific timeframe.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is clear that the panel has done this, and that the African Transformation Movement, at least, has responded by placing what they claim is <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/news/atm-to-supplement-its-impeachment-motion-4c57ac76-3f6e-41f0-9419-700c7d0b31a2">further evidence</a> before the panel. But unless it is relevant to the motion, and falls within the tramlines that it set, the other, extraneous evidence will and should be disregarded by the panel. </p>
<p>Having sought evidence from members of parliament – this being a parliamentary process – the panel has also been required to give the president an opportunity to respond. This may explain the delay in the panel concluding its work and the need for a two week extension to <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/news/phala-phala-deadline-extended-november-2022/">30 November</a>. </p>
<p>After that date, parliament has rightly <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/press-releases/national-assembly-consider-independent-panel-report-6-december">postponed rising for the year</a> so that the panel’s report can be debated in early December. </p>
<p>The report is required to make findings and provide reasons for its conclusion, but it can only do so based on the written evidence adduced before it. </p>
<h2>Implications</h2>
<p>Given the threshold test that the rules establish for the performance of its mandate, it is more likely than not that the panel will determine that there is not sufficient evidence. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-president-cyril-ramaphosas-credibility-has-been-dented-putting-his-reform-agenda-in-jeopardy-189802">South African president Cyril Ramaphosa’s credibility has been dented, putting his reform agenda in jeopardy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Even then, the words the panel uses will be weighed heavily in the balance politically. At the very least, a lot more information is going to be in the public domain about the curious events of that February night in 2020 at the president’s farm, and how he handled the matter.</p>
<p>It could have enormous implications, not just for Ramaphosa’s immediate political future and as well as his long-term legacy, but for constitutional accountability in South Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195390/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Calland is employed by the University of Cape Town, is a member of the Advisory Council for the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, and is a partner in political risk consultancy The Paternoster Group. </span></em></p>The new process of impeachment requires an objective test to be met.Richard Calland, Associate Professor in Public Law, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1644662021-07-13T17:47:48Z2021-07-13T17:47:48ZSouth Africa in flames: spontaneous outbreak or insurrection?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411094/original/file-20210713-21-ocu5qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Private armed security officers take a position near a burning barricade during a joint operation with South African Police Service officers in Jeppestown, Johannesburg.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africans spent most of mid-July glued to their news outlets, from established media outlets to TikTok, from streaming news to old-fashioned printed words, to see just one thing: would Jacob Zuma blink? Would the country finally get some taste of revenge for the <a href="https://www.sastatecapture.org.za/">state capture</a>, looting, destruction of institutions and threats to the country’s democracy their former president had enabled and championed? Would the rule of law win? </p>
<p>Zuma blinked, with a few minutes to spare, and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africas-zuma-hand-himself-over-police-foundation-2021-07-07/">handed himself over to police</a>. An hour or so later he was booked into a rather comfy looking <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/estcourt-correctional-centre-inside-the-prison-that-will-house-a-former-president-20210708">“state of the art correctional facility”</a> in Estcourt (which had taken 17 years to refurbish).</p>
<p>The rule of law won. The institutions that had been so assiduously hollowed out under the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Zuma-Years-South-Africas-Changing/dp/1770220887">nine years of his presidency</a> had flexed their new-found muscle. The Constitutional Court had long <a href="https://theconversation.com/historic-moment-as-constitutional-court-finds-zuma-guilty-and-sentences-him-to-jail-163612">held firm</a>, the police were rather more wobbly, but despite much assegai-rattling by family members and the Zuma Foundation, into prison he went. No ANC leader expressed joy, <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2021-07-07-anc-saddened-by-jacob-zumas-imminent-15-month-incarceration/">only sorrow</a> that <a href="https://www.enca.com/news/zikalala-we-stand-zuma">the man had fallen so low</a>; for people not in such elevated positions, it was a rare <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/zumas-sentencing-has-lifted-the-mood-of-the-country-study-reveals-20210701">moment of jubilation</a> in the midst of a global pandemic that has us locked down, again.</p>
<p>Protests that had been low key since he was <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2021/07/09/zuma-supporters-intensify-protests-in-streets-of-kzn-causing-traffic-delays">arrested on Wednesday night</a> exploded into an an orgy of looting, marching, xenophobic attacks, arson, truck-burning, stabbing and shooting, and blockading of roads and freeways (among others) <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/violence-spreads-south-africas-economic-hub-wake-zuma-jailing-2021-07-11/">by Sunday</a>. It seemed – and Zuma’s allies and (adult) children were quick <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-13-duduzile-zuma-sambudla-from-pampered-diamond-queen-to-armchair-instigator-of-violence/">to preach the word</a> – that he was so popular and such an object of sympathy that a spontaneous outbreak of bloody violence and theft was unavoidable, and a dark portent if Zuma was not immediately released. Prescience seemed to have replaced profligacy.</p>
<p>The stakes were (and remain) exceptionally high. Thanks in part to the commission of inquiry into <a href="https://www.sastatecapture.org.za/">state capture and corruption</a> Zuma established and later refused to attend, Zuma is now known to have allowed the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/22/world/africa/gupta-zuma-south-africa-corruption.html">Gupta family</a>, using organised crime money-laundering vehicles, to bankrupt the state. As has been noted, fish rot from the head. From the time that he was <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/president-thabo-mbeki-sacks-deputy-president-jacob-zuma">fired</a> by former president Thabo Mbeki (in 2005) to date, Zuma has deployed his infamous <a href="https://www.judgesmatter.co.za/opinions/using-stalingrad-tactics-to-delay-justice/">Stalingrad legal strategy</a>. In effect, he has been fighting every single item in court while adopting the victim stance of a man more sinned against than sinning.</p>
<p>Sadly, Zuma is not a Shakespearian hero, but a man of decidedly clay feet. For nine years as president, he outmanoeuvred pretty much all and sundry – he <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2017-03-31-zumas-11-cabinet-reshuffles-all-the-graphic-details/">reshuffled cabinets</a> to destabilise opponents; he forced the Whip and faced down multiple votes of no confidence; he allowed <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-05-24-the-totalish-cost-of-the-guptas-state-capture-r49157323233-68/">R50 billion</a> to be stolen by his friends, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-22513410">the Gupta family</a> – all now safely in Dubai – and ran state and party as <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/edward-zuma-declares-former-president-jacob-zuma-will-not-go-to-jail-ded5716e-7dd1-4b77-ad26-414e81239c2b">both cash cow</a> and defensive wall. </p>
<p>He met his match in Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa, who <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-has-a-new-leader-but-south-africa-remains-on-a-political-precipice-89248">succeeded him</a> as ANC and national president. Ramaphosa has moved with the cold, calculating methodology that proves him to be the real chess master (Zuma has a passion for the game). Ramaphosa has <a href="https://theconversation.com/precarious-power-tilts-towards-ramaphosa-in-battle-inside-south-africas-governing-party-158251">outmanoeuvred Zuma</a> and many of his allies in the ANC (such as secretary general Ace Magashule). He has done this by trying to resuscitate the organs of state, investigation and prosecution that had been severely damaged by his predecessor. </p>
<p>The rule of law – which took a pummelling over the last decade – seems to be out of rehab. Zuma may only be in prison for a contempt charge – but the notion that the first ANC leader in orange overall would be Zuma was not a fantasy that played out as realistic in most imaginations.</p>
<h2>Why the violence</h2>
<p>Many reasons have been offered for the violence, looting, racist bile and bloodshed that erupted. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the pent-up frustration of hungry and cold people facing few prospects for socio-economic improvement; </p></li>
<li><p>inequality and the gulf between the conspicuous consumption of the “made it” compared to others; </p></li>
<li><p>ethnic tensions within the ANC, with the president representing a “minority” tribe and apparently lacking legitimacy; </p></li>
<li><p>good old stereotypical Zulu nationalist violence was breaking out as it did in the early 1990s; </p></li>
<li><p>internal ANC factional tensions were spilling onto the streets; and more.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>All of these have some truth. Yet none provides a narrative thread that ties together these disparate issues and scattered but clearly organised acts of violence. Part of the gap in our understanding is how a middle-of-the-night incarceration of Zuma – albeit done in the blaze of TV arc lights – led to such a widespread and destructive but apparently spontaneous outbreak. </p>
<p>This narrative suits Zuma and his supporters perfectly: pity for the victimised former president unleashed patriotic fervour that was unstoppable, proving his popularity and victim status. Family, the Zuma Foundation and others all began pumping out the narrative – much as Zuma’s daughter tweeted the video of a gun firing bullets into a poster of Ramaphosa. Subtlety did not play much of a role.</p>
<p>But when the Minister of State Security <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2021-07-13-looting-and-violence-could-have-been-worse-intelligence-police-ministers/">reported</a> on the morning of Tuesday 13 July that her spies had managed to stop attacks on substations, planned attacks on ANC offices and in Durban-Westville prison, things began to look different. How did they know of the plans, and for how long? Who was doing the planning? How did they stop it?</p>
<p>When “impeccable sources in the intelligence service and law enforcement” <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/investigations/cops-fear-gun-battle-as-jacob-zumas-high-noon-approaches-20210707%22">warned</a> of arms caches at Zuma’s home, Nkandla; when <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-12689342">we recall</a> that the police admitted to “losing” some 20,000 weapons in the 2000s, as had the State Security Agency, we are permitted to ask uncomfortable questions.</p>
<p>Suddenly the acts look rather more organised and rather less spontaneous. </p>
<p>Neeshan Balton, executive director of the not-for-profit lobby group, the <a href="https://www.kathradafoundation.org/">Kathrada Foundation</a>, has suggested that part of the strategy was a wildfire – strike lots of matches and just let them burn whatever is in their path to destabilise the democratic project. </p>
<p>This too is premised on the existence of a plan.</p>
<p>The danger with suggesting that this was not at heart a set of random acts by poor people who were overcome by emotion at the thought of Zuma in prison but rather a (more or less well) planned and executed attempt to destabilise the state is that rather than <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-11-19-statecaptureinquiry-gordhan-connect-the-dots-to-uproot-state-capture/">“joining the dots”</a> as Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan advised, one may be constructing a crazy conspiracy theory. </p>
<p>The definition of insurrection is to rise against the power of the state, generally using weaponry. Conspiracies exist. From <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/as-mpofu-threatens-another-marikana-ngcukaitobi-says-police-must-enforce-zuma-arrest-orders-20210707">dark warnings</a> of another massacre like the one at <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana in 2012</a> should Zuma be touched, to planning sabotage against municipal infrastructure, and fanning the flames of xenophobic violence, it seems very difficult to ignore the planned insurrection at hand.</p>
<p>Poor and hungry people exist, and the state should be ashamed. But hungry people do not become violent looters on behalf of better-known looters who are in jail. They may well be available for mobilisation (looting, violence, marching) behind the organisers – but it is the organisers that need to be brought to book, and who must also face the rule of law.</p>
<p>Corruption thrives in a destabilised state with weak institutions. South Africa cannot be allowed back to that space because there will be no turning back.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164466/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>Corruption thrives in a destabilised state with weak institutions. South Africa cannot be allowed back to that space because there will be no turning back.David Everatt, Professor of Urban Governance, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1538032021-01-22T17:30:01Z2021-01-22T17:30:01ZSouth African minister’s COVID-19 death unites friends and rivals in tribute<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380165/original/file-20210122-21-i0shrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jackson Mthembu is the most prominent South African politician to succumb to COVID-19.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The death of <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/minister-jackson-mthembu%3A-profile">Jackson Mphikwa Mthembu</a>, Minister in the Office of the President of South Africa, has been met with sorrow across the country. Tributes have come from across the political spectrum for the country’s first government minister to succumb to COVID-19. He was 62.</p>
<p>Mthembu’s integrity, dedication to his job and sense of humour explain the response to his death.</p>
<p>President Cyril Ramaphosa <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/statement-president-cyril-ramaphosa-passing-minister-jackson-mthembu">said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Minister Mthembu was an exemplary leader, an activist and life-long champion of freedom and democracy. He was a much-loved and greatly respected colleague and comrade, whose passing leaves our nation at a loss. I extend my deepest sympathies to the Minister’s family, to his colleagues, comrades and many friends.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The leader of the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, John Steenhuisen, <a href="https://www.polity.org.za/article/the-da-mourns-the-passing-of-jackson-mthembu-2021-01-21">said</a> to Mthembu’s family, friends and the governing partty, the African National Congress:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You have lost a generous man with a big heart and an even greater sense of humour.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Corne Mulder, leader of the right-wing <a href="https://www.vfplus.org.za/">Freedom Front Plus</a>, <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/jackson-mthembu-dies-of-covid-19-related-complications-20210121-2">said</a> “Jackson Mthembu was an excellent chief whip of Parliament. He stood strong on principle when Parliament came under attack during the Zuma years.”</p>
<p>He was referring to the <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/richard-calland-the-zuma-years/lwlk-1845-g5a0">tenure of former President Jacob Zuma</a>, from May 2009 to February 2018, characterised by populism and <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-democracy-or-a-kleptocracy-how-south-africa-stacks-up-111101">rampant corruption in government</a>. </p>
<p>Jessie Duarte, the deputy secretary-general of the African National Congress, enthused about how Mthembu had been a dedicated, committed activist with “an unbelievable work ethic” who was meticulous about his work and believed that the democratic project could work.</p>
<p>She <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2021-01-22-in-quotes-jessie-duarte-jackson-mthembu-leaves-behind-a-legacy-of-honesty/">said</a> Mthembu had a great sense of humour and an “amazing” ability to interact with people:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have lost a person who put the country first, at all times. For us who have lost a brother and a friend, this is a very great loss. He leaves a legacy of honesty and integrity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>His death drives home the seriousness of the <a href="https://mg.co.za/news/2021-01-21-stern-warning-against-covid-greets-mthembus-death/">COVID-19 pandemic in the country</a>.</p>
<h2>The early days</h2>
<p>Mthembu’s life mirrored the daily toils black South Africans had to endure under colonialism and apartheid. His life was also synonymous with the struggle for freedom by the young activists who picked up the baton from leaders like <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography">Nelson Mandela</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/sobukwes-pan-africanist-dream-an-elusive-idea-that-refuses-to-die-52601">Robert Sobukwe</a>, among others, who were either jailed or banned or, like <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/stephen-bantu-biko">Steve Biko</a>, paid the ultimate price at the hands of the apartheid regime.</p>
<p>Mthembu was born in the eastern Transvaal, today’s Mpumalanga province, in the east of the country. He was raised by his grandmother and uncles. From the age of seven, he had to help his grandmother working in the family’s maize fields. He was <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jackson-mthembu">kicked out of school</a> several times because his family could not afford school fees, uniforms or school books.</p>
<p>He was a student leader during <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">the 1976 school revolt</a>, sparked by the imposition of the Afrikaans language as a medium of instruction. The revolt spread throughout the country. The harsh response of the apartheid regime, shooting and killing unarmed children, led to revulsion around the world, further isolating the apartheid government. </p>
<p>He was expelled from <a href="https://www.dpme.gov.za/about/Pages/Minister.aspx">Fort Hare University in 1980</a> owing to his political activities. In 1980 he got a job at Highveld Steel and Vanadium, and became one of the first Africans to be promoted to production foreman. Between 1984 and 1986 he became a senior steward of the Metal and Allied Workers’ Union, which is today called the <a href="https://www.numsa.org.za/">National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa</a>.</p>
<p>During the 1980s struggle years it became almost a norm that unionists also became community leaders. In 1980 Mthembu became chair of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jackson-mthembu">Witbank Education Crisis Committee</a>. He also served on the eMalahleni Civic Association; the local branch of the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/cis/omalley/OMalleyWeb/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03188/06lv03208.htm">National Education Crisis Committee</a>, which campaigned for a “people’s education”; and the <a href="http://www.disa.ukzn.ac.za/keywords/detainees-parents-support-committee-dpsc">Detainees’ Parents Support Committee</a>.</p>
<h2>Defiance amid persecution</h2>
<p>The Special Branch (the apartheid political police) repeatedly detained him for months of solitary confinement during the <a href="https://www.saha.org.za/ecc25/ecc_under_a_state_of_emergency.htm">1980s states of emergency</a>, tortured him in police stations, and petrol-bombed his home. Mthembu was prosecuted for sabotage, treason and terrorism with 30 other activists in the <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/presidency/jackson-mthembu-mr">Bethal terrorism trial of 1986-1988</a>. He was acquitted.</p>
<p>After this acquittal, the apartheid security police continued with their harassment and intimidation. This led him to move away from Witbank, to the east of Johannesburg, and find refuge in Soweto and Alexandra in the Gauteng province as an “internal exile”, <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/statement-president-cyril-ramaphosa-passing-minister-jackson-mthembu">seriously disrupting his family life</a>.</p>
<p>He was elected deputy regional secretary for the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging-complex">Pretoria-Witwatersrand- Vereeniging</a> region (today’s Gauteng) of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/united-democratic-front-udf">United Democratic Front</a>, the above-ground home for supporters of the then-banned African National Congress during the 1980s.</p>
<p>Mthembu worked with the South African Council of Churches, and in 1988 led a convoy of 300 minibuses as the SWAPO Support Group to help them during Namibia’s first democratic elections. <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-west-africa-peoples-organisation-swapo">SWAPO (South West African People’s Organisation)</a> went on to win the elections, and has governed Namibia since independence from South Africa <a href="https://theconversation.com/namibias-democracy-enters-new-era-as-ruling-swapo-continues-to-lose-its-lustre-151238">in 1990</a>. </p>
<h2>Life of public service</h2>
<p>Mthembu’s career was as one of the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2006-08-28-his-legacy-should-not-be-forgotten/">“inziles”, as opposed to the exile generation</a> and the generation jailed on Robben Island. This has a two-fold significance. First, generational. The Robben Island generation, such as Mandela, and the exile generation, such as <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki">Thabo Mbeki</a>, are now almost all retired. Zuma straddles both the Robben Island and exile experiences. Second, the “inziles” of the United Democratic Front had a less authoritarian and more participatory political culture than the islanders and the exiles, and this characterises their subsequent career.</p>
<p>In 1994 Jackson Mthembu was elected to Parliament and participated in the drafting of the South African constitution. Between 1997 and 1999 he was a member of the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature, and served as Member of the Executive Committee for Transport. </p>
<p>He was elected to the national executive committee in 2007, and worked at the ANC head office, Luthuli House in Johannesburg, where he and then secretary-general Gwede Mantashe defended Zuma over the scandal involving the use of public money for expensive renovations to his private home at <a href="https://cdn.24.co.za/files/Cms/General/d/2718/00b91b2841d64510b9c99ef9b9faa597.pdf">Nkandla</a>. In 2014 he became an MP in the National Assembly, chairing the portfolio committee on environment, becoming ANC Chief Whip in 2016. </p>
<p>As the tide within the ANC was beginning to turn against Zuma,
he worked with the <a href="https://www.da.org.za/">Democratic Alliance</a> to <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/mthembu-slams-anc-mps-accusations-that-he-colluded-with-da-in-state-capture-motion-20171128">schedule a parliamentary debate</a> on <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">“state capture”</a> – large-scale corruption – during Zuma’s presidency. </p>
<p>Mthembu took part in the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-08-26-how-ramaphosas-campaign-spent-r400-million-and-why-it-matters/">CR17 campaign</a> to get Cyril Ramaphosa elected as the successor to Jacob Zuma as president of the ANC. In 2019 Ramaphosa appointed him Minister in the Presidency.</p>
<p>Mthembu, sometimes affectionately referred to by his clan name, Mvelase, is survived by his wife Thembi Mthembu and five children. His first wife, Pinkie, and one of his daughters predeceased him. His death was greeted with ringing tributes across the floor in parliament.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153803/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 in his professional capacity as a political scientist and historian.</span></em></p>Jackson Mthembu’s death drives home the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1482792020-10-18T08:59:10Z2020-10-18T08:59:10ZWhy an amnesty for grand corruption in South Africa is a bad idea<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363935/original/file-20201016-23-au6zjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thuli Madonsela, professor of law and former Public Protector of South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s former Public Protector, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-africas-public-protector-has-set-a-high-bar-for-her-successor-63891">Thuli Madonsela</a>, provoked a political storm recently when she suggested that public servants implicated in grand corruption should be given the chance to apply for <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2020-10-13-a-chance-to-start-with-a-clean-slate-thuli-madonsela-urges-sa-to-consider-amnesty-for-the-corrupt/">amnesty</a>.</p>
<p>Many South Africans, weary of rampant, unchecked and unaccountable corruption, could be forgiven for asking: what on earth was she thinking?</p>
<p>Madonsela won the admiration of many South Africans because of her steely resolve in the face of malfeasance and breaches of the rules of integrity in public office. Her proposal suggested she might be going soft on corruption.</p>
<p>To be effective as the Public Protector Madonsela required many attributes, as I set out in my 2013 book, <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/richard-calland-the-zuma-years/lwlk-1845-g5a0"><em>The Zuma Years</em></a>. These included independence of mind, a very thick skin and a certain contrarian eccentricity that rendered her far less susceptible to the numerous attempts to intimidate her as she took on then president Jacob Zuma and his state capture network.</p>
<p>Her amnesty idea displays all of these characteristics. </p>
<p>It should be taken seriously, if only to affirm the merit of a diametrically opposed position.</p>
<p>It’s an inherently bad idea.</p>
<h2>Bad timing</h2>
<p>Madonsela’s timing is especially unfortunate. It is only in very recent times that <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/dpci/index.php">the Hawks</a>, the priority crimes investigating police unit, and other agencies of the criminal justice system appear to have recovered the institutional capacity to begin prosecuting those responsible for the deep-lying state capture project.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/opposition-parties-welcome-arrests-of-alleged-masterminds-behind-free-state-asbestos-contract-20200930">Recent developments</a> have begun to suggest that the net is finally tightening around the bigger fish that are the true architects of systematic corruption in the country.</p>
<p>This has been widely <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/politics/arrest-of-corruption-suspects-welcomed--sacp">welcomed</a>. Accountability, at last.</p>
<p>Against the grain of this public view, Madonsela, <a href="https://blogs.sun.ac.za/inaugural-lectures/event/prof-thuli-madonsela/">a law professor</a>, entered the fray to suggest that instead of being tough on the perpetrators, an olive branch should be extended.</p>
<p>This is an example of the “independent-mindedness” for which Madonsela was <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-africas-public-protector-has-set-a-high-bar-for-her-successor-63891">rightly acclaimed</a> during her seven-year term as Public Protector from 2009-2016.</p>
<p>It is also not only contrarian, but also eccentric in that it makes so little sense. </p>
<p>To be fair to her, she tried to clarify later that she did not mean amnesty for every perpetrator, and certainly not the big fish. Her idea is targeted at those whose “status”, <a href="https://www.702.co.za/podcasts/415/the-john-perlman-show/370859/former-public-protector-prof-thuli-madonsela-calls-for-a-corruption-amnesty-for-public-servants">she says</a>, “in the food chain is quite junior”.</p>
<p>But the first of a series of fatal flaws in her idea is about where to draw the line: on what basis should one distinguish the smaller from the bigger fish?</p>
<p>Those who had played a “minor but critical” role was how she framed her idea. There is already a problem here: is it possible for something to be both “critical” to a (criminal) enterprise and yet still “minor”? </p>
<p>I think not.</p>
<h2>Half-baked idea</h2>
<p>Madonsela confirmed that amnesty should be available on a legal rather than a moral basis. Yet, in a radio <a href="https://www.702.co.za/podcasts/415/the-john-perlman-show/370859/former-public-protector-prof-thuli-madonsela-calls-for-a-corruption-amnesty-for-public-servants">interview</a> after she’d floated the idea, and drawn a lot of flak, she added to the confusion.</p>
<p>At first Madonsela spoke of people who may have “bent the rules” unwittingly, in which case, they may well have a legal defence to criminal conduct. Later, she clarified that she intended to cover individuals with “agency”, even to the extent that their palms have been “greased with money” (which, she argued, they would have to pay back in return for amnesty).</p>
<p>If the right to amnesty was indeed to be a legal entitlement, then the terms on which entitlement to amnesty applies have to be very clearly and carefully drawn. This much has been revealed in Constitutional Court decisions concerning the legal rationality of presidential amnesties or pardons in the case of <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/1997/4.html">women convicts</a> and <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2010/4.html">perpetrators of apartheid era offences</a>.</p>
<p>Madonsela’s public policy rationale appears to be that without an inducement, the smaller cogs in the bigger wheels of state corruption may seek to hide and avoid prosecution when what is required is that they should come forward with information about the bigger fish.</p>
<p>Perhaps, then, an offer of amnesty – in effect, a legal right to indemnity from prosecution – deserves to be given serious consideration. This, especially if it is the case that the <a href="https://nationalgovernment.co.za/units/view/66/national-prosecuting-authority-of-south-africa-npa">National Prosecuting Authority </a> is struggling to pull together the evidence to bring strong prosecutions against the most powerful perpetrators of state capture corruption.</p>
<p>But there is no evidence that this is the situation. And, moreover, there are major downsides to be weighed in the balance. </p>
<h2>The case against amnesty</h2>
<p>First of all: deterrence. </p>
<p>The fact that amnesty has been granted in the past may encourage future corrupt actors to take the risk. The corollary is that the successful prosecution of corrupt officials is likely to discourage repetition.</p>
<p>Secondly, the arguments put forward by Madonsela would, in my view, provide grounds for mitigation in sentencing – not for amnesty. One example would be “small fish” cooperating with the investigative authority and providing evidence about the bigger fish. Another example would be if someone could show that they were bullied into bending procurement rules by a superior and more powerful individual in the system.</p>
<p>Another possible avenue – common practice in criminal justice systems around the world – is the use of a “plea bargain”. Here an accused person trades information in return for facing a less serious charge.</p>
<p>Amnesty would, in effect, deprive them of this opportunity and could thereby undermine the integrity of the whole criminal justice system.</p>
<p>The other major consideration is perception – both in the eyes of key stakeholders, such as the investment community and, secondly, the general public.</p>
<p>Investors are especially eager to see if South Africa has the capacity to hold to account those who contaminated the democratic state and so undermined fair competition by enabling a rent-seekers’ paradise. It is about the strength of the rule of law. Investors want to feel confident that this is one destination where the rule of law holds and where, because of state capture prosecutions, there is less risk of a repeat.</p>
<p>And surely, above all else, the public will feel cheated if perpetrators of state capture corruption, however “minor”, get away scot-free. This, more than anything, would encourage a lawless society, steeped in a culture of impunity rather than accountability.</p>
<h2>A dangerous path to tread</h2>
<p>Attempts to trade amnesty for information about state corruption have caused conflict as well as controversy in other countries. One notable example was in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tunisia-politics-corruption-idUSKCN1BO218">Tunisia in 2017</a>. </p>
<p>But the biggest danger is that it simply sends the wrong message. This was aptly spelt out by esteemed South African artist William Kentridge reflecting on a previous attempt at taking the amnesty road in South Africa through the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a> process. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A full confession can bring amnesty and immunity from prosecution or civil procedures for the crimes committed. Therein lies the central irony of the Commission. As people give more and more evidence of the things they have done they get closer and closer to amnesty and it gets more and more intolerable that these people should be <a href="https://www.academia.edu/907785/_Learning_From_the_Absurd_Violence_and_Comparative_History_in_William_Kentridge_s_Ubu_Tells_the_Truth_">given amnesty</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Admittedly, Madonsela has a different purpose in mind than the national reconciliation ambition of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process. But, no, Advocate Madonsela, a blanket amnesty would send the wrong message at the worst possible time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148279/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Calland is a member of the Advisory Council of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC) and a Partner in political economy consultancy, The Paternoster Group. </span></em></p>The first of a series of fatal flaws in the idea is about where to draw the line.Richard Calland, Associate Professor in Public Law, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1209022019-07-24T11:28:33Z2019-07-24T11:28:33ZStorm around South Africa’s public protector shows robustness, not a crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285494/original/file-20190724-110158-1j5zi8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's Public Protector, Busisiwe Mkhwebane.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Seemingly effective constitutional institutions can be quickly undermined by the actions of the people who serve in them. If we didn’t know that already, the South African Constitutional Court’s recent <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2019/29media.pdf">decision</a> in the Reserve Bank case makes the point crystal clear. </p>
<p>In her response to the Bank’s application to set aside certain remedial action, the Court found that the Public Protector, <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/chapter-9/chapter-9/public-protector-office">Busisiwe Mkhwebane</a>, acted in such bad faith as to justify the imposition of a <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-07-22-public-protector-busisiwe-mkhwebane-must-pay-after-falsehoods-over-bankorp/">personal costs order</a>.</p>
<p>The Public Protector’s office, previously lauded for its investigation into the illegal use of public money on former President Jacob Zuma’s private <a href="https://cdn.24.co.za/files/Cms/General/d/2718/00b91b2841d64510b9c99ef9b9faa597.pdf">Nkandla homestead</a>, is consequently now the subject of anxious public debate.</p>
<h2>The big worries</h2>
<p>Two concerns, in particular, have been raised. </p>
<p>The first has to do with whether the Constitutional Court’s decision reveals any flaws in the design of the country’s <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng.pdf">1996 Constitution</a>. </p>
<p>Should such significant powers have been invested in the <a href="https://nationalgovernment.co.za/units/view/59/Public-Protector">Public Protector’s office</a> when, as we can now see, they are vulnerable to abuse?</p>
<p>The second concern relates to the <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/3-times-the-courts-set-aside-publicprotector-busisiwe-mkhwebanes-reports-29684337">raft of litigation</a> in which the Public Protector is <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/courts/2158516/judgment-reserved-in-gordhan-vs-mkhwebane-rogue-unit-report-matter/">involved</a>, and Mkhwebane’s own recent threat to go to court to oppose any attempt by Parliament to remove her. </p>
<p>Is this yet more evidence of the descent of the country’s constitutional democracy into so-called “lawfare”?</p>
<h2>Constitutional design flaws?</h2>
<p>The Public Protector’s powers are set out in <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng-09.pdf">Section 182(1)(a)</a> of the Constitution. It states the office is there</p>
<blockquote>
<p>to investigate any conduct in state affairs, or in the public administration in any sphere of government, that is alleged or suspected to be improper or to result in any impropriety or prejudice.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These are indeed significant powers that both the previous and present incumbents of the office have used to telling effect. But they are no broader than they need to be to give the office the requisite teeth.</p>
<p>The more important section perhaps is <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-chapter-9-state-institutions-supporting#194">section 194</a>, on the removal of the Public Protector. It provides that this may occur “on the ground of misconduct, incapacity or incompetence”, following a committee hearing and then a two-thirds majority vote by the National Assembly.</p>
<p>Again, there is nothing obviously wrong with this provision. Design the removal procedure in a way that makes it too easy to activate and you weaken the institution. Make it too hard to use and you licence an individual to become a loose cannon. Section 194 seems to get this balance right.</p>
<p>Beyond this, the proper functioning of the Public Protector’s office depends on two things: the courts’ preparedness to use their review powers to overturn any unwarranted findings and informed public scrutiny of the Public Protector’s actions. No constitutional-design features, however prescient, can make up for the absence of those two factors.</p>
<p>Fortunately, South Africans know the value of judicial independence. And the example set by the previous Public Protector, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-africas-public-protector-has-set-a-high-bar-for-her-successor-63891">Thuli Madonsela</a>, has made them care enough about the institution to defend it when threatened.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-africas-public-protector-has-set-a-high-bar-for-her-successor-63891">How South Africa’s public protector has set a high bar for her successor</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Thus, as broad as the Public Protector’s powers are, they are tempered by powerful and independent courts and by an active and engaged civil society.</p>
<p>What about the second concern? </p>
<h2>Is litigation replacing politics?</h2>
<p>Is the <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/courts/2158516/judgment-reserved-in-gordhan-vs-mkhwebane-rogue-unit-report-matter/">current round of litigation</a> involving the Public Protector another worrisome example of the phenomenon of lawfare? </p>
<p>Or does it in fact indicate something fundamental about how constitutional democracies work?</p>
<p>The term <a href="https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/johncomaroff/john-comaroff-explains-lawfare">“lawfare”</a> was coined by expatriate South African anthropologists Jean and John Comaroff. In its original form, it describes a situation in which the law is used to pursue political ends, both by the politically powerful and the politically weak.</p>
<p>The term has been popularised in South Africa by Judge Dennis Davis and lawyer Michelle Le Roux, whose recently published <a href="http://www.jonathanball.co.za/component/virtuemart/new-releases-1/2019-releases/lawfare-judging-politics-in-south-africa-detail?Itemid=6">book</a> deploys it as a central concept. In their usage, lawfare connotes the worrisome tendency in post-apartheid South Africa for disputes that previously would have been settled politically to be resolved legally.</p>
<p>The Public Protector example shows there is some empirical basis for this concern. In addition to all the <a href="https://theconversation.com/dramatic-night-in-south-africa-leaves-president-hanging-on-by-a-thread-57180">litigation surrounding Nkandla</a> and the <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2019/29media.pdf">Reserve Bank case</a>, there are now two more judicial review applications. One involves <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/statement-president-cyril-ramaphosa-report-public-protector">President Cyril Ramaphosa</a>; the other, <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-07-23-pravin-gordhans-court-battle-with-busisiwe-mkhwebane-kicks-off/">Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan</a>. </p>
<p>All of this suing and countersuing indeed looks like the waging of political battles through law. But is lawfare in this form the worrisome phenomenon it is made out to be?</p>
<p>The institution of constitutional review, by definition, exposes legislative and executive conduct to judicial scrutiny. It follows that the mere fact that political disputes are being waged through the courts and other constitutional institutions is not necessarily a cause for concern.</p>
<p>It doesn’t mean that any single instance of recourse to the courts is legally inappropriate, since such a conclusion depends on an assessment of the legal merits of the claim in each case. It also doesn’t mean that the courts are being politicised because that in the end depends on how they respond and what the public makes of their response.</p>
<p>On its own, therefore, the concept of lawfare has no analytic traction. It refers to a real phenomenon, but it offers no normative standard by which to assess alleged instances of the abuse of the judicial process.</p>
<h2>Finding comfort</h2>
<p>In the absence of a general standard, each instance of lawfare has to be assessed on its own terms. In this case, the appropriate conclusion about the Constitutional Court’s finding against the Public Protector is that there’s much to be comforted by.</p>
<p>The judgment – and before that, the North Gauteng High Court’s <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-02-16-public-protectors-absa-bailout-report-set-aside">decision</a> – shows that the judiciary is playing its appropriate role. By extending the existing provision for personal costs orders to this kind of case they have developed a midway accountability mechanism between the setting aside of the Public Protector’s remedial orders and the more drastic step, which may yet still come, of her removal from office.</p>
<p>If there is a concern, it is that the courts have once again been forced to act as a last line of defence. At just the time that it appeared that the Public Protector was emerging as a strong institution supporting democracy, it has been undermined by the actions of its current head.</p>
<p>This shows South Africa is still struggling to broaden the institutional base of its constitutional democracy so that it has multiple veto points at which to check the abuse of power. </p>
<p>To function effectively, constitutional institutions also need to be infused with values and traditions so that they are less dependent on the whims of particular office bearers.</p>
<p>This is not a uniquely South African problem. The US’s travails under President Donald Trump after 240 years of constitutional democracy are a powerful reminder that the fight for effective institutions and lived constitutional values never really ends.</p>
<p>Constitutionalism is an aspirational ideal in this sense, rather than a finite goal that can be achieved once and for all. Nevertheless, if the vigour of the public debate surrounding the Public Protector is anything to go by, it is an ideal that appears to be very much alive and kicking in South Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Theunis Roux 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 this case, the appropriate conclusion about the Constitutional Court’s finding against the Public Protector is that there’s much to be comforted by.Theunis Roux, Professor of Law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1201942019-07-12T09:14:27Z2019-07-12T09:14:27ZSouth African probe into corruption features star witness – Jacob Zuma<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283728/original/file-20190711-173376-17huf0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former South African President Jacob Zuma.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s been almost a year since the Commission of Inquiry into allegations of <a href="https://www.sastatecapture.org.za/">state capture </a> in South Africa began to hear testimony. Also known as the Zondo Commission, it is headed by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, <a href="https://www.sastatecapture.org.za/site/hearings">who has listened</a> to 130 days of live testimony from more than 80 people. It is probing allegations that the government was captured by private business interests for their own benefit. </p>
<p>During it all, echoes of former South African President Jacob Zuma’s alleged involvement have become deafening. Through various testimony, Zuma has been directly implicated by current and former senior government officials and ministers. They have alleged, among other things, that Zuma leaned on them to <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/news/2018-08-29-zuma-told-me-to-help-guptas-themba-maseko/">help the Guptas</a> – Zuma’s friends who are accused of having captured the state – and to fast-track a nuclear deal with Russia that would have <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/statecaptureinquiry-5-revelations-from-nenes-testimony-20181003">bankrupted South Africa</a>. Also, the governance failures that have resulted in the <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/pravin-gordhan-vows-to-recapture-soes-14990941">looting of parastatals</a>, have been blamed squarely on state capture.</p>
<p>Zuma’s turn to give evidence has arrived. Not only does he deny that <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/329757088/State-of-Capture-Public-Protector-Report#from_embed">state capture</a> exists – he’s called it a fake political tool – he’s also cast himself as a hapless victim. </p>
<p>Refusing to engage the concept, he <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-09-12-there-is-no-state-that-was-captured-zuma/">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are people who did things to others in one form or the other‚ and you can call it in any other name‚ not this big name “state capture”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The allegations against him are that he orchestrated a network of corruption that hijacked South Africa’s developmental project. </p>
<p>The importance of Zuma testifying before the commission should not be underestimated. It will set a precedent that will either show that those that abuse power will be held to account or that the cycle of impunity will continue, reinforcing the unjust systems that enable state capture. </p>
<h2>Understanding state capture</h2>
<p>Originally, the theoretical concept of state capture referred to a form of <a href="http://www.gsb.uct.ac.za/files/Godinho_Hermanus_2018_ReconceptualisingStateCapture_Eskom.pdf">grand corruption</a>. In the case of South Africa, it can be defined as the formation of a shadow state, directed by a <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">power elite</a>. This shadow state operates within – and parallel to – the constitutional state in formal and informal ways. Its objective is to re-purpose state governance, aligning it with the power elites’ narrow financial or political interests, for their benefit. </p>
<p>State capture rests on a strategy to align arms of state and public institutions and business to support <a href="https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentSeeking.html">rent-seeking</a>. </p>
<p>In the events being scrutinised by the commission, the testimony shows that actors made sure that all the conditions were created and processes lined up to extract more money than the actual goods and services cost as a way to enrich themselves. </p>
<p>This reveals the systemic nature of state capture. To be successful, it requires the deep cooperation and complicity of the highest office in the land to secure rents, hollow out accountability and maintain legitimacy. </p>
<p>The graphic below, by Robyn Foley, a senior researcher at the <a href="http://www0.sun.ac.za/cst/">Centre for Complex Systems in Transition</a> at Stellenbosch University, outlines the alleged strategy of capturing state-owned enterprises, installing compliant officials, undermining the functional operation of government institutions and discrediting critical voices.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283687/original/file-20190711-173355-as8619.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283687/original/file-20190711-173355-as8619.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283687/original/file-20190711-173355-as8619.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283687/original/file-20190711-173355-as8619.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283687/original/file-20190711-173355-as8619.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283687/original/file-20190711-173355-as8619.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283687/original/file-20190711-173355-as8619.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The graphic points to a presidency where state capture became syndicated within the state and rent-seeking. Capture is a radical departure from the norms and values upon which a democratic <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-the-anc-turn-south-africa-into-a-developmental-welfare-state-64919">developmental state</a> depends. Like most liberal democracies, South Africa’s constitution provides for checks and balances that are supposed to limit such abuses of power. When these checks are undermined, and the balancing forces are biased, the system becomes a reinforcing loop of bad behaviour, spiralling towards an oligarchic authoritarian state.</p>
<p>In other words, a silent coup.</p>
<h2>How did we get here?</h2>
<p>Zuma set his presidency on the ticket of state-sponsored development. This entailed using state-owned enterprise procurement, tighter state control and <a href="https://www.thedti.gov.za/economic_empowerment/bee_sector_charters.jsp">Black Economic Empowerment</a> to realise what has been termed <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Economy/radical-economic-transformation-zuma-vs-ramaphosa-20170502">radical economic transformation</a>. </p>
<p>But it was precisely within this agenda, and the governance arrangements that supported it, that seeds for state capture were sown. Tighter state control meant that the flows of information were controlled by only a few, while state-owned enterprises used the biggest share of procurement rands.</p>
<p>There was already billions moving through these state owned enterprises and radical economic transformation was the perfect ideology to bring it all together. </p>
<p>But black business hardly benefited at all from the profits of state capture. If radical economic transformation were to be effected through the constitutional state, it would be enacted through economic policy that supported livelihoods and employment creation. In addition, state capture has hollowed out the very institutions that would have been able to realise radical economic transformation through the constitutional state.</p>
<h2>The unravelling</h2>
<p>Numerous events over the past decade point to a slowburn abuse of key state resources. One of the first was the irregular <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-net-about-to-close-on-zuma-and-his-gupta-patronage-network-90395">landing of a civilian plane</a> at Waterkloof Military Air Base in 2013. The plane was carrying foreign guests to a family wedding hosted by Zuma’s friends, the Gupta family. </p>
<p>Two years later evidence emerged that millions of rands of public funds had been used illegally for upgrades to the then president’s Nkandla homestead. This spending was outlined in a <a href="https://cdn.24.co.za/files/Cms/General/d/2718/00b91b2841d64510b9c99ef9b9faa597.pdf">report</a> prepared by the former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela. </p>
<p>The turning point came only months after the release of the Public Protector’s State of Capture report, when Zuma fired then Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and his deputy Mcebisi Jonas <a href="https://theconversation.com/firing-of-south-africas-finance-minister-puts-the-public-purse-in-zumas-hands-75525">in March 2017</a>. The events sent a shock wave through South Africa, triggering mass protests and mobilised public outrage, forcing Zuma to initiate the robust inquiry into state capture. </p>
<p>Our unpublished research shows that, to date, there have been 28 public state capture investigations, inquiries and commissions. There are also 118 <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/news/2019-06-23-batohi-puts-the-heat-on-corruptions-cold-cases/">outstanding cases of corruption</a> involving government officials and politicians in the intray of the newly appointed head of the country’s National Prosecuting Authority, Shamila Batohi.</p>
<p>The true cost of the damage cost by state capture, including the destruction of institutions and lives, is unquantifiable.</p>
<p>South Africans may well be seduced by the prospect of Zuma taking the stand at the Zondo commission. But he was not alone in driving the state capture project. And, the network of actors and influencers is extensive and still very much active. This much has been laid bare in testimony before the commission.</p>
<p><em>Nina Callaghan, Robyn Foley, senior researchers at the <a href="http://www0.sun.ac.za/cst/">Centre for Complex Systems in Transition</a> at Stellenbosch University, contributed to the article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120194/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Swilling receives funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>South Africans may well be seduced by the prospect of Zuma appearing at the Zondo commission, but he was not alone in driving the state capture project.Mark Swilling, Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Development, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1186552019-06-25T13:45:25Z2019-06-25T13:45:25ZHow Pentecostalism explains Jacob Zuma’s defiance and lack of shame<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280941/original/file-20190624-97766-3k8xqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former South African President Jacob Zuma sings to his supporters outside the High Court. He faces corruption charges.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Phil Magakoe</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s former president, has long been known as a man who lives beyond his means. Interestingly, this has made him a much-admired figure in the country’s neo-Pentecostal circles. </p>
<p>Media exposés have laid bare <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/schabir-shaik-on-those-zuma-charges-20180316">Zuma’s massive debts</a> and the financial burden of his large family. Taxpayers footed a multi-million Rand bill for unlawful upgrades to his <a href="https://dc.sourceafrica.net/documents/8074-final-report-21h00.html">private residence</a>. Zuma has featured prominently in a number of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-removal-of-south-africas-tax-boss-is-key-to-ramaphosas-chances-of-success-106455">state inquiries</a>. One of them is a commission probing the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-09-14-00-definition-of-state-capture">“capture”</a> of the South African state for the financial gain of his family and his <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-22513410">associates</a>.</p>
<p>While Zuma has avoided any convictions, his detractors have been outraged at his <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1341554/zuma-must-pack-bags-leave-mathews-phosa/">lack of shame</a>. He’s also been defiant in the face of <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/05/20/arms-deal-saga-will-high-court-grant-zuma-stay-from-prosecution">various criminal charges</a>. Instead of shame, Zuma has often boasted of God’s divine support when matters went his way and complained of dark plots when <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/the-ten-commandments-according-to-jacob-zuma">they did not</a>. </p>
<p>While mainline Christian churches were uncomfortable with <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318495303_All_Answers_On_the_Phenomenal_Success_of_a_Brazilian_Pentecostal_Charismatic_Church_in_South_Africa">such claims</a>, neo-Pentecostal church leaders generally <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/churches-to-continue-supporting-zuma-spiritually-but-not-financially">supported Zuma</a>. Whenever he faced political scrutiny for a growing number of scandals, they offered their pulpits as his political platforms. They also held protest marches to show their support.</p>
<p>Zuma’s religious utterances presented a conundrum for scholars. That’s because many poor South African Christians supported his moral claims, and celebrated his defiance. Outside the courts where Zuma faced criminal charges, supporters often likened him to Jesus, decried his “crucifixion” and convened <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-04-05-prayers-for-zuma-ahead-of-court-appearance">prayer vigils</a>. </p>
<p>What lies behind such adulation? And why were these supporters not outraged at Zuma’s private extravagance, profligacy and brushes with the law?</p>
<h2>Zuma and the prosperity gospel</h2>
<p>While academics have looked at various dimensions of Zuma’s public support, few have taken its religious dimensions seriously. A number of critics have dismissed his religious utterances as mere political populism; another shameless tactic to avoid taking responsibility for his supposed moral decrepitude. </p>
<p>My chapter in the newly published <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/conspicuous-consumption-in-africa/">book</a>, “Conspicuous Consumption in Africa”, deals with Zuma’s “shamelessness” and his continued political support. It takes a closer look at the <a href="https://www.gafcon.org/resources/the-prosperity-gospel-its-concise-theology-challenges-and-opportunities">prosperity gospel</a> to which he has so often referred. </p>
<p>Zuma is well versed in this gospel. Apart from his longstanding membership of various neo-Pentecostal churches, he was ordained as an honorary pastor in the Full Gospel Church <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/pastor-zuma-raises-eyebrows-351761">in 2007</a>. I make no judgements about his personal commitment to neo-Pentecostal values. Nevertheless, my research shows that members of these churches recognised in Zuma’s reckless spending behaviour, his uncompromising fight against dark “enemies” and his political invincibility, the marks of a “blessed” man.</p>
<p>A very specific neo-Pentecostal religious ethic can be recognised in Zuma’s unapologetic conspicuous consumption and how he and his supporters have reacted to his travails. Unlike the Puritan (productionist) ethic that often informs critiques of conspicuous consumption, the neo-Pentecostal ethic is consumerist in its focus. </p>
<p>It’s an ethic that demands of its subscribers that they consume conspicuously and without “shame” as <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/a-church-of-strangers/">“blessed” Christians</a>. At the same time, they have to wage spiritual war on those who undermine their “good fortune”.</p>
<p>Neo-Pentecostalism found enormous traction in many African countries from the late 1970s onwards. It’s also popular <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-aspects-of-pentecostalism-that-shed-light-on-scott-morrisons-politics-117511">beyond Africa</a>. But it was only after apartheid that South Africans started flocking to these churches. Precise figures are lacking, but a <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2006/10/05/historical-overview-of-pentecostalism-in-south-africa/">Pew Forum poll in 2006</a> suggested that over 30% of urban South Africans subscribed to neo-Pentecostalism. Thirteen years later, that figure is much higher.</p>
<h2>A Pentecostalised public space</h2>
<p>As Zuma increasingly fudged the lines between his political and spiritual struggles, his fellow politicians responded in increasingly “religious” ways. Political lackeys sympathised with his “persecution” and saw it as the dark work of invisible forces and <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2014-03-14-demons-cast-out-of-protectors-office-by-pro-sabc-church-leaders">evil conspirators</a>.</p>
<p>Even Zuma’s political enemies increasingly claimed that his continued rule was due to <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2018/01/the-lame-duck-president">occult powers</a>. Thus the public space in South Africa, as in <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286978616_Going_and_making_public_Pentecostalism_as_public_religion_in_Ghana">other African countries</a>, became increasingly “Pentecostalised”. </p>
<p>As African studies scholar, Adriaan van Klinken, has <a href="https://adriaanvanklinken.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/the-pentecostalisation-of-public-spheres/">noted</a>, charismatic Pentecostal Christianity is a “public religion par excellence”. As it engages with social and political issues, it reshapes the public sphere as the scene of a spiritual battle between God and the Devil.</p>
<h2>Neo-Pentecostalism in Africa</h2>
<p>Zuma’s public life has much in common with flamboyant political leaders and former leaders on the continent who have publicly declared their membership, leadership or support of Neo-Pentecostal churches. These leaders <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/African_Christianity.html?id=SDS45RNq6ZkC&redir_esc=y">include</a> Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, of Equatorial Guinea, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Jerry Rawlings, Ghana’s former long-term military ruler.</p>
<p>On the close alliance between some African leaders and neo-Pentecostal churches, Paul Gifford, a professor of religion and philosophy, has remarked that this “domesticated Christianity”, was not <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=geg7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA203&lpg=PA203&dq=Paul+Gifford+(1998:+339)&source=bl&ots=LjQwiviR2p&sig=ACfU3U3ZabbJupok3WzMr-lSY8fLI-JxLA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwijyZStloTjAhVNSRUIHRZMBYIQ6AEwCXoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=Paul%20Gifford%20(1998%3A%20339)&f=false">“concerned with a renewed order</a> or a ‘new Jerusalem’”. </p>
<p>Neo-Pentecostals are thus unlike previous Christian movements such as <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2305-445X2015000100009">black liberation theology</a> that advocated for social justice and the alleviation of poverty. Instead, they individualise the causes of material and political suffering. Followers are urged to fight the Devil rather than push for radical reform. This makes them deeply conservative political subjects.</p>
<p>In the case of Zuma, a specifically neo-Pentecostal ethic has emboldened him to celebrate his conspicuous consumption and political invincibility. This, as scores of his religious followers aspire to similar feats of spiritual accomplishment.</p>
<p><em>Conspicuous Consumption in Africa is edited by Ilana van Wyk and Deborah Posel. Published by <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/conspicuous-consumption-in-africa/">Wits University Press</a>, 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118655/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ilana van Wyk 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>Jacob Zuma’s religious utterances present a conundrum for scholars, as many poor South African Christians support his moral claims and celebrated his ill-gotten riches.Ilana van Wyk, Lecturer in Social Anthropology, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1000422018-07-16T14:09:42Z2018-07-16T14:09:42ZBlame politicians, not Mandela, for South Africa’s unfinished business<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227818/original/file-20180716-44097-192wazu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nelson Mandela, arriving for Thabo Mbeki's inauguration in 2004.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Jon Hrusa</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>July 2018 marks Nelson Mandela’s <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/nelson-mandela-100">centenary year</a>. Why is he still so revered across the world? The answer simply is that he is widely regarded as the personification of values which he spent much of his life fighting for. These included social justice, democracy, and freedom. </p>
<p>At the <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/nelson-mandelas-statement-dock-rivonia-trial">Rivonia Trial</a> in 1964, he asserted that it was these values for which he hoped to live, but for which he was “<a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/i-am-prepared-to-die">prepared to die</a>”. He would spend 27 years in prison before he could realise his dream of a South Africa freed from repressive and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/07/apartheid-south-africa-cape-town-police-protests">brutal racial segregation</a>.</p>
<p>In prison, Mandela’s stature and mythology was carefully nurtured by his movement, the African National Congress <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/">ANC</a>, and the <a href="http://africanactivist.msu.edu/organization.php?name=Anti-Apartheid+Movement">anti-apartheid movement</a>. This established him as the focus for the global struggle against apartheid. </p>
<p>By the 1980s, Mandela was the world’s most famous political prisoner. He was celebrated at <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/nelson-mandela-freedom-rally">rallies</a>, featured on <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/05/world/africa/Mandelas-Struggle-in-Posters.html">protest posters</a>, and immortalised in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNpfJu1CVyc">popular culture</a>.</p>
<p>Mandela’s conviction and adherence to <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/the-freedom-charter">non-racialism and democratic ideals</a> came to symbolise the intrinsic moral nature of the struggle against white minority rule. </p>
<p>In the world’s current international climate of conflict and political cynicism, Mandela’s legacy continues to serve as a rare example of a principled politician who represented an indefatigable commitment to forgiveness and reconciliation. </p>
<p>Mandela commanded respect and moral authority at home and abroad for his strong convictions, humility, and courageous actions that ensured all South Africans could live in a democratic society. These achievements in the face of enormous challenges should not be underestimated.</p>
<p>As South Africa’s first democratic president there was a clear emphasis on transformation for the majority. This came about through political action under the slogan “<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/a-better-life-for-all">a better life for all</a>”, the introduction of a progressive and liberal <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996">constitution</a>, stabilising the economy, and enshrining the ideals of democracy by stepping down from the presidency after one term in office.</p>
<p>Yet there is mounting disquiet and frustration about the slow pace of South Africa’s transformation in the democratic era. This is characterised by stubborn <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/530481521735906534/Overcoming-Poverty-and-Inequality-in-South-Africa-An-Assessment-of-Drivers-Constraints-and-Opportunities">economic inequality</a>, <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=11129">growing unemployment</a>, missed opportunities and the failure to establish the form of “new” society articulated by Mandela.</p>
<p>What would have seemed unthinkable a few years ago is a growing and vocal criticism of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africa-should-undo-mandelas-economic-deals-52767">Mandela’s legacy</a>. The primary target of this frustration is the compromises and reconciliation efforts of the early 1990s, which so endeared Mandela to the world. But for many South Africans the outcomes were too accommodating to the white minority.</p>
<p>Is the mounting criticism of Mandela fair? I would argue not. South Africa currently faces many challenges, but it isn’t Mandela who failed people’s expectations. The blame for that must be put squarely at the door of the country’s politicians.</p>
<h2>Is criticism of Mandela fair?</h2>
<p>First of all its deeply unfair and highly problematic to prescribe South Africa’s current travails on one person. Part of this problem stems from the perception that Mandela single-handedly delivered freedom for South Africa and led the negotiation process. </p>
<p>This is simply not true. And the “single story” is a disservice to the multitude of organisations and activists that fought apartheid including the ANC, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-steve-bikos-remarkable-legacy-often-overlooked-82952">Black Consciousness Movement</a>, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/congress-south-african-trade-unions-cosatu">trade unions</a>, and the <a href="http://www.saha.org.za/udf/origins.htm">United Democratic Front</a>.</p>
<p>In addition it was the collective leadership of the ANC, not Mandela alone, that negotiated with the National Party during the transition process to seek a political compromise. </p>
<p>The ANC should certainly have pushed for more concessions. In reality the party effectively sacrificed wider economic and social change for political power. </p>
<p>It is the lack of substantive change enacted during the transition that has prompted the emerging reevaluation of Mandela’s legacy.</p>
<p>To argue that Mandela “sold out” through these compromises is a misreading of the situation and fundamentally ignores the challenges and constraints of the period. These included: escalating violence across the country; the ANC negotiating from a position of structural weakness; the National Party remaining undefeated; the impossibility of overthrowing the apartheid regime by force; and a fundamentally altered post-Cold War political and economic environment. </p>
<p>Most important of all, 1994 was not supposed to be the final stage for transformation. Rather, it was a platform for future efforts. But the ANC has not succeeded in doing enough to initiate wider-societal transformation since 1994 based on the unfinished business of the negotiations. </p>
<h2>ANC failures</h2>
<p>The party’s inability to implement sustained policy changes for the benefit of the majority is evident from a number of ongoing political debates. These include anger about unemployment, land <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-06-05-south-africa-has-all-legislative-and-policy-tools-for-land-redistribution-politics-patronage-and-governance-paralysis-have-made-it-impossible-so-far/#.W0m4CGfGs7w">expropriation</a> without compensation, and <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1964643/sa-is-shocked-the-anc-is-shocked-about-corruption/">corruption</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, the ANC appears to have lost its sense of direction. The political elite has been badly mired by <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2018/02/15/south-africa-s-divisive-president-zuma-s-many-scandals">scandals</a>, most notably under the former presidency of Jacob Zuma.</p>
<p>There is no doubt Mandela was a complex and flawed individual, but his vision still matters. What is required in this centenary year is for people from all sections of society to work together to embody Mandela’s values and convictions to keep the country moving forward to overcome the deeply ingrained legacies and injustices of the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100042/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Graham 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>Mandela continues to serve as a rare example of a principled politician committed to forgiveness and reconciliation.Matthew Graham, Lecturer in History, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/937952018-03-22T10:17:24Z2018-03-22T10:17:24ZZuma trial means that his toxic legacy will haunt South Africa for some time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211518/original/file-20180322-165580-536a1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's former president Jacob Zuma.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The latest instalment in South Africa’s longest running political soap opera played out dramatically on 16 March when Shaun Abrahams, the head of South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-south-africa-zuma-charges-20180316-story.html">announced</a> that 16 criminal charges against former president Jacob Zuma must stand and be tested in court. </p>
<p>The charges relate to 783 counts of corruption, fraud, money laundering and racketeering. The charges were controversially dropped in 2009 but reinstated by the country’s High Court in 2016. The Supreme Court of Appeal went on to <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/10/13/sca-upholds-high-court-decision-on-zuma-charges">uphold this judgment in 2017</a>.</p>
<p>This is merely one instalment in a drama that may still have some years to run. It can be traced back to the sleaze and kickbacks surrounding the <a href="http://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/the-arms-deal-what-you-need-to-know-2/">arms procurement package</a> of the late 1990s. The allegations were that Zuma was a beneficiary of largesse from certain arms companies in exchange for exerting his influence on their behalf. </p>
<p>The Abrahams decision – made despite opposition fears that, as a Zuma appointee, he might flinch from the challenge - is of enormous significance. A former president is now likely to find himself in the dock at a criminal trial, an unprecedented event in South African history.</p>
<h2>A different political atmosphere</h2>
<p>Looking beyond the groundbreaking historical nature of the decision and its implications for Zuma personally, it seems unlikely that Abrahams’ decision will generate the same passions as the issue did in the 2007-2009 period. At that point Zuma’s standing in the ANC alliance was at an all time high and attempts to prosecute him for corruption were viewed as part of a wider ‘dirty tricks’ campaign to sabotage his rise to the presidencies of <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2008-07-04-anc-boss-accuses-judges-of-conspiracy-against-zuma">both party and state</a>. This included the Thabo Mbeki camp inside the ANC and others outside the party. </p>
<p>His <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-decade-on-a-new-book-on-zumas-rape-trial-has-finally-hit-home-85262">2006 rape trial</a> had been viewed in similar terms by his <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2008-06-17-kill-for-zuma-i-can-explain-says-malema">staunchest backers</a> such as then ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, who subsequently, and rather shamelessly, would reinvent himself as Zuma’s <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/111769/eff-slams-zuma-and-gupta-criminal-enterprises/">chief critic</a>. </p>
<p>Pro-Zuma sentiment was particularly strong on the left of the ANC-led alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party uncritically and unconditionally buying <a href="https://theconversation.com/those-who-brought-zuma-to-power-shouldnt-be-forgotten-or-forgiven-82858">into the mythology around Zuma</a> . They viewed his presidency as an opportunity to engineer a leftwards shift in South Africa’s general political direction after the supposed ‘neo-liberalism’ of the Mbeki years. </p>
<p>Now, in 2018, the left is older and wiser. In the aftermath of a scandal ridden presidency disfigured by <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">endemic corruption</a> and allegations of state capture by private interests close to Zuma, the trade union federation and the Communist Party are more likely to support his prosecution than contest it.</p>
<p>Equally, the broader politics of the issue are now less highly charged. In 2009, Zuma was the president-in-waiting. There was limited enthusiasm, even among his many critics in the movement, to see a South African president inaugurated who faced the realistic prospect of a criminal trial in the foreseeable future. It was felt this would provide a fatal distraction from the responsibilities of government. </p>
<p>As it turned out, he was fatally distracted from those responsibilities anyway by a succession of new scandals which arrived with alarming frequency to paralyse his presidency. These included <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/Public%20Protector's%20Report%20on%20Nkandla_a.pdf">Nkandla</a> (2013/2014), <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-removal-of-south-africas-finance-minister-is-bad-news-for-the-country-52170">Nenegate</a> (December 2015), the sacking of Finance Minister, <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/03/31/zuma-says-reshuffled-cabinet-to-improve-efficiency-and-effectiveness">Pravin Gordhan </a>(March 2017), and the various <a href="http://www.gupta-leaks.com/">state capture reports</a> of 2016/17. </p>
<p>While prosecutors technically make their decisions on narrow legal grounds, one should not assume they are entirely insulated from broader political and societal pressures in their decision making. Now, however, Zuma is merely a former president and an ANC member. Consequently, the protective shield previously extended by the governing party will not be there. And, given the other scandals mentioned above and with a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-has-a-new-leader-but-south-africa-remains-on-a-political-precipice-89248">new leader in place</a>, he may only be able to draw on very modest support from within the ANC’s ranks.</p>
<h2>The double-edged sword</h2>
<p>Zuma’s proposed prosecution is a welcome reaffirmation of the principle that all are equal before the law. But a trial carries with it very real dangers for the ANC. </p>
<p>First, it will serve to remind a wider South African audience that Zuma did not emerge in a vacuum. He is a product of the ANC. The party elected him twice as its president and, before recalling him in February 2017, <a href="https://theconversation.com/survey-shows-zuma-and-ancs-mutual-dance-to-the-bottom-92126">rallied round</a> him during the Nkandla saga and in numerous parliamentary <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/breaking-zuma-survives-vote-of-no-confidence-20170808">votes of no-confidence</a>. Its own National Executive Committee also <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-11-29-zuma-avoids-nec-recall-as-anc-turns-to-unity/#.WrLNTkx2vmI">rejected demands</a> for his recall on several occasions. It will be difficult if not impossible for the ANC to avoid some collateral damage as it was unquestionably the chief facilitator and enabler of that discredited era.</p>
<p>Second, there is always the risk that a trial will see the movement’s dirty laundry being aired in public by Zuma. This will be particularly true if he believes his fate is sealed, taking the opportunity for a wider settling of scores with others in the ANC. The trial could then become an endurance test for the ANC and a propaganda windfall for its opponents reminding South Africans in graphic detail of the looting and embezzlement over which the movement has presided. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa will hope that Zuma’s lawyers revisit their earlier so-called ‘Stalingrad strategy’ of delays and prevarication so that when it finally commences it does so after – and not before – the <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/newsmaker-2019-elections-results-will-be-credible-20171015-2">2019 election</a>. On past evidence there are likely <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-03-18-anc-facing-charges-can-zuma-still-split-the-party/">to be numerous attempts</a> by his lawyers to actually prevent the case from ever coming to court.</p>
<p>For the trial to take place in the run up to, and during that election campaign, would be extremely unwelcome for the new leadership. It will blunt the Ramaphosa message that he is ‘purifying’ the movement, restoring its traditional values, and seeking closure on a discredited era. </p>
<p>Moreover, even in the aftermath of an election, the issue will return to the top of Ramaphosa’s agenda if Zuma is eventually found guilty. The question of granting or not granting him a pardon will then arise. This will test the credentials of a leader supposedly making a definitive break with a sordid past. </p>
<p>It is also possible <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2018/01/23/zondo-inquiry-will-investigate-everybody-and-anybody_a_23341033/">that further charges </a> could be brought against Zuma once the whole state capture phenomenon is laid bare by an <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/live-zondo-to-reveal-team-to-tackle-claims-of-state-capture-20180307">official commission of inquiry</a> headed by <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2018/01/10/raymond-zondo-who-is-the-man-behind-sas-biggest-probe_a_23329381/">Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo</a>. The state capture saga makes the existing charges against Zuma look insubstantial by comparison. </p>
<p>Zuma’s presidency may be over, but his toxic legacy seems likely to haunt the ANC – and through it South Africa - for some considerable time yet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93795/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>Former South African president Jacob Zuma’s proposed prosecution is a welcome reaffirmation of the principle that all are equal before the law.James Hamill, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/921262018-03-11T09:02:35Z2018-03-11T09:02:35ZSurvey shows Zuma and ANC’s mutual dance to the bottom<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207126/original/file-20180220-116365-livi1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former South African President Jacob Zuma sings at the ANC National Conference in December. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Opinion polls in South Africa have clearly shown the sharp decline in citizens’ approval of Jacob Zuma’s performance as president over the past three years. What has been less clear is the impact on the governing African National Congress (ANC). He was also the president of the ANC, until his term ended in December and he was <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-has-a-new-leader-but-south-africa-remains-on-a-political-precipice-89248">replaced by Cyril Ramaphosa</a>. </p>
<p>For many years, Zuma was considered a <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-03-18-parliament-diary-jacob-zuma-the-teflon-president/#.Wowjk4NubIU">“Teflon” president</a>. He seemed to maintain public support even in the face of controversial decisions and scandals because of his personal appeal as an affable populist. Several surveys placed his <a href="http://afrobarometer.org/publications/ad66-south-africans-have-lost-confidence-zuma-believe-he-ignores-parliament-and-law">approval ratings in the 60%</a> <a href="https://upjournals.co.za/index.php/Politeia/article/view/3247">to 70%</a>
range throughout his first term in office. Once that image was finally pierced, one might have logically expected his downfall to be equally personal, and not take the party down with him.</p>
<p>But new results from the <a href="http://citizensurveys.com/sa-citizens-survey/">December 2017 South African Citizen Survey</a> demonstrate just the opposite. Asking a widely used measure of party support called partisan identification, a strong predictor of both voter turnout and vote choice, only 32% of those surveyed said they “felt close” to the ANC. This is the worst result recorded in the past 17 years, and statistically tied as the lowest level since 1994.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209885/original/file-20180312-30975-7u4l97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209885/original/file-20180312-30975-7u4l97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209885/original/file-20180312-30975-7u4l97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209885/original/file-20180312-30975-7u4l97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209885/original/file-20180312-30975-7u4l97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209885/original/file-20180312-30975-7u4l97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209885/original/file-20180312-30975-7u4l97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">ANC Identification.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Zuma, it seems, pulled the ANC down with him. But this question is not asked very frequently by South African polling organisations. Fortunately, it’s possible to turn to an alternative indicator to get a more fine grained take on recent trends in ANC support. </p>
<p>The South African Citizen Survey also asks respondents to rate how much they “like or dislike” each major political party on a scale of 0 to 10. In mid-2015, 61% of South Africans held a positive view of the ANC. Two and a half years later, only 43% feel this way. More importantly, the proportion who give the ANC a higher score than any other party has shrunk from over one half of the electorate in mid-2015 (55%), to just over one third (37%) in the most recent survey as shown below.</p>
<h2>Presiding over electoral decline</h2>
<p>To be sure, it was already clear from the ANC’s loss of seats in the National Assembly and provincial legislatures in the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2014-05-11-the-partys-over-anc-sees-decline-in-support">2009 and 2014 national elections</a> that Zuma was presiding over an electoral decline, however small. This should have become even clearer in 2016, when large numbers of ANC members lost their seats as municipal councillors, positions in executive councils, and mayorships of major metropolitan councils.</p>
<p>Yet many of these losses could have been pinned to the poor performance of the post-2008 economy. Indeed, ever since 1994, the degree of economic optimism (as measured by the proportion of South Africans who expect the economy to improve in the next year) has been a strong predictor of popular support for the ANC.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209886/original/file-20180312-30983-13v78gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209886/original/file-20180312-30983-13v78gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209886/original/file-20180312-30983-13v78gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209886/original/file-20180312-30983-13v78gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209886/original/file-20180312-30983-13v78gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209886/original/file-20180312-30983-13v78gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209886/original/file-20180312-30983-13v78gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the evidence suggests that over the past year, voter support for the ANC became tied to their views of Jacob Zuma, rather than the economy. While Zuma’s popularity has fallen steadily since at least the end of 2015, the biggest single drop took place in April 2017 when his support levels plummeted by 12 percentage points on the heels of the public firestorm that followed the <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/03/31/zuma-says-reshuffled-cabinet-to-improve-efficiency-and-effectiveness">March cabinet re-shuffle</a> and sacking of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan. </p>
<p>Yet, even with the resultant damage to the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-30/south-africa-s-rand-extends-slump-as-zuma-fires-finance-minister">currency and the markets</a>, South Africans began to sense an economic turnaround. By year’s end, 48% expected the economy to get better in the next 12 months, and 59% expected their household living conditions to improve. But peoples’ evaluations of Zuma’s job performance continued to plummet (to just 22%), and the public image of the ANC remained at historically low levels.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209887/original/file-20180312-30969-1w1vujz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209887/original/file-20180312-30969-1w1vujz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209887/original/file-20180312-30969-1w1vujz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209887/original/file-20180312-30969-1w1vujz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209887/original/file-20180312-30969-1w1vujz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209887/original/file-20180312-30969-1w1vujz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209887/original/file-20180312-30969-1w1vujz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">ANC Zuma.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Thus, voters finally turned on Zuma, but only after a long string of <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2018/02/15/south-africa-s-divisive-president-zuma-s-many-scandals">personal scandals</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosa-must-fuse-fixing-broken-institutions-and-economic-policy-92017">bad political decisions</a>, and public outrage over the use of public money on his private homestead <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/Public%20Protector's%20Report%20on%20Nkandla_a.pdf">Nkandla</a>, the <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/FULL-TEXT-Statement-by-Public-Protector-on-Nkandla-Report-20140319">“capture”</a> of key state institutions by Gupta-friendly ministers and directors, and cabinet reshuffles. </p>
<p>Yet the ANC continued to shield him from the courts, the <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/motshekga-calls-madonselas-powers-be-amended">Public Protector</a>, and from successive <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-confidence-vote-a-victory-for-zuma-but-a-defeat-for-the-anc-82244">votes of no confidence</a> in parliament. Indeed, the party came very close to electing his <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/president-publicly-endorses-nkosazana-dlamini-zuma-for-anc-leader">hand-chosen successor</a>, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, as its <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/markets/2017-12-19-ramaphosa-rally-stumbles-on-narrow-victory/">new leader</a> and presumptive national president.</p>
<p>But at some point in the past few months, a sufficient number of party members finally seemed to grasp the fact that Zuma’s continued presence threatened the electoral interests of the party as well as their own political futures, particularly those who appeared downwind on the party list. But it took them a very long time to reach this conclusion, and the party has paid dearly in terms of its connection with the electorate.</p>
<p>Zuma dragged the ANC down with him. Yet many might justifiably argue that it has been a mutual waltz to the bottom: while his behaviour and decisions damaged his own image, the ANC’s tolerance of his sins of governance has tarnished theirs.</p>
<p>President Cyril Ramaphosa therefore faces a double challenge. Not only must he reestablish a positive connection between the presidency and the people, but he must also transform the battered image of the ANC.</p>
<p><strong>Tables updated 12 March 2018</strong></p>
<p><em>The South African Citizens Survey is based on face-to-face interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,300 respondents a month. Results are reported quarterly on a total of 3,900 respondents, which produces results with a margin of error margin of error of ±1.5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Sampling sites are chosen at random across all provinces, and metro, urban and rural areas, with probability proportionate to population size, based on the latest StatsSA estimates of the population aged 18 and older. Interviews are conducted in English, isiZulu, isiXhosa, Afrikaans, Sesotho, Sepedi, and Setswana. Weights are applied to ensure the sample represents the most recent national population with respect to province, race, gender, age and area type.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92126/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Mattes is Professor of Government and Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde, Honorary Professor at the Institute for Democracy, Citizenship and Public Policy in Africa at the University of Cape Town, co-founder and Senior Adviser to Afrobarometer, and has previously worked as a consultant to Citizen Surveys. He receives funding from the South African National Research Foundation, </span></em></p>Former South African President Jacob Zuma’s bad behaviour damaged his image and the ANC’s.Robert Mattes, Professor in the Department of Political Studies, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/858682017-10-18T15:04:49Z2017-10-18T15:04:49ZWhy media freedom remains fragile in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190831/original/file-20171018-32345-18kfusq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators protest against the decision by the South African Broadcasting Corporation to stop airing violent protest scenes.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Four decades after the <a href="http://www.apartheidmuseum.org/sites/default/files/files/BIKO%203b.pdf">Black Wednesday</a> crackdown on the media and the black consciousness movement, South Africa is a different country. Freedom of expression is guaranteed in the <a href="https://www.gov.za/DOCUMENTS/CONSTITUTION/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-1">constitution</a> and a <a href="http://www.constitutionalcourt.org.za/site/constitution/english-web/ch9.html">slew of institutions</a> and laws support the guarantee. At the same time, powerful groups continue to seek ways to limit and undermine journalism.</p>
<p>On October 19, 1977, two South African newspapers - World and Weekend World - and a church journal - Pro Veritate - <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/remembering-qobozas-sense-of-duty-1594527#.ViI2CX4rLnA">were closed</a>, journalists were banned and detained and some 18 organisations of the black consciousness movement were banned. Since then, the country’s journalists have marked the day as Media Freedom Day.</p>
<p>The 1977 crackdown went further than even the apartheid cabinet of the time had decided: cabinet minutes from the day before, laboriously written in longhand in leather-covered volumes held in the national archives, record the decision that the World newspaper “be suspended for a week” and that the editor Percy Qoboza and others be detained. The Weekend World is not mentioned. </p>
<p>In fact, both papers were banned permanently. There are other differences: the list of organisations actually closed is much longer than was decided by <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/bj-vorster-steps-down-prime-minster">Prime Minister BJ Vorster’s</a> cabinet.</p>
<p>One can speculate about the reasons for the difference between decision and implementation – perhaps the powerful apartheid police simply thought they knew better than their political bosses.</p>
<p>Black Wednesday remains a particularly brutal act of repression in a long line of attempts to silence critical media voices. There have been many victims, before and since. </p>
<p>What’s clear is that the battle for media freedom in South Africa isn’t over. Attacks on journalists continue – whether in the form of physical intimidation or through the threat of new legal measures that seek to restrict the media’s ability to do its job. And the online world has opened up new frontiers that need defending. </p>
<h2>Targeting journalists</h2>
<p>Journalism is under attack from a number of quarters.</p>
<p>A number of laws and bills contain problematical provisions. The board of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, who met in Durban in June, <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-06-12-worlds-press-calls-for-renewed-solidarity-in-the-wake-of-threats-to-independent-free-media-in-sa/">highlighted concerns</a> with bills on cybersecurity, hate crimes and films and publications as infringing on media freedom. </p>
<p>Then there’s the Protection of State Information Bill (generally called the<br>
<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/29/south-africa-secrecy-bill-improved-still-flawed">Secrecy Bill</a>, whose problematical provisions include an overly broad definition of the national interest and which would severely restrict the freedom to report. The bill was passed in 2013 but is still awaiting signature on President Jacob Zuma’s desk. </p>
<p>There also appears to be a concerted move to reopen the debate around a <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/contentious-media-tribunal-still-on-the-cards-20170708">Media Appeals Tribunal</a> through a parliamentary inquiry, which would subject the media to regulation by Parliament. </p>
<p>Also, this year has seen attempts to intimidate and threaten journalists, most notably by Black First Land First <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/07/28/police-criticised-for-failing-to-stop-blf-harassment">(BLF)</a> and other proxies in what has become known as the <a href="http://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">state capture project</a>. This has involved attempts by powerful individuals and groups to shape South Africa’s political and economic landscape through corrupt relationships and deals to benefit their own private interests. After BLF’s protest at the home of former Business Day editor Peter Bruce in June turned violent, the South African National Editors Forum obtained a <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/08/09/all-journalists-now-protected-against-blf-harassment">court interdict</a> against the organisation and its leader Andile Mngxitama.
As the forum’s chairperson Mahlatse Gallens pointed out in her response to the court ruling:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They have specifically targeted journalists that have done in-depth reporting on allegations of corruption and state capture. We will not be deterred.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These kinds of attacks attest to the strength and importance of journalism in present-day South Africa. From exposes on the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2009-12-04-zumas-r65m-nkandla-splurge">Nkandla scandal</a> to the <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/gupta-leakscom-everything-you-ever-need-to-know-about-guptaleaks-in-one-place-20170721">Gupta emails</a>, which detailed the extent of <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/download-the-full-state-of-capture-pdf-20161102">state capture</a>, journalistic investigations have set the public agenda. Government ministers have been forced to account and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/sep/07/bell-pottinger-could-go-under-within-days-sources-claim">international corporations</a> have been ruined following exposure of their complicity. </p>
<p>When around 1000 of the world’s investigative journalists gather for the <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/general-news/2017/2017-10/global-investigative-journalism-conference-programme-released.html">Global Investigative Journalism Conference</a> at Wits University in a few weeks – the first time the event is held in Africa - the South African experience will be of considerable interest.</p>
<h2>Media freedom in a changed era</h2>
<p>Attacks and threats to media freedom are a mark of the importance of journalism, but the effects are felt by the citizenry at large. <a href="https://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/download/Current_threats_journalism.pdf">As the Council of Europe</a> pointed out in a paper on protecting journalists, interference with media freedom </p>
<blockquote>
<p>is simultaneously an interference with the public’s right to receive information or ideas.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The constitutionally guaranteed right to free expression is mainly about citizens’ right to be informed; journalists hold it in trust for the broader public. Journalism and its organisations have not always been successful in making that point clear.</p>
<p>Seen in that light, the media freedom discussion needs to broaden out and take into account developments which do not amount to direct attempts to harass journalists, but damage their ability to do this important work in other ways.</p>
<p>The long-standing business model of journalistic media is in terminal decline as audiences move to online and social media. Legacy media companies are under <a href="http://www.journalism.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/State-of-the-newsroom-2014.pdf">intense financial pressure</a> and staffing levels in newsrooms keep dropping. Investment in the time and effort to do journalism of quality is way down.</p>
<p>At the same time, the growth of online platforms has led to an explosion of available information. In many senses, this has been positive, but it has also opened the door to abuse. The campaign in support of state capture involved the extensive use of social media for <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-09-04-how-the-gupta-campaign-weaponised-social-media/">cyber-bullying </a> and to create the illusion of a groundswell of opinion that does not exist.</p>
<p>The use of information as a weapon is not new - propaganda is as old as the hills, and South African political and factional campaigns have often made use of leaks as a form of warfare. But we seem to be entering a new phase where it becomes harder and harder to distinguish real exposes from the false kind. Some journalists and media outlets, in some cases liberally supported by public funding, are allowing themselves to be used for factional ends.</p>
<p>Trust is journalism’s most valuable asset. In an era of fake news, that trust is harmed not only by what the media themselves may do, but by what is done by pedlars of misinformation, who are often hard to distinguish from professional journalists.</p>
<p>A loss of trust may in the long run cause more harm to journalism than the repressive tactics of past decades.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85868/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Franz Krüger is head of the journalism programme at Wits University. He is a member of the SA National Editors Forum. </span></em></p>As South Africa marks Media Freedom Day, it’s clear that its battle isn’t over. Attacks on journalists continue –through physical intimidation and there’s also the threat of new laws.Franz Krüger, Adjunct Professor of Journalism and Director of the Wits Radio Academy, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/795062017-06-27T14:57:23Z2017-06-27T14:57:23ZANC take heed: even big brands die if they abandon their founding values<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175576/original/file-20170626-32719-zev6b7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">ANC supporters cheer during their party's final election rally in Soweto, May 4, 2014.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-african-general-elections-1994">1994</a> the idea that the African National Congress (ANC) might lose power in South Africa was unthinkable. Now, with elections approaching in 2019, the party is on the ropes. It’s a classic tale of a strong brand that has been allowed to denature, thanks to a string of scandals and the inability to deliver basic services consistently. </p>
<p>The question is, can it be saved?</p>
<p>Lessons learnt from the business world suggest that faltering brands can be saved if they address what is killing them. </p>
<p>Strategy consultant Thabang Motsohi <a href="http://thoughtleader.co.za/thabangmotsohi/2016/09/22/the-anc-must-undergo-creative-destruction-to-re-invent-itself-and-survive/">argues</a> that when sales and profits decline in a business – read when votes decline in politics– it means that the brand has started to erode and the faith that it’s adherents have is waning. Rebuilding it can be challenging and disruptive. And this assumes the managers of the brand have realised that they are failing their support base. </p>
<p>To start, the problems that caused the decline must first be recognised and fixed before the brand rebuilding can resume. Some brands literally disappear from history through bad strategic judgements that lead to self destruction. </p>
<p>Brand management theory and strategy emphasises two fundamental transgressions that can lead to the demise of a brand: violating the brand promise and jettisoning the values that are important to the brand and its supporters. </p>
<p>The ANC had developed into a powerful brand over its 104 year history in a way that inspired devotion among its followers that has bordered on the religious. </p>
<p>But Africa’s best known liberation movement is in trouble. For the first time since 1994, the ANC faces the risk of <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/">losing power</a>. </p>
<p>In business, and in politics, brands can disappear irrespective of how strong they might have been at a particular time. The same is true of the ANC. Despite President Jacob Zuma’s <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2016-07-05-zuma-repeats-that-anc-will-rule-until-jesus-comes">claim</a> that the ANC will rule until Jesus comes, the party runs the risk of imploding if it doesn’t recognise it’s problems and re-invents itself. </p>
<h2>ANC loses its way</h2>
<p>The handling of scandals by ANC leaders to date has not been reassuring. Its promise of freedom, peace and a better life for all, as well as a future of hope and democracy, is being violated by a growing list of misdemeanours. They include the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancs-failure-to-do-the-right-thing-has-left-south-africa-at-an-impasse-57130?sr=1">Nkandla debacle</a> and serious allegations that the president, his family and allies, are benefiting from dubious deals with the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-22513410">Gupta family</a>. </p>
<p>The fact that the economy is in <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-in-a-recession-heres-what-that-means-78953?sr=1">recession</a>, the ranks of the <a href="http://www.heraldlive.co.za/news/2017/06/01/sas-unemployment-rate-hits-13-year-high/">jobless</a> are growing and that investors are giving South Africa a wide berth because of cronyism, uncertainty and corruption mean that the ANC is seen as unable to govern with integrity and competence.</p>
<p>Some within the ANC are aware of the fact that the party has lost its way. The resistance to a Zuma way is growing. Examples include comments by Deputy President <a href="http://citizen.co.za/news/news-national/1475330/unite-greedy-corrupt-people-ramaphosa-urges-sa/">Cyril Ramaphosa</a> and ANC member of parliament <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2016/12/14/who-is-anc-mp-dr-makhosi-khoza-and-why-is-everyone-a-little-in-l_a_21628135/">Makhosi Khoza</a>. With more senior party members speaking openly about the shortcomings of the organisation, there is a glimmer of hope that the brand can be saved. </p>
<p>Johnny Johnson, a brand and communications strategist, <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/business-report/opinion/employees-are-the-best-brand-agents-7984598">argues</a> that everyone in an organisation needs to live up to the brand promise. But, he says, an organisation’s leaders are responsible for looking after the brand and making sure it has integrity. This may even be their most important role. </p>
<h2>Jettisoning the values</h2>
<p>Taking from the <a href="https://www.ujuh.co.za/remember-the-freedom-charter-what-it-actually-says/">Freedom Charter</a>, the ANC preaches equality, prosperity and security. It says that its core values are to build a country that’s united and based on principles of non-racialism, non-sexism and that’s democratic and prosperous. </p>
<p>But the ANC has stopped living up to these values. Service delivery is chequered, tenders are going to connected family and friends, laws are openly flouted, the elite governing class are disconnected from real life, pockets are being lined and paranoia rules. It’s like an amplified version of a restaurant that now only caters for it’s own staff and treats paying customers with disdain. And then seizes the owners shareholding and gives it to the head waiter and his friends. </p>
<p>To fix its brand, the ANC needs moral guardians who will enforce and promote the party’s core values. Maybe then it can live up to the trust placed in it by its great leaders of the past and the country.</p>
<h2>What can the ANC do?</h2>
<p>Opposition parties are <a href="https://www.ujuh.co.za/maimane-we-see-opportunities-to-takeover-national-government-from-anc-in-2019/">waiting in the wings</a> to capitalise on the ANC’s weaknesses. So, what can the party do to stave off this challenge? </p>
<p>A good place to start would be honest self searching and a realisation that the party needs to serve the country and not itself. Perhaps a good old fashioned “SWOT” (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis might help the situation. It must clearly identify, among other things, the party’s core values, strengths that it can build on and the weaknesses that have led to its current state. And then to decide if it is a party that puts the country and all it’s people first, or if it caters only to one target audience and doesn’t care about alienating others.</p>
<p>An honest self appraisal and resistance to special interest factions is key to an analysis that informs future strategies of re-building or re-positioning the ANC brand. One of the few strengths of the party is the fact that it has been in government for a very long time and has done quite a lot of good. </p>
<p>It should look to highlight some of these achievements while reiterating and acting on the noble ambitions of 1994. It has to put able and honest people in positions of influence, not compliant and greedy cadres whose self interest is a deterrent to economic stability, growth, opportunity creation and non-discrimination. The brand promise needs to become the brand reality. </p>
<p>The ANC also has an opportunity to renew itself by promoting a new breed of uncorrupted young leaders, and taking strong action against those seen to be tarnishing the brand or playing to the tune of an alternate or captured state. Thus far, the party has failed to take this opportunity with all the enthusiasm and purpose that it is capable of, and regrettably seems unlikely to do so. This brand is in trouble.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79506/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raymond van Niekerk 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 brand of South Africa’s ruling party, the 104-year-old ANC, is in serious decline. The party needs to act decisively to stop this.Raymond van Niekerk, Adjunct Professor, with expertise in Branding, Marketing, Business Strategy, Corporate Citizenship and Social Responsibility. Graduate School of Business, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/800092017-06-25T10:01:03Z2017-06-25T10:01:03ZSouth Africa’s Jacob Zuma is fast running out of political lives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175366/original/file-20170623-22683-1d6klld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's President Jacob Zuma isn't blinking despite suffering another resounding loss in the Constitutional Court. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Like the proverbial cat with nine lives, South Africa’s scandal-ridden president, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jacob-gedleyihlekisa-zuma">Jacob Zuma</a>, may well have escaped yet again with his political life. This despite another resounding loss in the country’s highest court. </p>
<p>The Constitutional Court <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2017-06-22-read-in-full-concourt-ruling-on-secret-ballot/">ruled</a> that there was no constitutional bar to the Speaker of the National Assembly, <a href="http://www.news24.com/Tags/People/baleka_mbete">Baleka Mbete</a>, opting to employ a secret ballot in a no confidence vote in parliament. She’d originally asserted that she didn’t have the authority to make this decision, prompting several opposition parties – furious at Zuma’s increasingly dictatorial project of <a href="http://ewn.co.za/Topic/State-Capture">“state capture”</a> – to take the matter to court. </p>
<p>South Africa’s judicial system continues to hold firm. This is despite the fact that there appears to be a concerted and well coordinated campaign by a group of politicians and businessmen to undermine the integrity of state institutions as well as to exploit their weaknesses to prosecute a project of self-enrichment and rent-seeking. The campaign is pivoted around the now notorious <a href="https://mg.co.za/tag/gupta-family">Gupta family</a>.</p>
<p>Zuma has been brought to book repeatedly by the courts. In March last year, the Constitutional Court <a href="http://city-press.news24.com/News/constitutional-courts-damning-judgment-zuma-violated-his-oath-of-office-20160331">found</a> that Zuma, as well as parliament, had violated the Constitution. They did so by failing to defend and uphold the constitutional authority of South Africa’s ombud – it’s Public Protector – who had conducted an investigation into the president’s private homestead, <a href="https://mg.co.za/report/zumaville-a-special-report">Nkandla</a>. She found that Zuma and his family had unlawfully benefited. He was required to pay back nearly R8 million to the state. Yet, following a <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2016/04/01/Full-text-of-President-Zumas-speech-on-Concourt-Nkandla-judgment">half-baked apology</a>, Zuma held onto power. </p>
<p>In parliament he’s survived a number of no confidence votes <a href="http://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/mps-reject-motion-no-confidence-against-president">mounted</a> by the opposition. He also dodged two such attempts in the national executive committee of his own party, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) – <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2016/11/27/anxious-wait-for-outcomes-of-hanekom-s-motion-against-zuma">one</a> in November last year and most recently <a href="http://citizen.co.za/news/news-national/1526627/netshitenzhe-tables-motion-of-no-confidence-in-zuma-at-nec-meeting/">in late May</a>. He’s been backed by an increasingly slender yet sufficient number of loyalists and nationalists for whom Zuma provides political cover for their populist and self-serving call for “radical economic transformation”. </p>
<h2>Tipping point</h2>
<p>The tipping point for the latest legal skirmish was Zuma’s reckless and apparently self-interested decision to <a href="https://theconversation.com/firing-of-south-africas-finance-minister-puts-the-public-purse-in-zumas-hands-75525?sr=16">fire</a> South Africa’s widely respected minister of finance, Pravin Gordhan, on 30 March this year. </p>
<p>Despite a cold war with Zuma, Gordhan had <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-cant-save-itself-just-by-talking-the-talk-it-must-walk-the-walk-73863?sr=7">held the line</a> against “state capture” for 15 months after his reappointment in December 2015. And so as night follows day, Gordhan’s removal precipitated an immediate ratings’ agency downgrade. The downgrade added further pressure to an already weak economy, undermining any prospects of economic growth to address the high levels of unemployment and inequality that threaten its precarious social stability. </p>
<p>Once again, in response to Zuma’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/stakes-for-south-africas-democracy-are-high-as-zuma-plunges-the-knife-75550?sr=21">ill-considered cabinet reshuffle</a>, the largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, tabled a motion of no confidence in the national assembly. There has been an apparent shift in attitude in the ANC’s parliamentary caucus suggesting that the no confidence vote might have a chance of succeeding. Many ANC MPs are now anxious about the party’s prospects at the 2019 national election and their own political future. </p>
<p>But there’s also concern over Zuma’s apparent hold over many backbench MPs. Many of them fear retribution and expulsion should they vote against the president. If an MP ceases to be a member of the party on whose list they stood at election time, they automatically lose their seat in parliament.</p>
<p>Because of this one of the smaller opposition parties, the United Democratic Movement, requested the speaker to use a secret ballot to enable MPs to vote with their conscience. Mbete, who is also the national chairperson of the ANC, refused. She claimed that she did not have the power to make the decision.</p>
<p>The Constitution is unclear. It provides for the president and the cabinet to be removed by the national assembly by a bare majority following “a vote”. In the secret ballot case, the court could have interpreted “a vote” to mean “a secret vote”. Equally, however, the failure of the Constitution to specify a secret ballot in the case of a no confidence vote could mean an open ballot was intended. </p>
<p>So on June 22, the Constitutional Court took neither route. It held that,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the Constitution could have provided for a vote by secret ballot or open ballot. It did neither.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Rather it held that, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the national assembly has … in effect empowered the Speaker to decide how a particular motion of no confidence in the President is to be conducted. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Accordingly, the Court set aside the Speaker’s decision that she lacked constitutional power to order a secret ballot. Notably, Zuma had entered the proceedings to argue, like the Speaker, that there was no power to order a secret ballot and no need to do so. </p>
<p>The court pointedly observed that Mbete has “an enormous responsibility” to ensure that when she decides whether on a “situation specific” case-by-case basis a secret ballot should be employed. She should do so on a “rational and proper basis”, with due and careful regard to a purpose of the no confidence vote. Importantly, the court noted that the primary duty of MPs is to the Constitution and not to their parties. </p>
<p>The implication is that the ability of MPs to vote with their conscience in such a situation is clearly a factor that the speaker should take into account when making her decision. Some critics will regard the court’s “guidance” as insufficiently precise. But the court was clearly anxious not to encroach on separation of powers – perhaps mindful of the virulent claims from some quarters of “judicial over-reach”.</p>
<p>Mbete will have to choose between her loyalty to her president as one of the ANC’s <a href="https://mg.co.za/tag/anc-top-six">“top six”</a> leadership and her duty to the Constitution as speaker. </p>
<h2>Zuma unperturbed</h2>
<p>Later on the same day of the judgment Zuma was <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/06/22/watch-zuma-answers-questions-on-state-capture">answering questions</a> in parliament. Judging by his typically thick-skinned signs of confidence, the president is not unduly perturbed by the court’s ruling. </p>
<p>While the court stated the power to decide on whether to hold a secret ballot or not should “not be exercised arbitrarily or whimsically”, Zuma has already made it clear that he expects Mbete to decide that a secret ballot is inappropriate or unnecessary. </p>
<p>Parliament returns after its current mid-year winter recess in August. If Mbete once again declines to hold a secret ballot, her decision will, in turn, then be subject to judicial review application. In due course the court could be forced to order her to hold a secret ballot. </p>
<p>So despite the Constitutional Court judgment, and the lucidity of it’s reasoning, a no confidence vote held with a secret ballot is still some way off. Until then, Zuma lives to fight another day. </p>
<p>But with every day passing, December’s ANC national elective conference gets closer. Then Zuma’s term as president of the ANC expires. Then his power will decline potentially decisively. </p>
<p>One way or another, Zuma is running out of political lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Calland is a member of the advisory council of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC) and a Director and Founding Partner of The Paternoster Group: African Political Insight. He also serves on the Board of the Open Democracy Advice Centre. </span></em></p>President Jacob Zuma has been brought to book repeatedly by South Africa’s courts. He also faces a rising tide of discontent. One way or another, he seems to be running out of political lives.Richard Calland, Associate Professor in Public Law, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/799312017-06-22T13:19:48Z2017-06-22T13:19:48ZA public protector’s job is to make sure people stick to the law - not to change it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175162/original/file-20170622-12027-uyy26c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Busisiwe Mkhwebane, the public protector of South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has directed a parliamentary portfolio committee to initiate proceedings to amend a clause in the country’s <a href="http://www.gov.za/DOCUMENTS/CONSTITUTION/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-1">Constitution</a> that sets out the primary aim of the country’s Reserve Bank.</p>
<p>As many commentators have <a href="http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/absa-is-poster-child-for-apartheid-corruption-but-this-does-not-mean-the-public-protector-can-order-the-amendment-of-the-constitution/#more-9810">pointed out</a>, the Public Protector cannot order that the Constitution be amended. It is not part of her job and it’s outside her powers.</p>
<p>The Constitution gives the Public Protector the <a href="http://www.constitutionalcourt.org.za/site/constitution/english-web/ch9.html">task of investigating</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>any conduct in state affairs, or in the public administration in any sphere of government, that is alleged or suspected to be improper or to result in any impropriety or prejudice. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The focus of her investigation is thus conduct. This is underscored and fleshed out by the <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/Act23of1994.pdf">Public Protector Act</a>. The Act empowers her to investigate, among other things: maladministration, abuse of power, dishonest acts or omissions, improper enrichment, and acts or admissions which result in unlawful or improper prejudice to any other person.</p>
<p>In this case, the Public Protector claimed to approach her investigation by asking two questions: what happened? And, what should have happened? </p>
<p>The first is a question of fact. But to answer the second question she notes that the focus moves to</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the law or rules that regulate the standard that should have been met by the government or organ of state to prevent maladministration and prejudice. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, it is the law that provides the points of reference which tell her whether the banks and government’s acts or omissions constitute misconduct.</p>
<p>But what the Public Protector wants to do is to change the law itself. She is not satisfied with determining whether the Reserve Bank and government obeyed the relevant, current rules: she wants to write new ones. </p>
<p>Indeed, her recommendation goes well beyond changing individual rules to overturning their very foundation, anchored in the Constitution. She has ordered that a major decision of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/drafting-and-acceptance-constitution">Constitutional Assembly</a>, which drew up the Constitution following the first democratic elections in 1994, on a complex matter of economic policy, be thrown out.</p>
<p>This can’t be right.</p>
<h2>No precedent</h2>
<p>We must not be persuaded that there is any precedent for this. In her <a href="http://www.da.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/State-of-Capture-14-October-2016.pdf">“State of Capture”</a> report, the previous Public Protector, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-africas-public-protector-has-set-a-high-bar-for-her-successor-63891?sr=1">Thuli Madonsela</a>, found that members of Cabinet had violated their obligations under the Constitution and the <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/legis/num_act/emea1998252.pdf">Executive Members Ethics Act</a> by failing to prevent the misuse of state funds to upgrade the president’s private residence. </p>
<p>Part of her remedial action was to recommend that the secretary of Cabinet update the policy to provide ministers with more detailed guidance, and to recommend that the minister of police review the Apartheid-era <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/39147_gen874.pdf">National Key Points Act</a>. This review was required to clarify the Act’s application and to bring it in line with the Constitution. </p>
<p>There are two major differences between these recommendations and an instruction that a constitutional provision be reworded in a specific manner.</p>
<p>Mkhwebane prescribed the exact wording of the new provision. She said that the clause which currently reads:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The primary object of the South African Reserve Bank is to protect the value of the currency in the interest of balance and sustainable economic growth in the Republic.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Should instead <a href="http://www.pprotect.org/library/investigation_report/2016-17/Report%208%20of%202017&2018%20Public%20Protector%20South%20Africa.pdf">read</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The primary object of the South African Reserve Bank is to promote balanced and sustainable economic growth in the Republic, whilst ensuring that the socio-economic well-being of the citizens is protected.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is quite a different matter. Neither of Madonsela’s recommendation sets out the wording of the new provisions, merely the goal they should achieve. And each is aimed at bringing the relevant provisions into compliance with higher laws to which they are subject – either the Executive Ethics Act or the Constitution itself. And this is because it is the job of the Public Protector to remedy specific misconduct, and the job of Parliament to make laws.</p>
<p>In its <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/full-text-constitutional-court-rules-on-nkandla-public-protector-20160331">judgment on the Nkandla case</a>, the Constitutional Court held that the Public Protector is subject “only to the Constitution and the law”. But she <em>is</em> subject to them. And the Constitution sets out a specific, thorough process for the passing of any law, and particularly a constitutional amendment. </p>
<p>The elected representatives of the people are meant to debate all laws and fashion them into the form they believe is best for the country. If the wording of any law is determined in advance of this process, then the process itself is rendered meaningless. The Constitution’s law-making requirements are discarded.</p>
<p>The Public Protector cannot throw out the Constitution. Her remedial action is therefore invalid.</p>
<h2>Effects of the recommendation</h2>
<p>If taken seriously, her recommendation has the potential to influence current political debates on economic development in South Africa, supporting the line advanced by groups such as <a href="http://blackopinion.co.za/2017/02/18/black-first-land-first-marches-reserve-bank-demand-absamustpay/">Black First Land First</a>, and reducing the independence of one of the few public bodies which has not yet been tainted by evidence of state capture.</p>
<p>But if this was the intention, it could backfire, because the Public Protector can bring this influence only if she enjoys legitimacy in her own right. She does not, in part due to her <a href="http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2016/10/20/busisiwe-mkhwebane.-bares-claws-towards-thuli-madonsela">hostile treatment of her predecessor</a> and a perceived unwillingness to take steps against <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/06/16/listen-mkhwebane-denies-being-selective-in-state-capture-probe">President Zuma and his allies</a>. </p>
<p>She laid a criminal charge against her predecessor on receiving a complaint from the president, and then attempted to <a href="http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/4c9659804f2266a094cdd570ce873b7f/Public-Protector-says-she-did-not-lay-charges-against-Madonsela">deny the legal import of her action</a>. Staff closely associated with the former Public Protector or the State Capture report appear to have been <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2017/02/05/thuli-madonsela-staff-who-worked-on-the-state-capture-are-being_a_21707478/">forced out of their jobs</a>.</p>
<p>Mkhwebane could have found better ways of proving that she does not have a hidden political agenda than by <a href="http://www.pprotect.org/library/investigation_report/2016-17/Report%208%20of%202017&2018%20Public%20Protector%20South%20Africa.pdf">producing a report</a> which throws her legal acumen into serious doubt. </p>
<p>Her foray into economics is also deeply embarrassing, as she justifies a drastic change in economic policy with eight lines of text, citing no authorities in economics and no evidence that her preferred approach does in fact, uplift the poor. </p>
<p>Her report is likely only to reduce the standing of her own office.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79931/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cathleen Powell 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 public protector’s proposal to change the mandate of South Africa’s Reserve Bank goes well beyond changing individual rules to overturning their very foundation, anchored in the Constitution.Cathleen Powell, Associate Professor in Public Law, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/791242017-06-08T16:31:15Z2017-06-08T16:31:15ZIt’s cold outside Zuma’s ANC. But there’s little warmth left inside<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172920/original/file-20170608-32301-170ol4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protest in support of Raymond Suttner released from detention in 1988 by apartheid authorities.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Robert Botha/Times Media Group</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In the liberation struggle against apartheid a small number of white people joined the battle to overthrow the South African regime. One of them, academic Raymond Suttner, was first arrested in 1975 and tortured with electric shocks because he refused to supply information to the police. He then served eight years in prison because of his underground activities for the African National Congress and South African Communist Party.</em></p>
<p><em>After his release in 1983 he was forced - after two years - to go underground to evade arrest, but was re-detained in 1986 under repeatedly renewed states of emergency for 27 months – 18 of these in solitary confinement.</em></p>
<p><em>First published in 2001, Suttner’s prison memoir “Inside Apartheid’s Prison”, has been made available again, now with a completely new introduction. The Conversation Africa’s Charles Leonard spoke to Suttner.</em></p>
<p><strong>Why did you write the book?</strong></p>
<p>I was hesitant to write it because there is a culture of modesty that is inculcated in cadres. I used to think it was “not done” to write about myself. I also thought that my experience was a “parking ticket” compared with the sentences of Nelson Mandela and others. But I came to feel that I have a story to tell. </p>
<p>Nevertheless I hope that resources will be found so that more stories are told, not only of prison but the many unknown people who pursued resistance in different ways in a range of relatively unknown places.</p>
<p><strong>You were imprisoned and on house arrest for over 11 years. It was based on choices you made. Would you make the same choices today?</strong></p>
<p>Yes. I did what I believed was right at the time and even if things are not turning out so well at the moment that does not invalidate those choices. I saw the liberation struggle as having a sacred quality and considered it an honour to be part of it. </p>
<p>I was very influenced by the great Afrikaner Communist <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/abram-fischer">Bram Fischer</a>. He had nothing to gain personally and could have been a judge, the president of the country or anything else. Instead he chose a life of danger and later life imprisonment. I was inspired by that example, amongst others, to do what I could. </p>
<p>When one embarks on revolutionary activities there are no guarantees of success. I was not sure that I would come out alive. I did what I believed was right and would make the same choices again.</p>
<p><strong>So those choices were worth it?</strong></p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172918/original/file-20170608-32312-rckzh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172918/original/file-20170608-32312-rckzh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172918/original/file-20170608-32312-rckzh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172918/original/file-20170608-32312-rckzh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172918/original/file-20170608-32312-rckzh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172918/original/file-20170608-32312-rckzh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172918/original/file-20170608-32312-rckzh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Definitely. This was not a business venture where one could answer such a question through balancing profits and losses. For me joining the struggle, as a white, gave me the opportunity to start my life afresh by joining my fortunes with those who were oppressed. It gave me the chance to link myself with the majority of South Africans. </p>
<p>That was a more authentic way of living my life than whatever successes I may have achieved, had I simply focused on professional success. Most importantly I see this choice – to join the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/liberation-struggle-south-africa">liberation struggle</a> – as giving me the opportunity to humanise myself as a white South African in apartheid South Africa.</p>
<p><strong>Do you still feel the damage after all these years in prison?</strong></p>
<p>Yes. I have post-traumatic stress. I am not sure that it will ever be eliminated or that I always recognise its appearance. Many of us live with scars from that period.</p>
<p>I have not always acknowledged or understood that I have been damaged but it is directly related to my having <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/fibromyalgia/home/ovc-20317786">fibromyalgia</a> (a disorder characterised by widespread musculoskeletal pain accompanied by fatigue, sleep, memory and mood issues), according to the specialist who diagnosed it. She cautioned me about returning to my prison experiences, in this book, fearing the possibility of it setting off physically painful symptoms. That didn’t happen as far as I am aware and returning to the scene of trauma may be part of healing, according to some. </p>
<p><strong>Why did you break with the ANC over 10 years ago?</strong></p>
<p>I had not been happy with many aspects of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki">Thabo Mbeki</a>’s presidency but that did not mean I should align myself with his successor <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jacob-gedleyihlekisa-zuma">Jacob Zuma</a>. Zuma’s candidacy was promoted not only by ANC people but especially the South African Communist Party (SACP) and trade union federation <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/congress-south-african-trade-unions-cosatu">Cosatu</a>’s leaderships, presenting him as having qualities that were not valid. In particular the claim that Zuma was a man of the people with sympathy for the poor and downtrodden was untrue.</p>
<p>It was already known that he was <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/president-thabo-mbeki-sacks-deputy-president-jacob-zuma">linked</a> with corrupt activities before he was elected as ANC president in 2007. But what was decisive for me was Zuma’s 2006 <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2016-08-10-the-khanga-womanhood-and-how-zumas-2006-rape-trial-changed-its-meaning">rape trial</a>. There was something very cruel in the way the complainant, known as <a href="http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2016/10/10/who-was-khwezi-heres-what-we-learnt-during-the-zuma-rape-trial">“Khwezi”</a>, was treated, in the mode of defence that Zuma chose. I found that <a href="http://www.capetalk.co.za/articles/191680/khwezi-was-let-down-by-the-justice-system-of-this-country-nomboniso-gasa">unacceptable</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Is it not lonely outside the ANC?</strong></p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172921/original/file-20170608-32343-1yuqu9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172921/original/file-20170608-32343-1yuqu9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172921/original/file-20170608-32343-1yuqu9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172921/original/file-20170608-32343-1yuqu9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172921/original/file-20170608-32343-1yuqu9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172921/original/file-20170608-32343-1yuqu9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172921/original/file-20170608-32343-1yuqu9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Raymond Suttner in 2001, when ‘Inside Apartheid’s Prison’ was first published.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Raymond Preston/Times Media Group</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I miss the comradeship that I understood to bind me to people with whom I had shared dangers, joys and sorrows. When you are together in difficult times it creates a special bond. I did not conceive of that being broken.</p>
<p>But when you break away in a <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/rdm/news/2017-04-11-uct-slams-corruption-state-capture-under-zuma/">time of decadence</a>, what is it that one misses? I cannot resume relationships on the same basis as those which I previously counted as comradeship. Our paths diverged. I went out into the cold and some with whom I used to be very close chose to link themselves with a <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-need-to-despair-even-as-the-dream-of-south-africa-feels-like-a-nightmare-76129">project</a> that has meant corruption, violence and destroying everything that was once valued in the liberation tradition. </p>
<p>These former comrades have all been accomplices in <a href="https://mg.co.za/report/zumaville-a-special-report">Nkandla</a> (Zuma’s private rural home which was upgraded at a cost to the country of R246-million to taxpayers), the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-grant-scandal-exposes-myths-about-how-the-state-should-run-things-74325">social grants scandal</a> and many other <a href="http://www.groundup.org.za/article/who-are-guptas/">features of this period</a> which have seen some individuals benefit unlawfully and at the expense of the poor. I do not say that every person I know has been improperly enriched. But all those who have been in the ANC/SACP/Cosatu leadership have endorsed, indeed even provided elaborate defences of some of the worst features of the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-17450447">Zuma period</a>. </p>
<p>In the new introduction to the book I use the word “betrayal” and I choose it to refer to these people, many of whom were once brave, who turned their backs on those from whom they came or whose cause they once adopted as their own.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s lonely. But that loneliness cannot be remedied by resuming bonds
with people who have taken fundamentally different paths. I now build relationships with others from whom I am learning and growing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79124/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raymond Suttner 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 the new introduction to his prison memoir South African anti-apartheid stalwart Raymond Suttner uses the word ‘betrayal’ to explain his break from the ANC.Raymond Suttner, Emeritus Professor, University of South Africa and part-time professor Rhodes University, Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/762442017-04-25T19:42:08Z2017-04-25T19:42:08ZSouth Africa needs moral leaders, not those in pursuit of selfish gain<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166059/original/file-20170420-20054-1ylmoso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Concerned South Africans disapprove of President Jacob Zuma.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa has seen a great deal of progress in many spheres of life since non-racial democracy in <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=1760">1994</a>, yet many of its people are still waiting for their hard-won freedom to pay dividends. Economic freedom still eludes them.</p>
<p>Unemployment is <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2017/02/14/Slight-decline-in-the-unemployment-rate-Stats-SA">stubbornly high</a> and the redistribution of <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-to-fix-its-dangerously-wide-wealth-gap-66355">wealth</a> and land hasn’t been successful. It seems that the country’s leaders have hijacked this freedom in pursuit of their own <a href="http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2016/04/05/sa-has-been-hijacked-by-people-with-skeletons---masses-of-blacks-will-wake-up-too-late">selfish gains</a>. </p>
<p>Politically exposed <a href="https://www.acts.co.za/financial-intelligence-centre-act-2001/guide_25_definition_of_a_politically_exposed_person_pep_">people</a>, public officials and cronies in the private sector abuse their contacts, positions and influence unashamedly. Social pathologies such as rampant <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-growing-corruption-is-a-threat-to-south-africas-national-security-74110">corruption and state looting</a> are the order of the day. The cult of materialism is destroying the moral fibre of the nation. </p>
<p>What the country needs now is <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-need-to-despair-even-as-the-dream-of-south-africa-feels-like-a-nightmare-76129">moral leadership</a> that brings deep and lifelong changes to individuals and communities. It urgently needs leadership born of sound core values and characterised by accountable management. </p>
<p>There are fortunately well established models that set out what the characteristics of this kind of leadership are. South Africans should draw on these so that they know what it is that makes up moral leadership traits.</p>
<h2>The four key-drives theory</h2>
<p>The late Harvard Business School Professor Paul Lawrence <a href="https://hbr.org/2010/05/moral-leadership-as-shaped-by">says</a> that all animals survive guided by two innate drives, or ultimate motives: firstly to acquire essential resources and offspring; secondly to defend themselves and their property. </p>
<p>Humans have evolved to require two additional drives – to bond in trusting, caring, long-term relationships and the drive to comprehend – that is to learn, understand and create.</p>
<p>According to Lawrence, good moral leaders hold these four drives in <a href="https://hbr.org/2010/05/moral-leadership-as-shaped-by">dynamic balance</a>, weighing and balancing conflicting demands. </p>
<p>He states that the four drives, when expressed as nouns rather than verbs, yield four important core values: prosperity (resources), peace/trust (bond), knowledge (comprehend), and justice (defend). Just as with the drives, the best leaders attend to all four values simultaneously.</p>
<p>Prosperity seeks to improve every citizen’s ability to obtain the necessary resources. Leaders honestly ask what other people are entitled to, and then promote it at all cost. This asks restraint and self-sacrifice, simplicity and contentment. Greedy and power-hungry leaders, who only focus on their own success and enrichment, are in the light of the four key-drives theory, primitive and destructive. </p>
<p>A deviation from this was seen when Brian Molefe, former CEO at Eskom, almost walked away with a R30.1 million <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/finance/171595/minister-blocks-r30-million-golden-handshake-for-molefe/">“golden handshake”</a> even though he was at the power utility for only 18 months. This, after he resigned as CEO in November 2016 under a cloud after being fingered in former public protector Advocate Thuli Madonsela’s <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2017/04/16/Brian-Molefe-scores-%E2%80%98R30m-payout%E2%80%99-from-Eskom">“State of Capture” report</a>. He is now an MP of the governing ANC.</p>
<p>Justice-based leadership keeps the other person safe, as well as his loved ones and property, protects their names, and preserves their integrity. This kind of leadership tracks fraudsters and criminals and punishes them unashamedly. It doesn’t put a veil over injustice. </p>
<p>And justice is never prioritised in a leader’s interest and or survival. One cannot defend the indefensible. But, in October 2016 South Africa started the process to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) - an institution designed to hold war criminals to account, and to deliver justice for their victims. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166064/original/file-20170420-20068-1js086e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166064/original/file-20170420-20068-1js086e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166064/original/file-20170420-20068-1js086e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166064/original/file-20170420-20068-1js086e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166064/original/file-20170420-20068-1js086e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166064/original/file-20170420-20068-1js086e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166064/original/file-20170420-20068-1js086e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters outside the offices of fired finance minister Pravin Gordhan in Pretoria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The move was a direct result of the government’s failure in 2015 to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir as required by the ICC and the country’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/al-bashirs-escape-why-the-african-union-defies-the-icc-43226">laws</a>. But justice triumphed in the end. Earlier this year the government found itself with egg on its face when the Pretoria High Court declared SA’s withdrawal from the ICC unconstitutional and <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-10-21-justice-minister-confirms-icc-exit-and-defends-the-indefensible/#.WPZvG01QhD8">invalid</a>. </p>
<p>Trust that is essential to caring and social cohesion, keeps promises and doesn’t cheat. It acts with respect, honour and recognition, which in turn are important elements for peace, reliability and stability. This asks tremendous courage, because one is often on one’s own, threatened, bullied and even reviled. </p>
<p>Barbara Hogan, anti-apartheid activist, former minister and the widow of struggle veteran Ahmed Kathrada exhibited these qualities when she courageously <a href="http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2017/03/31/barbara-hogan-zuma-has-gone-rogue-he-must-step-down">called Zuma to go</a>. She reiterated Kathrada’s call to Zuma to <a href="https://www.thesouthafrican.com/barbara-hogan-has-delivered-another-powerful-speech-in-this-time-of-turmoil-video/">step down</a> for the good of all South Africans.</p>
<p>Knowledge and expertise to understand one’s world, place and role in it is extremely important. It is to know the importance of speaking truth and acting with integrity. It doesn’t withhold, but discloses. It doesn’t mock, but respects. It doesn’t intimidate, but inspires. It doesn’t manipulate, but motivates. It doesn’t bully, but protects. The larger the island of knowledge and expertise, the longer the coastline of respect, trust and admiration.</p>
<p>But the abnormal has, in some respects, become normal in South Africa. </p>
<p>That’s why parliament continued to maintain that nothing different was done at the state of the nation address earlier this year even when armed soldiers were photographed strategically blocking off areas in the parliamentary precinct, a move criticised as <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-soldiers-deployed-for-parliaments-opening-why-this-bodes-ill-72691">unseemly militarisation</a> of parliament. And, footage clearly showed journalists being impeded despite parliament’s official assurances over several days that this <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-02-13-analysis-the-parliaments-new-normal-where-lies-become-truth-and-perception-trumps-fact/#.WPZ-lU1QhD8">would not happen</a>. </p>
<h2>The need for role models</h2>
<p>What South Africa needs are <a href="http://m.ewn.co.za/2016/04/15/Chief-Justice-Mogoeng-warns-SA-needs-to-get-its-act-together">ethical leaders</a> modelling core values, in line with these innate key-drivers. Leaders who have the ability to honestly deal with their own weaknesses. This is not an option, but a <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2016/03/31/National-Assembly-was-duty-bound-to-hold-Zuma-accountable">national imperative</a>.</p>
<p>Fortunately, there are examples South Africans can turn to. Take Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng’s historic judgment last year in the Nkandla case involving the illegal use of millions of public money for upgrades to President Jacob Zuma’s private homestead. Justice Mogoeng said Zuma had breached his constitutional duty by ignoring the Public Protector’s <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2016/03/31/TRANSCRIPT-Judgment-of-the-Constitutional-Court-on-Nkandla">remedial action</a>. Mogoeng’s behaviour displayed high ethical value.</p>
<p>At the moment South Africa is paying a very high price for the lack of moral leadership. This is true in relation to its economy, politics, education, social security, service delivery, and health services because certain influential politicians got stuck in a twisted first drive of <a href="https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/stop-state-capture-business-leadership-sa/">self-enrichment</a> – and bling.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76244/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Jones 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>South Africa celebrates Freedom Day this week amid growing discontent over misrule by President Zuma and the ANC. This has led to increased calls for ethical and caring leaders.Chris Jones, Academic project leader in the Department of Practical Theology and Missiology, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/760262017-04-19T15:16:15Z2017-04-19T15:16:15ZSouth Africa’s ANC can stay a liberation movement and govern well<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165115/original/image-20170412-25898-1979v02.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 African National Congress (ANC), South Africa’s governing party, is <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/08/cloneofsouth-africa-anc-awaits-key-municipal-ele-160804084046975.html">weakening</a>. It has recently committed some <a href="https://theconversation.com/firing-of-south-africas-finance-minister-puts-the-public-purse-in-zumas-hands-75525">terrible mistakes</a> in government. </p>
<p>High on the list of errors is its decision to close ranks in defence of President Jacob Zuma during the <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2016/09/15/Joel-Netshitenzhe-Nkandla-state-capture-evoke-indignation">Nkandla debacle</a> where public money was used on upgrades to his private homestead. Then there’s the deployment of incompetent “cadres” to critical positions in government as well as Zuma’s ill-timed <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/columnists/2017-01-24-aubrey-matshiqi-zuma-move-will-show-who-insiders-are/">cabinet reshuffle</a>. </p>
<p>Critics argue that these problems stem from the ANC’s insistence on being a <a href="https://v1.sahistory.org.za/pages/pdf/raymond-suttner/ANC-attainment-power.pdf">liberation movement</a> which they say is incompatible with a constitutional democracy. </p>
<p>This has raised the question about the party’s very nature: Is it not time for the ANC to stop seeing itself as a liberation movement but rather a modern, professional political party?</p>
<p>But that argument is hard to sustain. There’s nothing particular about political parties that makes them compatible with constitutional democracy.</p>
<h2>Liberation movement vs political party</h2>
<p>Those opposed to the ANC’s holding place as a liberation movement argue that a movement – liberation or social – is the old way of doing politics. This, they claim, was suitable during the struggles against colonialism and apartheid. But that struggle is now over and the post-apartheid era presents a new set of challenges.</p>
<p>The idea of a liberation movement keeps archaic and obsolete traditions alive. These include the leadership collective, consensus choice of leadership, revolution, comradeship, cadre deployment and patriarchal leadership patterns.</p>
<p>The role and character of liberation movements in power is informed by the democracy theory (coming out of <a href="https://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/POLSC2312.1.4.pdf">liberalism ideology</a>) and the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/party_dominance.pdf">theory of party dominance</a>. These theories suggest that for democracy to be effective, there should be vibrant political party competition because it strengthens deliberative aspects of a liberal democracy. It also engenders internal dynamism and change of groups of elites in power. </p>
<p>The party dominance theory leads to the view that the ANC dominates South Africa’s politics because of its liberation movement legacy. This dominance is seen as inimical to democratic competition. </p>
<p>But when liberation movements become political parties they enhance their efficiency and effectiveness. They also deepen their internal democracy and their ability to connect with the wider public.</p>
<p>Internal democracy within the ANC is seen as <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-countrys-constitutional-court-can-consolidate-and-deepen-democracy-54184">particularly important</a> given its political dominance. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165810/original/image-20170419-6375-ra1l0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165810/original/image-20170419-6375-ra1l0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165810/original/image-20170419-6375-ra1l0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165810/original/image-20170419-6375-ra1l0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165810/original/image-20170419-6375-ra1l0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165810/original/image-20170419-6375-ra1l0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165810/original/image-20170419-6375-ra1l0b.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">ANC military veterans guard the party’s headquarters ahead of a march by the opposition DA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Political parties shed the tendency towards <a href="https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/basoc/ch-5.htm">democratic centralism</a>, and its opaque internal political systems which insist on toeing the party line and brooks no dissent. </p>
<p>Political parties are assumed to operate like professional associations. They value accountability and transparency embracing modern systems of management and leadership. This enables them to become dynamic platforms for advancing refined political ends. </p>
<p>The conduct of Zuma and his cohort of leaders has been blamed on the ANC’s choice to remain steeped in the traditions of a <a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/iservice/the-marginalisation-of-parliament">liberation movement</a>. The form determines the content: it produces tendencies that cause all manner of problems. </p>
<p>The ANC has made some catastrophic mistakes. It sometimes displayed arrogance in power and has allowed corrupt leaders to go <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-is-at-an-inflection-point-will-it-resist-or-succumb-to-state-capture-66523">unpunished</a>. </p>
<p>There has also been a vacillation of policy stances on the economy, land and other crucial policy areas. Largely sound policies have been poorly implemented. </p>
<p>And there have been cases where the party and the state’s affairs have been <a href="http://www.enca.com/south-africa/anc-urges-government-to-review-madonselas-party-state-separation-findings">conflated</a>.</p>
<p>Some have argued that these problems stem from the ANC remaining essentially a liberation movement. To move with the times, they argue, it needs to assume a new, modern professional political party posture. </p>
<h2>Lessons from elsewhere</h2>
<p>The challenge in the ANC is, however, not unique to South Africa.
Liberal democrats in Japan, Christian democrats in Italy, the <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21711925-new-law-has-allowed-government-freeze-its-assets-leaving-it-unable-pay-staff-taiwans">Kuomintang</a> in Taiwan and nationalist democrats in Kenya all experienced similar challenges. </p>
<p>Although they were not liberation movements, they share a number of features with the ANC. This includes arrogance of power, personalisation of power, elitism and the preponderance of sectional interests over the common good. So, it seems these are tendencies that need to be overcome.</p>
<p>It’s hard to sustain the argument that liberation movements are not right for democratic consolidation merely because they are movements or that political parties are by nature good for competitive politics. Political parties can dominate, distort, corrupt, abuse, and complicate democratic systems just as liberation movements deepen democracy by strengthening its social basis. </p>
<h2>What the ANC needs to do</h2>
<p>The ANC doesn’t need to transition into a political party, whatever that means in practice. But, it needs to develop a leadership that’s competent to use the state to change the economy fundamentally in order to serve the majority and bring about qualitatively positive changes to the people, especially the poor.</p>
<p>The party needs to put a stop to the self-inflicted damage to its image through endless scandals, public displays of arrogance, factionalism and internal conflict. </p>
<p>The ANC also needs to end its practice of deploying poor quality cadres to critical state structures, and start heeding the counsel of its friends and foes that it must place the country’s interests before sectional interests of whatever faction of its leadership is in power. </p>
<p>It can look to the <a href="http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Editorial/What-we-can-learn-from-Tanzania-s-Chama-Cha-Mapinduzi/689360-2787692-1173726z/index.html">Chama Cha Mapinduzi</a> movement that’s been in power in Tanzania since the 1960s for example.</p>
<p>The party has ensured an open contest for leadership positions. The elected leaders are then expected to root out corruption, crime, tribalism and so forth.</p>
<p>There’s a constant change of national leadership and a level of dynamism that enables the movement to adapt to changing society. It has produced leaders like <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/former-tanzanian-president-julius-nyerere-dies">Julius Nyerere</a> and <a href="http://zikoko.com/list/8-reasons-tanzanias-john-magufuli-africas-beloved-president/">John Magafuli </a>who commands respect across party lines. </p>
<p>If liberation movements were formed to achieve total decolonisation and freedom, then for as a long the process is incomplete, they will have a good reason to exist. Like orthodox political parties, they constantly have to adapt to change.</p>
<p>Ultimately, democracy is meaningless if it doesn’t improve the material circumstances for the people. To do this, political formations must be occupied by conscientious, competent, compassionate and interested political elite.</p>
<p>This is what the ANC has shown it lacks as it attempts to “deal” with every scandal and crisis it causes. The problem isn’t its commitment to being a liberation movement, but rather that it wants to be a callous one.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76026/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siphamandla Zondi works for Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria, which sometimes receives funding from research funding foundations like the Mellon Foundation and NRF. </span></em></p>Democracy in South Africa is meaningless if it doesn’t improve the lives of the people. To do this, the governing ANC must be led by conscientious, competent and interested leaders.Siphamandla Zondi, Professor and head of department of Political Sciences and acting head of the Institute for Strategic and Political Affairs, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/758842017-04-09T08:48:04Z2017-04-09T08:48:04ZSouth Africans are learning that they’re not that exceptional after all<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164329/original/image-20170406-16680-lok82g.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">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There was a time that South Africa looked very different to the rest of Africa. The <a href="http://www.scholaradvisor.com/essay-examples/descriptive-essay-south-africa-rainbow-nation/">“rainbow nation”</a> was seen by many – including a lot of its own citizens – to be exceptional, having more in common with the developed states of Europe than some of the countries on its own doorstep. </p>
<p>But, in the wake of a series of destabilising <a href="https://mg.co.za/report/zumaville-a-special-report">corruption scandals</a>, financial mismanagement and the incompetent leadership of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-zumas-actions-point-to-shambolic-management-of-south-africas-economy-52174">President Jacob Zuma</a>, this is no longer the case. </p>
<p>It’s time therefore to look to the rest of the continent for evidence on how the <a href="https://mg.co.za/tag/anc-crisis">crisis</a> within the country’s ruling African National Congress <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/">(ANC)</a> is likely to unfold.</p>
<p>The notion of <a href="http://www.politik.uni-osnabrueck.de/POLSYS/Archive/czada%20sa%20exceptionalism.pdf">South African exceptionalism</a> runs deep. Having suffered white minority rule much longer than most other African states, the country had one of the most stable and <a href="http://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/unit.php?id=65-24E-6">successful transitions</a> to democracy on the continent. Following the election of the ANC in 1994, Nelson Mandela’s government promoted <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/1994-national-elections-manifesto">tolerance and responsible</a> government.</p>
<p>At that point, South Africa did not look very “African”. While Nigeria was blighted by <a href="http://www.unh.edu/nigerianstudies/articles/Issue2/Political_leadership.pdf">endemic corruption</a>, the ANC was led by a man whose <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/12/20121211124815790365.html">reputation</a> was beyond reproach. When the ZANU-PF government was becoming increasingly brutal in <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-mugabes-latest-challenger-will-find-it-hard-to-break-the-mould-57587">Zimbabwe </a>, Mandela’s administration was promoting the rule of law and inclusion. And just as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Somalia were falling apart, the South African state appeared to be growing stronger.</p>
<p>Moreover, the notion of exceptionalism wasn’t just something dreamt up by academics or reporters: it was also deeply felt by South Africans themselves. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02589001.2015.1122870?src=recsys">Some surveys</a> have found that many believe that they are exceptional, and in some cases that they are superior to the rest of the continent. This had some positive consequences, most notably by supporting the reconstruction of a broader national identity.</p>
<p>But it also had its downsides. A <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/research-data/ktree-doc/6253">report</a> by the country’s Human Science Research Council into the xenophobic violence against migrants from Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe in 2008 concluded that, in addition to urban deprivation and intense competition for jobs and housing, a popular understanding of “exclusive citizenship” motivated anti-foreigner sentiment.</p>
<p>The xenophobic violence, and the economic conditions that gave rise to it, were a clue – for those who had their eyes open – that South Africa wasn’t really that exceptional after all. </p>
<p>On the one hand, a number of other countries such as <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/Africa-Democracy-Politics-Research/440808-2808336-xorq81/index.html">Ghana and Mauritius</a> were also doing well when it came to consolidating democracy. It was just that these positive stories tended to be ignored. </p>
<p>On the other, some aspects of the South African “miracle” didn’t stand up to closer scrutiny.</p>
<h2>Before and after Zuma</h2>
<p>After the transition to majority rule the country recorded impressive achievements in terms of its progressive <a href="http://www.gov.za/DOCUMENTS/CONSTITUTION/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-1">constitution</a> and growing welfare state. But at the same time it soon became clear that many parts of the bureaucracy were prone to rent seeking behaviour.</p>
<p>Similarly, despite its proud history and impressive first four years in office, the ANC was already exhibiting patrimonial tendencies well before Zuma became president in 2009.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164327/original/image-20170406-16682-1v1i5p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164327/original/image-20170406-16682-1v1i5p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164327/original/image-20170406-16682-1v1i5p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164327/original/image-20170406-16682-1v1i5p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164327/original/image-20170406-16682-1v1i5p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164327/original/image-20170406-16682-1v1i5p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164327/original/image-20170406-16682-1v1i5p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators protest against the firing of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, outside Parliament in Cape Town.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As political scientist Tom Lodge <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiWk6zSt4_TAhUhIcAKHdUdAm8QFggdMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fafraf.oxfordjournals.org%2Fcontent%2F113%2F450%2F1.abstract&usg=AFQjCNEkiFPoCLAdxHH2KirJhUuuolDt1A&bvm=bv.151426398,d.d24">has argued</a>, many of those who rose to prominence in the movement during the apartheid era had been born into privileged positions. And the ANC was forced to develop ties to <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/113/450/1/48437/Neo-patrimonial-politics-in-the-ANC">criminal networks</a> to operate after it was banned by the National Party in <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/african-national-congress-timeline-1960-1969">1960 </a>and forced into exile.</p>
<p>During the liberation struggle, the imperative of fighting the apartheid regime kept these patrimonial tendencies and criminal connections in check. But after the advent of democracy they started to become more pronounced. </p>
<p>Partly as a result, schemes such as <a href="http://www.dti.gov.za/economic_empowerment/bee.jsp">Black Economic Empowerment</a> were used not transform the underlying structure of the economy, but to generate opportunities for self-enrichment. South African political analyst Moeletsi Mbeki has called this <a href="http://africanarguments.org/2012/09/13/moeletsi-mbeki-on-south-africa-%E2%80%9Cblack-economic-empowerment-is-legalised-corruption-%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%93-by-magnus-taylor/">“legalised corruption”</a>.</p>
<p>These tendencies were then exacerbated by Zuma’s rise to power, in large part because he’s a leader that understands politics through a patrimonial lens. Lacking the intellect and management skill to lead by example, he has set about entrenching himself in power by <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/face-off-between-zuma-loyalists-and-critics-at-anc-headquarters/a-19528070">promoting loyalists</a> within the party and the state. This while condoning corruption and sacrificing policy for patronage. As a result, the party’s patrimonial tendencies have been sent into overdrive.</p>
<p>In addition to major corruption scandals over the upgrade to his <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/nkandla-corruption-exposed-1607427">Nkandla home</a> and a multi-billion dollar <a href="http://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/the-arms-deal-what-you-need-to-know-2/">arms deal</a>, Zuma has drawn fire for his close relationship to <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi1yOOZuY_TAhVJKMAKHQnlDngQFggcMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld-africa-22513410&usg=AFQjCNEv1Od9prhAbBfH8qaCfrNt19-P2w&bvm=bv.151426398,d.d24">the Gupta family</a>. He allegedly allows the family to influence major policy decisions in return for its financial support.</p>
<p>More recently, the president plunged the ANC into a full-blown crisis by removing many of the most competent members of the cabinet and replacing them with <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/fm-fox/2017-03-30-gigaba-new-finance-minister-in-cabinet-bloodbath/">loyalists</a>. As a result, South Africa’s credit rating has been <a href="http://www.fin24.com/Economy/breaking-fitch-downgrades-sa-to-junk-status-20170407">downgraded</a>.</p>
<p>For many, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In the days that followed, a number of prominent political <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2017/03/31/Save-South-Africa-calls-for-protest-after-Cabinet-reshuffle1">figures</a> and the ANC’s partners in the triple alliance, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2017/04/04/BREAKING-Cosatu-calls-on-Zuma-to-step-down">called on Zuma to go.</a></p>
<h2>Lessons from elsewhere</h2>
<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>
<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 <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiDiJHKuY_TAhVsAcAKHWyVBwQQFggfMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vanguardngr.com%2F2017%2F01%2Fcorruption-cases-nigeria-embedded-budgetary-process%2F&usg=AFQjCNHax2IiuZMwgoSzPnMXsAJnP_IBFQ&bvm=bv.151426398,d.d24">quickly embeds clientelism</a> within key parts of the government and bureaucracy.</p>
<p>When this happens, it’s not enough to change just the president. Meaningful reform requires the removal, or at the very least retraining, of an entire tranche of figures put in place during the president’s tenure. Otherwise, patterns of patronage and clientelism have a way of reasserting themselves.</p>
<p>The experience of other states also tells us that some of the solutions that have been promoted as silver bullet solutions for South Africa’s predicament are unlikely to work. It’s been suggested that the direct election of the president (who at present is <a href="https://www.quora.com/Why-are-there-no-presidential-elections-in-South-Africa">elected by the parliament</a> would lead to more accountable and responsible government. But America just directly elected <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/us/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-president.html?_r=0">Donald Trump</a>, while Zimbabwe continues to directly elect <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-are-elections-really-rigged-mr-trump-consult-robert-mugabe-68440">Robert Mugabe</a>. Presidential elections are no panacea.</p>
<p>The lesson from other African countries is therefore a worrying one: the road back is a long one. </p>
<h2>Distinctive features remain</h2>
<p>But these comparisons shouldn’t lead to defeatism. There are a number of ways in which the country remains distinctive. Civil society remains more robust than in many other states, and more independent as the Confederation of South African Trade Union’s criticism of Zuma demonstrates. </p>
<p>Similarly, the <a href="http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/388736004c4223ab9542b5f68d25dd2f/SAs-judiciary-continues-to-lead-by-example-in-Africa:-Pillay">judiciary</a> tends to be both of higher quality and more impartial, while the governing ANC itself has <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Thabo-Mbeki-Battle-Soul-ANC/184277848X">more internal checks and balances</a> than most governments on the continent.</p>
<p>These features didn’t prevent the slide towards patrimonialism, and on their own they will not topple Zuma. But they are the foundations on which the struggle for a new South Africa can be fought.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75884/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nic Cheeseman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The notion of South African exceptionalism runs deep. Many people in the country believe that in some cases they are superior to the rest of the continent.Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/758112017-04-06T14:47:02Z2017-04-06T14:47:02ZNew survey data shows Zuma cost the ANC dearly in the 2016 election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164266/original/image-20170406-6407-limbll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's President Jacob Zuma in Parliament.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nic Bothma/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Jacob Zuma cost the ruling African National Congress millions of votes in the country’s local government elections in 2016. Core ANC voters stayed away, were repelled by the party – or simply gave up on it. </p>
<p>This comes through clearly from private polling data gathered before, during and after the <a href="http://www.elections.org.za/content/Elections/Results/2014-National-and-Provincial-Elections--National-results/">general election</a> in 2014 and the local <a href="http://www.news24.com/Elections/">municipal election</a> poll in 2016.</p>
<p>Presidential candidates and party leaders are meant to “lift” the vote for their party, as Donald Trump did for the Republicans. But not in South Africa. What’s clear is that Zuma’s follies cost the ANC dearly throughout South Africa, but most particularly in Gauteng – the country’s most educated and connected province, with the largest black middle class – and KwaZulu-Natal, supposedly Zuma’s staunchest support base. The ANC vote dropped everywhere else as well.</p>
<p>Data based on a survey of over 17 000 Gauteng voters, conducted for a private donor and published here for the first time, backs up polling data indicating that a stately <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2014-05-11-the-partys-over-anc-sees-decline-in-support">decline</a> in electoral fortunes for the ANC, which had drifted downwards by a couple of percentage points in <a href="http://www.elections.org.za/content/default.aspx">previous elections</a>, was suddenly given a steroid injection by the controversies swirling around the president in the run up to the 2016 local elections. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164296/original/image-20170406-16680-1u6gyx1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164296/original/image-20170406-16680-1u6gyx1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164296/original/image-20170406-16680-1u6gyx1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164296/original/image-20170406-16680-1u6gyx1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164296/original/image-20170406-16680-1u6gyx1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164296/original/image-20170406-16680-1u6gyx1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164296/original/image-20170406-16680-1u6gyx1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ANC has been losing support since 2013.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It would be inaccurate to draw absolute causal links and declare that Zuma’s behaviour cost the ANC, for example, 11% percent of the Gauteng vote. But it would be entirely accurate to say his behaviour had a direct and negative impact on the choices voters made. </p>
<p>And of course there were other factors, for example the predictably lower turnout in a local as opposed to a general election. This was compounded by the extent to which ANC voters either stayed away (in massive numbers) or voted for other parties. </p>
<h2>The sins of incumbency</h2>
<p>Approaching the 2014 election, the ANC in Gauteng was sitting on 53% in the polls, and won with 54%. Two years later this dropped, catastrophically, to see the ANC with just 41% of polled Gauteng voter support, just before the 2016 election. It lost control of the metros of Johannesburg and Tshwane, as well as many local and district municipalities in (and beyond) Gauteng.</p>
<p>Zuma was not the only factor. Attacks on generalised ANC corruption were widespread, party and branch disorganisation (accompanied by disputed lists and so on) were common. The ANC seemed completely out of touch with voters. The electorate were demanding change. It was a message the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), ran with.</p>
<p>The ANC, after apparently <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2016/07/21/ANC-spends-a-hefty-R1-bln-on-election-campaign">spending</a> R1 billion on its election campaign, came up with “advancing peoples’ power” as its slogan. This was unlikely to galvanise the professional black middle class.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/politicalinternationalstudies/teach-in/teach-in2012/joelnetshitenzhe/articles/title_61149_en.html">“sins of incumbency”</a>, as ANC luminary Joel Netshitenze memorably called them, weighed heavily on the ANC. But they did so in 2014 as well, and the ANC managed to cling onto majorities. So what happened in between?</p>
<h2>Drivers behind the ANC’s meltdown in 2016</h2>
<p>There were a number of contentious issues around Zuma at the time of the local elections in August 2016. </p>
<p>Nine months earlier he had <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2015-12-09-nhlanhla-nene-removed-as-finance-minister">fired</a> the respected Nhlanhla Nene as Finance Minister.</p>
<p>In March that year the country’s Constitutional Court made a damning ruling about Zuma’s handling of the report by the Public Protector who had <a href="https://mg.co.za/tag/nkandla-report">found</a> two years earlier that he benefited unduly from the R246 million the state had spent on the upgrades to his Nkandla homestead. The court <a href="http://www.enca.com/south-africa/full-judgment-concourt-ruling-nkandla-matter">said</a> that the president had failed to uphold, defend and respect the Constitution as the supreme law of the land.</p>
<p>On top of this, six weeks before the election Zuma <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/south-african-court-blocks-jacob-zuma-corruption-appeal-160624174719894.html">failed</a> in his appeal – one of many he lost – in the country’s High Court, against a ruling that corruption charges against him be reinstated. </p>
<p>A few weeks before election day, we interviewed registered voters in Gauteng and asked them:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Please rate how large an effect, if any, each of the following issues has had on how you will vote in the next election?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The issues were:</p>
<p>• The firing of Nene;</p>
<p>• The Constitutional Court ruling on Nkandla; and</p>
<p>• The corruption charges against Zuma.</p>
<p>A five-point impact scale was offered: “no impact”, “not very much”, “unsure” (the mid-point), “some”, and “significant”.</p>
<p><strong>Nene’s firing:</strong> While a quarter (23%) of respondents said this had not affected their decision of which party to vote for at all, firing Nene made 41% of voters at least re-think which party they would vote for. </p>
<p><strong>Constitutional Court ruling on Nkandla:</strong> A fifth (20%) said this had not affected their party of choice, and 9% said “not very much”. Another 34% said it had “some” impact on their choice, and a further 20% said the impact was “significant”. This means that Nkandla had an impact on the voting choice of 54% of Gauteng respondents.</p>
<p><strong>Corruption charges:</strong> A similar 20% of the respondents said it had had no impact, and 8% “not very much”. But at the other end of the scale, 38% said it had “some” impact and 18% said it had a “significant” impact on their voting choice. That means that in total 56% cited the corruption charges as having an impact on their decision of who to vote for (or, presumably, whether to vote at all). </p>
<h2>Zuma’s impact on election</h2>
<p>It may seem remarkable that to date, no one has released data to demonstrate Zuma’s impact on the election. Many <a href="http://www.biznews.com/thought-leaders/2016/01/12/paul-whelan-2016-elections-zumas-tipping-point-succession-concerns/">predicted</a> it but few have quantified it. This may be because the size of the ANC losses spoke volumes on their own; or that being a local election, local contexts were seen to be the dominant factor.</p>
<p>More pointedly, the ANC has had nothing to win – till now – by publicly pointing to the Emperor and his lack of clothing. Stuck with Zuma, the party seems to be trying to come to grips with defeat in major cities and multiple small towns, and worrying about the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-08-22-op-ed-does-the-anc-face-defeat-in-2019/#.WOOse1N94ck">portents for 2019</a> which can be summarised as: not good.</p>
<p>But while the ANC lost its majority, no other political party was able to attract voters that had abandoned the erstwhile liberation movement. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and DA made a showing that was not much better than in 2014. But why were they unable to translate voter disquiet and worse, into their own majorities?</p>
<p>These polls were done even before the recent crisis that hit the ANC with Zuma’s dramatic cabinet <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/03/31/gordhan-rubbishes-zuma-s-reasons-for-firing-him">reshuffle</a> and the subsequent <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-a-downgrade-means-for-south-africa-and-what-it-can-do-about-it-75704">downgrading</a> by ratings agency Standard & Poor’s of South Africa’s foreign currency rating to sub-investment grade status.</p>
<p>The hubris is clear: the ANC voter is no longer willing to be taken for granted by a self-serving leadership who acts with impunity. One wonders if the ANC as a party has the capacity to learn this lesson; and if it does, is it too late to save itself come the next general election in 2019?</p>
<p><em>The data used here are taken from private polls run before and during the election; the polls only measure Gauteng voting behaviour. These polls have been conducted for many years, and much of the data have previously been released in academic <a href="http://www.apartheidmuseum.org/advocates-change">format</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75811/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Everatt receives research funding from donors, research agencies and the like. </span></em></p>South African President Jacob Zuma’s follies cost the ANC dearly during last year’s election. Is it too late for the party to save itself come 2019?David Everatt, Head of Wits School of Governance, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/746302017-03-15T11:14:10Z2017-03-15T11:14:10ZSocial grants crisis tests the powers of South Africa’s Constitutional Court<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160902/original/image-20170315-5321-qm337c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People queue to register for government grants in Cape Town, South Africa.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>South Africa’s Constitutional Court is once again being asked to deal with a highly politically charged matter that affects the government of the country. The last time was over the question of President Jacob Zuma’s failure to repay state money spent on his personal homestead at <a href="https://theconversation.com/important-lessons-for-africa-as-strong-institutions-win-out-over-a-strong-man-57182">Nkandla</a>. This time the government’s Minister for Social Development, Bathabile Dlamini, is at the centre of a storm over the payment of 17 million social grants. The contract to do this was given to an independent contractor whose contract expires on March 31. The court ruled in 2013 that the contract was illegal because of tender irregularities and ordered the minister in <a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/sassa-must-rerun-social-grants-tender--concourt">2014</a> to make alternative arrangements. She failed to do so and instead has sought to renew the contract. Politics and Society Editor Thabo Leshilo asked Constitutional court expert Pierre de Vos to explain.</em></p>
<p><strong>Why is this case before the constitutional court?</strong></p>
<p>The case is before the Constitutional Court because civil society organisations – the <a href="https://www.blacksash.org.za/index.php/sash-in-action/oversight-of-grant-payment-system">Black Sash</a> and <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-03-07-freedom-under-law-asks-concourt-to-make-new-sassacps-contract-details-public/#.WMj1PVWGPIU">Freedom under Law</a> among them – approached the court to ask it to intervene in the matter to ensure, first, that grants will be paid after April 1st.</p>
<p>Second, they want to make sure that Cash Paymaster Services <a href="http://www.net1.com/business-structure/transactional-solutions-cluster/cash-paymaster-services-(cps)/">(CPS)</a>, the private company contracted to pay out social grants on behalf of the government’s <a href="http://www.dsd.gov.za/">Department of Social Development</a>, will not abuse its position to exploit grant recipients. Specifically, they want the company not to use the information it has about social grants recipients to push all kinds of financial products on them. These products include funeral policies and micro loans. </p>
<p>Third, the civil society organisations want to get the <a href="http://www.constitutionalcourt.org.za/site/thecourt/role.htm">Constitutional Court</a> to oversee the grants payment process to ensure that the South African Social Security Agency <a href="http://www.sassa.gov.za/">(Sassa)</a> and CPS don’t enter into a new contract with terms that will allow CPS to make exorbitant profits. Sassa administers the application, approval and payment of social grants in the country.</p>
<p>As the original contract was declared invalid by the Constitutional Court <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2017-03-07-new-sassas-cps-contract-might-be-illegal-heres-what-the-concourt-can-do-to-fix-the-mess/#.WMkVS1WGPIU">in 2013</a>, because of an <a href="http://www.heraldlive.co.za/news/2017/03/14/gordhan-says-cps-contract-illegal/">unlawful tender process</a>, and because entering into a new contract with CPS would almost certainly be unlawful because the requisite tender procedures were not followed, it’s important for the Court to validate the new contract to legalise the process. If it fails to do that the grants might still be paid on 1 April, but not in a legally valid manner.</p>
<p><strong>What big legal issues are at stake?</strong></p>
<p>The first issue is: what powers does the Constitutional Court have to fix a situation where the only way to deliver social grants – which the state is obliged to do because of a constitutional obligation – would be through a process that, without court validation, would be unlawful and invalid. </p>
<p>The second legal question is: what are the legal obligations of a private company (CPS) to deliver state grants. The court has already ruled that CPS is an organ of state for the purposes of paying social grants, which means it cannot walk away from the contract like a private party because it is fulfilling much the same function as a government department. This is because it’s delivering social grants to give effect to a <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2014/12.html">constitutional right</a>. This means that the court may order it to continue delivering grants if it remains the only body capable of doing it – even if CPS doesn’t want to continue and doesn’t make a profit.</p>
<p><strong>What powers does the Constitutional Court have if it’s ignored?</strong></p>
<p>The Constitutional Court depends on other branches of government to implement its orders. </p>
<p>But it can do the following: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>It can issue cost orders against a litigant. In this case, for example, it could order the Minister for Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini to pay the cost of the court case from her personal funds. This would be quite extreme but the court could make the case that she had ignored its instructions. </p></li>
<li><p>In the most extreme case it could find a person in contempt of court and can then have them jailed for being in contempt. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>But ultimately the power of the court lies in the hands of citizens who can decide to punish those in power who ignore court orders and flout the law by voting for another party and electing a new government.</p>
<p><strong>What’s the significance of the stand-off?</strong></p>
<p>The stand-off affects the lives of millions of people. More than 17 million grants are disbursed to <a href="https://africacheck.org/factsheets/separating-myth-from-reality-a-guide-to-social-grants-in-south-africa/">adults and children in the country</a>. It is therefore imperative that the crisis is resolved in a way that does not threaten their livelihoods. </p>
<p>But it is also significant because it is testing the power of the court when confronted with political delinquency. Courts are reluctant to challenge the political branches of the state head on. But, in certain circumstances, like the present, the Constitutional Court stands to lose more by trying to avoid a confrontation. Instead, it stands to gain more credibility and legitimacy if it manages to confront the impunity of Sassa and the Minister of Social Development, and if it ultimately manages to ensure that grants are paid in a legally valid way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74630/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pierre de Vos receives funding from National Research Foundation - funds granted automatically as an NRF rated researcher. </span></em></p>South Africa’s Constitutional Court is in a fix. The only way to deliver social grants that support millions would be through a process that’s without validation, would be unlawful and invalid.Pierre de Vos, Claude Leon Foundation Chair in Constitutional Governance, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/706622017-01-04T13:27:47Z2017-01-04T13:27:47ZSouth Africa’s ANC can only be salvaged by leadership of epic ethical proportions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151006/original/image-20161220-26715-12w9c9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's President Jacob Zuma (left), who is also the president of the governing ANC, and his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What a year 2016 was for South Africa. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/sharp-tongued-south-african-voters-give-ruling-anc-a-stiff-rebuke-63606">August 3 municipal polls</a> consigned the governing African National Congress (ANC) to the opposition benches in some municipalities, including the major urban areas. This makes 2016 a defining year in the history of the country’s electoral politics.</p>
<p>Beyond being political rituals with prescribed rites overseen by the Electoral Commission (IEC), <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1987.tb00556.x/abstract">“elections decide politics”</a>. There is more to them than just casting of a vote. </p>
<p>After two decades of political dominance, the ANC’s electoral performance <a href="http://www.elections.org.za/content/Elections/Municipal-elections-results/">came down to its lowest</a> since it became the governing party. But is the party unravelling? This is the question it takes into the New Year. </p>
<p>To many, an answer is writ large. But, is it, really?</p>
<p>I ask this question because despite its weakened position the ANC still managed to garner more than 50% support, with the main opposition <a href="https://www.da.org.za/">Democratic Alliance (DA)</a> trailing at 26,9% while the <a href="http://effighters.org.za/">Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)</a> could only <a href="http:www.elections.org.za/content/Elections/Municipal-elections-results">get 8.19%</a>. Statistically, 27% margin of variation between the ANC and DA is too wide to disentangle the dominant party equilibrium.</p>
<h2>Electoral dominance vs hegemony</h2>
<p>The ANC is still ahead of many other political parties. Because of this some argue that a dominant party system is still intact, implying that the party’s political hegemony is not unravelling. </p>
<p>That the ANC is statistically ahead electorally is true, especially on the basis of its aggregate electoral performance. But electoral dominance does not equal political hegemony. This is because where there are a “small number of large parties” and patron-based <a href="http://vc.bridgew.edu/polisci_fac/25/">“large number of small parties”</a> electoral statistics often mask the truth. </p>
<p>As the Italian neo-Marxist theorist <a href="https://www.coursehero.com/file/p7tn6mo/Geertz-C-19641973-The-interpretation-of-cultures-New-York-Basic-Books-Gerring-J/">Antonio Gramsci explains</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Hegemony belongs to those who enjoy the greatest ideological resonance in society.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hegemony is therefore a function of the ability to galvanise a following based on political acumen to map social reality and create <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Interpretation_of_Cultures.html?id=BZ1BmKEHti0C">“collective conscience”</a>. Does the ANC’s 53.91% aggregate voter support in the 2016 municipal polls imply this?</p>
<p>This percentage obfuscates a woefully dismal showing in the metropolitan areas. These areas are <a href="http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/newsite/publications/briefing-notes/south-africas-watershed-elections-awry-the-beloved-country/">“home to some 40% of the population”</a> as well as majority of young black middle-class professionals.</p>
<p>But most people in this constituency have dual domicile, straddling urban and rural areas. Their following of a political party is not necessarily based on historical affinities, but the logic of ideas that are in sync with their epoch.</p>
<p>This urban-based strata of voters influences the countryside voters, who depend on the former for their subsistence. In this relationship there is the power to influence. </p>
<h2>Misconceptions about the urban/rural divide</h2>
<p>The black urbanites with rural connections – largely educated and perhaps with the streaks of sophistication – wittingly or unwittingly impart their political choices in their interactions with the countryside. These influence voter behaviour. The countryside vote is therefore not entirely a reliable pillar for political longevity.</p>
<p>The ANC’s support in the urban areas is declining. That its performance is propped up largely by the rural vote may be a harbinger for its atrophy. In the illusion of the ANC’s invincibility based on the rural support, its president appears to want it to be a rural party, mocking the black middle class as <a href="http://www.news24.com/Archives/City-Press/Zuma-scolds-clever-blacks-20150429">“clever blacks”</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151009/original/image-20161220-26715-13fglp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151009/original/image-20161220-26715-13fglp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151009/original/image-20161220-26715-13fglp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151009/original/image-20161220-26715-13fglp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151009/original/image-20161220-26715-13fglp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151009/original/image-20161220-26715-13fglp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151009/original/image-20161220-26715-13fglp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">ANC supporters at the launch of its local government election manifesto.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This has pernicious implications. It is at odds with the historical foundation of the ANC as an urban-based party. Compounding matters is that the ANC’s rural support is <a href="https:www.businesslive.co.za/politics/2016-10-29-the-truth-about-the-ancs-descent-down-the-ladder-of-power">actually declining</a>. Overtime, its sanctuary in the rural vote is going to vanish. </p>
<p>Doesn’t this make the black middle class a strategic bet to reclaim political hegemony and longevity?</p>
<h2>Elections and the middle-class</h2>
<p>Elections are important in many ways. As the American political scientist <a href="http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/72shy2en9780252012020.html">Murray Edelman explains</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>(They) give people a chance to express discontents and enthusiasm, to enjoy a sense of involvement [in the democratic process], [to] draw attention to common social ties and to the importance and apparent reasonableness of accepting public policies that are adopted.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>All these are necessary to consolidate democracy. The urban voters are particularly important to this end. Largely, they are not voting fodder. Their participation in the elections is not ritualistic. It is a means to optimise accountability, to change the behaviour of those charged with the responsibility of managing public affairs.</p>
<p>A political party with strategic foresight consolidates urban support to incubate its ideological posture for electoral virility. Ideological resonance is measured by the extent to which the enlightened subscribe to a party’s system of ideas. This is important to ensure that, in <a href="https://books.google.fr/books/about/The_German_Ideology.html?id=DujYWG8TPMMC&hl=fr">Marx and Engels words</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The ruling material force in society is at the same its intellectual force. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Political hegemony is created and maintained this way. With the abstention of the black middle class, especially in the urban areas, does the ANC still command political hegemony? Or has it become a ruling class without hegemony?</p>
<h2>Silver line in the ANC’s defeat</h2>
<p>In the cities such as Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay, coalition arrangements had to be structured because there were no outright winners. This spawned minority governments. There is at least a silver line in this. </p>
<p>The ANC’s loss does not necessarily mean that the opposition parties performed better. Much as they appear to have made inroads into the support base of the ANC, in the main voter abstention accounted for its diminishing electoral prospects. </p>
<p>The voters did not necessarily abandon it. They just withheld their vote. Their gripe is about corruption, factionalism and slate politics.</p>
<p>If former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/329757135/State-Capture-Report-2016#from_embed">State of Capture report</a> is anything to go by, state resources are being siphoned through state contracts, where the preoccupation is to profit from the state. </p>
<p>Venality creates the opportunity for state resources to be used to quench the insatiable lust for vanity, especially of the political elites, while those largely in the lower strata are kept perpetually hoping for a better life.</p>
<p>State resources are misappropriated for the personal aggrandisement of the political elites. Consequently, their personalities overshadow the party. Members become “members of members” rather of the party. Loyalties are due to the personalities.</p>
<p>These developments have estranged the black middle class. Hence their abstention in the recent municipal polls. But that they mostly decided not vote rather than switch allegiances, is an indication of their understanding of the distinction between the personal behaviour of individuals in leadership positions of the party and the noble principles at the historical foundation of the ANC.</p>
<p>This is an opportunity for organisational self-correction. But it is not going to be easy. The rot goes deep. Leadership of epic ethical proportions, absolutely unblemished, is required to salvage the ANC. </p>
<p>The jury is still out on whether the ANC veterans’ sigh of wisdom in calling for Zuma <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/zuma-brings-shame-to-sa-anc-veterans-20161103">to resign</a>, and the recent gesticulation by <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2016/12/19/mk-veterans-members-want-a-review-of-the-ancs-constitution/">veterans of its armed wing</a>, will salvage this desperate epoch of its history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70662/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mashupye Herbert Maserumule received funding from the National Research Foundation(NRF) for his post-graduate studies. He is affiliated with the South African Association of Public Administration and Management(SAAPAM) and is the Chief Editor of its scholarly publication, Journal of Public Administration.</span></em></p>After two decades of political dominance, the electoral performance of the ANC is at its lowest since it became the governing party of South Africa in 1994. But is the party really unraveling?Mashupye Herbert Maserumule, Professor of Public Affairs, Tshwane University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/686272016-11-13T08:10:23Z2016-11-13T08:10:23ZThabo Mbeki undermined South Africa’s constitution by putting his party first<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145552/original/image-20161111-15724-d53kqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former South African president Thabo Mbeki at May Day celebrations in 2003. He failed to challenge a decision by the ANC to recall him in 2008.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a recent <a href="http://www.ujuh.co.za/mbeki-our-country-is-immersed-in-a-general-crisis-but/">speech</a>, former South African President Thabo Mbeki decried the failure of parliament to act against President Jacob Zuma after the Constitutional Court had declared him in breach of the constitution. This is after Zuma failed to honour the recommendations of the Public Protector’s report on the scandalous expenditure on his homestead in <a href="http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2016/04/01/zuma-blames-public-works-department-for-nkandla-scandal">Nkandla</a>. </p>
<p>This is most welcome. But Mbeki’s intervention in favour of constitutional propriety is actually eight years too late. </p>
<p>The consequences of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/sep/20/southafrica1">the decisions he took on being ousted by his party</a>, the African National Congress (ANC), as State President in 2008 set a precedent and are still being felt today. By choosing not to fight the ANC over his recall, he missed a major opportunity to assert the primacy of South Africa’s constitution. And the chickens are coming home to roost.</p>
<p>It is worth recalling the events of 12 September 2008. On that day, Judge Chris Nicholson <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1055324/South-African-judge-throws-Zuma-corruption-case--clearing-way-president.html">ruled</a> in the High Court that there had been executive interference in the independence of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) when it reinstated charges against Jacob Zuma in a case involving alleged corruption 10 years earlier. The NPA’s decision was taken after Zuma ousted Mbeki in a bitter contest for the leadership of the ANC at a party conference in <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2007-12-18-zuma-is-new-anc-president">Polokwane</a> almost a year earlier. Nicholson’s ruling echoed the view of Zuma’s supporters that the reinstatement of the charges was <a href="http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=2822">politically motivated</a>, and had been done at Mbeki’s behest.</p>
<p>The consequences of Nicholson’s ruling were felt immediately.</p>
<p>With the Zuma faction in firm control of the ANC’s machinery, the ruling party instructed Mbeki to <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Mbeki-recalled-by-ANC-20080920">stand down</a> as the country’s president just eight days after Nicholson’s judgement. Like a lamb to the slaughter, he meekly did what he was told. Yes, he went with dignity, for which he needs to be commended. Yet in so doing, as a “loyal and disciplined member of the ANC”, he undermined the legitimacy of the constitution. He placed the authority of the party before that of parliament, which under the country’s constitution, is the only body that can remove a South African president from office.</p>
<h2>What the constitution says</h2>
<p>In terms of the country’s constitution, the president of the country is elected by the National Assembly from among its members. In practice, this has meant that since 1994 the ANC, as the majority party, has had its leader elected as president following each general election. The exception was when Kgalema Motlanthe <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/south-africa-appoints-motlanthe-to-succeed-mbeki-942188.html">succeeded</a> Mbeki for a short period after his resignation in 2008, Zuma having opted to wait to fill the post until after the 2009 election. This procedure is as it should be – the majority party chooses, but has to ratify its decision by referring the appointment to the National Assembly.</p>
<p>When it comes to the removal of a president, <a href="http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Govern_Political/SouthAf_Const_6.html">the constitution lays down</a> that such an action requires the National Assembly to pass a resolution to that effect by a two thirds majority. It may only do this on one or more of three grounds: a serious violation of the <a href="http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-Africa-1996-1">constitution</a> or the law; serious misconduct; and/or inability to perform the functions of office. It also lays down that anyone removed from the office of president on any of these grounds may not receive any benefits of that office (by which is meant, presumably, the denial to that person of his or her presidential pension).</p>
<p>So are we to assume that it was his concern about rands and cents which simply moved Mbeki to resign as president rather than insisting that the party take the matter to parliament? That seems highly unlikely. Love him or loathe him, Mbeki seems never to have been particularly concerned about material issues.</p>
<p>But – as indicated by <a href="http://panmacmillan.co.za/catalogue/eight-days-in-september/">the detailed account</a> of the matter by Frank Chikane, director-general in the presidency under <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-03-21-eight-days-thabo-mbeki-in-the-eyes-of-his-loyal-disciple/">Mbeki</a> – it seems that the former president chose not to contest the authority of the party because he could not bear to bring upon himself the charge of disloyalty to the party, however harsh he considered its decision. Yet in so doing he did the country a severe disservice.</p>
<h2>The alternatives</h2>
<p>There were alternatives. He could have insisted that as it was the National Assembly that had appointed him, he should go back to the National Assembly to resign. Or he could have contested the decision by one of two means.</p>
<p>First, Mbeki could have insisted that he would not resign until he had had the opportunity to appeal the Nicholson judgement to the Supreme Court, indicating that were he to have been successful in that, the ANC’s justification for removing him would be overturned. </p>
<p>Ironically, Mbeki lodged an <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Nicholson-failed-in-his-duties-20090112">appeal</a> after his resignation, and the Supreme Court did overturn the Nicholson judgement the following January (2009), exposing the Zuma ANC’s cynical ploy for what it was.</p>
<p>Second, more dramatically, he could have involved himself in a bruising battle between his own following and the Zuma faction amongst the ANC’s MPs. Such an action would undoubtedly have been labelled by his opponents as deeply divisive not least as he might have found himself being backed by the opposition Democratic Alliance. This might eventually have led to his expulsion from the party, something which he was clearly keen to avoid.</p>
<p>Pursuit of any one of these paths would have asserted the supremacy of the constitution over that of the party. Naysayers may say that party leaders regularly resign as presidents or prime ministers without such rigmarole when they stand down for party or personal reasons. But South Africa is a newly established democracy and establishing precedents and practices is important. </p>
<p>Zuma himself, and the ANC he has perverted, clearly has little regard for the constitution. Former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s <a href="http://citizen.co.za/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2014/03/Nkandla-Statement-by-Public-Protector-19-March-2014.pdf">findings</a> about the Nkandla matter, let alone her departing torpedo in the form of the <a href="http://www.ujuh.co.za/state-of-capture-public-protectors-report/">State Capture report</a>, indicate very clearly that he has been guilty, at the very least, of misconduct. Yet Zuma and his acolytes have chosen to ignore this, and are now willing to put their own interests before the long term interests of their own party. As some believe, this may lead on to the ANC’s defeat in the next general election in 2019.</p>
<p>It is this what makes Mbeki’s latest intervention so interesting.</p>
<p>The former president has now brought his critique of his successor as having endangered the future of the ANC, our democracy and economy into the open. He has now clearly aligned himself with the party <a href="http://city-press.news24.com/News/shameful-disgraceful-elders-lay-into-zuma-anc-leadership-20161103">elders</a> who are dismayed by the ANC’s betrayal of its historically emancipatory role as a liberation movement. </p>
<p>It is good, too, that he has placed the responsibility for censuring Zuma, and perhaps dismissing him, into parliament where it belongs. True, any impeachment proceedings of Zuma by the National Assembly would almost certainly be blocked by the ANC’s pliant majority of MPs. Against that, however, a parliamentary process would open much more political space for the growing minority of dissidents with the higher ranks of the party to state their case. This would help bring the growing political crisis which is gripping the country to the climax it so desperately needs.</p>
<p>Granted, the dominant Zuma faction has no regard for constitutional niceties and would be likely to trample over precedent, even if Mbeki had set one. But this does not negate the fact that the former president missed a major opportunity to assert the primacy of South Africa’s constitution. </p>
<p>Thanks, but no thanks, Mr Mbeki.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68627/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall receives funding from the National Research Foundation. </span></em></p>Former South Africa’s President, Thab Mbeki, has made a remarkable intervention that condemns parliament’s failure to act against President Jacob Zuma. But he is eight years too late.Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/680962016-11-02T16:51:40Z2016-11-02T16:51:40ZTide begins to turn against South Africa’s president and his supporters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144260/original/image-20161102-27212-1kcdzpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protestors call for the removal of South Africa President Jacob Zuma outside court in Pretoria, the capital city.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mike Hutchings/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are growing signs the tide has indeed begun to turn against South African President Jacob Zuma and his supporters. The politics of patronage is no longer working as it used to when Zuma’s defenders could be rewarded for their efforts with promotion, tenders, or a lucrative revolving door to corporate directorships. </p>
<p>In addition, his power base is in a state of increasing disarray. Zuma came to power on a <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2010-09-03-coalition-of-the-wounded-turn-on-zuma">campaign driven</a> by the African National Congress Youth League, Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu), and the South African Communist Party. Today the youth league is a <a href="http://www.destinyconnect.com/2016/02/08/anc-youth-league-still-relevant-young-people/">shadow of its former vibrant self</a>. The trade union federation has split, with large unions such as the <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/numsa-zuma-must-resign-1678131">National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa</a> and the <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2016/11/01/Zumas-position-now-untenable-and-he-must-resign-Nehawu">National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union</a> opposing him. The Communists are now strident in <a href="http://city-press.news24.com/News/curb-zumas-powers-20160827">condemning state capture</a>.</p>
<p>For the moment Zuma’s supporters control the ANC’s levers of power. But an unprecedented and growing army of ANC veterans, whose service to the party goes back to the 1950s, like <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/ahmed-mohamed-kathy-kathrada">Ahmed Kathrada</a>, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/andrew-mokete-mlangeni">Andrew Mlangeni</a> and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/ben-turok">Ben Turok</a>, issue public protest upon <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2016/10/28/101-ANC-stalwarts-pen-open-letter-backing-Gordhan">public protest</a>. </p>
<p>Most devastating of all, the ANC’s chief whip in parliament, Jackson Mthembu – whose very job description includes caucus discipline – backs critics of the ANC’s current executive. The chief whip would certainly not have issued his statement that the party’s leadership <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2016/10/23/Mthembu-calls-for-entire-ANC-leadership-to-step-down">should resign</a> unless he had taken the feeling of the majority of his caucus.</p>
<p>In short, Zuma’s critics within the ANC are emboldened to make protest upon protest, with clearly growing momentum. There is a sense that the Zuma machine within the ANC has begun to grind to a halt.</p>
<h2>The unravelling</h2>
<p>Some key Zuma allies are now deeply wounded, if not rendered ineffective. Among them are his defenders in the prosecution agencies, including the <a href="https://www.npa.gov.za/">National Prosecuting Authority</a>. Its powerful deputy director of public prosecutions Nomgcobo Jiba and the Specialised Commercial Crimes head Lawrence Mrwebi have felt the heat. Instead of being rewarded for their hard work protecting Zuma, their efforts got them <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2016/09/16/NPA-places-Jiba-on-special-leave">debarred as advocates</a>. And the president was compelled to institute an inquiry into whether they are fit and proper persons to hold their current posts. </p>
<p>Next, Shaun Abrahams, the head of the National Prosecuting Authority, ignominiously had to <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/npa-drops-charges-against-gordhan-2085233">withdraw</a> his threatened prosecution of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan. A barrage of critics want him declared <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2016-10-31-shaun-abrahams-double-trouble/#.WBngtfp97IU">unfit for office</a>.</p>
<p>Another Zuma ally, police minister Nathi Nhleko has also suffered a severe setback. His repeated attempts to dismiss Robert McBride from the Independent Police Investigative Directorate have backfired. The National Prosecuting Authority has withdrawn charges of fraud and <a href="http://citizen.co.za/news/news-national/1332262/npa-withdraws-charges-robert-mcbride-co/">defeating the ends of justice</a> against him.</p>
<p>It appears that the <a href="http://mg.co.za/tag/gupta-family">Gupta family</a> – accused of “capturing” Zuma and some of his cabinet ministers – also seems to be hedging its bets. There are reports that it has bought a <a href="http://city-press.news24.com/News/the-guptas-r445m-dubai-pad-20160507">R450 million mansion</a> (US$34 million) in Dubai.</p>
<p>Simultaneously, Zuma’s legal woes never seem to cease. Yet <a href="http://www.rdm.co.za/politics/2016/11/02/live-blog-the-release-of-the-state-capture-report-as-it-happens">another report</a> from the retired Public Protector has not been good news for Zuma and his cronies, Minerals Minister Mosebenzi Zwane and Cooperative Governance Minister Des van Rooyen. </p>
<p>Zuma’s legal team has managed to stall a <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-03-07-this-way-out-holomisas-exit-strategy-for-jacob-zuma/#.WBn2u_p97IU">flurry of litigation</a> from the official opposition and tenacious NGOs throughout the five years of his first term of office which started in 2009. His second term hasn’t been easier and it will now be tougher to continue stalling.</p>
<p>If Zuma is prosecuted at some point in the future, there is now no longer any guarantee that there will be hand-picked prosecutors in place should he come to court.</p>
<p>And up to 1000 former ANC municipal councillors are now unemployed following the recent local government <a href="https://theconversation.com/major-shift-in-south-african-politics-as-the-da-breaks-out-of-its-cape-enclave-63619">elections</a>. Councillors voted out of office only get a once-off severance payment, but no pensions. That once-off payment will have run out by now. Demoralisation and despair will be eroding Zuma’s support from that constituency too. ANC national MPs and provincials MPs will be calculating how a continuing Zuma presidency might hurt their own chances in the 2019 election.</p>
<h2>On the defensive</h2>
<p>Zuma supporters in the ANC are on the defensive. They are no longer able to justify <a href="http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201408222154-0024098">Nkandlagate</a> – the scandal over the use of public money on his private homestead – or his allegedly corrupt relationship with the <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-09-23-zupta-contagion-hard-questions-anc-must-ask-but-cant/#.WBn5APp97IU">Guptas</a>. </p>
<p>His supporters are reduced to diversionary debating tactics and peddling in <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2016/09/27/Report-Police-investigation-opened-into-Thuli-Madonsela-spy-claims">conspiracy theories</a> and western imperialist plots for regime change. This attempt at smearing Zuma’s critics within the ANC as foreign agents is carrying less weight than ever before.</p>
<p>Meantime the official opposition, <a href="https://www.da.org.za/">the Democratic Alliance</a>, has announced it is transferring a chunk of its HQ staff to Johannesburg – with the specific mission of running a two and a half year election campaign against the ANC in the Gauteng Province. And so far, the difficult tactical alliance between the DA and Economic Freedom Fighters is holding.</p>
<p>British Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously remarked during the 1960s that a week can be a long time in politics. One ANC cabinet minister to whom I quoted that responded: “A <em>day</em> can be a long time in politics!”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68096/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 in his capacity as a political scientist. </span></em></p>For the moment President Zuma’s supporters control the governing ANC’s levers of power. But an unprecedented number of people in the ANC are turning against him. How long will the centre hold?Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/658242016-10-03T18:57:08Z2016-10-03T18:57:08ZPress freedom: worrying signs as South Africa slips in global rankings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140129/original/image-20161003-20230-10of9pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Media freedom activists protest against the draconian Protection of Information Bill in Cape Town, South Africa.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sumaya Hisham/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On 19 October 1977, the apartheid government in South Africa banned The World, the Weekend World and arrested the newspapers’ editor Percy Qoboza. <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/remembering-qobozas-sense-of-duty-1594527#.ViI2CX4rLnA">Pro Veritate</a>, an ecumenical newspaper, was also banned.</p>
<p>The day was named <a href="http://www.saha.org.za/news/2011/November/a_black_wednesday_for_apartheid_sa_and_a_black_tuesday_for_democratic_sa.htm">Black Wednesday</a> and is commemorated every year. It serves as an opportunity to take stock of how the country is faring when it comes to press freedom. </p>
<p>Since the end of apartheid South Africa has made great advances when it comes to freedom of the press and freedom of expression in general. The situation today is a far cry from the apartheid era. </p>
<p>Freedom of expression is firmly embedded in the country’s <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/images/a108-96.pdf">constitution</a> which provides for the “freedom of press and other media”. It also enshrines the right of access to information. </p>
<p>Legislation, such as the Promotion of Access to <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/legis/consol_act/poatia2000366/">Information Act</a> has been put in place to underpin these constitutional rights. It provides for access to any information held by the State or private person. This <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2009/21.html">practically means</a> that the Act provides the media with information on how government is run. </p>
<p>This in turn may very well have a bearing on elections and therefore significantly influences a democratic state. As the country’s Constitutional Court has <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2009/21.html">stated</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Access to information is crucial to accurate reporting and thus to imparting accurate information to the public. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Contrary to the secretive apartheid regime, the Promotion of Access to Information Act promotes a culture of responsiveness, transparency and accountability in government.</p>
<p>Impressive as that might be, things do not work as well in practice. South Africa has been dropping in <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2015/south-africa">press freedom rankings</a>. Reasons for the decline include the fact that access to information for the media has been slow and is often hampered by bureaucracy. And in <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2015/south-africa">only a few cases</a> have access to information applications resulted in full disclosure of information. </p>
<p>While there’s reason to celebrate the improvement of press freedom in a number of southern African countries, South Africans have reason to worry. The <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/freedom-press-2016">Freedom of the Press Report</a> lists South Africa as being among the countries with one of the biggest declines in press freedom, dropping four places. It is now being seen as only “partly free”. </p>
<h2>Progress so far</h2>
<p>In the 2015 <a href="https://rsf.org/en/ranking">World Press Freedom Index</a>, southern Africa was ranked as the second most improved media environment in the world with <a href="https://rsf.org/en/namibia">Namibia</a> being a real success story. </p>
<p>In other parts of Africa <a href="https://rsf.org/en/ghana">Ghana</a> is still faring well (despite dropping in rankings). Countries in <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/freedom-press-2016">West Africa</a>, such as Burkina Faso, Cȏte d’Ivoire and Togo showed encouraging improvements. </p>
<p>According to another survey, the Freedom House <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/freedom-press-2016">Freedom of the Press Report 2015</a>, South Africa ranks at number 39 of 180 countries, and within Africa, it ranks lower than Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Mauritius, Ghana and Namibia.</p>
<p>So, while there has been a general improvement in press freedom in the southern part of Africa in 2015, South Africa’s decline in rankings is a cause for concern.</p>
<h2>Free to say what they think?</h2>
<p>In his 2014 Black Wednesday <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/pebble.asp?relid=18231">commemoration speech</a> President Jacob Zuma emphasised that the “country is run by a government with leaders who fought for these rights” and because of this they should be trusted to “never deny our people the right to say what they think”.</p>
<p>But, the ANC government proved that merely being the liberation party does not exempt you from violating the rights of others. A study by <a href="http://afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/publications/Briefing%20paper/ab_r5_policypaperno3.pdf">Afrobarometer</a> shows that people who indicate that they are free to say what they think also report lower levels of corruption and better government performance.</p>
<p>South Africa has shown that high government corruption can be equated to lower press freedom in attempts to cover-up corruption. One example is the use of <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/legis/consol_act/nkpa1980224.pdf">legislation</a> from the apartheid era to hinder any critical reporting on the use of public money on President Zuma’s private homestead at <a href="http://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/national-key-points-act-laid-bare/">Nkandla</a>. This serves as a clear contradiction of Zuma’s 2014 speech.</p>
<p>The controversial <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/B6F-2010_15Oct2013.pdf">Protection of State Information Bill</a> is also a threat to access to information. Better known as the “Secrecy Bill”, it carries prison terms of up to 25 years for the disclosure of classified state information.</p>
<p>Another punch in the face of freedom of expression is the <a href="http://iabsa.net/assets/FPB_Draft_Online_policy_Submissions.pdf">proposal</a> by the Film and Publications <a href="http://www.fpb.org.za/">Board</a> to regulate online content.</p>
<p>But the most saddening has been the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s open display of bias towards the governing ANC. Examples include its refusal to allow political advertisements of <a href="http://buzzsouthafrica.com/das-election-ads/">opposition parties</a> and directing journalists not to ask Zuma <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-07-20-hlaudis-kill-bill-the-slippery-slide-towards-manipulating-the-news/#.V-5rr8e9rIU">difficult questions</a>.</p>
<h2>Liberating party loses sight of its roots</h2>
<p>South Africa’s challenge is that the government is slowly crossing the bridge from liberating party to being a threat to democracy.</p>
<p>A mediocre democracy would be happy with being ranked “partly free” for media freedom. But, that is not in keeping with the robust democracy that many fought for South Africa to become. </p>
<p>As the country commemorates Black Wednesday and celebrates press freedom, South African would do well not forget what it took to gain such freedom, and the work that lies ahead to maintain it.</p>
<p>If the South African government continues down the slippery slope of corruption and censorship, it will only be a matter of time before its “partly free” media freedom status degenerates into “not free” – just like it was during apartheid.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65824/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Georgia Alida du Plessis 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>While some African countries have shown an improvement in press freedom and freedom of expression ratings, others, including South Africa, are seeing worrying trends and a drop in rankings.Georgia Alida du Plessis, Research Fellow in Public Law, University of the Free StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/640772016-08-30T12:25:19Z2016-08-30T12:25:19ZSouth Africa should use a more scientific approach to appoint its public protector<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135932/original/image-20160830-28233-1xkji9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's public protector, Thuli Madonsela, was rated among the world's 100 most influential people by Time.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lucas Jackson/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa is in the process of selecting a <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2016/08/24/Mkhwebane-nominated-as-Public-Protector-candidate">new public protector</a> to replace the incumbent, Thuli Madonsela. The country’s National Assembly is responsible for recruiting her replacement. But the way it goes about doing this is deeply flawed.</p>
<p>Firstly, the recruitment and selection ad hoc committee assembled to make the decision consists entirely of politicians. It has 11 members – six from the governing African National Congress, two from the main opposition Democratic Alliance, one from the Economic Freedom Fighters and two from smaller parties. All represent their party interests. This hugely compromises the professional ethics of recruitment and selection. </p>
<p>The second problem is that a mere interview process is inadequate if the aim is to identify behavioural characteristics like integrity, <a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/22629/">honesty and reliability</a>. These are characteristics the public protector needs to have.</p>
<p>These problems could be addressed if a more competency based assessment selection method was used. A more professional approach would be appropriate since the key post should be occupied by an apolitical, professional person. He or she is not an elected political office bearer.</p>
<p>The public protector’s job is to promote clean governance in public administration. It has the power to investigate <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-africas-public-protector-has-set-a-high-bar-for-her-successor-63891">improper conduct</a> in any sphere of government. Its goal is to strengthen South Africa’s <a href="http://www.constitutionalcourt.org.za/site/constitution/english-web/ch9.html">constitutional democracy</a>.</p>
<h2>A proper job analysis</h2>
<p>The public protector is required to be <a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/22629/">“fit and proper”</a>. That means he or she must be honest, have integrity and be reliable. A proper job analysis would provide a more specific and detailed account of these key behavioural competencies. Because the current process relies on interviews, it opens the door for personal judgement and biases. Interview questions are not informed by a proper job analysis exercise. </p>
<p>A job analysis is a technical process. It is a systematic review of a job that culminates in identifying and determining in detail the particular duties of a job (job description) and its requirements (job specification). The process also provides details about the relative importance of the identified duties and requirements of a given job. </p>
<p>The private sector is often viewed as being more efficient and effective than the public sector. This is partly because, for the most part, it recruits the candidates who are best qualified. This is possible because of a thorough job analysis to determine a particular job’s inherent requirements. These include the right personality, which is often determined through instruments or exercises that assess behavioural attributes.</p>
<p>Psychologist Alwyn Moerdyk defines assessment as “the process of determining the presence of, and/or the extent to which, an object, person, group or system possesses a particular property, characteristic or <a href="http://www.takealot.com/the-principles-and-practice-of-psychological-assessement/PLID33057086">attribute</a>.</p>
<p>This is only possible through professionally managed job analysis process. This shouldn’t be difficult given that Madonsela has provided a benchmark in terms of the required properties, characteristics and attributes to seek in her successor. Her courage and integrity brought prestige to the office and made it one of South Africa’s most trusted public <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-africas-public-protector-has-set-a-high-bar-for-her-successor-63891">governance institutions</a>. </p>
<p>The process of a competency-based assessment is predicated on the job specification and description. It eliminates biases and subjectivity. It is also the basis on which interviews are done. Good interview questions would be aimed at identifying a "fit and proper” candidate by interrogating their <a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/22629/">character</a>. Only competency based interviews can achieve this.</p>
<p>The basis of competency-based assessment rests on the underlying principle that past behaviour predicts future performance. It directly measures skills and abilities specifically relating to, in this case, the job of a public protector. It is important to balance these skills and facets of the job with personal attributes so that allowance is made for the individual to use their discretion and creativity in achieving the job outcomes.</p>
<p>Competency-based assessment is highly valuable. It is related directly to the job, rather than assessing broader behavioural and past events that are not related to the job. Many of the recent interviews done by the ad hoc committee were disrespectful and demeaning of some candidates’ characters and professional statures. Some were subjected to unwarranted personal attacks. And some were subjected to inquisitions about their ideological positions with no relevance to the requirements of the job. </p>
<p>Competency-based assessments are in line with the requirements of the current South African labour legislation – the <a href="http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/legislation/acts/labour-relations/labour-relations-act">Labour Relations Act</a> and the <a href="http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/downloads/legislation/acts/employment-equity/eegazette2015.pdf">Employment Equity Act</a> – in that applicants and employees are screened and evaluated only in terms of the inherent and critical job-related competencies.<br>
Competency-based assessment allows for flexibility to accommodate the different candidates. It has been shown to cut across biases based on attributes such as gender, culture and race. It also obviates stereotyping and has a higher level of <a href="http://www.sajip.co.za/index.php/sajip/article/viewFile/31/29">predictive and face validity</a>. This is particularly important given South Africa’s transformation and affirmative action imperatives.</p>
<p>This is why professionals need to manage the process. The recruitment of the country’s public protector would be done better if scientific recruitment methods were followed. Parliament would do well to involve recruitment professionals to ensure that its choice of a suitable candidate is both professional and fair.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64077/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sandiso Bazana 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 public protector needs to be “fit and proper”. That means he or she must be honest, reliable and have integrity.These qualities cannot be assessed through an interview and background checks only.Sandiso Bazana, Lecturer in Organisational Psychology, Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.