tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/cyril-ramaphosa-18226/articlesCyril Ramaphosa – The Conversation2024-03-21T14:40:20Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2261352024-03-21T14:40:20Z2024-03-21T14:40:20ZThis is how President Ramaphosa got to the 25% figure of progress in land reform in South Africa<p>Nearly three decades into democracy, land reform remains central to South Africa’s transformation policies and agricultural policy. </p>
<p>We have over the years pointed out that the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/37171/chapter/323739043?login=true">progress on land reform has been incorrectly reported</a>. It’s been consistently understated.</p>
<p>We have argued that, if the statistics are treated carefully, the progress has been much better than politicians and activists often claim.</p>
<p>We were encouraged earlier this year when South African president Cyril Ramaphosa <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5d28EqZ-t8">acknowledged</a> in his <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/state-nation-address-president-cyril-ramaphosa-8-february-2024">State of the Nation address</a> that there had been better progress in land reform. The commonly cited argument is that land reform has been a failure and that only 8%-10% of farmland has been returned to black South Africans since apartheid ended in 1994.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa stated that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Through redistribution, around 25% of farmland in our country is now owned by black South Africans, bringing us closer to achieving our target of 30% by 2030.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This figure is based on an update of <a href="https://theconversation.com/land-reform-in-south-africa-5-myths-about-farming-debunked-195045">our work</a> at the Bureau of Economics Research and the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University.</p>
<p>Below we provide a detailed explanation of how we arrived at this figure. We also highlight policies the government can use to fast track the land reform programme to ensure that black farmers become central to a growing, and inclusive agricultural sector.</p>
<h2>Land reform data</h2>
<p>In reviewing the progress with land reform we should be mindful that the land reform programme consist of three elements (refer to <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">Section 25 of the constitution</a>: redistribution, restitution and tenure reform.</p>
<p>Substantive progress has only been made in the land redistribution space and through the process of land restitution managed by the <a href="https://nationalgovernment.co.za/units/view/62/commission-on-restitution-of-land-rights">Land Claims Commission</a>.</p>
<p>The progress of land reform can only be tracked where we have surveyed land, and land with title deeds registered. Even then it is tricky as the title deeds do not record the “race” of the registered owner.</p>
<p>To understand the progress with land reform it is important to start from the correct base. How much farm land is in question here? </p>
<p>In 1994, total farm land with title deeds (thus outside what the apartheid government set aside for black people) covered <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-land-reform-agency-could-break-south-africas-land-redistribution-deadlock-165450">77.58 million hectares of the total surface area of South Africa of 122 million hectares</a>. It is assumed, merely by the fact that black ownership of farm land in South Africa was not possible before 1991, that all <a href="https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/37171/chapter/323739043">77.58 million hectares were owned by white farmers when land reform was initiated in 1994</a>.</p>
<p>Let us now unpack the progress with land reform based on the various data sources.</p>
<h2>Land restitution</h2>
<p>The land restitution process involves the restoration of land rights to black communities who lost their (registered and legally owned) farm land as a result of various forms of dispossession introduced by the apartheid-era governments after 1913.</p>
<p>Through the process of land claims, the Land Claims Commission has transferred 4 million hectares back to communities who previously were dispossessed (Source: various annual reports of the Land Claims Commission). </p>
<p>What’s missing from this calculation is the fact that communities have also been able to elect to receive financial compensation instead of obtaining the formal rights to the land.</p>
<p>Over the years a total of R22 billion (about US$1.1 billion) was paid out in financial compensation (Source: various annual reports of the Land Claims Commission). The commission never reported the number of hectares for which financial compensation was paid out for. It took some work by us to get the number of hectares of farmland involved in financial compensation from the commission, and it has now been confirmed that a total of 2.68 million hectares have been restored in this way.</p>
<p>That means that, in total, the restitution programme managed to restore the land rights of black communities equivalent to 6.68 million hectares.</p>
<h2>Land redistribution</h2>
<p>For the first 10 years of the land reform programme the government applied a market assisted programme of land redistribution based on the <a href="https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/2537/Kirsten_Approaches(1999).pdf?sequence=1">willing-buyer-willing-seller principle</a>. Government grants assisted the purchase of the land by groups or individual beneficiaries. </p>
<p>These initiatives resulted in the transfer of 7.55 million hectares of farm land to black South Africans (Source: Various annual reports by Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development to parliament). This is probably where the stubbornness of the 10% figure came from. People have focused only on the one dimension of the land reform programme.</p>
<p>One element of redistributive land reform that is usually ignored is the private acquisition of farmland by Black South Africans outside the formal government assisted processes. Here individuals have used their own resources or financial arrangements with commercial banks or the <a href="https://landbank.co.za/Pages/Home.aspx">Land Bank</a> through which they fund the purchase farm land. </p>
<p>The only way you can find the exact number of these deals is to comb through every land transaction and, based on the surnames of the seller and buyer, confirm that the land was transferred from White to Black.</p>
<p>The Bureau of Economic Research at Stellenbosch University estimated that since 1994 a total of 1.9 million hectares of farm land were acquired by black South Africans without the assistance of the state. This might even be an undercount because some surnames such as Van Wyk, Van Rooyen, and even Schoeman do not necessary belong to white South Africans, and then there are many transactions to proprietary limited companies that are majority black owned but with typical names that would resemble an Afrikaans name such as Sandrift Boerdery. These are not picked-up in these searches.</p>
<h2>Government acquisition</h2>
<p>Our final source of the data is the farmland acquired by the state. The first is via the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-government-has-been-buying-land-and-leasing-it-to-black-farmers-why-its-gone-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it-211938#:%7E:text=By%20June%202023%2C%20the%20state,to%20the%20leasing%20of%20land.">PLAS</a>) that was introduced in 2006 after dissatisfaction with the earlier land reform efforts.</p>
<p>By August 2023, the state had acquired 2.54 million hectares of productive farmland through the programme and lease it out to beneficiaries. The <a href="https://www.gtac.gov.za/pepa/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ALHA-Spending-Review-Report.pdf">State Land Holding Account Entity</a> is the custodian of this land.</p>
<p>Most of the roughly 2500 beneficiaries have a 30-year lease agreement with the state.</p>
<p>In addition, state owned enterprises and provincial governments have also acquired farmland which is now used for non-agricultural purposes. A total of 630 000 hectares have been acquired over the last 30 years.</p>
<h2>Getting to 25%</h2>
<p>If we now add all the numbers together:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Restitution: 6.68 million ha</p></li>
<li><p>Government Land redistribution: 7.55 million ha</p></li>
<li><p>Private transactions: 1.9 million ha</p></li>
<li><p>Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy programme: 2.54 million ha</p></li>
<li><p>Government acquisition for non-agricultural use: 0.63 million ha</p></li>
</ul>
<p>This gives a total of 19.3 million ha or 24.9% of the total of all freehold farmland in South Africa. The correct way to word the statement on the progress of with land reform since 1994 is therefore as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Almost 25% of all farm land previously owned by white land owners have been restored, redistributed to black South Africans or moved away to state ownership.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This does not say anything about the financial and commercial viability of the land that was transferred and doesn’t speak to the fast tracking of the land reform programme to bring about a just, equitable and inclusive commercial agricultural sector. Here we need more specific policy interventions.</p>
<h2>Policy considerations</h2>
<p>There are vast tracts of land within the government books that could be transferred to black South Africans for the benefit of agricultural progress and land reform success. The government should consider the following steps:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Establishing a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-land-reform-agency-could-break-south-africas-land-redistribution-deadlock-165450">Land Reform and Agricultural Development Agency</a>. It would primarily be responsible for land registration and transfer under the redistribution programme. It could operate under the <a href="https://landbank.co.za/About-Us/Key%20Policies/1.%20Land%20Bank%20Act.pdf">Land Bank Act</a>, effectively execute the government policy, and deal with beneficiary selection.</p></li>
<li><p>The government’s <a href="https://www.greenagri.org.za/blog/blended-finance-scheme/">Blended Finance programme</a>, in collaboration with the <a href="https://www.gcis.gov.za/sites/default/files/docs/resourcecentre/newsletters/issues.pdf">development finance institutions</a> and other financial institutions, should provide financial support to the selected beneficiaries.</p></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226135/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wandile Sihlobo is the Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) and a member of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Johann Kirsten 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>Almost 25% of all farmland previously owned by white landowners has been restored, redistributed to black South Africans, or moved away to state ownership.Johann Kirsten, Director of the Bureau for Economic Research, Stellenbosch UniversityWandile Sihlobo, Senior Fellow, Department of Agricultural Economics, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2232052024-02-09T14:29:46Z2024-02-09T14:29:46ZSouth African president Cyril Ramaphosa aims for upbeat tone in annual address, but fails to impress a jaundiced electorate<p>This year’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/news/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-2024-state-nation-address-08-feb-2024">State of the Nation Address</a> – delivered annually in February by South Africa’s president – was bound to be stuffed with electioneering messages and slogans. The country goes to the polls <a href="https://www.eisa.org/election-calendar/">any time between May and August</a> and there was no doubt that Cyril Ramaphosa would use the occasion to burnish the governing African National Congress’s reputation.</p>
<p>That’s indeed what he did. The upcoming elections are the most significant since the country became a democracy in 1994. Numerous opinion polls suggest the ANC will <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/opinion/2024/2024-02/new-poll-shows-dramatic-decline-in-electoral-support-of-anc.html">fall below 50%</a> of the vote nationally for the first time, providing opportunities for opposition coalitions. A party needs to win <a href="https://www.gov.za/CoalitionsDialogue/faqs">50%</a> or more of the seats in parliament to form a government on its own. </p>
<p>Adding to the moment was the fact that this was the last state of the nation address of Ramaphosa’s term.</p>
<p>In his 105-minute address Ramaphosa tried to remind his audience of the government’s achievements over the past three decades of democracy. </p>
<p>These included 200 prosecutions for corruption, and new public-private partnerships to build power transmission lines. </p>
<p>The omissions included the persistence of <a href="https://southafrica.un.org/en/123531-slow-violence-malnutrition-south-africa">chronic malnutrition</a>, and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africans-are-revolting-against-inept-local-government-why-it-matters-155483">distressing number of ANC-run municipalities</a> whose sewage treatment plants have broken down, which can no longer bill for electricity, and which fail to repair potholed roads.</p>
<p>As a political scientist I’ve <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.10520/nagenda_v2021_n80_a5">studied</a> South African politics for many years.</p>
<p>The president’s speech – looking back and ahead – couldn’t cover up the fact that the last five years have been some of the most difficult for ordinary South Africans. Power cuts have <a href="https://theconversation.com/power-cuts-and-food-safety-how-to-avoid-illness-during-loadshedding-200586">become more severe</a>, <a href="https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/statistics-south-africa-quarterly-labour-force-survey-quarter-three-2023-14#:%7E:text=The%20unemployment%20rate%20according%20to,000%20over%20the%20same%20period.">joblessness</a> continues to rise and the economy is performing <a href="https://www.resbank.co.za/content/dam/sarb/publications/statements/monetary-policy-statements/2024/january/Statement%20of%20the%20Monetary%20Policy%20Committee%20January%202024.pdf">poorly</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-anc-marks-its-112th-year-with-an-eye-on-national-elections-but-its-record-is-patchy-and-future-uncertain-221125">South Africa’s ANC marks its 112th year with an eye on national elections, but its record is patchy and future uncertain</a>
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<p>If he was hoping to liven up the ANC’s election chances, his speech might just not do it. </p>
<h2>The contested record</h2>
<p>Ramaphosa listed a number of achievements of the last 30 years as testimony of the advances made under successive ANC governments. But many of the claims rang hollow.</p>
<p><strong>Poverty:</strong> In 1994 71% of South Africa’s population lived in poverty; today 55% do, <a href="https://www.gov.za/news/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-2024-state-nation-address-08-feb-2024">he said</a>, citing World Bank figures. He gave an example of a girl born in 1994 whose parents live in a house built by the state, who got a child grant, went to a free school with free meals, and obtained a bursary to graduate from a training college and start earning a living.</p>
<p>All this is true for millions of South Africans. The problem is that it’s not for millions of others. </p>
<p><strong>Employment:</strong> The president devoted paragraphs of his speech to job opportunities created by various government programmes. </p>
<p>But this too was heavily criticised. To my knowledge, the phrase “job opportunity” is state-speak for a temporary job which always ends, usually after three months, to then be offered to someone else in the unemployment queue. Real unemployment – the expanded definition – is <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0211/Media%20release%20QLFS%20Q4%202022.pdf">around 42%</a>, up from 15% <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w13167/w13167.pdf">in 1994</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Energy:</strong> On the continuing power cuts Ramaphosa <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/state-nation-address-president-cyril-ramaphosa-cape-town-city-hall-2">pledged</a> that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the worst is behind us and an end to load-shedding is in reach.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He said public-private partnerships are building 14,000km of transmission cables. These will link up new solar and other power plants to an augmented national grid. </p>
<p>But South Africans have grown weary of unfulfilled promises. Many have been made before. People have become cynical about pledges of future electricity improvements. Sadly, the state power utility, Eskom, could not celebrate 2023 as its centenary. Last year saw the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-22/south-africa-faces-two-more-years-of-power-outages-eskom-says">worst power cuts in the country’s history</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/robberies-surge-as-criminals-take-advantage-of-south-africas-power-outages-199106">Robberies surge as criminals take advantage of South Africa's power outages</a>
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<p><strong>Investment and black ownership:</strong> The president reported that R1.5 trillion (US$79 billion) of new investment had come into South Africa since 2018, and that black ownership of mining had risen from 2% in 1994 to 39% today. A quarter of agricultural private land was now owned by black farmers, and the government’s goal of one-third of farm land being returned to black farmers by 2030 was now in reach. </p>
<p>But evidence shows land reform has a mixed record of <a href="https://www.da.org.za/2022/11/ancs-land-reform-shame-75-of-land-reform-farms-have-failed">successes and failures</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Minimum wage:</strong> Ramaphosa took a swipe at the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, by reminding South Africans that 6 million workers had had their pay raised by national minimum wages over the past few years. </p>
<p>The Democratic Alliance is <a href="https://www.da.org.za/2020/12/da-opposes-national-minimum-wage-commissions-proposed-increases">opposed to minimum wages</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Social grants:</strong> Ramaphosa listed a host of social security measures. These included 9 million people on <a href="https://www.gov.za/services/services-residents/social-benefits/social-relief-distress">Social Relief of Distress</a> grants (R350 or US$18.42 a month) which started during the COVID pandemic, and the 9 million school children receiving a free lunch daily. There are <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=16711">62 million</a> South Africans. </p>
<p>But even here the real story isn’t all that good. Malnutrition and hunger remain stubbornly persistent. National statistics show that <a href="https://southafrica.un.org/en/123531-slow-violence-malnutrition-south-africa">27% of children are stunted</a> – under weight and under height for their age. Child grants cannot feed both a baby and its unemployed single mother. </p>
<p><strong>Health:</strong> the president spoke of a new academic hospital under construction <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/limpopo-get-new-academic-hospital">in Limpopo province</a>. He did not mention that hundreds of newly graduated doctors cannot find jobs in the public health sector due to budget cuts compelling a <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/health/2024-02-07-this-is-why-the-health-department-cannot-employ-new-doctors/#:%7E:text=SA%20has%20close%20to%20700,afford%20to%20employ%20these%20professionals">freeze on filling empty posts</a>.</p>
<h2>What was left unsaid</h2>
<p>In my view South Africans won’t be impressed by the speech. Previous State of the Nation addresses have not been followed by implementation. In one ill-advised one <a href="https://www.gov.za/news/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-2019-state-nation-address-07-feb-2019">in 2019</a>, the president fantasised about bullet trains, when his audience were desperately waiting for the resumption of service on slow train commuting routes. They still are.</p>
<p>The 2024 speech offers fertile material for opposition parties to score points against the ANC. They have already started to do so in <a href="https://www.enca.com/top-stories/sona-2024-opposition-parties-criticise-story-tintswalo">TV interviews</a> and other <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/business-opinion/750354/sona-2024-reactions-ramaphosa-pats-himself-on-the-back-while-south-africa-sits-in-crisis/">media</a>: promises of an end to power cuts attract the most sarcasm.</p>
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Read more:
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<p>This address had to be held in the old Cape Town city hall, rented from a DA-controlled municipality, because negligent security failed to prevent an arsonist from <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/press-releases/media-statement-further-measures-regarding-parliament-fire-incident-and-alleged-administrative-irregularities">burning down the parliament building</a> on Jauary 2022 – symptomatic of general state incompetence.</p>
<p>Parliamentary practice is that opposition parties are given at least two full days to criticise the State of the Nation address and to present their alternatives. </p>
<p>This address by and large repeats what the ANC and government have already said on several occasions. Likewise, the opposition responses are not new. It will be more of the same from both sides all the way to voting day.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223205/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is a member of the African National Congress, but writes this piece in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>The president’s speech couldn’t cover up for the fact that the last five years have been among the most difficult for ordinary South Africans.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2215052024-01-26T10:24:19Z2024-01-26T10:24:19ZThe two faces of Jacob Zuma – former South African president campaigns to unseat the ANC he once led. Who supports him and why?<p>Former South African president Jacob Zuma’s political comeback builds on support from marginalised and angry constituencies within or close to the governing African National Congress (ANC). His vengeful but <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67741527">“loyal” rebellion</a> against the ANC resonates with these political constituencies.</p>
<p>In mid-December 2023, Zuma announced that he would be <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-01-09-umkhonto-wesizwe-what-we-know-about-zumas-new-party/">supporting</a> the newly formed <a href="https://mkparty.org.za/">uMkhonto weSizwe Party</a> (MK Party), rather than the ANC, in the <a href="https://www.eisa.org/election-calendar/">upcoming national election</a>. But he would <a href="https://www.enca.com/videos/2024-elections-zuma-ditches-anc-pledges-vote-mk-party">not resign from the ANC</a>. <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/umkhonto-wesizwe-mk">Umkhonto we Sizwe</a> is the name of the ANC’s former guerrilla army. </p>
<p>This latest assault by Zuma on the ANC coincides with the embattled party entering a tough campaigning period for the <a href="https://www.eisa.org/election-calendar/">national and provincial elections</a>, expected between May and August 2024. Zuma is using his new platform to strike at his arch-enemy, President Cyril Ramaphosa, who also heads the ANC. </p>
<p>Zuma, president of the ANC from <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/former-leaders-2/">2007 to 2017</a>, and of South Africa from <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/jacob-gedleyihlekisa-zuma-mr">2009 to early 2018</a>, rose to power controversially, amid allegations of corruption related to the government’s <a href="https://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/1037">1998 procurement of arms</a>. This scandal became the hallmark of his reign, followed by the debilitating <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">state capture and gross misgovernance</a> scandals. </p>
<p>He has used the <a href="https://definitions.uslegal.com/s/stalingrad-defense/">Stalingrad legal strategy</a> – wearing down a plaintiff by challenging their every move – to evade justice. However, he was convicted on a relatively minor charge in July 2021, for defying a court order to appear at a <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">judicial commission into state capture</a>. His subsequent jailing triggered violent protests in which <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-deadly-july-2021-riots-may-recur-if-theres-no-change-186397">about 350 people died</a>. There are fears that further action against Zuma could spark a resurgence. </p>
<h2>Challenging Ramaphosa</h2>
<p>Zuma has portrayed the MK Party as the authentic ANC, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UEzy1ELNgo">not the one led by Ramaphosa</a>. He has been drawing sizeable crowds to the meetings of the new party, provoking the ANC and <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/politics/anc-take-a-chill-pill-on-their-zuma-headache-for-now-20240114">paralysing its strategists</a>. The ANC faces a difficult choice: suspend or expel Zuma and face a backlash; or tolerate him within the ANC, lest he turns disciplinary action against him into martyrdom.</p>
<p>My academic study of South African politics, and the ANC, over three decades provides some insight into why Zuma continues to command support, despite his ruinous tenure. Under his presidency, the state and its organs were <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48980964">captured and repurposed</a> for his benefit and those around him; state organs were disabled and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.18772/12021026451">ANC factional divisions pushed to unprecedented levels</a>. I suggest the reasons people still support him include public unhappiness with the ANC’s performance in government; Zuma’s cunning casting of himself as their similarly suffering saviour; his exploitation of Zulu cultural identity; the shared loss with his faction of status; and exclusion from the ANC’s patronage system. He feeds on the government’s performance failures.</p>
<h2>State of the ANC</h2>
<p>The ANC bears scars of at least two presidential battles: <a href="https://ebin.pub/dominance-and-decline-the-anc-in-the-time-of-zuma-1868148858-9781868148851.html">Zuma versus Mbeki</a>, and then <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.18772/12021026451">Zuma against Ramaphosa</a>. The fights spawned internal enemies, many of them now Zuma disciples <a href="https://web.facebook.com/p/Areta-African-Radical-Economic-Transformation-Alliance-100090796962653/?_rdc=1&_rdr">stirring up support for the MK Party project</a>.</p>
<p>Zuma’s prime target is the Ramaphosa-led ANC with its <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/yes-sa-thuma-mina">Thuma Mina (“Send Me”) campaign</a>, which promised to rebuild the country from the mess Zuma created or exacerbated, guided, according to the text, by values of integrity, equality, solidarity and shared humanity. Zuma <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/i-wont-campaign-for-anc-in-2024-will-vote-mk--jaco">accuses Ramaphosa</a> of being corrupted by <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-monopoly-capital-good-politics-bad-sociology-worse-economics-77338">“white monopoly capital”</a>, and pins his marginalisation from the ANC on having become the victim of a corrupted judiciary. He complains that Ramaphosa introduced practices that are foreign to the ANC’s character. </p>
<p>At the height of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Zuma-Years-South-Africas-Changing/dp/1770220887">Zuma’s tenure</a> as president of South Africa, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jacob-gedleyihlekisa-zuma">2009 to early 2018</a>, he proved himself as the <a href="https://repository.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/handle/10566/491">patriarch of patronage</a>. Tenders were his to dictate. Entire state institutions fell victim. </p>
<p>His attack on the ANC resonates with an activist core that is angry with <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/news/mpumalanga-anc-says-no-no-no-to-anger-classes-20191204">losing the privileged positions they held</a> before Ramaphosa became the party leader in 2017. Some were felled by the Ramaphosa-led ANC’s <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/politics/2024-01-19-no-orders-yet-to-exclude-corruption-suspects-from-anc-candidate-list/">clampdown on corruption</a>. </p>
<p>Zuma also gets support from former ANC provincial and national leaders who have been at the receiving end of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/12/ex-anc-chiefs-zuma-and-magashule-team-up-ahead-of-south-africas-elections#:%7E:text=The%20%E2%80%9CMagashule%20Zuma%20United%20Front">ANC disciplinary action</a>. For them, supporting for Zuma is a way to punish the ANC.</p>
<p>Zuma’s <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/politics/zuma-i-am-a-victim-cyril-is-corrupt-global-powers-want-sa-20221022">portrayal of himself as a victim</a> at the hands of Ramaphosa resonates with many who feel they have been wronged by their organisation. </p>
<p>For the “<a href="https://www.gov.za/news/speeches/tenderpreneurship-stuff-crooked-cadres-fighters-04-sep-2014">tenderpreneurs</a>” – business people who feed off government contracts – <a href="https://www.vryeweekblad.com/en/opinions-and-debate/2023-08-18-anc-has-lost-control-of-its-den-of-thieves/">the taps have been dripping</a> rather than spouting contracts as before. They are set to bond with citizens whose livelihoods dissipate as government policies fade and fail.</p>
<p>Zuma’s <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-10-30-three-polls-show-anc-election-support-is-falling-off-a-cliff/">popular standing</a> coincides with the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-16/zuma-s-popularity-threatens-anc-s-majority-hopes-srf-says">decline in the electoral standing</a> of the ANC. </p>
<h2>State of government</h2>
<p>The ANC of 2024 is weather-worn and has <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-anc-marks-its-112th-year-with-an-eye-on-national-elections-but-its-record-is-patchy-and-future-uncertain-221125">less of a grip on the state’s delivery apparatus</a>. Despite the party’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ramaphosa-scolds-ruling-anc-losing-south-africans-trust-2022-07-29/">claims</a>, there is slim hope for economic growth and jobs that will be sufficient to drive an economic turnaround. </p>
<p>Many have no chance to move beyond a life of social security grants and dependence on the state. </p>
<p>The ANC’s poor performance in government – <a href="https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/statistics-south-africa-quarterly-labour-force-survey-quarter-three-2023-14">high unemployment</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-cant-crack-the-inequality-curse-why-and-what-can-be-done-213132">deep inequality</a>, continuously <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/1_Stock/Events_Institutional/2020/womens_charter_2020/docs/19-02-2021/20210212_Womens_Charter_Review_KZN_19th_of_Feb_afternoon_Session_Final.pdf">rising poverty</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-police-are-losing-the-war-on-crime-heres-how-they-need-to-rethink-their-approach-218048">crime</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africans-are-revolting-against-inept-local-government-why-it-matters-155483">poor and collapsing services</a>, <a href="https://wandilesihlobo.com/2023/01/14/crumbling-basic-infrastructure-limits-south-africas-agriculture-and-tourism-growth-potential/">collapse of public infrastructure</a> – provides fertile soil for the populist and opportunistic former president to reclaim credentials of the ANC’s former armed wing, scavenge on ANC weaknesses and wreak havoc in the party. </p>
<p>The disgruntled communities supporting Zuma also feature <a href="https://irr.org.za/media/articles-authored-by-the-institute/the-dangerous-rise-of-jacob-zumas-private-army">military veterans</a> and <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/political-parties/zumas-tour-de-resistance-first-religious-leaders-then-on-to-anc-home-ground-20240106">religious organisations</a>, largely in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Zuma has had well-attended meetings in other provinces too.</p>
<p>Across all strata of society, there is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/30/south-africa-anc-voter-anger-election">anger with how the ANC has been treating citizens</a>. Many citizens now fail to see the promise of order and definitive economic progress in Ramaphosa’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202010/south-african-economic-reconstruction-and-recovery-plan.pdf">plans and visions</a>.</p>
<h2>Zuma’s KwaZulu-Natal trump card</h2>
<p>The KwaZulu-Natal province <a href="https://www.eisa.org/storage/2023/05/2010-journal-of-african-elections-v9n2-african-national-congress-unprecedented-victory-kwazulu-natal-eisa.pdf">helped sustain national ANC support</a> at a time when the ANC had started declining below its 2004 two-thirds-plus national majority. Without this boost, the ANC would have declined faster and earlier. Zuma’s contribution was in bolstering high-level Zulu cultural presence and political influence in the ANC. He helped make the ANC an organisation where this populous group of South Africans felt they had a political home. Their votes followed. </p>
<p>This helped Zuma build a near-untouchable status in the ANC. It helps explain why ANC leaders would <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/mercury/news/anc-asks-zuma-to-join-kkelection-campaign-3cafacb6-cbfa-4f19-8aba-9f6d10506046">go hat in the hand to his Nkandla homestead</a> requesting his help in election campaigning, after the end of his party presidency.</p>
<p>Zuma, in 2024 campaign rallies, <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2024-01-18-jacob-zuma-calls-for-more-power-for-amakhosi-and-takes-a-dig-at-ramaphosa/">promises traditional leaders (amakhosi)</a> the status of sovereign authorities with executive powers. This idea, he well knows, is at odds with the country’s constitutional democracy. Yet it endears him to traditionalists who do not feel at home in a multiparty, competitive democracy. </p>
<h2>Hedging bets</h2>
<p>Zuma’s new model of resistance – voting for an ANC-derivative party against the ANC (while remaining within its ranks) – appeals to many discontented citizens and traditional communities. It arrives at a time when many South Africans, and in particular ANC followers, feel multiparty democracy and its governance have <a href="https://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/democracy-not-so-sweet-any-more-say-south-africans/">not worked for them</a>.</p>
<p>Zuma operates on the belief that he will be the hero of this struggle. If electoral politics does not satisfy the discontented citizens, and anger and rebellion prevail, he has already shown that he is an effective apostle of the alternative track of non-electoral politics. He offers the full repertoire of protest and rebellion associated with the ANC, a former liberation movement, now party, which survives but battles to reconnect with the hearts and minds of citizens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221505/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Booysen is affiliated with the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic reflection, a non-profit think tank. She writes this analysis in her capacity as author, analyst, and Emeritus Professor, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. </span></em></p>Jacob Zuma claims that his new political home, the Umkhonto we Sizwe Party, is the authentic ANC, not the one led by President Cyril Ramaphosa.Susan Booysen, Visiting Professor and Professor Emeritus, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2204732024-01-11T15:54:30Z2024-01-11T15:54:30ZSouth Africa’s new intelligence bill is meant to stem abuses – what’s good and bad about it<p>When South Africa became a constitutional democracy <a href="https://www.britannica.com/question/How-did-apartheid-end">in 1994</a>, it replaced its apartheid-era intelligence apparatus with a new one aimed at serving the country’s new democratic dispensation. However, the regime of former president Jacob Zuma, 2009-2018, deviated from this path. It <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">abused</a> the intelligence services to serve his political and allegdly corrupt ends. Now the country is taking steps to remedy the situation.</p>
<p>In November 2023, the presidency published the <a href="https://pmg.org.za/bill/1197/">General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill</a>. It proposes overhauling the civilian intelligence agency, the <a href="http://www.ssa.gov.za/">State Security Agency</a>, to address the <a href="https://www.saflii.org/images/state-capture-commission-report-part-5-vol1.pdf">abuses</a>.</p>
<p>The bill is extremely broad in scope. It intends to amend 12 laws – including the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/act39of1994.pdf">main</a> <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/a65-020.pdf">intelligence</a> <a href="https://static.pmg.org.za/docs/120224oversight_0.PDF">laws</a> of the democratic era. </p>
<p>Parliament has set itself a <a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/38063/">1 March deadline</a> to complete work on the bill before it dissolves for the national election expected between <a href="https://www.elections.org.za/pw/elections/whats-new-in-the-2024-elections-electoral-amendment-act">May and August</a>. </p>
<p>I have researched intelligence and surveillance for over a decade and also served on the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">2018 High Level Review Panel on the State Security Agency</a>.</p>
<p>In my view, some of the proposals in the bill risk replacing the old abuses with new ones. The bill seeks to broaden intelligence powers drastically but fails to address <a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/38207/">longstanding weaknesses in their oversight</a>. </p>
<h2>Ending abuse</h2>
<p>The bill is meant to respond to major criticisms of the State Security Agency during Zuma’s presidency. The critics include the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">High Level Review Panel</a> and the <a href="https://www.saflii.org/images/state-capture-commission-report-part-5-vol1.pdf">Commission of Inquiry into State Capture</a>. </p>
<p>The main criticism of the panel appointed by Zuma’s successor Cyril Ramaphosa in 2018 was that under Zuma, the executive <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">repurposed</a> the agency to keep him in power, along with his supporters and others dependent on his patronage. In 2009, he merged the erstwhile domestic intelligence agency, the National Intelligence Agency, and the foreign agency, the <a href="https://www.ssa.gov.za/AboutUs/Branches">South African Secret Service</a>, by <a href="https://www.defenceweb.co.za/security/national-security/ssa-takes-shape-legislation-to-follow/">presidential proclamation</a>, to centralise intelligence. This made it easier for his regime to control intelligence to achieve nefarious ends. The state capture commission made <a href="https://www.saflii.org/images/state-capture-commission-report-part-5-vol1.pdf">similar findings</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-surveillance-law-is-changing-but-citizens-privacy-is-still-at-risk-214508">South Africa’s surveillance law is changing but citizens’ privacy is still at risk</a>
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<p>The most important proposal in the bill is to abolish the <a href="https://nationalgovernment.co.za/units/view/42/state-security-agency-ssa">State Security Agency</a>. It is to be replaced by two separate agencies: one for foreign intelligence, and the other for domestic. The proposed new South African Intelligence Service (foreign) and the South African Intelligence Agency (domestic) will have separate mandates.</p>
<p>Abolishing the State Security Agency would be an important step towards accountability, as set out in the 1994 <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/white-papers/intelligence-white-paper-01-jan-1995#:%7E:text=The%20goal%20of%20this%20White,relevant%2C%20credible%20and%20reliable%20intelligence.">White Paper on Intelligence</a>. </p>
<p>The proposed names of the envisioned new agencies have symbolic importance. They suggest a shift away from a focus on state security, or protection of those in positions of power. Instead, it puts the focus back on human security. This is the protection of broader society, as <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/white-papers/intelligence-white-paper-01-jan-1995#:%7E:text=The%20goal%20of%20this%20White,relevant%2C%20credible%20and%20reliable%20intelligence.">required</a> by the 1994 White Paper.</p>
<h2>The dangers of over-broad definitions</h2>
<p>However, the new mandates given to the two new agencies, and the definitions they rely on, are so broad that abuse of their powerful spying capabilities is almost a foregone conclusion.</p>
<p>The bill says the new agencies will be responsible for collecting and analysing intelligence relating to threats or potential threats to national security in accordance with <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/constitution/chp11.html#:%7E:text=198.,to%20seek%20a%20better%20life.">the constitution</a>.</p>
<p>The bill defines national security as</p>
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<p>the capabilities, measures and activities of the state to pursue or advance any threat, any potential threat, any opportunity, any potential opportunity or the security of the Republic and its people …</p>
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<p>This definition is extremely expansive. It allows the intelligence services to undertake any activity that could advance South Africa’s interests. This is regardless of whether there are actual national security threats. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-intelligence-watchdog-is-failing-civil-society-how-to-restore-its-credibility-195121">South Africa's intelligence watchdog is failing civil society. How to restore its credibility</a>
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<p>This creates the potential for overlap with the mandates of other state entities. However, unlike these, the intelligence agencies will be able to work secretly, using their extremely invasive <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2013-06-21-00-spy-wars-south-africa-is-not-innocent/">surveillance</a> <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-07-28-the-awful-state-of-lawful-interception-in-sa-part-two-surveillance-technology-thats-above-the-law/">capabilities</a>.</p>
<p>Such capabilities should only be used in exceptional circumstances when the country is under legitimate threat. To normalise their use in everyday government functions threatens democracy.</p>
<p>Intelligence overreach has happened elsewhere. Governments are increasingly requiring intelligence agencies to ensure that policymakers enjoy <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/national-security-surveillance-in-southern-africa-9780755640225/">decision advantages</a> in a range of areas. These include bolstering trade advantages over other countries.</p>
<p>For example, whistleblower <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance">Edward Snowden’s</a> leaks of classified US and UK intelligence documents showed how the countries misused broad interpretations of national security to engage in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/25907502">industrial espionage</a>.</p>
<p>The UK government used its powerful <a href="https://www.gchq.gov.uk/">signals intelligence capability</a> to <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2016/12/08/british-spying-tentacles-reach-across-africa-s-heads-of-states-and-business-leaders_5045668_3212.html">spy on</a> African politicians, diplomats and business people during trade negotiations. These abuses mean intelligence mandates should be narrowed and state intelligence power should be reduced.</p>
<h2>Human security definition of national security</h2>
<p>The State Security Agency used its presentation to parliament on the bill to seek broad mandates. Its <a href="https://pmg.org.za/files/231129Presentation_of_GILAB_Final.pptx">presentation</a> says it seeks to give effect to the national security principles in <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/constitution/chp11.html#:%7E:text=198.,to%20seek%20a%20better%20life.">section 198</a> of the constitution. The section states that:</p>
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<p>national security must reflect the resolve of South Africans, as individuals and as a nation, to live as equals, to live in peace and harmony, to be free from fear and want and to seek a better life.</p>
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<p>This principle is actually based on the human security definition of national security. The <a href="https://www.un.org/en/ga/">United Nations General Assembly</a> calls this freedom from fear and freedom from want. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/surveillance-laws-are-failing-to-protect-privacy-rights-what-we-found-in-six-african-countries-170373">Surveillance laws are failing to protect privacy rights: what we found in six African countries</a>
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<p>In its broadest sense, human security protects individuals from a wide range of threats and addresses their underlying drivers. These include <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231962570_Critical_Human_Security_Studies">poverty, underdevelopment and deprivation</a>. State security, on the other hand, is about protecting the state from threats. </p>
<p>If social issues are <a href="https://www.libraryofsocialscience.com/assets/pdf/Waever-Securitization.pdf">securitised</a> – or treated as national security issues requiring intervention by the state’s security services – it becomes difficult to distinguish the work of these agencies from the social welfare arms of the state.</p>
<h2>What needs to happen</h2>
<p>International relations scholar Neil MacFarlane and political scientist Yuen Foong Khong <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000147585">suggested</a> in 2006 that it was possible to address this conundrum by maintaining the focus on broader society as the entity that needs protection, rather than the state. </p>
<p>Legislators need to take a <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000147585">similar approach</a> when debating the bill. They should narrow the focus of the envisaged two new agencies to domestic and foreign threats of organised violence against society, such as genocide or terrorism. By doing so, they would still be recognising the best of what human security has to offer as an intelligence doctrine, while providing a much more appropriate focus for civilian intelligence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220473/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Duncan receives funding from the British Academy and is a director of Intelwatch, a non-governmental organisation devoted to strengthening democratic oversight of state and private intelligence. </span></em></p>The bill seeks greater intelligence powers but neglects oversight.Jane Duncan, Professor of Digital Society, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2189662023-12-12T09:12:23Z2023-12-12T09:12:23ZSouth Africa’s foreign policy under Ramaphosa has seen diplomatic tools being used to provide leadership as global power relations shift<p>Leadership plays a critical role in diplomacy. What quality of leadership does South Africa need if it’s to secure its international interests?</p>
<p>This is a question my colleagues and I have had the opportunity to reflect on in researching and writing about foreign policy since the late 1980s.</p>
<p>Presidents <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/nelson-rolihlahla-mandela">Nelson Mandela</a> and <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/former-president-thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki">Thabo Mbeki</a> displayed <a href="https://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/85/Strategic%20Review/Vol36(2)/04-le-pere-pp-31-56.zp39575.pdf">assertive African and global south leadership</a>. Their successor, Jacob Zuma, did much to reverse the country’s international moral standing. </p>
<p>In our view, the current president, <a href="https://www.dpme.gov.za/about/Pages/President-Cyril-Ramaphosa.aspx">Cyril Ramaphosa</a>, is restoring the country’s standing and role as a global moral leader. He has done so in an environment in which seismic changes are taking place in the balance of power between the world’s largest nations.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa’s messages, and tone of delivery, suggest an assertive southern leader who understands how the world works. He’s not afraid to challenge the dominant narrative and is prepared to put global south demands on the table.</p>
<p>In his speech on Africa Day on 25 May 2023, Ramaphosa <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-africa-day-celebrations#:%7E:text=There%20can%20be%20no%20better,are%20optimistic%20about%20our%20future.">said</a>:</p>
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<p>We are … witnessing Africa being dragged into conflicts far beyond our own borders. Some countries, including our own, are being threatened with penalties for pursuing an independent foreign policy and for adopting a position of non-alignment. South Africa has not been and will not be drawn into a contest between global powers. We will maintain our position on the peaceful resolution of conflict wherever those conflicts occur.</p>
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<p>In a similar assertive tone, at a Financing for Development Summit in New York in September 2023, he <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/reform-international-financial-architecture-president-ramaphosa">said</a>:</p>
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<p>… at a time when solidarity was needed most, agreed international commitments were not honoured. Principles such as common but differentiated responsibilities are not being respected. Four decades since the right to development was established by the United Nations as a human right, the failure to act on commitments to support development is deepening the divide between the global north and south.</p>
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<p>These statements reflect Ramaphosa’s shrewd reading of a fundamental shift in the global balance of forces. Over the past year it is this that has informed his assertiveness in foreign policy matters. As a result, we argue, he has used the tools of diplomacy to lead Africa and the global south to shape the architecture of a new world order currently being forged.</p>
<h2>Facing a complex world</h2>
<p>However, Ramaphosa and his administration’s ability to advance South Africa‘s interests globally has became much more complex because of rising geopolitical tensions. </p>
<p>In particular, Russia’s invasion of <a href="https://www.hrw.org/tag/russia-ukraine-war">Ukraine in February 2022</a> brought into sharp relief the longstanding tense relationship between Russia seeking recognition as a recovering superpower and the west’s pursuit of containment. </p>
<p>The conflagration has serious consequences for the world at large, including Africa, already struggling with food and energy insecurities. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-and-russia-president-cyril-ramaphosas-foreign-policy-explained-198430">South Africa and Russia: President Cyril Ramaphosa's foreign policy explained</a>
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<p>Under these conditions, Pretoria struggled to formulate a clear position. It initially condemned the Russian intervention in Ukraine. It later took a <a href="https://www.dirco.gov.za/south-african-government-calls-for-a-peaceful-resolution-of-the-escalating-conflict-between-the-russian-federation-and-ukraine/">more neutral position</a> – “<a href="https://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-comments/2023/the-state-of-non-alignment-in-south-africas-foreign-policy/">non-alignment</a>”. </p>
<p>Yet it became clear that Ramaphosa was reading a fundamental shift in the global balance of forces. One of his responses was to <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/statement-president-cyril-ramaphosa-78th-session-united-nations-general-assembly-united-nations%2C-new-york">call for reform of the UN Security Council</a>. </p>
<p>He also led an eclectic assembly of African leaders on a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-russia-ukraine-peace-mission-what-can-it-achieve-206201">peace mission</a>” to Ukraine and Russia. It was initially scorned by pro-western commentators. The benefits of the initiative for Africa are becoming apparent, particularly in <a href="https://www.ips-journal.eu/topics/foreign-and-security-policy/peace-african-style-6936/">enhancing food security</a>.</p>
<p>But the turning point in Ramaphosa’s increasingly assertive foreign policy conduct came with the hosting of the <a href="https://brics2023.gov.za/">15th Brics Summit</a> in South Africa in August. His government succeeded in hosting, chairing and steering the group to new levels of cooperation. Ramaphosa’s congenial personality played no small role in the successes.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/address-president-cyril-ramaphosa-outcomes-15th-brics-summit%2C-union-buildings%2C-tshwane">Achievements</a> include facilitating new trade relations between Africa and Brics, strengthening the <a href="https://www.ndb.int/">New Development Bank</a>, and forging an agreement to <a href="https://theconversation.com/brics-expansion-six-more-nations-are-set-to-join-what-theyre-buying-into-212200">expand membership</a> to make Brics more inclusive.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-foreign-policy-new-paper-sets-the-scene-but-falls-short-on-specifics-188253">South Africa's foreign policy: new paper sets the scene, but falls short on specifics</a>
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<p>These breakthroughs are not to be underestimated. Reshaping the global order opens the space for an emboldened global south to co-determine the future.</p>
<p>His seeming over-dependence on consultation, seen by many as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosas-famous-negotiating-skills-have-failed-him-heres-why-130393">liability</a>, stands him in good stead. Because he is comfortable with exercising soft power, he speaks boldly at international meetings. It has also given him the ability to position South Africa prominently, and on the right side of history, on the tragedy in Gaza, <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/opening-remarks-president-cyril-ramaphosa-extraordinary-joint-meeting-brics-leaders-and-leaders-invited-brics-members-situation-middle-east">seeking peace, not war</a>. </p>
<h2>Criticism and scepticism</h2>
<p>Some foreign policy practitioners and scholars are sceptical of Ramaphosa as a foreign policy leader. An entire volume of the respectable <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/south-african-foreign-policy-review-volume-4">South African Foreign Policy Review</a> is dedicated to this theme – the decline of South Africa’s global moral standing. </p>
<p>Many commentators, including some from the <a href="https://www.thebrenthurstfoundation.org/">Brenthurst Foundation</a> think-tank, view South African foreign policy through domestic lenses, coloured by their aversion to the African National Congress which Ramaphosa leads and which runs the country. </p>
<p>From this perspective they are quick to denounce South African foreign policy decision-makers as <a href="https://bridgebooks.co.za/products/good-bad-ugly">lacking awareness of the objective of international relations and diplomacy</a>. The minister of foreign affairs, <a href="https://www.dirco.gov.za/dr-grace-naledi-mandisa-pandor/">Naledi Pandor</a>, in particular, <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-11-07-pandor-calls-for-immediate-ceasefire-in-gaza-and-an-end-to-israels-collective-punishment-on-all-palestinians/">has attracted scorn</a>. In her case, it could be as a result of her <a href="https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/minister-naledi-pandor-ongoing-israeli-palestinian-conflict-07-nov-2023">outspoken position</a> on the Israel-Palestine conflict.</p>
<p>To understand the tough judgments made of the government’s foreign policy it’s useful to look at them against the backdrop of domestic politics. Domestic politics and foreign affairs are interwoven. What happens at home affects a country’s global standing. </p>
<p>In African foreign policy analytical circles, there is a <a href="https://www.rienner.com/title/African_Foreign_Policies_Power_and_Process">belief</a> that a weak president embraces international crises as it redirects the attention from failures at home.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa is indeed embattled on the home front. He was meant to put a stop to <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">years of abuse</a> and <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">high corruption</a> under his predecessor, Jacob Zuma, and <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2021-08-12-political-platitudes-unpacking-ramaphosas-real-battle-in-aftermath-of-zondo-commission-testimony/">repair the damage</a> he caused. </p>
<p>Euphoria and unreserved support for a “reformist” president turned into <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/7/22/ex-president-mbeki-rebukes-ramaphosa-predicts-sas-arab-spring">disappointment and cynicism</a> as his efforts at “house cleaning” got bogged down <a href="https://witspress.co.za/page/detail/State-Capture-in-South-Africa/?k=9781776148318">in the intricacies of power play</a> in the ANC.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/aziz-pahad-the-unassuming-south-african-diplomat-who-skilfully-mediated-crises-in-africa-and-beyond-214648">Aziz Pahad: the unassuming South African diplomat who skilfully mediated crises in Africa, and beyond</a>
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<p>Nevertheless, we would argue that if Ramaphosa survives the forces of disruption at home as his ruling party <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-12-07-anc-veteran-of-60-years-mavuso-msimang-painfully-severs-ties-tenders-devastating-resignation/">decomposes</a>, he will surely be counted among those who read global events, understood that there was a need for a stronger voice from the global south, and acted to make it happen.</p>
<p>He should also be remembered for breathing new life into the <a href="https://au.int/en/about/vision">vision of the African Union</a>: an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the global arena.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218966/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthoni van Nieuwkerk is affiliated with Umlambo Foundation.</span></em></p>President Cyril Ramaphosa’s messages, and tone of delivery, suggest an assertive leader representing the interests of the global south.Anthoni van Nieuwkerk, Professor of International and Diplomacy Studies, Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2149982023-10-23T14:03:22Z2023-10-23T14:03:22ZLeadership in a crisis: how President Ramaphosa’s COVID speeches drew on Mandela’s ideas of South African unity<p>In times of crisis, leaders wield more than just political power. They harness the art of rhetoric in a bid to unite their nations towards a common goal. South Africa, with a tumultuous history marked by apartheid, has seen leaders employ persuasive communication to navigate challenges. </p>
<p>For instance, in the 1990s then-president <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/read-nelson-mandelas-inauguration-speech-president-sa">Nelson Mandela</a> appealed to patriotic sentiments. He often used reconciliatory rhetoric to help smooth the transition from centuries of colonial and apartheid oppression to democracy for South Africans. </p>
<p>In 2020, at the outbreak of the <a href="https://www.nicd.ac.za/first-case-of-covid-19-coronavirus-reported-in-sa/">COVID-19 pandemic</a>, President Cyril Ramaphosa faced the challenge of steering the country through one of its biggest crises since democracy in 1994.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nelson-mandelas-legacy-is-taking-a-battering-because-of-the-dismal-state-of-south-africa-209883">Nelson Mandela's legacy is taking a battering because of the dismal state of South Africa</a>
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<p>I’ve been a <a href="https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=YVmxkJ0AAAAJ&hl=en">media and rhetoric scholar</a> for a decade. My colleague and I examined Ramaphosa’s communicative approaches during the pandemic. Our <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.10520/ejc-aar_rhetoric_v15_n1_a6">paper</a> on his speeches looked at how leaders use their speeches to unify citizens amid turmoil and uncertainty.</p>
<p>In his regular televised addresses, commonly known as <a href="https://www.702.co.za/articles/433374/president-cyril-ramaphosa-calls-a-family-meeting-tonight-at-8pm">family meetings</a>, Ramaphosa tried to promote nation-building. The pandemic had exposed the nation’s deeply entrenched <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-south-africas-social-divide-and-economic-woes-exposed/a-53739914">economic and social divisions</a>. Fostering social cohesion and unity was <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/south-africas-bold-response-covid-19-pandemic">vital to improving the overall response</a> to the pandemic.</p>
<p>A unified and socially cohesive society was more likely to adhere to health guidelines, cooperate in efforts to control the virus, and ensure that vulnerable populations had access to necessary resources and support. </p>
<h2>Rallying cry</h2>
<p>We analysed the four speeches Ramaphosa delivered in the early stages of the pandemic – between March 24 and April 21. These speeches, when COVID-19 cases were still relatively low, but uncertainty loomed large, provide a critical window into Ramaphosa’s leadership and persuasive techniques.</p>
<p>We observed that Ramaphosa’s communication style bore distinct traits of what has been “Mandelaism” by some academics to rally South Africans behind a common cause. So-called after the iconic statesman, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02564718.2017.1403706">Mandelaism</a> refers to rhetoric that appeals to patriotism to promote national unity and reconciliation. It is </p>
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<p>based on mythologising Nelson Mandela, and imagining a South African nation characterised by ‘harmony, peace, reconciliation, and success, denying the significance of informational disturbances that contradict these narratives.</p>
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<p>Additionally, </p>
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<p><a href="https://unisapressjournals.co.za/index.php/jls/article/view/11861">Mandelaism perpetuates a narrative of forgetting that overlooks the realities of apartheid oppression</a>. </p>
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<p>This rhetorical approach tends to discourage dissent, underpinning the belief that all South Africans share the same goals.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mandela-was-a-flawed-icon-but-without-him-south-africa-would-be-a-sadder-place-142826">Mandela was a flawed icon. But without him South Africa would be a sadder place</a>
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<p>Our analysis of Ramaphosa’s rhetoric and its parallels with Mandelaism provides a case study of leadership and communication in times of crisis. It offers lessons for current leaders and scholars, highlighting the enduring influence of historical figures like Nelson Mandela on the rhetoric and leadership styles of their successors. </p>
<h2>Ramaphosa’s rhetoric</h2>
<p>Little scholarship exists on Ramaphosa’s political-ideological convictions and philosophy or describes his approach to persuasion. The historian <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/tom-lodge-1256885">Tom Lodge</a> has <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40209320">observed</a> that</p>
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<p>Cyril Ramaphosa gives many interviews, but he keeps his personal philosophy to himself. </p>
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<p>The COVID-19 crisis forced Ramaphosa to communicate continuously. It provided an opportunity for rhetorical critics and scholars to consider how he used persuasive techniques, and how these might point to his ideas about the South African nation.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa frequently began his addresses with the inclusive greeting, <a href="https://www.dirco.gov.za/message-by-president-cyril-ramaphosa-on-covid-19-pandemic-30-march-2020/">“My fellow South Africans”</a>. This sought to invoke a sense of belonging and unity. As a linguistic technique it primed citizens to connect with the ideals of togetherness, inclusivity and reconciliation. These are all critical components of Mandelaism. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa’s rhetoric also emphasised reconciliation. He urged citizens to remember past hardships they had overcome together. This appeal to historical resilience reinforced the idea that South Africans unite in moments of great crisis. It echoed Mandela’s ability to unify a nation divided by apartheid. For example, in a speech delivered on <a href="https://www.dirco.gov.za/message-by-president-cyril-ramaphosa-on-covid-19-pandemic-thursday-9-april-2020/">9 April 2020</a> Ramaphosa said:</p>
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<p>I wish to thank you for reaffirming to each other and to the world that we South Africans are a people who come together … Our ability to come together in a crisis, and our commitment to each other and our common future.</p>
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<p>He downplayed the diverse perspectives and experiences of South Africans to promote the unity narrative.</p>
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<p>And then there is each of you, the 58 million South African citizens and residents who are standing together to <a href="https://www.dirco.gov.za/message-by-president-cyril-ramaphosa-on-covid-19-pandemic-30-march-2020/">confront this national health emergency</a>.</p>
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<p>A significant aspect of Mandelaism is its close association with corporate entities that fund Mandela-related projects. Ramaphosa also incorporated business as a force for good in his speeches. He portrayed business as <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/statement-president-cyril-ramaphosa-escalation-measures-combat-covid-19-epidemic%2C-union">integral</a> to the fabric of a reconciled South Africa.</p>
<h2>Lessons for uniting nations</h2>
<p>South Africa’s journey from apartheid to democracy and its response to the COVID-19 pandemic provide rich examples of the role of political rhetoric. These historical instances serve as invaluable lessons for leaders worldwide facing the daunting task of uniting their nations during times of uncertainty and turmoil. </p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sikelelwa-dlanga-380a5123/?originalSubdomain=za">Sikelelwa Dlanga</a>, an independent communications specialist, worked with the author on the research and this article</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214998/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sisanda Nkoala has previously been awarded an AW Mellon-UCT Graduate Scholarship in Rhetoric and received funding from the National Research Foundation. For this study, however, there are no funders to declare.
</span></em></p>President Cyril Ramaphosa tried to foster social cohesion in his speeches during a pandemic that had exposed the nation’s divisions.Sisanda Nkoala, Senior Lecturer, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2146482023-09-29T15:56:49Z2023-09-29T15:56:49ZAziz Pahad: the unassuming South African diplomat who skilfully mediated crises in Africa, and beyond<p><a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/funeral-category-2-honour-mr-aziz-pahad-29-sep-2023-0000">Aziz Goolam Pahad</a>, who has died at the age of 82, was a South African anti-apartheid activist, politician and deputy minister of foreign affairs in the post-1994 government. </p>
<p>Together with a small group of foreign policy analysts, I worked with Aziz over the span of 30 years, shaping the post-apartheid South African government’s approach to international relations and its foreign policy. We spent countless hours debating foreign affairs and the numerous crises and challenges government had to face as a relative “newcomer” in continental African and global affairs. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/aziz-goolam-pahad#:%7E:text=Aziz%20Pahad%20was%20born%20on,University%20of%20the%20Witwatersrand%2C%20Johannesburg.">Aziz</a> was generous with giving his time to formulate positions that would allow for the unlocking of a crisis. He remained open to intellectual challenges throughout his career. He was a keen participant in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10220461.2015.1090912">academic research projects</a> dealing with <a href="https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/items/eb0f44d3-a550-4740-8db1-6463330b0f82">foreign policy</a>.</p>
<p>He made a monumental contribution to the struggle against apartheid and colonial oppression in South Africa, the continent and the Middle East. And he contributed significantly to the development and execution of a progressive African-centred foreign policy doctrine. Sadly, towards the end of his career as a diplomat he witnessed the <a href="https://www.pulp.up.ac.za/images/pulp/books/edited_collections/foreign_policy/SA%20Foreign%20Policy%20Book%20Chapter%201.pdf">slow decline</a> of South Africa’s <a href="https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/suedafrika/18180.pdf">stature and influence</a> in global affairs. </p>
<h2>The Mandela and Mbeki years</h2>
<p>Under presidents <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/nelson-mandela-presidency-1994-1999">Nelson Mandela</a> (1994-1999) and <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/former-president-thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki">Thabo Mbeki</a> (1999-2008), South African diplomats who’d sharpened their skills during many years of exile became sought-after as facilitators and mediators. Under their guidance Africa converted the Organisation of African Unity into the African Union, and reset relations with the international community via the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. </p>
<p>South African diplomats were articulate and visible in the corridors of the United Nations and in gatherings such as the Group of 7, Group of 20 and the Non-Aligned Movement. They were able to advance Africa’s quest for peace and development. In Africa, political and security crises, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Burundi, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3518768">were given attention</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-and-russia-president-cyril-ramaphosas-foreign-policy-explained-198430">South Africa and Russia: President Cyril Ramaphosa's foreign policy explained</a>
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<p>However this “golden era” of South Africa’s foreign policy, as fellow scholar Chris Landsberg calls it, was unable to withstand the corroding effects of foreign meddling in African affairs. Neither could it withstand the <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">grand corruption</a> which reached its apogee in South Africa under former president <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">Jacob Zuma</a> (May 2009 - February 2018). </p>
<h2>Preparatory years</h2>
<p>Aziz was born <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/aziz-goolam-pahad">on 25 December 1940</a> in the former Transvaal, the current North West province in South Africa. His parents were <a href="https://theconversation.com/essop-pahad-a-diligent-communist-driven-by-an-optimistic-vision-of-a-non-racial-south-africa-210413">Amina and Goolam Pahad</a>, activists in the Transvaal Indian Congress, a political organisation established in the early 1900s by Mahatma Gandhi and others. The congress became involved in the broader anti-apartheid struggle in later years. His elder brother, Essop, also became an activist. Essop passed away <a href="https://theconversation.com/essop-pahad-a-diligent-communist-driven-by-an-optimistic-vision-of-a-non-racial-south-africa-210413">in July</a>.</p>
<p>In 1963, Aziz completed a degree in sociology and Afrikaans at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. As an activist, he was served with a <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/aziz-goolam-pahad">banning order</a> and arrested on several occasions. After the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/rivonia-trial-1963-1964">Rivonia Trial</a> from 1963 to 1964, in which ten leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) were tried for sabotage designed to overthrow the apartheid system of racial oppression, he and Essop left South Africa and went into exile.</p>
<p>Aziz spent some time in Angola and Zimbabwe but lived mostly in London. He completed a master’s degree in politics and international relations <a href="https://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/61351">at the University of Sussex</a>. He worked full-time for the exiled ANC and supported the development of the <a href="https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/anti-apartheid-struggle-south-africa-1912-1992/">Anti-Apartheid Movement</a>.</p>
<p>Even before his return to South Africa in 1990, he contributed to the transition from apartheid to democracy, a role well described in his book <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Insurgent_Diplomat_Civil_Talks_or_Civil.html?id=mbR9BAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Insurgent Diplomat: Civil Talks or Civil War?</a>. </p>
<p>Aziz worked closely with Thabo Mbeki, at the time head of the exiled ANC’s international relations department, and a small team of academics in formulating the ANC’s position on foreign policy. The <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/anc_foreign_policy_perspective_in_a_democratic_south_africa.pdf">paper</a> formed part of preparations by the ANC and its <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03161.htm">alliance partners</a>, the <a href="https://www.sacp.org.za/">South African Communist Party</a> and the <a href="http://www.cosatu.org.za/">Congress of South African Trade Unions</a>, for governing the country. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-foreign-policy-new-paper-sets-the-scene-but-falls-short-on-specifics-188253">South Africa's foreign policy: new paper sets the scene, but falls short on specifics</a>
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<p>The foreign policy paper provided a broad roadmap for diplomats post-apartheid. It eventually shaped government’s more formal foreign policy of 2011, entitled Building a Better World: The Diplomacy of Ubuntu. In the mid-1990s, Aziz was instrumental in the establishment, with support from the German government, of an ANC-aligned think-tank called the <a href="http://www.globaldialoguefoundation.org/">Foundation of Global Dialogue</a>, run by foreign policy expert and academic <a href="https://www.africanbookscollective.com/authors-editors/garth-le-pere">Garth le Pere</a> and myself. It lives on as the <a href="https://igd.org.za/">Institute of Global Dialogue</a>, based at the University of South Africa.</p>
<h2>Role in government</h2>
<p>Following the victory of the ANC in South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994, Aziz was elected to parliament. From there, he was appointed by President Mandela as deputy minister of foreign affairs. He was re-elected to parliament in 1999 and 2004, and kept his position as <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/aziz-goolam-hoosein-pahad-mr-0">deputy minister of foreign affairs </a> throughout the Mandela and Mbeki presidencies. </p>
<p>Holding the post for 14 years meant that he was able to create and nurture a wide network of political, academic and diplomatic connections. This enabled him to play an unassuming but key mediating and facilitation role dealing with major crises on the continent and beyond.</p>
<p>But Aziz also showed his activist roots when he <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/war-can-be-averted-says-pahad-101327">spoke out against</a> the American-led <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Iraq-War">invasion of Iraq in 2003</a> and the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/everyone-says-the-libya-intervention-was-a-failure-theyre-wrong/">Nato-led invasion</a> of Libya and assassination of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. He supported the <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/president-mourns-passing-former-deputy-minister-foreign-affairs-aziz-pahad">Palestinian struggle</a> for recognition over many decades.</p>
<p>Aziz resigned from government and parliament in 2008, shortly after Mbeki was removed as president of the ANC <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2007-12-18-zuma-is-new-anc-president/">in 2007</a>.</p>
<h2>The ‘diplomat-scholar’</h2>
<p>In retirement, Aziz remained active as a “diplomat-scholar”. He played a prominent role, with his brother Essop, in a small but influential think-tank, the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConcernedAfricansForum/">Concerned Africans Forum</a>. In 2015 he headed the short-lived South African Council on International Relations.</p>
<p>The council was established by the government as a body of experts and a sounding board for senior decision-makers. However, its semi-autonomous identity brought it into conflict with the ruling party’s foreign affairs structures. Politicians allowed it to wither away. </p>
<p>In 2018 the administration of President Cyril Ramaphosa asked Aziz to lead a commission of experts <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-04-17-pahad-panel-missteps-noted-but-no-overhaul-of-sa-foreign-policy-on-the-cards/">to review South Africa’s international relations</a>. In a sad repeat of the council’s demise, the commission was never given a proper hearing and its value remains untapped.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-time-south-africas-foreign-policy-was-driven-by-ideas-again-50407">Why it's time South Africa's foreign policy was driven by ideas (again)</a>
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<p>This is perhaps illustrative of the reality of policy-making in dynamic settings such as South Africa’s foreign affairs. The essence of Aziz’s contribution to a progressive African-oriented worldview was ultimately ignored by the foreign policy mandarins. </p>
<p>The country will miss having a “diplomat-scholar” of his calibre to turn to for sage advice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214648/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthoni van Nieuwkerk is affiliated with Umlambo Foundation.</span></em></p>South Africa will miss having a “diplomat-scholar” of his calibre to turn to for sage advice.Anthoni van Nieuwkerk, Professor of International and Diplomacy Studies, Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2127322023-09-02T09:29:19Z2023-09-02T09:29:19ZJohannesburg fire disaster: why eradicating hijacked buildings is not the answer<p>The fire that killed at least 76 people in a five storey building <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/joburg-fire-dying-in-agony-in-a-city-owned-deathtrap-20230901">in Johannesburg</a> on 31 August is not an isolated incident, and has elicited the usual unhelpful response from some city officials and politicians.</p>
<p>They <a href="https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=561932315&rlz=1C1FKPE_enZA996ZA996&sxsrf=AB5stBgsuLcpby9TilRBTN3Gns0ydPwoyg:1693575557197&q=herman+mashaba&tbm=vid&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiVpvLLxImBAxX1SPEDHTxoD4YQ0pQJegQIChAB&biw=1707&bih=762&dpr=1.13#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:3cd64a0c,vid:WiQrZI9EwjY">have placed the blame</a> on the informal occupation of abandoned buildings, a phenomenon known as “hijacking”. They have also blamed immigrant populations who, they say, are the primary residents of such buildings. To solve the problem, they argue, hijacked buildings should be expropriated and redeveloped by the private sector.</p>
<p>A politician in the city council <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2023-08-31-joburg-inferno-raises-questions-over-citys-service-delivery-failures/">has also called</a> for “mass deportations” of “illegal foreigners”.</p>
<p>Based on my work as a researcher on how cities are built and transform at the <a href="https://www.gcro.ac.za/">Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO)</a>, I argue that all of this is a distraction from the urgent work of reducing risks in the living environments of the poor, and reducing the risk of fire more generally. The observatory, a partnership between the Gauteng provincial government, the universities of the Witwatersrand and Johannesburg, and the South African Local Government Association, builds the data and analysis to help inform development in the Gauteng City-Region.</p>
<p>The rhetoric by politicians and city officials treats the latest tragedy as a freakish problem of hijacked buildings occupied by migrant populations. Yet as human geographer <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781351261562-16/catastrophe-usual-nigel-clark">Nigel Clark</a> sadly notes, it is important to acknowledge the way in which catastrophes are a normal part of life – particularly for vulnerable groups – rather than exceptional or unusual events. </p>
<p>In Johannesburg, fires are not limited to “hijacked” buildings. They have also occurred in legally occupied buildings. Furthermore, fires are not a specific risk to inner city populations. They are a regular occurrence in shack settlements across the city. The use of this tragedy by some politicians to argue in favour of removing hijacked buildings is part of a longstanding pattern of blaming the poor for the conditions and justifying further suffering that they wish to heap on them. </p>
<h2>A pervasive problem</h2>
<p>There is no doubt that unscrupulous or negligent informal landlords bear much responsibility for failing to ensure basic fire safety. Yet this problem is not limited to hijacked buildings.</p>
<p>In 2018, emergency services were unable to contain a fire at the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/bank-of-lisbon-fire-das-jack-bloom-accuses-govt-of-covering-up-findings-20221125">Bank of Lisbon Building</a> in downtown Johannesburg because there was insufficient water pressure in the building and no fire suppression systems had been installed. </p>
<p>Three firefighters died, and the building itself was subsequently demolished. The building had not been illegally occupied; it was rented by the Gauteng provincial government, which <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/joburgfire-firefighters-leave-building-due-to-low-water-pressure-16915344">was aware</a> that the building was non-compliant in advance of the incident. </p>
<p>Three years later, emergency services were hampered in their efforts to contain the fire at a public hospital, <a href="https://www.medicalbrief.co.za/what-really-happened-in-the-charlotte-maxeke-hospital-fire/">Charlotte Maxeke</a>, by incompatible fire hydrant couplings. As these cases show, eradicating “hijacked” buildings would not have solved failures to comply with fire regulations in legally occupied buildings in the city.</p>
<p>Nor would eradicating “hijacked” buildings remove the risk of fire posed to low income groups across the city as a whole. In Johannesburg more than one in ten households lives in an informal dwelling outside the city centre, either in shack settlements or in back yards. This is calculated from the Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s <a href="https://www.gcro.ac.za/research/project/detail/quality-life-survey-vi-202021/">Quality of Life 6 survey 2020/21</a>. </p>
<p>These kinds of settlements are also prone to fires as a result of the materials used to construct dwellings, the density of settlements and the risky sources of energy for heating, cooking and light. </p>
<p>Once again, some politicians and officials have arrived at the idea that since these settlements are not fit for human habitation, they should be eliminated. In 2006 the elected representative responsible for housing in the KwaZulu-Natal province announced <a href="https://abahlali.org/files/KZN%20Slums%20Act.pdf">legislation</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>to provide for the progressive elimination of slums. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It would have forced private land owners to evict shack dwellers. But the shack dwellers movement <a href="https://abahlali.org/">Abahlali Basemjondolo</a> successfully <a href="https://abahlali.org/node/date/2009/10/">challenged</a> this initiative in the Constitutional Court.</p>
<h2>Disposable lives</h2>
<p>According to the geographer <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2009.00835.x">Martin Murray</a>, shack fires underscore the disposability of the lives of the poor. South Africa’s acute levels of inequality and poverty mean that some people can afford to buy their way out of risks while others cannot. </p>
<p>Inner city occupations and shack settlements alike are the inevitable consequence of the fact that huge populations of people have to get by without a living wage. If these households earned higher wages, they would not choose to live in places that were at risk of fire, flooding and other potential disasters. </p>
<p>As with the push to evict shack dwellers, the impulse to evict the residents of hijacked buildings conflates unsafe living conditions with those who live in them. A similar conflation occurs on the imagined solution: eradicating the problem means eradicating communities of people in which the problem manifests. In other words, the language of eradication blames the victims of social inequality for their own suffering, and sets the stage for exposing them to further risk.</p>
<h2>Helping without eradicating</h2>
<p>Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2023/08/31/joburg-cbd-fire-wake-up-call-for-govt-to-provide-habitable-housing-ramaphosa">stated</a> that the fire was a wake up call for the government to provide habitable housing. Government does indeed have a vital role to play in promoting the right to decent housing for all. It needs to do so in a way that takes into account the full complexity of the structural conditions at play, providing giveaway housing, or working with other stakeholders to correct for failings in the housing market that leave poor and working class people without affordable options. </p>
<p>A good example is the City of Johannesburg’s recent <a href="https://housingfinanceafrica.org/app/uploads/City-of-Johannesburg-Inclusionary-Housing-2019.pdf">inclusionary housing policy</a> that obliges developers to include affordable housing in all projects. Much more should be done by the state to provide housing. </p>
<p>Yet informal settlements and illegal occupations of inner city buildings will not be eradicated – no matter how many houses the state builds – as long as <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/southafrica/overview">acute levels of unemployment and poverty</a> continue. Rather than abandoning residents of such places until they can be formally accommodated, or rendering them homeless through eviction, they need to be supported where they live or provided with alternative accommodation. </p>
<p>The living environments of the poor can be made less risky. The epidemic of shack fires can be reduced with fire breaks and fire fighting infrastructure. Similarly, the risk of fire in inner city buildings can be reduced by enforcing tried and tested fire regulations: ensuring that fire escapes and fire fighting infrastructure are functional. Authorities should compel landlords – whether informal or formal – to implement them. </p>
<p>These and many other measures – rather than the impulse to “eradicate” – are the basis through which society cares for vulnerable people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212732/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) is primarily funded by the Gauteng Provincial Government. </span></em></p>Inner city occupations and shack settlements alike are the inevitable consequence of the fact that huge populations of people have to get by without a living wage.Richard Ballard, Chief Researcher: Gauteng City-Region Observatory, Wits University and University of Johannesburg, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2122732023-08-29T13:33:47Z2023-08-29T13:33:47ZBrics: African countries face opportunities and risks in alienating China or the US - an expert weighs in<p><em>South Africa recently hosted a <a href="https://brics2023.gov.za/">Brics summit</a>. The event attracted international attention because the group has recently begun to emerge as a possible rival against US dominance of world affairs. The US and China lie at the heart of this debate. They are the two biggest trading partners of most African countries and both have strategic interests that they are determined to protect. The Conversation Africa’s politics editor, Thabo Leshilo, asked international relations expert Christopher Isike to explain.</em></p>
<h2>How might Brics affect US-African ties?</h2>
<p>Altering diplomatic relations between African countries and the US on account of Brics would have its pros and cons for the continent. Some potential gains from alienating the US would include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Increased autonomy for African countries in their foreign policy decisions. They might be able to align more closely with their own interests and priorities without the perceived influence of a major global power. </p></li>
<li><p>The potential of diversifying partnerships and alliances with other countries or regional blocs that Brics presents. This could lead to more economic, political and security relationships, reducing reliance on any single nation. </p></li>
<li><p>Stronger regional cooperation and integration. This could unify efforts to address common challenges such as security, infrastructure development and economic growth. Such regional cooperation offers more fertile ground for the <a href="https://au-afcfta.org/">African Continental Free Trade Area</a>to thrive. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>However, a strained relationship with the US could also come at a cost. Some of the losses would include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Reduced trade opportunities, foreign direct investment and economic aid, potentially leading to economic setbacks for the continent. Beneficiaries of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (<a href="https://agoa.info/about-agoa.html">Agoa</a>), which provides preferential access to the US market, would be hit the hardest. </p></li>
<li><p>The US has been accused of militarising the continent to advance its own interests. But it plays a significant role in <a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/io/pkpg/c10834.htm">supporting peacekeeping efforts</a> and <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/commentary-who-thinks-wins-how-smarter-u-s-counterterrorism-in-the-sahel-can-pay-dividends-for-great-power-competition/">counterterrorism initiatives</a> in various African regions. Alienation could therefore affect security and stability, leaving a void in terms of resources, expertise, and coordination in these critical areas. </p></li>
<li><p>Alienating a major global player like the US could also lead to diplomatic isolation for many African countries on the international stage. This could weaken their influence in international organisations, negotiations and decision-making processes.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>What if African countries alienated China?</h2>
<p>On gains, African countries would be able to diversify their economic and political partnerships by reducing dependence on China. This could lead to increased engagement with other countries and regions, potentially resulting in a more balanced and varied international relations portfolio.</p>
<p>African countries could also enhance their bargaining power in negotiations. This could lead to more favourable terms in trade deals, investment agreements and development projects. Other countries including the US, EU members and Australia might see an opportunity to fill the void. </p>
<p>Some Africans see China’s influence as overly dominant, potentially leading to <a href="https://www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwik_ufxrv-AAxX3YPEDHanLDBcQFnoECDUQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theelephant.info%2Ffeatures%2F2021%2F05%2F10%2Fwhat-africans-think-of-china-and-america%2F&usg=AOvVaw27sl28dalUXdGrayDchrvJ&opi=89978449">concerns about sovereignty and autonomy</a>. Alienating China could be seen as a way to assert national interests and prevent over-reliance on a single foreign partner.</p>
<p>That said, African countries can ill afford to alienate China. </p>
<p>China is a major economic partner for many African countries, providing investments, trade opportunities and infrastructure projects. Alienating it could lead to economic setbacks, including reduced trade and foreign direct investment. </p>
<p>Second, China is involved in various <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/183370/china-is-delivering-over-30-of-africas-big-construction-projects-heres-why/">infrastructure development projects across Africa</a>. These include roads, railways, ports and energy facilities. A strained relationship with China might hinder the completion of these projects or slow down future infrastructure development, potentially affecting economic growth and connectivity.</p>
<p>Third, China is a significant player in international diplomacy and geopolitics. So, alienating it could lead to reduced influence in global forums where China has a presence. These include the United Nations and various other international organisations. This might limit African countries’ ability to advance their interests on the global stage.</p>
<p>However, it must be noted these gains and losses from alienating either the US or China are speculative and would depend on a wide range of factors. For example, the relationship between African countries and both of these superpowers is multifaceted and complex. Any decision to alienate either of them should involve careful assessment of both the short-term and long-term consequences, and the evolving geopolitical landscape. The trick is for Africa to articulate its own interests and pursue them consistently. </p>
<h2>Is there a common African position on the US and China?</h2>
<p>African countries have diverse foreign policy priorities and alliances. Their responses to international conflicts can vary widely. Some might choose to align with major powers like the US, China, the European Union or Russia. Others might opt for neutrality or noninterference in the conflicts of other regions.</p>
<p>These strands have played out in the voting patterns on the three UN General Assembly votes to <a href="https://theconversation.com/african-countries-showed-disunity-in-un-votes-on-russia-south-africas-role-was-pivotal-180799">condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine</a>. </p>
<p>It would help African countries to have a common position on the Ukraine war. This should be based on its impact on food and energy security in the continent. They should act consistently in line with that common position. They could also have a common position on Brics instead of leaving it entirely to South Africa to define an African agenda for Brics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212273/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Isike 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>It would help African countries to have a common position on the Ukraine war. This should be based on its impact on food and energy security in the continent.Christopher Isike, Director, African Centre for the Study of the United States, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2122002023-08-24T18:37:30Z2023-08-24T18:37:30ZBrics expansion: six more nations are set to join – what they’re buying into<p>One key outcome of the <a href="https://brics2023.gov.za/">15th Brics summit</a>, hosted by South Africa, is the decision to invite six more countries to join the group with effect from January 2024. They are Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. All six had <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/brics-meet-with-friends-seeking-closer-ties-amid-push-expand-bloc-2023-06-02/">applied</a> for membership. The enlargement will grow the association’s membership to 11, and increase its envisaged role as a geopolitical alternative to global institutions dominated by the west.</p>
<p>The five current member countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – have argued that their size, in economic and population terms, was not represented in the world’s institutions, particularly the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). </p>
<p>The Brics five represent about <a href="https://unctad.org/publication/brics-investment-report">42%</a> of the world’s population and more than 23% of <a href="https://brics2023.gov.za/evolution-of-brics/">world GDP</a>. </p>
<p>The enlarged grouping will account for 46.5% of the world population. Using <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPD@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD/CHN">IMF GDP data</a>, we can deduce that it will account for about 30% of global GDP.</p>
<p>The disparate nature of the six new members is bound to spark debate about the real nature of Brics.</p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/address-president-cyril-ramaphosa-south-africa%27s-foreign-policy">welcoming remarks</a> at the summit (22-24 August), the host, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Brics stands for solidarity and for progress. Brics stands for inclusivity and a more just, equitable order. Brics stands for sustainable development.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The group has been remarkably consistent on these values and aspirations.</p>
<h2>Understanding the nature of Brics</h2>
<p>One of the first questions about Brics is often “what is it?”. This is telling. This question does not come up, for example, about the European Union or even the G20. </p>
<p>Brics is not an organisation (it has no headquarters, secretariat or treaty). But it does have a formal institution that is jointly owned – the <a href="https://www.ndb.int/">New Development Bank</a>. Confusion about Brics’ precise nature is understandable. </p>
<p>At various points it has referred to itself as a <a href="http://brics2022.mfa.gov.cn/eng/hywj/ODS/202203/t20220308_10649517.html">forum</a>, a <a href="http://www.brics.utoronto.ca/docs/210909-New-Delhi-Declaration.html">platform</a>, a <a href="http://www.brics.utoronto.ca/docs/130327-statement.html">mechanism</a>, a <a href="http://www.brics.utoronto.ca/docs/110414-leaders.html">partnership</a>, or a <a href="http://www.brics.utoronto.ca/docs/150709-ufa-declaration_en.html">strategic partnership</a>, to name a few. Others have called it an <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373113580_The_BRICS_and_Africa's_Strategic_Interests">alliance</a> or a bloc. It is neither. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-role-as-host-of-the-brics-summit-is-fraught-with-dangers-a-guide-to-who-is-in-the-group-and-why-it-exists-206898">South Africa's role as host of the BRICS summit is fraught with dangers. A guide to who is in the group, and why it exists</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In international relations, both terms are strictly defined. The term “<a href="https://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/390/425">alliance</a>” refers to a mutual defence pact and implies military cooperation. A “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40209394">bloc</a>” refers to ideological consistency (political bloc) or a free trade agreement (trade bloc). Brics has none of these characteristics. </p>
<p>The members also disagree on some key issues. China and Russia are noncommittal (at best) on the aspirations of India, Brazil and South Africa to become members of the UN Security Council. Their declarations have over the years <a href="https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjdt_665385/2649_665393/202206/t20220623_10709037.html">reiterated</a> the same phrase:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>China and Russia understand and support the aspirations of India, Brazil and South Africa to play a greater role in the United Nations. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This shows there is some serious disagreement within the group. </p>
<p>As a political scientist interested in global politics, I have <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-62765-2">written about Brics</a> and its potential for changing the status quo. With hindsight, I can assert that certain principles have informed it since its establishment and <a href="http://www.brics.utoronto.ca/docs/090616-leaders.html#:%7E:text=We%20call%20upon%20all%20parties,the%20WTO's%20Doha%20Development%20Agenda.">first summit</a> in 2009. In my view, at a material level, the 15 years of summit declarations point to four fundamental values:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>mutual development</p></li>
<li><p>multilateralism</p></li>
<li><p>global governance reform</p></li>
<li><p>solidarity.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The association self-reportedly seeks secure sustainable development for itself and the global south, to safeguard and advance multilateralism, to institute reform for the goal of representative institutions, and to achieve solidarity among members.</p>
<h2>Economic development</h2>
<p>Economics comes first in the group; at its root, it is a collective of emerging economies eager to sustain and improve their economic trajectory. Their insistence on reform is, after all, based on their perceived disproportionate under-representation in global financial institutions.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/chinas-africa-strategy-is-shifting-from-extraction-to-investment-driven-from-the-industry-rich-hunan-region-209044">China’s Africa strategy is shifting from extraction to investment – driven from the industry-rich Hunan region</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The group’s first, and so far only, notable establishment is the <a href="https://www.ndb.int/">New Development Bank</a>, primarily to finance infrastructure development. There’s also a contingent reserve that members can draw from in emergencies. It is <a href="https://saiia.org.za/research/the-brics-new-development-bank-and-contingent-reserve-arrangement-at-a-glance/''">valued at US$100 billion</a>. </p>
<h2>Multilateralism</h2>
<p>The second value refers to the group’s concern about the use of entities outside the UN to pursue global objectives. Most notable is the use of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (<a href="https://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/">Nato</a>) to invade <a href="https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-war-afghanistan">Afghanistan</a> in 2001 following the <a href="https://www.911memorial.org/911-faqs">9/11</a> attacks in the US, and the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the US and the UK, circumventing the UN Security Council. </p>
<p>Russian president Vladimir Putin expressed <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034">this concern in his speech</a> to the 2007 Munich Conference on Security:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The use of force can only be considered legitimate if the decision is sanctioned by the UN. And we do not need to substitute NATO or the EU for the UN. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Global governance reform</h2>
<p>Thirdly, the Brics countries have long pushed for leaders of global institutions to be elected in a transparent and democratic way. For example, the president of the World Bank has <a href="https://fortune.com/2019/01/11/next-world-bank-president-jim-yong-kim/">always been an American</a>, and the managing director of the IMF <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/05/18/why-is-the-imf-chief-always-a-european/">a European</a>. The World Bank has <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/about/leadership#:%7E:text=The%20World%20Bank%20is%20like,policymakers%20at%20the%20World%20Bank.">189 member states</a> and the <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/About/Factsheets/IMF-at-a-Glance">IMF 190</a>.</p>
<p>The idea of the New Development Bank was not to substitute the World Bank but to “<a href="http://www.brics.utoronto.ca/docs/140715-leaders.html">supplement</a>” existing international financial institutions. Brics still envisions a World Bank in which its members have voting rights proportional to their economic weight, and with staff drawn from across the world in a geographically balanced way. </p>
<h2>Solidarity</h2>
<p>Finally, the members have articulated solidarity with one another in a number of declarations, beginning in 2010. It comes down to mutual assistance in times of humanitarian disasters, respecting one another’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/when-two-elephants-fight-how-the-global-south-uses-non-alignment-to-avoid-great-power-rivalries-199418">When two elephants fight: how the global south uses non-alignment to avoid great power rivalries</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In light of criticism and sanctions plans against <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/3/29/us-sanctions-chinese-firms-over-alleged-abuses-of-uyghurs">China</a>, for its alleged suppression of the Uyghur-Muslim population, and <a href="https://ofac.treasury.gov/sanctions-programs-and-country-information/ukraine-russia-related-sanctions">Russia</a>, for invading Ukraine, solidarity has come to mean silence or nonalignment. </p>
<h2>A blank slate</h2>
<p>Brics is a nebulous entity. This has proved beneficial for member countries hosting Brics summits. They get to set the agenda and use it for their ends – without upsetting the consensus. One common pattern has been the use of summits to set overarching themes that are favourable to the host country’s domestic policy and regional leadership or foreign policy stance.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/africa-is-being-courted-by-china-russia-and-the-us-why-the-continent-shouldnt-pick-sides-210516">Africa is being courted by China, Russia and the US. Why the continent shouldn't pick sides</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Thus, for example, all Brics summits hosted by South Africa foregrounded Africa in their names: “Brics and Africa: Partnership for mutually accelerated growth, sustainable development and inclusive multilateralism” <a href="https://brics2023.gov.za/theme-and-priorities/">in 2023</a>. Brazil and Russia have inserted issues that are important to their region, and often invited leaders of neighbouring countries to retreats.</p>
<p>This shows how much clout they enjoy, as they get to funnel access to a now-renowned association that is simultaneously well established but also evades easy definition. With the addition of the six new members, such evasiveness is set to only continue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212200/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bhaso Ndzendze 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 disparate nature of the six prospective members is bound to spark debate about the real nature of Brics.Bhaso Ndzendze, Associate Professor (International Relations), University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2060202023-05-28T08:26:07Z2023-05-28T08:26:07ZSouth Africa’s pact with Russia – and its actions – cast doubt on its claims of non-alignment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528307/original/file-20230525-17-r3ysjl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Vladimir Putin, left, and President Cyril Ramaphosa in Sochi, Russia, in 2019.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sergei Chirikov/Pool/AFP via Getty Images.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/slideshows/a-timeline-of-the-russia-ukraine-conflict">in February 2022</a> South Africa has <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2022-05-16-ukraine-south-africa-is-not-neutral-we-are-non-aligned/">proclaimed</a> a policy of non-alignment in that conflict. This position was placed in doubt when US Ambassador Ruben Brigety claimed recently that he had evidence that South African arms and ammunition <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-weapons-arms-south-africa-e89bac38997f240655ddf5d892e44f85">were loaded on a Russian ship</a> in December 2022. </p>
<p>Brigety concluded that South Africa’s alleged behaviour did</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/7ad94426-aafc-4f04-99d7-05f6d5e6f71d">not suggest to us the actions of a non-aligned country</a>. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The South African government, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/did-south-africa-sell-arms-to-russia-only-a-series-of-unlikely-scenarios-could-have-made-it-possible-205689">regulates the sale of arms and ammunition</a> to and from the country, has vehemently denied Brigety’s accusation. Thandi Modise, the minister of defence, said that nothing <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/lady-rs-cargo-manifest-is-classified-claims-anc-as-opposition-wants-answers-20230523">“was loaded onto the Russian ship”</a>. However President Cyril Ramaphosa <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/presidency-responds-claims-weapons-supply-russia-made-us-ambassador">announced</a> that an independent commission, headed by a retired judge, would probe the American claims.</p>
<p>I have studied South Africa’s foreign relations for the last decade, including its <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19392206.2020.1871796">alliance policy</a>.</p>
<p>Brigety is correct. Though South Africa maintains that it is non-aligned, the agreements it has made and the actions it has taken over the past decade make it clear that it is aligned with the Russian Federation. </p>
<h2>The South Africa-Russia partnership</h2>
<p>In 2013 South Africa inked a <a href="https://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/85/Strategic%20Review/Vol%2037%20(2)/geldenhuys-pp118-145.zp74595.pdf">Comprehensive Strategic Partnership deal</a> with Russia. Signed by presidents Jacob Zuma and Vladimir Putin, this <a href="https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Policy-Briefing-75.pdf">declaration</a> lays out a framework for cooperation between the two nations. It covers a wide range of areas, including political, economic, technological and cultural collaboration. </p>
<p>The only other state South Africa has such a far reaching agreement with is <a href="https://treaties.dirco.gov.za/dbtw-wpd/images/20100824ChinaDeclarationStrategicPartnership.pdf">China</a>. But the agreement with Russia contains a passage that makes that accord even more consequential than that with China. It <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/1428">stipulates</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Non-participation in any military-political or other alliances, associations or armed conflicts directed against the other Side, or in any treaties, agreements or understandings infringing upon the independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity or national security interests of the other Side. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In short, South Africa and Russia will not challenge or condemn each other. This is essentially a non-aggression pact. An agreement international relations scholars classify as <a href="https://correlatesofwar.org/data-sets/formal-alliances/">a type of alliance</a>.</p>
<p>The opening paragraphs of the <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/1428">pact</a> emphasise that the foundation of the relationship between South Africa and Russia is</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the rich and fruitful experience of cooperation in different spheres accumulated over the period of struggle against apartheid…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Officials of South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), regularly refer to this history. The minister of international relations and cooperation, Naledi Pandor, <a href="https://ewn.co.za/0001/01/01/minister-pandor-says-russia-an-old-historical-friend">stated in March</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have made it clear that Russia is a friend and we have had cooperative partnerships for many years, including partnerships as we combated the apartheid regime.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Similarly, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, Lindiwe Zulu, South Africa’s minister of social development and chairperson of the ANC’s subcommittee on international relations, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/world/africa/russia-ukraine-eritrea-africa.html">said</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Russia is our friend through and through … We are not about to denounce that relationship that we have always had. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The partnership in effect</h2>
<p>South African-Russian relations have been guided by the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership agreement over the last decade. When Russia invaded the Ukrainian territory of Crimea the year after the agreement was signed, <a href="https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/181295/1d676013a28a2c93f0abf4a5dfc4567b.pdf">South Africa did not protest</a>.</p>
<p>Instead, South African and Russian officials were busy working towards an expansive and now notorious nuclear deal. In their book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Inside-South-Africas-Secret-ebook/dp/B09WW9P187">Nuclear: Inside South Africa’s Secret Deal</a>, journalist Karyn Maughan and former national treasury insider Kirsten Pearson show that the objective of this agreement was not to enhance the country’s capacity for energy production at a reasonable cost. Instead, a major motivation for the then Zuma administration was geopolitics – enhancing the relationship between South Africa and Russia.</p>
<p>South Africa has also sought increased military cooperation with its partners in the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (<a href="http://infobrics.org/">BRICS</a>) group. During the 2013 BRICS summit in the South African port city of Durban, South Africa <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/archive/2013-03-04-defence-plans-show-talks-at-brics-summit/">held an accompanying armaments exposition</a> to spur cooperation and trade among the states in the group.</p>
<p>Military coordination between Russia and South Africa has recently expanded. The two states, along with China, have held naval exercises <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/south-africas-military-drills-with-russia-and-china-raise-eyebrows#:%7E:text=This%20week%E2%80%99s%20unprecedented%20joint%20trilateral,tanks%%2020back%20in%20their%20capitals">in 2019</a> and again <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-64380572">in 2023</a>. The timing of the latter exercises – in the midst of Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine and on the anniversary of the conflict – was <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/05/18/exp-south-africa-russia-brics-ramaphosa-zane-dangor-intv-051812pseg1-cnni-world.cnn">noteworthy</a>.</p>
<p>When Russia <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/slideshows/a-timeline-of-the-russia-ukraine-conflict">invaded Ukraine</a> in 2022 Pretoria refused to criticise the attack. The Ramaphosa administration <a href="https://www.dirco.gov.za/blog/2022/03/02/south-africas-statement-in-explanation-of-vote-on-ukraine-in-the-un-general-assembly-emergency-special-session-2-march-2022/">claimed</a> its position was motivated by its longstanding belief that such conflicts should be resolved through negotiations. Taking sides, it said, would not encourage such negotiations.</p>
<p>However, When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Pretoria unequivocally (and correctly) <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/sas-opposition-to-the-us-invasion-of-iraq-ten-year">condemned Washington</a>.</p>
<h2>Arms to an ally</h2>
<p>Ambassador Brigety’s claims about South African arms shipments to Russia should be taken seriously. He is an <a href="https://za.usembassy.gov/ambassador-reuben-e-brigety-ii-ph-d/">experienced diplomat, scholar and soldier</a>. He surely recalls Colin Powell’s erroneous statement to the United Nations <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/18/colin-powell-un-security-council-iraq">in 2003</a> about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. He would be cautious to go public with a claim of this nature unless he was confident in its credibility. </p>
<p>Furthermore, unlike the Iraq situation in which political pressure from senior Bush administration officials led to the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/colin-powells-fateful-moment">manipulation of intelligence</a>, there is no one in the Biden administration who has a vested interest in singling out South Africa by spinning intelligence reports. Brigety would not bet his life on the accuracy of these reports <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/12/united-states-south-africa-russia-weapons-sanctions/125feaac-f0c1-11ed-b67d-a219ec5dfd30_story.html">unless he fully believed them</a>.</p>
<p>South Africa’s alleged shipment of weapons to Russia is consistent with its increasingly close ties with Moscow over the past decade. Whether such alignment is wise should be the subject of future debate, but the fact that South Africa is aligned with Russia should not.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206020/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Williams 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>It’s clear that South Africa is aligned with the Russian Federation.Christopher Williams, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2063012023-05-25T15:40:33Z2023-05-25T15:40:33ZArms-to-Russia row raises doubt about South Africa’s compliance with arms control. It could face tougher scrutiny in future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528229/original/file-20230525-17-6svurz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Russian Volunteer Corps insignia on the sleeve of a soldier near the border in northern Ukraine in early 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent furore over <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/government/breaking-us-ambassador-says-south-africa-gave-weapons-to-russia-for-ukraine-war-20230511">accusations</a> by the US ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety, that South Africa was supplying arms to Russia despite its declared policy of non-alignment, has sparked a debate on whether the country’s arms control is lax, non-compliant and lacks oversight.</p>
<p>The debate was further fuelled by the South African government’s <a href="https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/law-order/2449262-south-african-minister-we-didnt-approve-any-arms-shipment-to-russia">reluctance to provide clear answers</a> to questions about what Russia’s Lady R cargo ship came to deliver – or to pick up – from South Africa in December 2022.</p>
<p>The general view about arms transactions is that they are always shrouded in secrecy. And that they involve some of the most unscrupulous characters. But, in my view, based on my expertise in defence policy, intelligence and international security, these are misconceptions. The South African defence industry is <a href="https://theconversation.com/did-south-africa-sell-arms-to-russia-only-a-series-of-unlikely-scenarios-could-have-made-it-possible-205689">one of the most highly regulated in the world</a>. That’s not to say it isn’t prone to manipulation and weaponisation for foreign policy objectives.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/did-south-africa-sell-arms-to-russia-only-a-series-of-unlikely-scenarios-could-have-made-it-possible-205689">Did South Africa sell arms to Russia? Only a series of unlikely scenarios could have made it possible</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Allegations of flouting international arms control rules, let alone being party to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, place the South African defence industry in a precarious position globally. It is vulnerable to the loss of preferential trade relations. Existing and future contracts are jeopardised.</p>
<p>Companies and people found to have flouted the arms control legislation would be prosecuted in the South African courts. They would also most likely face sanctions from some western countries, including the US. </p>
<p>The Lady R incident has compromised South Africa’s credibility as a compliant state when it comes to arms control. There may be much more scrutiny for future transactions. Given South Africa’s insistence on non-alignment and neutrality, such allegations cast doubt on its status as a credible peace broker. However, two developments will go a long way towards alleviating the impact of the allegations. </p>
<p>The first is the announcement by South African president Cyril Ramaphosa that a new effort involving six African countries <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/government-welcomes-african-peace-leaders-mission">has been initiated</a>
to <a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-russia-ukraine-peace-mission-what-can-it-achieve-206201">explore an end to the year-long Russia-Ukraine war</a>. The second is Ramaphosa’s announcement that there <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/presidency-responds-claims-weapons-supply-russia-made-us-ambassador">will be a judicial inquiry</a> into the US ambassador’s allegation.</p>
<h2>Arms control: what’s in place</h2>
<p>South Africa has arguably some of the <a href="https://www.dirco.gov.za/blog/2023/05/12/the-south-african-government-demarches-the-us-ambassador/">most stringent governance frameworks</a> for arms control on international trade. The regulations and laws it has in place cover conventional arms, non-proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapon materials and dual-use goods and services. </p>
<p>It is this strictness that has sometimes caused discomfort with the South African defence industry. There have been complaints from the industry that some lucrative prospective transactions have been lost because they’ve been declined by the National Conventional Arms Control Committeee, or delayed by calls for more scrutiny.</p>
<p>South Africa’s National Conventional Arms Control Committee and the Non-Proliferation Council have <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/national-conventional-arms-control-act">been set up</a> under <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/non-proliferation-weapons-mass-destruction-act-2-jul-1993-0000">laws governing arms control</a> as the final decision-making bodies on international arms transfers. Given the conventional nature of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, it would appear the suspected weapons transaction with Russia would be within the purview of National Conventional Arms Control Committee.</p>
<h2>Public and private sector involvement</h2>
<p>What seems to have irritated the South African government and confused the public in the US ambassador’s accusatory statement is the inherent <a href="https://www.dirco.gov.za/blog/2023/05/11/presidency-responds-to-claims-of-weapons-supply-to-russia-made-by-the-us-ambassador/">assumption that all arms transactions are conducted by the state</a>. This is incorrect. </p>
<p>Even though the National Conventional Arms Control Committee decides on whether a particular arms transaction should proceed, it does not manage the fulfilment of the transaction. This includes the logistical arrangements. The onus lies with the relevant company to conclude the transaction in line with the provisions of the permit and the associated end-user certificate. </p>
<p>The South African defence industry comprises state-owned entities such as Denel, Armscor and a division of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and private companies. Armscor, as the government’s acquisition agency, has its own logistical capability called <a href="https://www.armscor.co.za/?page_id=3212">AB Logistics</a>. It is authorised to move sensitive, controlled, and hazardous military goods in support of the South African National Defence Force, South African defence industry companies and, in some cases, for foreign clients. </p>
<p>The defence force itself is not mandated to engage in arms transactions except through Armscor. </p>
<p>What this shows is that the investigation into the allegations of arms supply to Russia would involve public and private role-players. </p>
<p>Further compounding matters is the fact that the Lady R cargo ship docked at the time when Russia was preparing for participation in the <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2023/02/23/sandf-defends-controversial-naval-drills-with-russia">joint military exercise</a> with China and South Africa (Ex Morsi II) which took place in February 2023. It is not clear if its arrival was linked to the joint military exercise, which would be easy for government to clarify. Regrettably, this coincided with the first anniversary of Russia’s attack on Ukraine.</p>
<h2>Who sells what to whom</h2>
<p>Russia is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/sanctions-against-russia-will-affect-arms-sales-to-africa-the-risks-and-opportunities-180038">significant arms supplier to the African continent</a> with 49% of the market share. But the arms transfers between Russia and South Africa have been insignificant by volume, value and even firepower. The same applies to the US. </p>
<p>Both Russia and the US are self-sufficient and, together with South Africa, they are competitors in the global arms marketplace. In addition, most of South Africa’s export arms equipment and ammunition is aligned with NATO standards, which are <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/government/ladyrussiagate-sa-ignored-us-intelligence-on-simons-town-arms-deal-as-diplomatic-talks-deadlock-20230512-2">not necessarily compatible with the Russian equipment</a>. </p>
<p>The figures in Table 1 and Table 2 set out the nature and size of arms transactions. They provide context to the US ambassador’s allegations.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528285/original/file-20230525-25-9ua4y6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528285/original/file-20230525-25-9ua4y6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528285/original/file-20230525-25-9ua4y6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528285/original/file-20230525-25-9ua4y6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528285/original/file-20230525-25-9ua4y6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528285/original/file-20230525-25-9ua4y6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528285/original/file-20230525-25-9ua4y6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Table 1: South Africa s Arms Imports from Russia and the US.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.unroca.org/">Source: https://www.unroca.org/</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As Table 1 shows, South Africa’s arms imports from both countries were largely in the small arms category from 2017 to 2022. It was only in 2016 that large calibre artillery systems (Category III) were ordered in significant numbers. There were no arms transactions reported for 2018, 2019 and 2020. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528290/original/file-20230525-17-c6j51h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528290/original/file-20230525-17-c6j51h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528290/original/file-20230525-17-c6j51h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528290/original/file-20230525-17-c6j51h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528290/original/file-20230525-17-c6j51h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528290/original/file-20230525-17-c6j51h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528290/original/file-20230525-17-c6j51h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Table 2: South Africa s Arms Exports to Russia and the US.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.unroca.org/">Source: https://www.unroca.org/</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarly, from the export perspective, South Africa exported a negligible amount of small arms from 2016 to 2022. There were no export transactions for 2019 and 2020.</p>
<h2>Potential focus areas for the inquiry</h2>
<p>Establishing the factual basis of the allegations is the primary mandate of the judicial inquiry. The actual contents of the consignment of Lady R, and the direction of the transaction (incoming or outgoing cargo or both) will need to be crucial elements of the inquiry.</p>
<p>The legitimacy of the transaction in terms of legislative compliance, including documentary evidence, should enjoy priority. This will be linked to the institutions and the personnel involved in the preparation, processing and finalisation of the transaction. This would need to be done before concluding whether the transaction could be directly or indirectly linked to Russia-Ukraine conflict.</p>
<p>The terms of reference for the inquiry will clearly give an indication of the scope and depth of issues to be investigated. And the associated options for consequence management.</p>
<h2>What next</h2>
<p>Regardless of the outcome of the inquiry, more efforts will have to be made to repair diplomatic relations between South Africa and its western economic partners. </p>
<p>The ultimate goal will be to restore diplomatic status as it was before and to avert the potential exclusion of South Africa from the <a href="https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/trade-development/preference-programs/african-growth-and-opportunity-act-agoa">Africa Growth and Opportunity Act</a> benefits. This should be accompanied by measures to prevent the repeat of public outbursts that defy diplomatic protocols.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206301/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Moses B. Khanyile 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>Allegations of flouting international arms control rules, let alone being party to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, place the South African defence industry in a precarious position globally.Moses B. Khanyile, Director: Centre for Military Studies, Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2055842023-05-18T08:13:22Z2023-05-18T08:13:22ZThe Plot to Save South Africa: masterful account of an assassination that nearly derailed efforts to end apartheid<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526549/original/file-20230516-24-mt7dsp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chris Hani (R) after being elected secretary general of the South African Communist Party in December 1991. To his left is the former secretary general Jo Slovo.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Walter Dhladhla/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I was about to set off to the airport on the morning of 10 April 1993 to cover the great American boxer Muhammad Ali’s arrival in Johannesburg when the news came through: <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/chris-hani">Chris Hani</a> had been <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/news/2016-03-10-remember-how-the-sunday-times-covered-chris-hanis-assassination/">murdered</a>. </p>
<p>Of all the African National Congress (ANC) leaders I’d met during a decade of underground membership during the 1980s, the one who impressed me the most was Hani.</p>
<p>From 1987 to 1992 Hani was chief of staff of the movement’s military wing, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/umkhonto-wesizwe-mk">Umkhonto we Sizwe</a>, and leader of the South African Communist Party <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/chris-hani">from 1991 to 1993</a>. Intelligent, brave, warm and witty, he exuded the kind of energetic charm that made him a hugely compelling revolutionary. I spent time with him in 1987 and 1989 and felt then, and later, that he would have made a far better successor to Mandela than the anointed dauphin, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thabo-Mbeki">Thabo Mbeki</a>.</p>
<p>The news of his assassination outside his home in Dawn Park, Boksburg, came as a shock. I found it difficult to focus on the appearance of Ali, who’d been a kind of hero of mine for more than 20 years.</p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.jonathanball.co.za/component/virtuemart/the-plot-to-save-south-africa">recently released book</a>, The Plot to Save South Africa, journalist and author Justice Malala does a masterful job of telling the tale of Hani’s murder and the precarious spell that followed before his funeral. He describes the nine days that followed, days that contained the potential to scupper fragile negotiations to end apartheid and prompt prolonged chaos or worse. </p>
<p>The subtitle of this book – “The week Mandela averted civil war and forged a new nation” – is appropriately chosen.</p>
<p>The book is a gripping read for anyone interested in late 20th century history, and in the end of apartheid more specifically. Malala has done a fine job in making this not just an impressively researched record, but also a compelling, fast-moving tale.</p>
<h2>Narrative balance</h2>
<p>Malala, who was a young reporter at The Star at the time of the killing, is a talented story-teller, adept at weaving the required facts into a page-turning narrative. Each anecdotal vignette comes with the kind of vivid descriptive detail that is only possible with exhaustive research. He interviewed scores of the key players from all sides in this drama. He also had access to a wealth of archival material, allowing him to delve into the minds of the protagonists and to recount their movements, what they were wearing and the words they shared with each other. </p>
<p>He draws on his experience, discipline and flair as a writer to maintain the momentum all the way through to the funeral at the end. </p>
<p>The key player in this enthralling story is <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1993/mandela/biographical/">Nelson Mandela</a> who had been released after 27 years in prison in February 1990. He adored Hani, treating the 50-year-old as his son. He was overwhelmed with sadness. But he retained the clarity of purpose to hold back ANC supporters from wrecking the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/convention-democratic-south-africa-codesa">negotiations to end apartheid</a> that had started soon after Mandela’s release, and had resumed shortly before Hani’s murder, after a spell of suspension.</p>
<p>The assassins wanted the talks derailed. They hoped Hani’s death would ignite a civil war that would unleash the apartheid security forces against the ANC and the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv03445/04lv03446/05lv03480.htm">Mass Democratic Movement</a>, an alliance of anti-apartheid groups, as never before.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
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<p>There was indeed an outpouring of rage, grief and violence following the murder. In the areas around Johannesburg and Pretoria alone 80 people were killed and hundreds injured in violence directly related to Hani’s assassination, with many more casualties in the rest of the country.</p>
<p>Most of the injuries and fatalities were due to the actions of the apartheid security forces and right-wing vigilantes. </p>
<p>But the outcome of the assassination was the opposite to the killers’ intentions. The incendiary climate following the murder focused minds on both sides. Mandela, his lead negotiator <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/cyril-ramaphosa-1952">Cyril Ramaphosa</a>, and other ANC leaders successfully used the moment to press for an election date and a <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03162.htm">Transitional Executive Council</a> to run the country until the first democratic election. This was hugely significant. It meant that the then ruling <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Party-political-party-South-Africa">National Party</a>, the party of apartheid, could no longer call the shots before the election. </p>
<p>Without the urgency injected into the negotiations process by the assassination, it is possible that it would have dragged on, and many more would have died.</p>
<p>The outcome was the opposite to the killers’ intentions. Immediately afterwards, power leaked away from the state president, FW de Klerk, the National Party and the security establishment, and flowed to Mandela, the ANC and the Mass Democratic Movement.</p>
<p>In his accounts of these killings Malala retains narrative balance, giving space to all of the players. For example, he devotes several pages to the murder by ANC activists of the liberal anti-apartheid teacher and activist Ally Weakley, who was tragically mistaken for a right-wing vigilante.</p>
<h2>A far-right plot</h2>
<p>The book starts with Mandela receiving news of the murder and quickly segues to the movements of the two men who would be convicted, the Polish immigrant <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-63887332">Janusz Walus</a>, who pulled the trigger, and his mentor, the Conservative Party MP <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02167/04lv02264/05lv02267/06lv02268/07lv02273.htm">Clive Derby-Lewis</a>, and also those who assisted them, including Derby-Lewis’s wife, Gaye, and the journalist <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2007/white-supremacist-arthur-kemp-steps-leader-neo-nazi-group-national-alliance">Arthur Kemp</a>, who supplied Hani’s address (and subsequently emerged as a leading player in the international extreme-right). </p>
<p>Later, Malala raises the possibility that others within the apartheid security forces were aiding them. For example, the regular police investigating the murder were instructed by the Security Police not to probe into Walus’ links to his employer, the arms trader Peter Jackson. Jackson owned the car the killer used on the day, and Malala notes that the killer’s diary disappeared from the police docket, later reemerging with several pages missing.</p>
<p>He also points to the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a> finding that Walus operated as a source for the National Intelligence Service (the apartheid state’s version of the CIA). The commission probed human rights abuses by the apartheid state and those who fought against it.</p>
<p>To maintain the hour-by-hour tension, Malala avoids reaching ahead, instead portraying the players in this drama as they were then. Perhaps inevitably, some of those who star in his account fared less well in the decades that followed – in particular the ANC spokesperson <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/carl-niehaus">Carl Niehaus</a>, who confessed to fraud and was eventually expelled from the ANC. </p>
<p>More generally, many of the devoted ANC leaders who played a central part in the build-up to Hani’s funeral went on to become multi-millionaires, more interested in self-enrichment than the common weal. </p>
<p>Appropriately, Malala resists the temptation to speculate about what would have happened if Hani had lived. Instead he closes with Mandela and De Klerk winning the Nobel Peace Prize and the launch of the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03162.htm">Transitional Executive Council</a> which ushered in the largely peaceful elections on April 27 1994.</p>
<p>This book serves as a reminder of how close South Africa came to civil war in the countdown to democracy. Nearly three decades on, it is also a timely reminder of the selflessness and dedication of many of the main players of the time, qualities that seem in short supply today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205584/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gavin Evans 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 book is a gripping read for anyone interested in late 20th century history, and in the end of apartheid.Gavin Evans, Lecturer, Culture and Media department, Birkbeck, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2056892023-05-16T15:11:49Z2023-05-16T15:11:49ZDid South Africa sell arms to Russia? Only a series of unlikely scenarios could have made it possible<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526538/original/file-20230516-23-c8970m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Aerial view of the Simonstown harbour.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On 11 May 2023 the US ambassador to South Africa, <a href="https://za.usembassy.gov/ambassador-reuben-e-brigety-ii-ph-d/">Reuben Brigety</a>, claimed that South Africa had secretly exported <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/government/breaking-us-ambassador-says-south-africa-gave-weapons-to-russia-for-ukraine-war-20230511">arms to Russia</a> in December 2022. The announcement rapidly fed into a popular narrative that South Africa was <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/2b7ee958-5f70-4da8-9695-2f17238dc61a">increasingly siding with Russia</a> in relation to Moscow’s aggressive war in Ukraine.</p>
<p>Brigety’s statements made both South African and international news headlines, including the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-says-south-africa-supplied-weapons-ammunition-to-russia-c2489d54">Wall Street Journal</a>, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/11/africa/south-africa-russia-vessel-us-ambo-intl-afr/index.html">CNN</a> and the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/7ad94426-aafc-4f04-99d7-05f6d5e6f71d">Financial Times</a>. He asserted that, based on US intelligence reports, ammunition and/or arms were furtively loaded onto a Russian cargo vessel, the “Lady R”, at South Africa’s naval base in Simon’s Town. The vessel had earlier been <a href="https://www.opensanctions.org/entities/ofac-37095/">sanctioned</a> by the US government.</p>
<p>In response, <a href="https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/law-order/2449262-south-african-minister-we-didnt-approve-any-arms-shipment-to-russia">the South African presidency</a> denied that the government had granted a permit for such arms or ammunition to be exported to Russia. And that no permit approval for Russian arms exports appears in South Africa’s National Conventional Arms Control Committee recent arms export reports other than for electronic observation equipment <a href="https://www.sipri.org/databases/national-reports/South%20Africa">annual arms export reports</a>.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, President Cyril Ramaphosa is in the process of establishing a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/11/south-africa-investigating-us-charge-of-supplying-arms-to-russia">commission of inquiry</a> into the incident. </p>
<p>I spent more than 20 years undertaking research and working with governments on the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326462123_The_Illicit_Arms_Trade_in_Africa_A_Global_Enterprise">arms trade</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326462407_Negotiating_an_Arms_Trade_Treaty_A_Toolkit_for_African_States">arms control</a> in Africa, as well as serving as an <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/619180?ln=en">arms smuggling investigator</a> for the United Nations Sanctions Branch. </p>
<p>I am of the view that such an arms transaction would have required a number of developments that don’t seem plausible. These include the overriding of procurement procedures, the bypassing of key ministers, as well as bribery at a grand and sophisticated scale. Furthermore, as demonstrated in the <a href="https://www.unroca.org/">UN Register of Conventional Arms database</a>, Russia has rarely imported South African arms.</p>
<p>The scenario set out by the US ambassador therefore seems highly unlikely. Let me explain why.</p>
<h2>Imports and exports</h2>
<p>The South African <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-12-22-lady-rs-cargo-was-an-old-order-for-ammunition-modise-says/">minister of defence</a>, Thandi Modise, has stated that the Lady R docked in Simon’s Town in December 2022 to deliver a shipment of ammunition for the South African National Defence Force’s Special Forces Regiment that had been ordered prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.</p>
<p>Indeed the Arms Control Committee’s 2019 arms <a href="https://www.sipri.org/databases/national-reports/South%20Africa">import report</a> lists the permit approval for the import of five million rounds of Russian ammunition to South Africa. Russia is the second largest exporter of arms globally. Its largest clients are India, China and Egypt. Over the years, even the US and the UK have imported arms from Russia according to the <a href="https://www.unroca.org/">UN Register of Conventional Arms</a>.</p>
<p>Reports at the time indicate that containers were offloaded in the harbour and then transported to secure locations under tight security. Such measures are in line with the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/national-conventional-arms-control-act">National Conventional Arms Control Act</a> and were possibly a requirement of the <a href="https://www.sipri.org/publications/2010/sipri-insights-peace-and-security/end-user-certificates-improving-standards-prevent-diversion">end user certificate</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, such security was likely necessitated by the theft of a large quantity of ammunition from Durban harbour during the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-09-08-massive-ammunition-theft-in-durban-raises-fears-of-increased-volatility-and-political-violence-in-kwazulu-natal/">July 2021 unrest</a>. </p>
<p>There were also reports of <a href="https://maritime-executive.com/article/weapons-stolen-from-south-african-naval-base">weapons theft</a> from the Simon’s Town naval base in 2016.</p>
<p>An anonymous source within the South African Navy reported to <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/ladyrussiagate-the-sa-navy-was-sidelined-when-russias-ship-docked-now-officials-wonder-why-20230513">News24</a> that the navy had been “sidelined” by the army during the offloading and loading of the Lady R. This was most likely due to the army being better equipped and more experienced in protecting such a cargo.</p>
<h2>US accusations of South African arms to Russia</h2>
<p>Brigety claimed that the US government had <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/us-accuses-south-africa-of-shipping-arms-to-russia/7089461.html">intelligence reports</a> indicating that prior to the Lady R departing from Simon’s Town, South African ammunition and possibly arms were loaded onto the vessel and then transported to Russia. </p>
<p>However, the reports have not been made public. Hence it has not been possible to independently verify the information. There has also been no public comment on the matter.</p>
<p>This is critically important given that intelligence reports are not always accurate. This was shown by the <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/knight-ridder-small-team-US-journalists-Iraq-war">flawed intelligence</a> that led to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.</p>
<p>In addition, <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/news/2023-05-14-bright-lights-undercover-vehicles-and-big-stuff-heres-what-happened-the-night-lady-r-docked/">various eyewitness accounts</a> differ as to whether anything significant was loaded onto the Lady R. </p>
<p>It was also not clear if the containers that were loaded were merely empty cargo containers, or included cargo that was to be delivered to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/6485f5a6-1188-4b2f-8f9b-dbedced1afbd">other ports</a>. For example, it’s been reported that the vessel docked in Mozambique and Sudan on its return voyage to Russia.</p>
<p>Additionally, why would the Russian government transport millions of rounds of ammunition to South Africa and then buy a large quantity of ammunition from the country, which has a relatively small <a href="https://ipisresearch.be/publication/arms-and-ammunitions-factories-in-africa/">arms manufacturing industry</a>?</p>
<p>South Africa has one of the most comprehensive arms export laws in Africa, the cornerstones of which are transparency and human rights considerations. According to Section 15 of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/national-conventional-arms-control-act">National Conventional Arms Control Act</a>, decisions by the National Conventional Arms Control Committee in relation to the approval or denial of arms export licence applications must ensure that South Africa’s national interests, and those of its allies, are protected. </p>
<p>Traditionally Russia could be considered a South African ally due to the <a href="http://infobrics.org/">BRICS</a> arrangement. However, reports of Russian perpetrated <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/ukraine">human rights abuses</a> in Ukraine would most likely override other considerations in terms of South Africa’s arms export considerations.</p>
<p>In addition, such decisions must not contribute to </p>
<ul>
<li><p>internal repression </p></li>
<li><p>the systematic violation or suppression of human rights and fundamental freedoms </p></li>
<li><p>terrorism and crime </p></li>
<li><p>the escalation of regional military conflicts </p></li>
<li><p>the endangering of peace.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>All arms export applications by arms exporters are carefully considered by a scrutiny committee and, thereafter, by the <a href="https://www.gov.za/national-conventional-arms-control-committee-ncacc-statement-south-african-arms-sales-regulation">National Conventional Arms Control Committee</a>. This is made up of a broad spectrum of cabinet ministers. </p>
<p>Consequently, decisions related to export permit applications frequently take an <a href="https://pmg.org.za/files/221103AMD_SUPPORTING_INFORMATION.pdf">inordinate amount of time</a>. The <a href="https://www.sipri.org/databases/national-reports/South%20Africa">annual arms export reports</a> show that South Africa generally adheres to the Section 15 criteria. But it has exported defence-related equipment to states that do not meet these criteria. Examples include <a href="https://www.defenceweb.co.za/featured/sa-exported-r3-3-billion-worth-of-military-hardware-in-2021/">Myanmar</a> and <a href="https://mg.co.za/thoughtleader/opinion/2021-06-07-back-to-old-habits-south-african-arms-exports-to-saudi-arabia-and-the-uae/">Saudi Arabia</a>.</p>
<p>If the Arms Control Committee had considered an application to export arms and or ammunition to Russia, then consensus among cabinet ministers would have been necessary. This would have been doubtful as ministers responsible for trade and industry and <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-05-13-us-rang-the-alarm-bells-in-february-about-sas-alleged-supply-of-arms-to-russian-cargo-ship-lady-r-godongwana/">finance</a> would have indicated that arms exports to Russia would have dire consequences for South Africa’s trade relations with the US which is South Africa’s <a href="https://www.sars.gov.za/customs-and-excise/trade-statistics/">second largest export market</a> after China. </p>
<p>On top of this, the entire defence sector in South Africa would suffer negative repercussions and might even be sanctioned by other governments.</p>
<h2>The devil is in the intelligence reports</h2>
<p>There is still a possibility that ammunition and/or arms could have been loaded onto the Lady R illegally. But such an endeavour would have required the payment of considerable bribes to officials on the docks and the manufacture of fraudulent export documentation. </p>
<p>In addition, substantial illegal arms transactions typically take place through <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/30/sea-trafficking-report-guns-drugs">container ports</a> where they can be more easily concealed.</p>
<p>The crux of the arms-to-Russia allegations relates to the content of the US intelligence reports. It’s therefore essential that these are declassified and provided to the commission of inquiry as soon as it undertakes its work. They should also be made public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205689/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Guy Lamb receives funding from the Peace Research Institute, Oslo.</span></em></p>The crux of the arms-to-Russia allegations relates to the content of the US intelligence reports.Guy Lamb, Criminologist / Senior Lecturer, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2023662023-03-28T15:28:33Z2023-03-28T15:28:33ZPaul Mashatile, South Africa’s new deputy president, has a critical task: to bring back a sense of stability<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517666/original/file-20230327-20-x9uext.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paul Mashatile, the deputy president of South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a recent <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/statement-president-cyril-ramaphosa-changes-national-executive">cabinet reshuffle</a> President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed Paul Mashatile, the deputy president of South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), as the country’s deputy president. The tradition in the ANC since democracy in 1994 has been for its elected deputy president to ascend first to the deputy presidency of the country, and eventually to become head of state. So Mashatile, an <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-has-a-new-deputy-president-in-paul-mashatile-what-he-brings-to-the-table-200089">experienced politician</a>, may also be destined for top office.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa’s cabinet reshuffle took place in a climate of growing <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-has-been-warned-that-it-faces-an-arab-spring-so-what-are-the-chances-187634">restlessness</a> across the nation about the many failures of the state, high levels of corruption and <a href="https://theconversation.com/link-between-crime-and-politics-in-south-africa-raises-concerns-about-criminal-gangs-taking-over-198160">organised crime</a>. </p>
<p>As a political scientist and researcher on security governance matters, I have been considering the role Mashatile could play in responding to the security crisis. </p>
<p>He will serve on two cabinet structures that are crucial to safety and security in the country. Through this he could contribute to rebuilding <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africans-have-low-trust-in-their-police-heres-why-178821">trust</a> that the public has lost in the law enforcement and criminal justice system. </p>
<h2>Justice, crime prevention and security</h2>
<p>One of Mashatile’s <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2023-03-14-ramaphosa-appoints-mashatile-to-chair-cabinet-security-cluster/">tasks</a> is to chair the <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/resource_centre/publications/naidoo_makananisa_integrated_presentation.pdf">Justice, Crime Prevention and Security</a> cabinet committee. This committee coordinates the work of the ministers who are collectively charged with ensuring safety and stability in the country. During the devastating <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-deadly-july-2021-riots-may-recur-if-theres-no-change-186397">July 2021 unrest</a>, the ministers contradicted each other. They also failed to show a united front against the violence that engulfed several provinces, particularly KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.</p>
<p>With deft leadership, Mashatile can assist Ramaphosa to address the legacy of poorly coordinated security services. The former minister in the presidency, <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/politics/security-cluster-needs-unity-gungubele-20220730">Mondli Gungubele</a>, acknowledged this problem on the anniversary of the deadly July 2021 riots. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-has-a-new-deputy-president-in-paul-mashatile-what-he-brings-to-the-table-200089">South Africa has a new deputy president in Paul Mashatile: what he brings to the table</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster was among several cabinet “clusters” established during former president Thabo Mbeki’s tenure. This has cemented a tradition of intergovernmental cooperation ever since. It oversees the work of the following core ministries and departments:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>police</p></li>
<li><p>state security</p></li>
<li><p>justice and correctional services </p></li>
<li><p>home affairs</p></li>
<li><p>defence and military veterans</p></li>
<li><p>finance.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Mashatile will have to contend with a labyrinth of structures responsible for safety. The operational work of the cluster is coordinated by the directors-general of these departments through the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (<a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/national-joint-operational-and-intelligence-structure-natjoints-0700-update-20-mar-2023">NATJOINTS</a>). </p>
<p>While the NATJOINTS operates at national level, its activities are decentralised to provincial structures (<a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/all-hands-on-deck-w-cape-saps-sandf-metro-police-on-high-alert-amid-planned-national-shutdown-20230319">PROVJOINTs</a>). They coordinate security operations at a provincial level. They work with municipal law enforcement and emergency services, and advise the provincial governments on measures they are taking to keep the public safe. </p>
<h2>The National Security Council</h2>
<p>Mashatile will also serve on the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/notices/2020/20200310-gg42482proc13-COnstitution-NSC.pdf">National Security Council</a>, which is chaired by the president.</p>
<p>The entity is mandated to coordinate a <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-03-01-sas-proposed-national-security-strategy-more-hot-air-or-a-potential-democratic-opening/">national security strategy</a>. It also oversees the annual formulation of a budget and priorities by the country’s <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-01-27-the-ssa-can-improve-but-misconceptions-about-the-role-of-intelligence-services-need-to-be-cleared-up/">intelligence services</a>. It is responsible for coordinating the work of the security services, law enforcement agencies and relevant organs of state to ensure national security. In addition, it receives coordinated, integrated intelligence assessments from the national security structures, and mandates these structures to attend to matters of national security as required.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-strategic-leadership-to-weather-its-storms-its-presidents-have-not-been-up-to-the-task-194296">South Africa needs strategic leadership to weather its storms. Its presidents have not been up to the task</a>
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<p>There is a significant <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/notices/2020/20200310-gg42482proc13-COnstitution-NSC.pdf">overlap of the membership</a> of the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster of ministers, and the National Security Council. Besides the president and deputy president, the council includes all the ministers who are part of the Police, State Security and Justice cabinet committee, as well as the ministers of home affairs, defence and military veterans, international relations, and cooperative governance and traditional affairs. </p>
<h2>How Mashatile could bring stability</h2>
<p>Ramaphosa has entrusted important functions to his deputy. This suggests a level of confidence and cooperation between the two men, rather than a <a href="https://sundayworld.co.za/news/politics/block-mashatile-ramaphosa-warned/">rivalry</a>. Neither can afford to let the ANC fail in government, as this would augur badly for its <a href="https://www.biznews.com/thought-leaders/2023/02/09/anc-crisis-polls-steep-loss-support-elections">prospects</a> in the 2024 general elections. </p>
<p>Mashatile should prioritise getting a few key systems in place. The visibility and effectiveness of the police in day-to-day policing must improve. He must oversee strategies to combat organised crime, which is strangling so many areas of public life. He must also work to secure the resources to implement the recommendations of the <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">Zondo Commission on state capture</a>. </p>
<p>With confidence in the state <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/migrated/files/publications/Dispatches/ad474-south_africans_trust_in_institutions_reaches_new_low-afrobarometer-20aug21.pdf">as low as it is</a>, and the public deeply traumatised by high levels of <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-02-09-sona-2023-sas-soaring-murder-rate-underscores-need-for-ramaphosa-to-ensure-better-leadership-in-policing/">violent crime</a>, Mashatile must put in extra effort to boost public confidence in the justice, crime prevention and security sector. </p>
<p>He can do this by listening to what key stakeholders have to say about the security of the country. Young people bear the brunt of the epidemic of violence – physical and structural. Attending to their security and <a href="https://theconversation.com/idle-and-frustrated-young-south-africans-speak-about-the-need-for-recreational-facilities-176921">wellbeing</a> is crucial for the country’s future.</p>
<p>He also needs to be more strategically visible than his predecessor, David Mabuza, who <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/government/david-mabuza-the-man-from-mpumalanga-who-quit-as-deputy-president-before-some-argue-ever-starting-20230304">resigned</a> from the position. Mabuza’s job description was almost identical to that of Mashatile’s. Yet he <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/ramaphosa-urged-to-appoint-a-competent-deputy-president/">left office with many questioning</a> if he had made any impact. </p>
<h2>New broom</h2>
<p>Mashatile could be the new broom that sweeps clean. Ramaphosa’s apparent confidence in him suggests that he has some latitude to do so. </p>
<p>It is said the job of a deputy president, in practically any country, is <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2021-01-20/what-does-the-vice-president-do">waiting</a> to replace the president. While Mashatile waits in the wings, he has the opportunity to make a difference and make South Africa a more secure place for the public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202366/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sandy Africa 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>Mashatile could be the new broom that sweeps clean. Ramaphosa’s apparent confidence in him suggests that he has some latitude to do so.Sandy Africa, Associate Professor, Political Sciences, and Deputy Dean Teaching and Learning (Humanities), University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2025282023-03-28T09:52:54Z2023-03-28T09:52:54ZICC arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin: a king-size dilemma for South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517651/original/file-20230327-27-lar6a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa and Vladimir Putin at the first Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi, Russia, in 2019.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photos: GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The International Criminal Court (ICC) <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-ukraine-icc-judges-issue-arrest-warrants-against-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin-and">has issued an international arrest warrant</a> for Russian president Vladimir Putin for alleged war crimes regarding the unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia. Such acts are war crimes under two articles of the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/RS-Eng.pdf">Rome Statute</a>, which established the court.</p>
<p>ICC arrest warrants against <a href="https://theconversation.com/putin-and-the-icc-history-shows-just-how-hard-it-is-to-bring-a-head-of-state-to-justice-202247">sitting heads of state are rare</a>. </p>
<p>Putin faces arrest if he sets foot in any of the <a href="https://asp.icc-cpi.int/states-parties">123 signatory states</a> to the statute. Of these, 33 are African states. The issue could come to a head in August when South Africa is set to host the 15th summit of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) bloc in <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-9-mar-2023-0000#:%7E:text=South%20Africa%20is%20chairing%20the,22%20to%2024%20August%202023">Durban</a>.</p>
<p>As the head of a member state Putin has been invited to attend. But as a member of the court, South Africa is obliged under Article 86 of the ICC statute and <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/2002-027.pdf">domestic law</a> to cooperate fully by arresting the Russian president. </p>
<p>This is not the first time the country has faced such a dilemma. </p>
<p>In 2015 Sudanese president <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33125108">Omar Al Bashir visited the country</a> to attend a summit of <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/25th-african-union-summit-7-15-jun#:%7E:text=South%20Africa%20is%20hosting%20the,5%20June">African Union heads of state</a>. In terms of South Africa’s ICC obligations, it was obliged to arrest Al Bashir, who had been <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/albashir">indicted</a> for violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law in Sudan’s Darfur region. The government, then under the presidency of Jacob Zuma, refused to arrest him, <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/clutching-at-straws-sas-reasons-for-not-arresting-al-bashir">citing immunity from prosecution for sitting heads of state under international law</a>.</p>
<p>The arrest warrant for Putin has put President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government between a rock and a hard place. Complying with its domestic and international obligations by executing the arrest warrant would alienate Russia. This would have bilateral consequences – the country is still considered a friend by the ruling African National Congress based on the Soviet Union’s support during the struggle against apartheid – as well as ramifications within the BRICS, given <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/20/europe/xi-putin-china-russia-visit-monday-intl-hnk/index.html">Moscow’s strong ties with Beijing</a>. </p>
<p>It is not unreasonable to argue that Ramaphosa’s government would want to tread carefully to avoid any such tensions. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-essential-reads-on-russia-africa-relations-187568">Five essential reads on Russia-Africa relations</a>
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<p>On the other hand, welcoming Putin, thus <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/south-africas-indulgence-of-putin-is-unsustainable/2023/02/03/e0b461b8-a381-11ed-8b47-9863fda8e494_story.html">underscoring South Africa’s independent foreign policy</a>, would see the country lose international credibility. </p>
<p>One likely effect is that South Africa might lose preferential trade terms. For example, it could jeopardise its treatment of exports to the US under the <a href="https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/trade-development/preference-programs/african-growth-and-opportunity-act-agoa">African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)</a>. AGOA has been used recently as a punishing tool against Ethiopia, The Gambia and Mali for “unconstitutional change in governments” and <a href="https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2022/january/us-terminates-agoa-trade-preference-program-ethiopia-mali-and-guinea">“gross violations of internationally recognised human rights</a>”.</p>
<p>Importantly, <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/opinion/2023-03-16-francois-fouche-trading-down-south-africas-game-of-russian-roulette/">South Africa’s trade with the US far exceeds that with Russia</a>.</p>
<h2>The dilemma</h2>
<p>When the Zuma administration refused to arrest Al Bashir, it landed the government in judicial hot water. South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZASCA/2016/17.html">found</a> that it had violated both international and domestic law.</p>
<p>Following the ruling of the Supreme Court of Appeal, Zuma’s government notified the United Nations secretary general of its intention <a href="https://www.pgaction.org/news/stand-against-impunity-south-africa.html">to withdraw from the Rome Statute</a>. This ill advised move was challenged in the High Court in Pretoria. It <a href="https://hsf.org.za/publications/hsf-briefs/withdrawal-from-icc-high-court-judgment">ruled</a> that the notice of withdrawal was unconstitutional due to the absence of prior parliamentary approval. Consequently, the government <a href="https://www.pgaction.org/ilhr/rome-statute/south-africa.html">“withdrew from the withdrawal”</a>.</p>
<p>In 2017, the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/court-record/icc-02/05-01/09-302">ICC found</a> that South Africa had failed in its obligations under the Rome Statute towards the court by not arresting and surrendering Al Bashir. The court, however, decided not to pursue the matter further for <a href="https://theconversation.com/icc-ruling-on-south-africa-and-al-bashir-pragmatism-wins-the-day-81500">pragmatic reasons</a>. It also reasoned that to refer South Africa to the United Nations Security Council for noncompliance <a href="https://www.southernafricalitigationcentre.org/2017/07/07/news-release-icc-finding-on-south-africas-non-compliance-falls-short/">“would not be an effective way to foster future cooperation”</a>.</p>
<p>In the event that Putin attended the upcoming BRICS summit and Ramaphosa’s government did not arrest him, it would mean that South Africa was flouting domestic legislation as well as its own constitution. Article 165 (5) of the country’s <a href="https://www.concourt.org.za/images/phocadownload/the_text/Slimline-Constitution-Web-Version.pdf">constitution</a> makes it clear that the government is bound by court orders and decisions. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/al-bashir-what-the-law-says-about-south-africas-duties-43498">Al-Bashir: what the law says about South Africa's duties</a>
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<p>How should South Africa respond to the dilemma?</p>
<p>At present the government’s response is not clear. On the one hand, Ramaphosa’s spokesperson <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africa-aware-legal-obligations-regarding-putin-visit-2023-03-19/">said</a> that the country was aware of its obligations to arrest Putin and surrender him to the ICC. </p>
<p>On the other hand, Naledi Pandor, the foreign relations minister, confirmed the <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2023-03-23-russias-vladimir-putin-invited-to-attend-brics-summit-in-sa-pandor-confirms/">invitation to Putin to attend the BRICS meeting</a>. She noted that cabinet would have to decide on how to respond in view of the ICC warrant.</p>
<p>The government would want to balance its ICC obligations, domestic responsibilities and its historically friendly relations with Russia carefully. Unless it is hellbent on defying its own court decisions and laws, there are options available to avoid another round of international condemnation, and that would help it avoid potential court battles by civil society for noncompliance with the country’s own laws and court decisions. </p>
<h2>Options</h2>
<p>Firstly, South Africa should continue to extend an invitation for Russia to attend the summit. But, through diplomatic channels, request that the Russian delegation be led by its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. Lavrov has in essence become the face of Russia on the <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-foreign-minister-sergei-lavrov-western-leaders-militarize-southeast-asia-asean-g20-bali-indonesia/">international stage</a> since the start of the war in Ukraine. </p>
<p>Secondly, during the COVID pandemic, it became clear that physical presence at international gatherings for heads of states could be substituted with virtual attendance. The UN General Assembly set a good benchmark for this when heads of state <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/20/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-unga-summit">submitted video statements due to pandemic restrictions</a>. Putin could attend the BRICS summit virtually. </p>
<p>The need to sign summit documentation by the heads of state is not an impediment to virtual attendance. Putin can sign the documents electronically or after the summit, if a non-electronic signature is required.</p>
<p>The ball is now in the South African government’s court. The hope is that it makes the right decision, one which is in the best interests of the country and its people – not Russia or the likes of the US, especially as neither major power is a signatory to the ICC’s statute. Neither should prescribe to South Africa what it should decide. </p>
<p>Most importantly, the government must not trample on its own laws and court decisions. Compliance with the constitution must be the priority. Making a decision that is in the interests of South Africa and its people would also provide guidance to the other 32 African ICC signatory states, should they ever be faced with a similar dilemma in the future.</p>
<p><em>This article was co-authored with Sasha-Lee Stephanie Afrika (LLD), Attorney of the High Court of South Africa and former lecturer at Stellenbosch University and University of Johannesburg.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202528/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann 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 government must not trample on its own laws and court decisions. Compliance with the constitution must be the priority.Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann, Professor in Law and Co-Convener National Security Hub (University of Canberra) and Research Fellow (adjunct) - The Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa, Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University- NATO Fellow Asia-Pacific, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2006022023-03-24T09:34:30Z2023-03-24T09:34:30ZCannabis industry plans for South Africa have stalled: how to get them moving again<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513601/original/file-20230306-16-3n7h97.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">Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African president Cyril Ramaphosa recently reiterated plans to accelerate the commercialisation of hemp as well as cannabis plants. His speech setting out government’s priorities <a href="https://www.gov.za/SONA2023">for 2023</a> was a reminder of a <a href="https://www.gov.za/SONA2022">pledge in 2022</a> – also in his state of the nation address – that the government would mobilise investment in the hemp and cannabis sectors. </p>
<p>In his speech, the president indicated that government is in the process of addressing the conditions for the growth of the cannabis sector, particularly for rural farmers. The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development and the Department of Health are working closely to address the existing conditions for growing hemp and cannabis to enable outdoor cultivation and harvesting by rural farmers. </p>
<p>Currently farmers who have licences, grow their hemp and cannabis indoors under controlled conditions. The commercialisation will allow them to farm outdoors on a larger scale. </p>
<p>This is very exciting. The industry has the potential to create jobs, alleviate poverty and help reduce the extreme inequality in South Africa. One estimate is that the sector has the potential to <a href="https://african.business/2022/03/energy-resources/aiming-high-africas-cannabis-future/">create more than 130,000</a> new jobs. </p>
<p>The opportunity to commercialise the hemp and cannabis industry is that it is a new, fast-growing, multi-billion dollar sector with local and international markets. The potential legal pharmaceutical market for hemp and cannabis in South Africa alone <a href="https://african.business/2022/03/energy-resources/aiming-high-africas-cannabis-future/">has been estimated</a> at over R100 billion a year. </p>
<p>But there are challenges. </p>
<p>First, that the government fails to implement changes needed to ensure the sector grows in a way that benefits township and rural entrepreneurs farmers. Adding a paragraph dedicated to the cannabis and hemp sector to the annual state of the nation address each year is one thing. But seeing action being taken and plans implemented is another.</p>
<p>The second is that, from mid-2022, small scale farmers farming cannabis promised to be issued with licences to farm legally. However, some farmers in the rural areas of the Eastern Cape are still waiting. </p>
<p>But there is a way forward. Based on my experience as a member of the <a href="https://www.cannabisorgup.com/about#:%7E:text=COUP%2C%20the%20Cannabis%20Organisation%20at,Africa%20economically%2C%20socially%20and%20legally.">Cannabis Organisation University of Pretoria</a> and a member of one of the working groups set up to give inputs for a government masterplan first drawn up in 2021, I make four recommendations to fast-track the process. </p>
<p>These include reviewing and revising the existing master plan, getting defunct working groups up and running again, ensuring the plan is in place before investments begin and setting up a monitoring and evaluation capability.</p>
<h2>A stalled process</h2>
<p>The president mentioned that, in accelerating commercialisation of the sector, urgent work is being finalised by government to create an enabling regulatory framework for hemp and cannabis plants. This includes their use for complementary medicines, food, cosmetics as well as some industrial products.</p>
<p>The president said that the government was urgently finalising the work to create this enabling environment.</p>
<p>But some crucial questions need answering: what happened to the cannabis master plan working groups and workstreams set up in 2021/2022?. These working groups and workstreams consisted of representatives from government, the private sector, academic institutions and the cannabis research community. The groups got off to a good start and were in a process or reviewing and revising a plan to commercialise hemp and cannabis. One of the key objectives was to ensure that township entrepreneurs and rural farmers would benefit from any changes.</p>
<p>But working groups collapsed and disappeared without trace. </p>
<p>The president’s comments therefore invite the question: what happened to the master plan working groups, and the workstreams? When the president speaks about acceleration to commercialise the cannabis sector, which includes the participation of rural farmers, how far along is the planning?</p>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>Firstly, the presidency must reinstate the cannabis master plan working groups and workstreams. They must be allowed to finalise the review and revision of the current master plan. </p>
<p>The revised master plan should enable the inclusion of township entrepreneurs and rural farmers. They are currently excluded from the mainstream commercialisation of hemp and cannabis due to a cumbersome licensing process.</p>
<p>Secondly, investments in the hemp and cannabis sector should only be implemented once the master plan has been reviewed and revised. This will provide guidance on how the proposed funds can be properly channelled.</p>
<p>The wheel should not be reinvented. Neither should time and effort be wasted.</p>
<p>Thirdly, a monitoring and evaluation committee needs to be set up to look after the hemp and cannabis project implementation. It should be set up in the same way as the working groups were formed with representatives from all interested players. This will ensure that all players in the sector are included. And that funds are appropriately spent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200602/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Motshedisi Mathibe is affiliated with University of Pretoria's Cannabis Organisation (COUP). She's also a faculty at GIBS Business School.</span></em></p>The industry has the potential to create jobs, alleviate poverty and help reduce the extreme inequality in South AfricaMotshedisi Mathibe, Senior Lecturer Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1989022023-02-28T13:57:40Z2023-02-28T13:57:40ZGod and politics in South Africa: the ruling ANC’s winning strategy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510292/original/file-20230215-18-eroxa0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pastors pray for former South African president and ANC leader Jacob Zuma.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rajesh Jantilal/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Religion shapes some of the most controversial decisions that governments need to make: access to abortion, same-sex marriage, the death penalty and the legal status of sex work. Indeed, it is likely that most voters across the world consider religion to be essential to their lives. </p>
<p>Yet research on religion and political parties remains surprisingly inexact. </p>
<p>Much of the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09637494.2022.2048489?journalCode=crss20">research</a> to date has been waylaid by the wrong question: is a political party fundamentally religious or secular? Yet the “essence” of a party resists definition. Is it its manifesto, rhetoric, membership or leadership? What if these contradict each other? What would it mean if religion was integral to officially secular parties?</p>
<p>The difficulty of this approach is clear when considering a party like the <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/">African National Congress (ANC)</a>, which has governed South Africa since 1994. From one angle, it is obviously not a religious party: it remains committed to a secular state and many of its policies (such as those on <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/the-ancs-approach-to-abortion--bathabile-dlamini">abortion</a> and <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2006-11-14-samesex-bill-gets-parliament-goahead/">civil unions</a>) have been <a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/27434/">criticised</a> by religious groups.</p>
<p>Yet the ANC is also religious in important senses. In most of the country, you would struggle to find an ANC meeting that did not start and end with a prayer. Nearly all leaders in the past century have been devout. For many supporters, religion is the water in which the ANC swims. </p>
<p>Rather than asking whether a party is religious, we should look at how it engages with religion. I examined the issue in a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057070.2022.2136820">recent article</a>. I sought to describe how contemporary parliamentary parties in South Africa had engaged with religion throughout their history, and how academics had analysed this.</p>
<p>It’s possible to learn a great deal about a political party by looking at how it uses religion. My study identified a consistent political strategy: the mix of religious rhetoric and a secular policy agenda by the ANC over the past century.</p>
<p>This strategy has been popular with the party, which has won every national election with a margin of at least <a href="https://results.elections.org.za/dashboards/npe/app/dashboard.html">34 percentage points</a> ahead of the second-largest party. It’s a strategy that works in countries that have the unusual combination of religious electorates and secular governments, such as <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/religious-authority-and-state-africa">Kenya and Senegal</a>.</p>
<p>Rather than being a <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-07-06-south-africas-creeping-christian-conservatism/">threat to secular democracy</a>, religious rhetoric may be important for ensuring a largely religious electorate feels politically at home in a secular state. </p>
<h2>Religion and political parties in South Africa</h2>
<p>My review of academic publications on religion and political parties in South Africa looked at three sets of rules governing party members: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>informal rules (such as what you can say at public events) </p></li>
<li><p>party rules (such as disciplinary codes and who makes decisions) </p></li>
<li><p>the kind of laws proposed by the party. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>I distinguished between the religious or secular emphasis in each of these, and noted whether this emphasis was inclusive of other beliefs. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africans-are-prone-to-falling-for-charlatans-in-the-church-112879">Why South Africans are prone to falling for charlatans in the church</a>
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<p>The framework offered three key insights. </p>
<p>First, political parties engage with religion with nuance and ambiguity. This applies elsewhere in the world too: <a href="https://www.akparti.org.tr/en">Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi</a> in Turkey, for example, relies on a religious electorate for support. Yet it must navigate an officially and sometimes militantly secular state. However, in contrast to South Africa’s major political parties, it <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230106703_9">manages this tension</a> by insisting that it is an inclusive and non-religious party in its rhetoric, while simultaneously pursuing laws that privilege Sunni Islam.</p>
<p>Second, the ANC sometimes uses religious rhetoric while pursuing secular laws and party rules – a combination it has used for <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rise-African-Nationalism-South-Africa/dp/0520018109">most of its history</a>. </p>
<p>Third, this nuance might be important to voters in South Africa. Parties that pursue policies underpinned by religion do very poorly in elections. An example of this is the <a href="https://www.acdp.org.za/">African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP)</a>, which claims to offer policies based on the Bible.</p>
<p>About 78% of South Africans identified as Christian <a href="https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/catalog/611">in 2016</a>. While estimates vary significantly, between <a href="https://theotherfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/ProgPrudes_Report_d5.pdf">45%</a> and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/04/15/executive-summary-islam-and-christianity-in-sub-saharan-africa/">74%</a> report being “very” or “highly religious”, and 76% <a href="https://theotherfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/ProgPrudes_Report_d5.pdf">agree that</a> </p>
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<p>God’s laws about abortion, pornography and marriage must be strictly followed before it is too late.</p>
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<h2>The ANC and religion</h2>
<p>Christianity has been important to the ANC’s values and practices since the party’s <a href="https://jacana.co.za/product/the-founders-the-origins-of-the-african-national-congress-and-the-struggle-for-democracy/">beginning in 1912</a>. In 1949, for example, it called for an annual <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rise-African-Nationalism-South-Africa/dp/0520018109">day of prayer</a> to remember</p>
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<p>Many regions in the country that participated most actively in the 1952 <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/defiance-campaign-1952">Defiance Campaign</a>, a large non-violent campaign of civil disobedience against apartheid, were led by <a href="https://jacana.co.za/product/from-protest-to-challenge-volume-2-hope-and-challenge-1935-1952/">local churches</a>. ANC president Albert Luthuli, who led the organisation from 1952 to 1967, was <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10282580902876514">famously vocal</a> about his religious convictions. This was also true of most presidents of the ANC before him, including <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/823310">Reverend John Langalibalele Dube</a> and <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.4102/hts.v74i1.4844">Reverend Zaccheus Richard Mahabane</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-the-anc-survive-the-end-of-south-africas-heroic-epoch-57256">Can the ANC survive the end of South Africa's heroic epoch?</a>
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<p>Yet the ANC has also always been an <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-insists-its-still-a-political-vanguard-this-is-what-ails-democracy-in-south-africa-141938">ideologically diverse organisation</a>. It has included followers of other religions, communists, traditionalists and <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/502.html">Garveyites</a> who advocated transnational black nationalism. </p>
<p>In the 1960s the religious rhetoric of the ANC became more ambivalent. Within the context of the Cold War, the organisation worked more closely with the South African Communist Party and increasingly <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253332318/from-protest-to-challenge-volume-5/">espoused</a> a Marxist-Leninist ideology.</p>
<p>Yet even so, ANC president <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-anc-is-celebrating-the-year-of-or-tambo-who-was-he-85838">Oliver Tambo</a>, who led the ANC in exile <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/oliver-reginald-kaizana-%E2%80%9Cor%E2%80%9D-tambo-posthumous">from 1967 to 1991</a>, continued to publicly espouse the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/we-must-take-sides">unbroken link</a> between the ANC and the church. </p>
<p>The ANC would call for days of prayer, establish a department of religion, publicly affirm liberation theology and issue joint communiqués with churches.
In the early 1990s, the ANC <a href="https://www.amazon.com/State-Secularism-Religion-Tradition-Democracy/dp/1776140575">advocated a secular state</a> in constitutional negotiations with the ruling <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Party-political-party-South-Africa">National Party</a>. Yet even in the 1994 election, the message was mixed. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520273085/wild-religion">ANC advertisements featured religious leaders</a> who argued that the manifesto that best represented “gospel values” was that of the ANC. Conversely, the ANC also promised improved access to abortion: a policy criticised by religious leaders. </p>
<p>This mix of secular laws and religious rhetoric extended into the post-apartheid era. Former ANC president Jacob Zuma’s <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15570274.2020.1753992">frequent references to religion</a>, for example, invited concern about the ANC’s “<a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-07-06-south-africas-creeping-christian-conservatism/">creeping Christian conservatism</a>”, while the party began exploring <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/650537/new-laws-to-decriminalise-sex-work-in-south-africa/">decriminalising sex work</a>. </p>
<h2>Religion and politics</h2>
<p>Perhaps the combination of religious rhetoric and secular laws is a winning electoral strategy. After all, parties that advocate religious laws have surprisingly little support from voters: the <a href="https://www.acdp.org.za/">ACDP</a> and <a href="https://www.aljama.co.za/">Al Jama-Ah</a>, a Muslim political party, have at most won <a href="https://www.eisa.org/wep/souresults2004.htm">1.6% (in 2004)</a> and <a href="https://results.elections.org.za/dashboards/npe/app/dashboard.html">0.18% (in 2019)</a> of the national vote, respectively. At their best, the ACDP has been the seventh-largest party and Al Jama-Ah the 14th. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/christians-in-nigeria-feel-under-attack-why-its-a-complicated-story-186853">Christians in Nigeria feel under attack: why it's a complicated story</a>
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<p>Conversely, parties that advocate secular laws but shy away from religious rhetoric, such as the main opposition Democratic Alliance, have also failed to win popular support, especially in rural areas. Of course, many other reasons contribute to this too. </p>
<p>In short, we can learn much about a political party by looking at how it uses religion. The ANC may have a winning strategy in its combination of religious rhetoric and a secular policy agenda.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Jeffery-Schwikkard receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in the United Kingdom through the London Interdisciplinary Social Science Doctoral Training Programme. He is a member of the African National Congress but he does not receive any funding or renumeration from the ANC or represent the ANC in any capacity. </span></em></p>Perhaps the combination of religious rhetoric and secular laws is a winning electoral strategy.David Jeffery-Schwikkard, PhD Candidate (Theology and Religious Studies), King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2003862023-02-24T11:29:29Z2023-02-24T11:29:29ZSouth Africa’s intelligence agency needs speedy reform - or it must be shut down<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512012/original/file-20230223-2271-8qc43o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mondli Gungubele, former minister in the Presidency, was in charge of intelligence.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Siyabulela Duga/GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/intelligence-white-paper">civilian intelligence service</a>, the State Security Agency, is a broken institution. It is meant to provide intelligence to forewarn the country about national security threats. </p>
<p>Powerful individuals aligned to former president <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">Jacob Zuma</a>, presumably at his behest, repurposed the institution to help him maintain his grip on <a href="http://www.saflii.org/images/state-capture-commission-report-part-5-vol1.pdf">power</a>. It was one of many institutions that were repurposed for improper personal or political gain during his tenure (May 2009 to February 2018): a process that has become known as <a href="http://www.saflii.org/images/state-capture-commission-report-part-5-vol1.pdf">state capture</a>. </p>
<p>His successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa, <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2022/10/24/ramaphosa-vows-to-overhaul-ssa-as-per-zondo-commission-recommendations">promised</a> in 2022 to reform the agency so it would serve its original mission. He committed to returning it to the pre-2009 era of having separate domestic and foreign branches, each led by its own director-general. </p>
<p>This decision is a major positive development. The Zuma administration <a href="http://www.saflii.org/images/state-capture-commission-report-part-5-vol1.pdf">merged the two branches</a> and abused the centralised model to protect the president from criticism. </p>
<p>Dismantling this architecture of abuse is happening too slowly, however, with no transitional plan having been announced publicly. Such a plan should include appointing interim heads for the domestic and foreign branches, rather than relying on people in acting positions. The government’s underestimation of the time needed to restructure the intelligence agency could have potentially serious, even dangerous, consequences. </p>
<h2>What went wrong</h2>
<p>The government under Zuma established the State Security Agency in 2009 as an <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/merger-of-spy-agencies-led-to-cabinet-ministers-giving-ssa-operatives-illegal-instructions-20210915">amalgamation</a> of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Intelligence_Agency_(South_Africa)">National Intelligence Agency</a>, the domestic intelligence service, and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Secret_Service">South African Secret Service</a>, the foreign service.</p>
<p>At that stage, the directors general and other intelligence entities <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LCm2Ds5V0I">reported directly</a> to the Minister of Intelligence. A coordinating mechanism ensured overall coherence. But in 2021 Ramaphosa <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/ramaphosa-does-away-with-intelligence-ministry-ssa-to-report-directly-to-him-20210805">dissolved</a> the ministry. The agency now reports to the Minister in the Presidency.</p>
<p>The intelligence agency during the Zuma era concentrated too much power in one entity, specifically a super director-general. Hence, it took very little to capture the entire entity for abusive purposes. Officials loyal to the former president used this merged structure to turn the agency into a <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency-9-mar-2019-0000">protective service</a> for him and those close to him politically.</p>
<p>Testimony before the state capture commission showed how the agency’s resources were <a href="http://www.saflii.org/images/state-capture-commission-report-part-5-vol1.pdf">used</a> to improve the fortunes of the governing African National Congress under Zuma’s leadership, by providing his supporters with resources to campaign on his behalf. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/zumas-abuse-of-south-africas-spy-agency-underscores-need-for-strong-civilian-oversight-154439">Zuma's abuse of South Africa's spy agency underscores need for strong civilian oversight</a>
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<p>Despite his administration’s stated objective of integrating the two services, they continued to operate on separate tracks. In fact, the merger <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency-9-mar-2019-0000">eroded</a> the very essence of the intelligence mandate – of forewarning the state of national security threats. The failure of intelligence ahead of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-deadly-july-2021-riots-may-recur-if-theres-no-change-186397">July 2021 riots</a> is a glaring example.</p>
<p>During the Zuma years, the focus on protecting the president led to the intelligence agency <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency-9-mar-2019-0000">prioritising</a> domestic intelligence by spying on citizens at the expense of foreign intelligence. Officials with ill intent also undermined the agency’s intelligence gathering <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency-9-mar-2019-0000">capacity</a>.</p>
<h2>The plan to fix it</h2>
<p>Following Ramaphosa’s promises, then Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele had <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/minister-mondli-gungubele-state-nation-address-debate-14-feb-2023-0000">committed the presidency</a> to ongoing reforms.</p>
<p>He highlighted the unbundling into foreign and domestic branches. This was one of the key recommendations of the 2018 High-Level Review Panel on the State Security Agency’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency-9-mar-2019-0000">report</a>. </p>
<p>This would be done through an intelligence laws amendment bill that the intelligence agency intends to introduce to parliament by the end of the current financial year.</p>
<p>This was not the first time Gungubele had made this promise. He did so in May 2022, <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/address-minister-presidency-responsible-state-security%2C-mondli-gungubele%2C-occasion-2022-23-budget-vote-debate%2C-parliament%2C-cape-town">saying</a> that the bill had been finalised and would be submitted to parliament in September of that year. So it should surprise no one if the new timeline isn’t followed once again.</p>
<p>A new bill should ensure that the new heads of domestic and foreign intelligence have more discretionary power, reducing the power of the director-general. Doing so should make it more likely that this person will confine themselves to an oversight role rather than becoming involved in operational matters.</p>
<h2>The problem with the plan</h2>
<p>The fact that the State Security Agency has been absorbed into the presidency – which is also <a href="https://salaamedia.com/2023/02/19/analysis-ramaphosa-is-building-a-super-presidency-while-ministers-sit-at-home/">accumulating</a> other government entities and functions – could be a gift to any president intent on repeating the abuses of the Zuma administration.</p>
<p>One of the biggest dangers is a delay in appointing leaders of the domestic and foreign intelligence branches. They need direction. The head of the foreign branch was <a href="https://www.defenceweb.co.za/security/national-security/mcbride-suspended-as-ssa-foreign-branch-head/">suspended</a> in July 2021 and the head of the domestic branch <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/ssa-without-a-head-of-domestic-intelligence-after-mahlodi-sam-muofhe-leaves-20210804">left</a> after his contract expired at the end of the same month.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-provides-fertile-ground-for-funders-of-terrorism-heres-why-194282">South Africa provides fertile ground for funders of terrorism. Here's why</a>
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<p>The agency told me that they cannot appoint permanent heads until the bill to restructure the agency becomes a law, and its disestablishment is complete.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/b25a-2011-130416a.pdf">2011 bill</a> that established the amalgamated agency took <a href="https://pmg.org.za/bill/184/">20 months</a> to be signed into law. It would make sense to have a transitional plan, appointing individuals on two-year contracts.</p>
<p>The Zuma administration was characterised by many <a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/perspective/2013archive/zumathekingofacting.html">acting appointments</a> in key positions across government, including the State Security Agency and the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/zuma-to-appoint-npa-head-by-end-of-august-20150429">National Prosecuting Authority</a>. Relying so heavily on acting appointments weakened the government structures, to enable state capture.</p>
<p>People in acting positions are unable to take strong positions as they lack the security of tenure to do so. But the domestic and foreign branches need strong positions to safeguard South Africa’s security and stability.</p>
<h2>Why this matters</h2>
<p>The result of an intelligence service that is not fit for purpose is that the country is vulnerable to security threats from within and without. South Africans are living with the disastrous consequences – such as <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-09-21-south-africas-organised-crime-climbs-to-italys-levels-racing-past-mexico-somalia-and-libya/">rising organised crime</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sandton-terror-alert-time-for-south-africa-to-improve-its-intelligence-sharing-channels-with-the-us-194542">Sandton terror alert: time for South Africa to improve its intelligence sharing channels with the US</a>
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<p>Going back to separate foreign and domestic services is the last chance civilian intelligence has to re-establish its credibility. </p>
<p>The current round of restructuring the State Security Agency cannot fail. If it does it will have to be shut down and restarted from scratch. </p>
<p>The South American country Colombia did just that. In 2011, the government there <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/americas/colombias-troubled-intelligence-agency-shuttered/2011/11/28/gIQA7mnzTO_story.html">shut down</a> the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), after it went rogue and engaged in criminal activities under the guise of fighting the war on drugs. </p>
<p>Unless the Ramaphosa administration expedites the State Security Agency’s restructuring, then the Colombian option will be the only one that makes sense for the agency. </p>
<p>*This story has been updated to reflect that Mondli Gungubele has since been appointed as Communications Minister in the SA cabinet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200386/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span><a href="mailto:jane.duncan@glasgow.ac.uk">jane.duncan@glasgow.ac.uk</a> receives funding from the British Academy and Luminate.</span></em></p>Having an intelligence service that is not fit for purpose means the country is vulnerable to security threats from within and outside the country.Jane Duncan, Professor of Digital Society, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2004902023-02-23T12:35:41Z2023-02-23T12:35:41ZSouth Africa’s bailout of Eskom won’t end power cuts: splitting up the utility can, as other countries have shown<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511919/original/file-20230223-2271-xuao0x.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">AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The announcement by the South African finance minister, Enoch Godongwana, of <a href="https://www.treasury.gov.za/documents/National%20Budget/2023/review/Annexure%20W3.pdf">debt relief</a> for the country’s troubled power utility, <a href="https://www.eskom.co.za/">Eskom</a>, is a step forward. It will fix one problem: Eskom has too much debt. But the plan won’t end power cuts which <a href="https://www.treasury.gov.za/documents/national%20budget/2023/speech/speech.pdf#page=9">have worsened in recent years</a>. </p>
<p>The international experience is that one way to end electricity shortages is to allow competitively-priced privately-funded generation at scale. This requires a reorganisation of South Africa’s electricity market <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201910/roadmap-eskom.pdf">along the lines announced</a> by the Department of Public Enterprises nearly four years ago. The crux of the plan was to split Eskom into three separate units – generation, transmission and distribution, with transmission remaining state-owned.</p>
<p>With the <a href="https://www.treasury.gov.za/documents/national%20budget/2023/speech/speech.pdf#page=10">announced conditions</a>, which include the requirement that Eskom prioritise capital expenditure in transmission and distribution during the debt-relief period, the finance minister has missed an opportunity to finally achieve this.</p>
<h2>What we can learn from other countries</h2>
<p>Other countries that have had power cuts offer South Africa lessons. China, for example, faced <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/dec/05/china.jonathanwatts">rolling blackouts</a> between 2003 and 2006 because of <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/2783">an unexpected growth spurt</a>. In 2015, <a href="https://greekreporter.com/2015/04/28/nationwide-blackout-in-greek-tv-this-morning/">Greece</a> was in the middle of a financial crisis and its people could not afford the electricity supply, some of which came through a complex deal with Russia. And in <a href="https://apnews.com/article/911b4884559dc01ae604ce187c39c9ba">Colombia</a>, a drought in 1992 caused the main source of electricity supply – which came from a hydroelectric plant – to literally dry up.</p>
<p>All these countries experienced power cuts. But South Africa is the only country to have had <a href="https://theconversation.com/power-cuts-in-south-africa-are-playing-havoc-with-the-countrys-water-system-197952">power shortages for 15 years</a>. This is because the others moved quickly to rejig their electricity supply systems. </p>
<p>All three countries followed a similar route, as have many others. They untangled their single electricity companies, focusing on keeping parts of it under state control and opening up the rest to a mix of state and private companies.</p>
<h2>Complex to manage</h2>
<p>The electricity supply system has three parts. First is generation – generating electricity at a power plant. Second is transmission – moving it from the power plant to the municipality, usually on a high voltage line. Finally, distribution is about getting it the last few metres to a house or factory.</p>
<p>High-voltage transmission is what economists call a “natural monopoly”. It is more efficient if there is a single electricity grid for an area, rather than multiple grids. This part is best managed by a central body – in many countries a state-owned company. Because the transmission business can recover costs, it can use that income to increase transmission capacity, <a href="https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/only-six-solar-projects-advance-to-preferred-bidder-status-following-latest-renewables-round-2022-12-08/rep_id:4136">something that is urgently needed</a>. </p>
<p>But China, Colombia and Greece all recognised that generation no longer needs to be a monopoly. Actually a monopoly in generation is bad for all the same reasons that all monopolies are bad. They typically charge more and produce less. You need a complicated regulatory system to get their prices right. Smaller generation companies are easier to manage.</p>
<p>Distribution is best left to a company as close to the end user as possible – in almost all countries, that is the municipality. In South Africa, it is a mix. For example, <a href="https://www.citypower.co.za/Pages/default.aspx">City Power</a> distributes electricity to customers in older parts of Johannesburg. But Eskom distributes electricity direct in outlying parts of the metros. </p>
<p>This means that Eskom has to do everything: generate electricity, transmit it on large power lines to the cities and then distribute it to individual customers. It is a “vertical monopoly”. This makes it a fiendishly complex company to manage. Very few countries have such an arrangement – most prefer to allow specialist businesses in each part of the system.</p>
<h2>Lessons for South Africa</h2>
<p>Here’s what happened when generation was untangled from the rest of the state-owned monopoly in China. Between 2003 and 2006, <a href="https://www.powermag.com/china-wrestles-with-power-shortages/">new generation companies</a> added over 237,500 MW to the Chinese grid. That’s the equivalent of delivering nearly 10 Eskoms in three years.</p>
<p>In 2019, the Department of Public Enterprises <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201910/roadmap-eskom.pdf">published a detailed and clear roadmap</a> to follow this route, separating Eskom into generation, transmission and distribution. Internally, <a href="https://www.eskom.co.za/eskom-divisions/">Eskom is already structured that way</a>. On 17 December 2021, the legally binding merger agreement was executed to transfer transmission to the <a href="https://www.eskom.co.za/medium-term-budget-policy-statement-unbundling-of-transmission-division/">National Transmission Company South Africa SOC Limited</a>.</p>
<p>But the very last step has not been taken, despite being <a href="https://www.energy.gov.za/files/policies/whitepaper_energypolicy_1998.pdf">government policy since 1998</a>. Every time the proposed separation comes closer to happening, there has been fierce resistance <a href="https://www.gtac.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Why-Lights-Went-Out-Politics-Institutions-and-Electricity-Reform.pdf">from both unions and Eskom management</a>. In 2018, it was because of loadshedding. During the years when there was no loadshedding and plants were being run too hard, it was because it was not urgent. And since the current electricity crisis, it is because there is loadshedding and Eskom <a href="https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/south-africa-transmission-firm-seen-hobbled-by-eskom-millstone-2022-06-21">is not financially viable</a>. But it is precisely because Eskom is in financial distress that the separation needs to be accelerated.</p>
<p>In 2023, two things make it possible to do the separation very quickly.</p>
<p>The first is <a href="https://www.eskom.co.za/resignation-of-eskom-group-chief-executive/">a new CEO</a>. If the government is serious about the separation, as it has regularly said it is, it doesn’t make sense to appoint a single new CEO. Separate CEOs should be appointed for the National Transmission Company and for the other businesses. An independent board of directors for the transmission company should also be appointed.</p>
<p>The second is a technical issue related to Eskom’s debt. At the moment, Eskom as a whole is liable for the Eskom debt. The debt holders need to consent to any change in the legal structure.</p>
<p>The national treasury has announced that approximately <a href="https://www.treasury.gov.za/legislation/bills/2023/%5BB5-2023%5D%20(Eskom%20Debt%20Relief).pdf">R254 billion (about US$14 billion) of Eskom debt</a> will be transferred to the national balance sheet in tranches over the next three years. Debt holders can be asked to approve the transfer of debt and the final piece of the restructuring at the same time. The legal and technical work has all been done – the National Transmission Company exists, and it just needs life and capital. It would have been far better to use the R254 billion (about US$14 billion) to help capitalise this critical new company.</p>
<p>Most debt holders will jump at the chance – certainty on the long promised new structure as it will go a long way to fix energy problems in the country. Also, it will improve the chances that debt holders will get their interest payments on the debt that isn’t transferred.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, <a href="https://www.treasury.gov.za/documents/National%20Budget/2023/review/Annexure%20W3.pdf#page=4">the conditions</a> that the national treasury has announced do not include the final unbundling. There is still an opportunity – the government’s conditions still have to be finalised. Eskom’s unbundling is one of the priorities of <a href="https://www.stateofthenation.gov.za/operation-vulindlela/electricity-sector">Operation Vulindlela</a>, a joint initiative of the presidency and national treasury aimed at accelerating structural reforms and measures that can support economic recovery.</p>
<p>Hopefully the government will learn from the international experience and use the R254 billion (about US$14 billion) to fundamentally fix the problem of a vertically integrated, inefficient and ineffective monopoly. And with that, end power cuts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roy Havemann is at the Western Cape Treasury and was previously at National Treasury, He writes in his personal capacity. </span></em></p>South Africa’s minister of finance should have used the bailout of Eskom to fast-track its split and introduce the private sector into the electricity sector.Roy Havemann, Research Associate, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2000892023-02-19T06:41:20Z2023-02-19T06:41:20ZSouth Africa has a new deputy president in Paul Mashatile: what he brings to the table<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510840/original/file-20230217-364-wwl3re.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paul Mashatile was voted ANC deputy president in December 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Deaan Vivier/Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa has a new deputy president in Paul Shipokosa Mashatile, the deputy president of the governing African National Congress (ANC). He’ll replace the incumbent, David Mabuza, who announced he would <a href="https://www.capetownetc.com/news/david-mabuza-confirms-his-resignation-as-deputy-president/">step down</a>. </p>
<p>Who is Mashatile and what does he bring to the position?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/paul-shipokosa-mashatile">Mashatile</a> (61) is a veteran politician from the ANC, the party that has governed South Africa since democracy in 1994. He has occupied a dizzying array of posts and portfolios during his climb to the top.</p>
<p>Mashatile has been continuously in party or state posts for 29 years. Though he battled with the ANC’s parlous financial plight before 2023 as treasurer, overall his track record is a creditable performance.</p>
<p>He brings gravitas to whichever post he occupies. Mashatile holds <a href="https://www.vukuzenzele.gov.za/book/export/html/734">a postgraduate diploma</a> in Economic Principles from the University of London. He demonstrates competence and diligence in whatever post he holds. If anyone can, he will bring visibility to the office of deputy president.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-strategic-leadership-to-weather-its-storms-its-presidents-have-not-been-up-to-the-task-194296">South Africa needs strategic leadership to weather its storms. Its presidents have not been up to the task</a>
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<p>A strong incumbent can shape the role, although it is partially dependent on the president’s actions. The deputy president’s role as the leader of government business in parliament also has much potential for wielding power and attracting publicity.</p>
<h2>Political activism</h2>
<p>Mashatile’s commitment to political activism started as a schoolboy in the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/congress-south-african-students-cosas">Congress of South African Students</a>, an ANC-allied organisation for high school pupils. He later became the first president of the Alexandra Youth Congress, also allied to the ANC. He represented the organisation at the launch in 1983 of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/united-democratic-front-udf">United Democratic Front</a>, which provided a political home for “Charterists” while the ANC was still banned. The term refers to exponents of the <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/the-freedom-charter-2/">Freedom Charter</a>, the blueprint for free, democratic South Africa adopted by the ANC and allies in 1955. </p>
<p>Mashatile was detained without trial throughout the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/states-emergency-south-africa-1960s-and-1980s">1985-1989 states of emergency</a>. These were the core years of President PW Botha’s repression during the closing years of a crumbling apartheid era. After the <a href="https://theconversation.com/fw-de-klerk-made-a-speech-31-years-ago-that-ended-apartheid-why-he-did-it-130803">1990 unbanning</a> of the ANC, the South African Communist Party (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Communist-Party-of-South-Africa">SACP</a>), the <a href="https://pac.org.za/">Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania</a> and other liberation movements, Mashatile helped reestablish both the ANC and the SACP <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/paul-mashatile/">in the Johannesburg region</a>. (Almost uniquely in the world, these two political parties permit dual membership in each other.)</p>
<p>During the 1990s Mashatile rose to become <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/paul-mashatile/">provincial secretary</a> of the ANC in Gauteng province, and provincial chair during the 2000s. </p>
<h2>Role in government</h2>
<p>In 1994 he was elected as a member of the provincial legislature and leader of the house in Gauteng. He became in turn a member of the executive committee for transport and public works, next for safety and security, then human settlements, then finance and economic affairs. For 2008-2009 he became the fourth premier of Gauteng.</p>
<p>From 2010 to 2016 he was a member of parliament, when he served as <a href="https://www.vukuzenzele.gov.za/meet-paul-mashatile-minister-arts-and-culture">minister of arts and culture</a>. </p>
<p>He became an opponent of then South African president Jacob Zuma’s alleged corruption. In 2017 he was elected as <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/anc-deputy-president-paul-shipokosa-mashatile/">treasurer-general of the ANC</a>, and added to that in 2022 the role of <a href="https://www.enca.com/news/mashatile-steps-anc-secretary-general-role">acting secretary-general</a>. At the ANC’s 2022 national elective congress, he was elected by a sizeable majority as deputy president of the ANC.</p>
<p>So Paul Mashatile is in pole position to be appointed as the next deputy president of South Africa. Being a decade younger than President Cyril Ramaphosa, he is also well positioned to compete to succeed him in five years’ time.</p>
<p>There are no substantiated charges against him of corruption – a <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/opinions/voices/cyril-ramaphosa-the-anc-is-accused-number-one-for-corruption-20200823">serious problem in the ANC</a>. Critics are fond of loose talk that he was a member of the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2007-08-31-mashatile-and-the-alex-mafia/">“Alex mafia”</a>, an informal network of political activists and business people from <a href="https://web.mit.edu/urbanupgrading/upgrading/case-examples/overview-africa/alexandra-township.html">Alexandra</a>, north of Johannesburg. But the <a href="https://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/integrity-has-its-own-champion/">Gauteng integrity commissioner</a>, Jules Browde, cleared him of any improprieties. The Gauteng integrity commissioner is the only provincial post with a corruption-busting mandate.</p>
<p>Similarly, he was cleared of any wrong-doing concerning his alleged misuse of a government credit card. Allegations that he was involved in stealing one billion rand (now worth about US$55 million) for the <a href="http://thehda.co.za/pdf/uploads/multimedia/gau_alexandra_rev_gov.pdf">Alexandra renewal project</a> were exposed as smears – <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/mashatile-recalls-no-knowledge-of-corruption-during-impementation-of-alex-project-20191119">no budget was ever allocated to that proposal</a>.</p>
<h2>Deputy presidency</h2>
<p>The deputy presidency has become invisible during <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/deputy-president-david-mabuza%3A-profile">David Mabuza’s five years in office</a>. Neither good news nor bad news has emanated from it. This raises the debate about what function the deputy presidency fulfils.</p>
<p>Historically, the role of a deputy president was to be on standby in case a president died or was otherwise removed from his post. But the time has long gone when governments would pay the expenses of such an office solely for it to be a spare tyre. </p>
<p>In 1961, the US president John Kennedy gave his vice-president Lyndon Johnson the portfolio to <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/lyndon-b-johnson-forgotten-champion-of-the-space-race">oversee</a> the high-profile National Aeronautics & Space Administration, a tradition continued ever since by both Democrat and Republican presidents.</p>
<p>In South Africa, presidents have flexibly varied the job description of the deputy president around the strengths of the incumbent, or the current needs of the presidency. As deputy president, former president <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/frederik-willem-de-klerk">FW de Klerk</a> symbolised that his political constituency would not be entirely marginalised from state power after 1994. Thabo Mbeki functioned as de facto prime minister during Nelson Mandela’s presidency, <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-strategic-leadership-to-weather-its-storms-its-presidents-have-not-been-up-to-the-task-194296">seeing to the day-to-day running of government</a>. </p>
<p>Mabuza’s last-minute delivery of the winning margin of votes to Ramaphosa at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-ramaphosa-wont-be-able-to-deliver-the-three-urgent-fixes-south-africa-needs-89402">ANC’s 2017 elective conference</a> clearly demanded a prestigious reward, so the deputy presidency became his.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-moral-leaders-not-those-in-pursuit-of-selfish-gain-76244">South Africa needs moral leaders, not those in pursuit of selfish gain</a>
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<p>Ramaphosa’s concentration of power in a bloated presidency means that his deputy president could conceivably be tasked with any portfolio. Mashatile’s disposition will serve him well in any role. He does not have the <a href="https://theconversation.com/rule-of-law-in-south-africa-protects-even-those-who-scorn-it-175533">outbursts</a> of ANC tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu, nor the <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/trending/mbalulas-tweet-is-it-funny-or-foul-20230214">over-the-top</a> <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/news/fikile-mbalula-rules-twitter-streets-for-second-year-in-a-row-ac65a2fd-39d4-4670-9e24-6cc49e081d26">internet flamboyance</a> of party secretary-general Fikile Mbalula. He will be well aware that his performance in his next post will be crucial to his chances for the culmination of his political career – as president of the country.</p>
<p><em>Updated to reflect Mashatile’s appointment as deputy president.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200089/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is an ANC member, but writes this article in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>The veteran liberation struggle activist brings gravitas to every position he occupies.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1998082023-02-17T10:50:34Z2023-02-17T10:50:34ZHome power backup systems – electrical engineers answer your questions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510817/original/file-20230217-25-kdw80u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africans are taking their power supply into their own hands with backup systems that don't rely on power utility Eskom.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Ihsaan Haffejee/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s electricity utility Eskom has made it clear that “loadshedding” – rolling scheduled power cuts – <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2023/01/06/eskom-says-stage-3-and-4-load-shedding-pattern-to-continue-indefinitely">isn’t going to end any time soon</a>. This reality, and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement during his annual state of the nation speech on 9 February 2023 that <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-02-09-ramaphosas-tax-incentives-a-ray-of-light-for-solar-panel-roll-out-to-ease-sas-energy-crisis/">tax incentives for solar power use</a> are imminent, mean that many people <a href="https://theconversation.com/power-cuts-in-south-africa-trend-to-get-off-the-grid-is-gathering-pace-but-total-independence-is-still-a-way-off-197924">are considering</a> alternative electricity supply systems for their homes.</p>
<p>But deciding on the best system isn’t a simple matter. There’s a bewildering array of jargon to sift through and many elements to consider, from the right kind of inverter to the size of your solar panels. </p>
<p>We are electrical engineers who are working on a standalone charger for small electric vehicles with the <a href="https://sanedi.org.za/">South African National Energy Development Institute</a> as part of the <a href="https://www.leap-re.eu/">Long-Term Joint European Union - African Union Research and Innovation Partnership on Renewable Energy</a>. The way the charger is designed resembles the sort of system needed for domestic power cut solutions. So, we’re able to answer a few questions for those who feel overwhelmed by the options. Our full and detailed instructions for designing a loadshedding system are <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UGY-cR-HHXbmjFXhyJVvWlrpax9CbAqw/view">available here</a>.</p>
<h2>What is an inverter?</h2>
<p>This is a key component of any alternative power system. It’s an electronic device that changes direct current (like energy stored in a battery) into alternating current (power for your home).</p>
<p>There are a few kinds of inverters. Some are grid-tied (synchronous) with Eskom’s power grid. They are typically used with solar systems that augment the Eskom supply. But they are not suitable for loadshedding solutions. </p>
<p>You also get off-grid (grid-forming) inverters, which form their own mini-grid and can operate during power cuts.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510818/original/file-20230217-24-ilirdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A small white box with wires coming out of it" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510818/original/file-20230217-24-ilirdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510818/original/file-20230217-24-ilirdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510818/original/file-20230217-24-ilirdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510818/original/file-20230217-24-ilirdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510818/original/file-20230217-24-ilirdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510818/original/file-20230217-24-ilirdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510818/original/file-20230217-24-ilirdv.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"></a>
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<span class="caption">An inverter system will look something like this.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Suranto W/Shutterstock/Editorial use only</span></span>
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<p>We recommend a hybrid inverter, which can be grid-tied to augment supply and seamlessly continue operation as an off-grid solution during loadshedding. You want a hybrid inverter that can connect to the grid, battery backup, and to solar panels. To extract the maximum power from the solar panels, be sure to get one that has maximum power point tracking (MPPT). </p>
<h2>What size should the system be?</h2>
<p>This purchase should be a long term investment. The inverter must be able to carry the sum of all the loads that are drawing power at any instant in time and the battery must be able to supply the energy required. </p>
<p>To reduce both the upfront capital cost and operational expenditure, you need to decide what is essential. Lights? Your washing machine? The stove and electric kettle? Then you need to make sure they are as energy efficient as possible before you size the backup system. For example, old incandescent lights use ten times more energy than LED lights do.</p>
<p>This table lists a few typical household items and their power consumption. </p>
<iframe title="[ Power and energy consumption of household appliances ]" aria-label="Table" id="datawrapper-chart-Oc5GY" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Oc5GY/1/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="896" data-external="1" width="100%"></iframe>
<h2>Why do I need batteries for my system?</h2>
<p>It is theoretically possible for an inverter to generate electricity for household use directly from solar panels. But the supply from panels is intermittent and often not powerful enough to reliably supply power to the varying loads in the house. </p>
<p>To overcome this problem, energy is stored in the batteries. This provides a more stable source of power which responds to demand during loadshedding.</p>
<p>Battery capacity is specified as kWh (kilowatt hours) or Ah (ampere hours). This determines the amount of energy it can supply. A battery with a capacity of 5kWh can theoretically supply 5kW for an hour. But if a lithium battery is discharged beyond 20% of its capacity, it loses capacity and ages faster. A 5kWh battery therefore has an effective capacity of only 4kWh. It can supply 4kW for one hour, or 1kW for four hours. </p>
<p>As a practical example, if you want to power only 20 10W LED lights and a medium sized LED TV, drawing a total of 0.5kW, a 3.5kWh battery will suffice for four hours. </p>
<h2>Are solar panels crucial for a backup system?</h2>
<p>No. The batteries store energy to provide a stable supply to the inverter when needed. Technically, you can use the mains power to charge the batteries, rather than rely on solar panels. Solar panels are merely there to augment the supply of electricity and could give you a bit more range during loadshedding if the sun is shining.</p>
<p>But if everyone installs backup systems without solar panels, we are just using batteries to carry us through power cuts. That increases the load on Eskom outside loadshedding periods, as the batteries must be replenished. This will neuter Eskom’s ability to use loadshedding as a grid management tool. It could <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-power-grid-is-under-pressure-the-how-and-the-why-170897">destabilise the grid and lead to a complete blackout</a>.</p>
<p>And if, <a href="https://www.news24.com/fin24/climate_future/energy/tax-breaks-for-rooftop-solar-experts-weigh-in-on-how-it-could-work-20230214">as is expected</a>, the finance minister introduces tax breaks for solar generation expenses in the budget speech on 22 February, solar panels will have to be part of your setup if you want to benefit from these incentives. </p>
<p>No matter what Enoch Godongwana announces, we think this is a good time to make the switch to a solar powered backup system, for your peace of mind and future savings.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-power-grid-is-under-pressure-the-how-and-the-why-170897">South Africa's power grid is under pressure: the how and the why</a>
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<h2>How much does it all cost?</h2>
<p>Inverter prices are falling as the market grows, and vary across suppliers. Inverters cost about R3,000 (about US$165) per kW for bottom of the range, and closer to R7,000 (about US$380) per kW for top of the range. Most households will get by with a 3kW to 5kW inverter, if its loads are managed well, costing between R9,000 (around $US490) and R35,000 (about US$1,915). </p>
<p>Lithium (LiFePO4) batteries also vary in cost but normally retail for about R5,000 (about US$270) to R7,000 per kWh. Most households will get by with a 5kWh to 10kWh battery if the loads are optimised and managed well. So you’re looking at a cost of between R25,000 (around US$1,370) and R70,000 (US$3,830 or so) for the batteries.</p>
<p>Solar panels tend to range from R8,000 (about US$440) to R10,000 (around US$550) per kWp (a measure of how high the panels’ power output is). Again, they’re not crucial, but are necessary if you want the system to pay for itself over time. </p>
<h2>Can I install this system myself?</h2>
<p>No, unless you’re a certified electrician. The inverter needs to be installed into the distribution board and the cost will depend on how many of your circuit breakers need to be moved to the backup as well as how easy the solution is to install; installation typically ranges from R10,000 to R20,000 (just about US$1100). The inverter must be approved by the municipality if you want to feed back into the grid. Installing the solar panels is separate, and costs vary widely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199808/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Deciding on the best system isn’t a simple matter. There’s a bewildering array of jargon to sift through and many elements to consider.MJ (Thinus) Booysen, Professor in Engineering, Chair in the Internet of Things, Stellenbosch UniversityArnold Rix, Senior Lecturer, Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1992082023-02-07T09:02:12Z2023-02-07T09:02:12ZSouth Africa’s ruling party has favoured loyalty over competence - now cadre deployment has come back to bite it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508636/original/file-20230207-17-m2lqtf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supra Mahumapelo, former premier of North West Province, former president Jacob Zuma and current president Cyril Ramaphosa at an ANC celebration in 2016.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thulani Mbele/Sowetan/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">Cadre deployment</a> is one of the best-known policies of the African National Congress (ANC), which has governed South Africa since the end of apartheid <a href="https://www.britannica.com/question/How-did-apartheid-end">in 1994</a>. And many of the party’s woes over the past decade can be traced back to it. </p>
<p>The concept of “deployment” has a strong military association. Conventionally, it is about tactical deployment of troops or infrastructure during military operations. In this instance it is used to describe how the ANC places people in strategic positions at various levels of government.</p>
<p>“Cadre” refers to a dedicated, highly motivated and trained member of an organisation or party. Not all members of such an organisation are, therefore, cadres. During its years as an underground organisation when many of its members were in exile, the ANC used the term to describe members who were ideologically schooled in party thinking. The term is much more loosely applied today.</p>
<p>Cadre deployment is part of official ANC policy. It is applied at national, provincial and local level. </p>
<p>But there is growing <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2077-49072021000100015">discontent</a> in the country about it. Many blame it for the widespread corruption and mismanagement in government. The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has gone to court to have the policy declared illegal and <a href="https://cdn.da.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/27130536/2.-Founding-Affidavit-Signed.pdf">against the constitution</a>. </p>
<p>It is unrealistic to argue that there should be no political involvement in important appointments in the public service. It happens in almost all political systems. Take, for example, the American president’s role in <a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/nominations/SupremeCourtNominations1789present.htm">nominating all new judges of the Supreme Court</a>. The Senate must confirm these appointments, but the nomination process is a party political one. This is not regarded as unlawful or unconstitutional.</p>
<p>So why the deep concern about it in South Africa? Can the practice be reconciled with the democratic tradition?</p>
<h2>The problem with cadre deployment</h2>
<p>One of many components of any effective democracy is regular changes in government. Changes in which party governs a country are accompanied by changes in the top political appointments in the public service. This avoids party appointees becoming entrenched in their positions. </p>
<p>The problem for South Africa is that only one party has run the national government since 1994. It means that a rotation of senior officials with different political orientations has not happened. It also means that specific views and practices have become entrenched, and the procedural protection provided by checks and balances have become ineffective. Merit as a prerequisite for senior appointments was replaced by party loyalty. </p>
<p>More recently, the ANC is experiencing the public’s unhappiness with this state of affairs. It has already <a href="https://theconversation.com/local-council-turmoil-shows-south-africa-isnt-very-good-at-coalitions-128489">lost its majority in major cities</a> such as Johannesburg, the country’s economic hub; Tshwane, the seat of government; and Nelson Mandela Bay, in the Eastern Cape, the party’s historical stronghold.</p>
<p>Behind this loss of support are state capture, poor service delivery and a decline in state institutional capacity.</p>
<p>The common denominator in all of them is cadre deployment. </p>
<h2>The ANC and cadre deployment</h2>
<p>Cadre deployment as an ANC policy is used for two purposes. The first is to appoint its members to key public positions. The second is internally in the ANC, for members who move from one position to another. In the past, it used to be an honour for a member to claim that he or she was deployed as a cadre. That’s because it suggested that the member is disciplined, obeys the ANC’s instructions and is not motivated by personal interests. That honourable association with the policy has turned into a negative perception for the public in general. </p>
<p>Over the last two decades, the policy has increasingly come under attack for justifying the appointment of key people who are not necessarily qualified for their positions, and who even act in their own interests. Even in the case of qualified persons, their appointments happened under the cloud of privileged treatment and not a level playing field.</p>
<p>Cadre deployment has also become contentious within the ANC itself because of growing factionalism. This practice influences who are appointed as cabinet ministers and senior managers of state-owned enterprises and the public service.</p>
<p>Discontent with the way the policy has been implemented has led to some proposed changes. </p>
<p>In October 2022 the cabinet <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/remarks-acting-minister-public-service-and-administration-mr-tw-nxesi-cabinet-approval">adopted</a> the “National Framework towards the Professionalisation of the Public Sector”. It <a href="https://www.polity.org.za/article/cabinet-wants-ancs-cadre-deployment-policy-ditched-2022-10-27">agreed that</a></p>
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<p>the cadre deployment practices must be reconsidered for merit-based recruitment and selection in the public sector.</p>
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<p>Earlier, in August 2022, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed legislation that prevents city managers and senior municipal officers from <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/parliament/depoliticising-municipalities-ramaphosa-signs-law-barring-municipal-managers-from-political-office-20220818">holding office in any political party</a>. </p>
<p>The two decisions are important steps in separating the powers of the political executive and the public service. Enforcement of this new principle will not be easy, but it sets an alternative for cadre deployment.</p>
<h2>Big challenges</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/notices/2018/20180713-gg41772_gen396-SCAPcomms-Rules.pdf">Zondo Commission</a>, which investigated corruption, fraud, maladministration and unethical conduct during former president Jacob Zuma’s administration, concluded that cadre deployment <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202206/electronic-state-capture-commission-report-part-vi-vol-ii.pdf">contributed towards state capture</a>.</p>
<p>This conclusion adds a judicial aspect to criticism of the policy, and also questions its moral justification.</p>
<p>The DA was motivated by the commission’s report to challenge cadre deployment in court. The party wants to have the policy declared unlawful and against the constitution. </p>
<p>The case is significant in many respects. </p>
<p>Firstly, it has created an opportunity for the DA to challenge the ANC on how it has structured the relationship between the party, government and state. The cadre deployment policy can show how the three became conflated at an early stage of the ANC’s tenure in power.</p>
<p>Abuse of cadre deployment, moreover, puts the ANC’s record of governance and service delivery in the spotlight. Given the policy, the ANC cannot claim that its bad governance record is primarily due to bad officials or individual problems. Cadre deployment means that the party has to take responsibility for the poor standard of governance – not just implicated individual officials. </p>
<p>This line of thinking has emerged as a contentious matter in the question of <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/opinion/eskoms-problems-primarily-due-to-failure-of-ancs-policies-%206e135683-9a9f-4be0-af4f-7d53fd651b2a">who should carry responsibility for the failures of the power utility, Eskom</a>.</p>
<p>Secondly, the court case gives the DA an opportunity to link cadre deployment to state capture in general, and the ANC’s abuse of government powers. This allows it to challenge the ruling party’s moral claim to be the main agent for transforming South Africa into a democratic and humane society. </p>
<p>Thirdly, the court case presents a serious predicament for the ANC. Many of its members joined the party because of the job opportunities that cadre deployment provides. If the ANC distances itself from the policy it will lose some of its attraction.</p>
<h2>The end of an era?</h2>
<p>It is very likely to lose momentum. The decline in support for the ANC suggests that coalition governments will become increasingly common in the country. It’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-stable-national-coalition-government-in-south-africa-possible-but-only-if-elites-put-countrys-interests-first-193828">possible that the ANC will have to share power</a> in the national sphere after the <a href="https://www.eisa.org/calendar2024.php">2024 general election</a>. Governing in coalitions will make it virtually impossible for cadre deployment to continue in its current form. </p>
<p>The implication of these changes in power relations is that cadre deployment in its ANC format will have to make way for a different relationship between the governing parties and senior public servants. </p>
<p>Instead of regular government rotations, the diversification of government in the form of coalitions will also serve as necessary checks and balances on the political-bureaucratic relations and transform cadre deployment into a more acceptable practice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199208/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dirk Kotze 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 decline in support for the ANC suggests that coalition governments will become increasingly common in the country, affecting its appointment policy.Dirk Kotze, Professor in Political Science, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1980112023-02-05T08:02:19Z2023-02-05T08:02:19ZWeed in South Africa: apartheid waged a war on drugs that still has unequal effects today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505591/original/file-20230120-26-2j6065.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's governing ANC has continued the anti-cannabis repression inherited from apartheid.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cannabis is being commercialised into a multibillion-dollar global industry and South Africa wants a piece of the pie. In his <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-2022-state-nation-address-10-feb-2022-0000">2022 state of the nation address</a>, President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke of developing a hemp and cannabis sector to boost the post-COVID economy.</p>
<p>Poor rural communities in South Africa have <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-62524501">long cultivated cannabis</a> in illegal conditions of risk. They now face losing out to corporate interests and the wealthy.</p>
<p>How did the stakes become so high – and so unequal?</p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/721253">recent historical study</a> helps answer this question. It reveals how an apartheid-era drug law incited a “war on drugs” that was in effect a “war on cannabis”.</p>
<p>In 1971 a law was passed that subjected the cannabis plant and its products to the strictest possible controls. This set in motion a structurally racist policy that continued well into the post-apartheid era. </p>
<h2>Apartheid’s 1971 anti-drug law</h2>
<p>In 1971, South Africa’s apartheid government passed the <a href="https://www.lac.org.na/laws/annoSTAT/Abuse%20of%20Dependence-Producing%20Substances%20and%20Rehabilitation%20Centres%20Act%2041%20of%201971.pdf">Abuse of Dependence-Producing Substances and Rehabilitation Centres Act</a>. Lawmakers boasted it was the</p>
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<p>toughest anti-drug law in the Western World. </p>
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<p>The law’s main target was white “hippy” youth. </p>
<p>The law followed recommendations by a state-sponsored inquiry, the <a href="https://libguides.lib.uct.ac.za/c.php?g=182363&p=1581392">Grobler Commission</a>. The commission focused only on white South Africans’ misuse of synthetic and pharmaceutical drugs such as LSD, Mandrax (methaqualone) and heroin. </p>
<p>Though the commission did not in fact turn up evidence of an extensive drug abuse problem, it nevertheless recommended tough suppression.</p>
<p>To the ruling <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/national-party-np">National Party</a>, the use of drugs by white people appeared to threaten Afrikaner religious culture and the future of a white South Africa. They hyped the drug problem as</p>
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<p>a form of terrorism that is more dangerous than the armed terrorism we are familiar with on our country’s borders. </p>
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<p>This language of crisis enabled the apartheid lawmakers to borrow from the country’s draconian anti-terrorism laws, such as the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01828/05lv01829/06lv01927.htm">1967 Terrorism Act</a>, used to put down anti-apartheid activism.</p>
<p>Like the anti-terrorism legislation, the 1971 anti-drug act provided for harsh minimum prison sentences and detention without trial for purposes of interrogation. It also removed the court’s discretion in sentencing for drug offences.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cannabis-policy-changes-in-africa-are-welcome-but-small-producers-are-the-losers-179681">Cannabis policy changes in Africa are welcome. But small producers are the losers</a>
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<p>When it was debated in parliament, the principle of “toughness” appealed across party lines – except for the lone voice of the Progressive Party MP <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/helen-suzman">Helen Suzman</a>. Suzman observed that although the Grobler Commission excluded research on substance use by the majority black South Africans, the law would nonetheless apply to them. </p>
<p>Similarly, she argued, the commission had not investigated cannabis – a substance considered by many to be less socially harmful than legal alcohol or tobacco. Yet it was to be scheduled in the new law as a “prohibited dangerous drug”, along with heroin and cocaine. </p>
<h2>Lone voice of reason</h2>
<p>For <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-african-roots-of-marijuana">centuries in Africa</a>, including parts of South Africa, the cannabis plant had important indigenous cultural value and was cultivated for a variety of social and pharmacological uses. </p>
<p>Cannabis was first <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02582473.2022.2128274">criminalised in the country in 1922</a>. But drug <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-history-teaches-us-about-shaping-south-africas-new-cannabis-laws-150889">policing remained relatively weak</a> for three decades. In the gap, and with growing urban markets, commercial cannabis livelihoods emerged to combat <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24566750#metadata_info_tab_contents">growing rural poverty</a>. </p>
<p>In such conditions – as Suzman pointed out – punitive drug control, created to combat white pill-popping, was clearly going to fall on black South Africans for cannabis offences. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/721253">Suzman fought hard</a>. She pointed out that a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafer_Commission">“Marijuana Commission”</a> was under way in the US, documenting how the supposed dangers of cannabis were greatly exaggerated. She argued for a less criminalising status for cannabis in South Africa.</p>
<p>Her views were defeated and apartheid’s extraordinary drug legislation was easily passed. Cannabis was classified among those substances marked for strictest suppression.</p>
<h2>The law’s impacts</h2>
<p>This decision proved to be a watershed. The <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/721253">effects of the 1971 anti-drug law</a> were immediately evident, falling disproportionately on black South Africans. Cannabis accounted for well over 95% of drug-related arrests and convictions across all “race” groups. </p>
<p>In a 1972 assessment by the Natal Provincial Supreme Court – in the case <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/721253">State v Shangase and Others</a> - judges showed how prison terms of two to ten years were being imposed even for the petty possession of single cannabis “<em>zol</em>” (joint).</p>
<p>The “rehabilitation centres” part of the 1971 law applied only to white offenders since – <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/721253">as Suzman had pointed out</a> – the segregationist state did not provide drug treatment programmes for black people. But, even for convicted white users, sentences involving treatment applied in less than 1% of cases.</p>
<p>Paradoxically, but unsurprisingly, illegal cannabis cultivation increased within the segregated spaces of apartheid.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-approach-to-criminalisation-could-end-cape-towns-drug-wars-121769">A new approach to criminalisation could end Cape Town's drug wars</a>
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<p>An illegal crop in high demand was profitable to grow, and even more so to trade. Helicopters spraying herbicides and multiple checkpoints raised the stakes of drug politics for all parties.</p>
<p>The laws’s embedded racism meant that as tough drug suppression continued after apartheid ended, its racist effects also continued.</p>
<h2>A reckoning with history is needed</h2>
<p>The 1971 anti-drug law was replaced in 1992 with a <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/drugs-and-drug-trafficking-act">Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act</a>. The new law maintained harsh sentences and cannabis remained illegal. The African National Congress, which came into power in 1994, reproduced the heavy-handed tactics it had inherited from the apartheid National Party: militarised suppression, spraying and incarcerations.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-court-frees-cannabis-from-colonial-and-apartheid-past-103644">2017 and 2018</a>, the government’s cannabis policy was successfully challenged in the courts, on grounds of cultural and religious freedom. This also opened a window for liberalising cannabis as a commercial venture for certain products. Yet <a href="https://theconversation.com/cannabis-policy-changes-in-africa-are-welcome-but-small-producers-are-the-losers-179681">the actual policy remains unclear and contested</a>.</p>
<p>Apartheid’s 1971 law, and the parallel growth of an illegal economy, shaped South Africa’s unequal cannabis landscape. Now, in an opening cannabis economy, rural cultivators remain in a vulnerable position against more powerful interests. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/marijuana-use-in-south-africa-what-next-after-landmark-court-ruling-103607">Marijuana use in South Africa: what next after landmark court ruling?</a>
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<p><a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/721752">Decolonising drug-related knowledge and policies</a> in South Africa requires a deeper reckoning with history, including from apartheid into the present.</p>
<p>*Quotations from the <em>Debates of the House of Assembly</em>, Hansard (Cape Town: Government of the Republic of South Africa, 5 May 1971.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thembisa Waetjen receives funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>A 1971 law, and the parallel growth of an illegal economy, shaped South Africa’s unique cannabis landscape.Thembisa Waetjen, Associate Professor of History, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1966732022-12-15T14:46:13Z2022-12-15T14:46:13ZIs South Africa better off with or without Cyril Ramaphosa?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501305/original/file-20221215-17-13xluz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C57%2C974%2C621&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Cyril Ramaphosa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Cyril Ramaphosa came to the helm of South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC) <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-cyril-ramaphosa-a-profile-of-the-new-leader-of-south-africa-89456">in 2017</a> on an anti-corruption, or anti-state capture, platform. The ANC’s 54th elective conference gave him a mandate of renewing the party, and simultaneously reversing the <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">state capture</a> phenomenon that had characterised much of the country 10 years under his predecessor Jacob Zuma. </p>
<p>But, now, he himself has been caught up in controversy over the theft of thousands of American dollars allegedly kept in contravention of foreign exchange rules at his <a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosa-scandal-looks-set-to-intensify-the-ancs-slide-ushering-in-a-new-era-of-politics-185719">Phala Phala farm</a> in Limpopo in 2020. He also allegedly failed to properly report the theft to the police.</p>
<p>This sparked an attempt to have him impeached for allegedly violating the country’s constitution. But, the ANC’s overwhelming majority in parliament saw the impeachment motion being <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/politics/drama-defiance-retraction-mps-back-ramaphosa-against-impeachment-20221213">defeated</a>.</p>
<p>This has led to many to ask whether the country would be better off with or without Ramaphosa. </p>
<p>This is not an easy question. But it is one that has been on the minds of many in the country since the eruption <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2022-06-01-arthur-fraser-lays-criminal-charges-against-ramaphosa-says-he-stole-4m/">in June</a> of the Phala Phala scandal.</p>
<p>Given that South Africa runs a party political system at a national level, Ramaphosa emerges through the organisational culture of the governing ANC. The party, specifically its successive leadership after the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2007-12-18-zuma-is-new-anc-president/">2007 Polokwane conference</a>, has presided over the weakening of state institutions and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-capture-in-south-africa-how-the-rot-set-in-and-how-the-project-was-rumbled-176481">general collapse of state capacity</a>.</p>
<p>These have had eroded social cohesion in South African society as seen by accelerated levels of <a href="https://theconversation.com/pandemic-underscores-gross-inequalities-in-south-africa-and-the-need-to-fix-them-135070">inequality</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/xenophobia-is-on-the-rise-in-south-africa-scholars-weigh-in-on-the-migrant-question-181288">xenophobia</a> and ethnic chauvinism. To ask, therefore, whether South Africa would better off with or without Ramaphosa is to also ask whether the country would be better off without the ANC.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anc-in-crisis-south-africas-governing-party-is-fighting-to-stay-relevant-5-essential-reads-196580">ANC in crisis: South Africa's governing party is fighting to stay relevant - 5 essential reads</a>
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<p>For a period the ANC <a href="https://www.eisa.org/wep/sou1994results1.htm">represented</a> the aspirations of many black people in reversing the political and economic design of colonialism and apartheid. To this extent, it can be said to have encompassed the South African nation. But it has become too inward-looking, at the expense of the development aspirations of the nation <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-insists-its-still-a-political-vanguard-this-is-what-ails-democracy-in-south-africa-141938">it claims to lead</a>. </p>
<p>Interestingly Ramaphosa straddles these transitions of the ANC. At the beginning of the democratic dispensation in 1994, as a trade unionist, he was an important architect of the country’s constitutional framework. But, now as president of both the party and the republic, he’s embroiled in a scandal over his private business interests. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-insists-its-still-a-political-vanguard-this-is-what-ails-democracy-in-south-africa-141938">The ANC insists it's still a political vanguard: this is what ails democracy in South Africa</a>
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<p>Its an untenable position to be in given the anti-corruption ticket that catapulted him to the helm of the party. </p>
<p>I’ve been researching and observing the ANC and its governance performance over 15 years. My view on these questions is that given the organisational culture that comes with the ANC, and its impact on both government and on South African society, the country would indeed be better off without Ramaphosa. This is regardless of his <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2022/12/02/ramaphosa-s-ability-to-fight-corruption-now-questionable-corruption-watch">anti-corruption campaign</a> which has, in any case, been <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-president-cyril-ramaphosas-credibility-has-been-dented-putting-his-reform-agenda-in-jeopardy-189802">weakened by Phala Phala</a>. </p>
<h2>Of Phala Phala and the ANC</h2>
<p>Given that the Phala Phala matter weakens his anti-corruption campaign, the party can either save the president, as it did when it <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africas-parliament-debate-ramaphosa-farmgate-report-2022-12-13/">voted this week against tabling</a> the report of the parliamentary panel on Phala Phala for discussion. Or, it can hang him out to dry, thus beginning a series of events that weakens the electoral fortunes of the party altogether. </p>
<p>The decision to save him is, of course, premised on the idea that the South African “nation” is inseparable from the ANC. And that equally, the ANC is inseparable from the state. These assumptions increasingly don’t hold true in the country. Voters, especially in urban South Africa, are <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2022-07-29-if-the-anc-becomes-a-rural-party-it-will-be-the-end-of-the-anc-makwetla/">diversifying their votes</a>.</p>
<p>I agree with the Director of the New South Institute, Ivor Chipkin when <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2022-12-04-phala-phala-is-not-a-crisis-for-south-africa-it-is-a-crisis-for-cyril-ramaphosa-and-the-anc/">he says:</a>.</p>
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<p>the ANC is not the nation…the party is not the state {and} institution matter more than individuals.</p>
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<p>It has become increasingly clear that the country needs to start thinking of life without the ANC in charge. And that coalitions, albeit unstable in the immediate run, might be desirable to avoid the cliff edge that South Africa stands on.</p>
<h2>Looking forward</h2>
<p>I think that the ANC will continue to be a strong political force in the foreseeable future, even though it has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/world/africa/south-africa-election.html">weakened in successive election</a> at local, provincial and national level. </p>
<p>There are now real prospects that the party will poll just above 50% needed to form a national government in 2024. This puts the prospect of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-stable-national-coalition-government-in-south-africa-possible-but-only-if-elites-put-countrys-interests-first-193828">national coalition government</a> within view. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-the-anc-survive-the-end-of-south-africas-heroic-epoch-57256">Can the ANC survive the end of South Africa's heroic epoch?</a>
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<p>The ANC should now show leadership by providing the necessary architecture – including new laws and regulations – to manage coalitions so that they can serve the country well. </p>
<p>This would complement the recent amendment of the Electoral Act enabling independent candidates to run for elections at national and <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/cabinet-approves-law-to-allow-independent-candidates-to-contest-as-mps-and-mpls-f8f496d7-39c0-4733-8f71-dfaea11c2a8f">provincial level</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, this possibility is not without its weakness: legislative access or easier entry for independent candidates to contest elections is a zero-sum game for the ANC. But the development of South Africa requires, not the renewal of the ANC, but the enablement of coalitions. </p>
<p>Coalitions are a necessary part of diversifying South Africa’s political culture. This is not about bringing contestation for its own sake, but to find a party political culture that aligns with the country’s constitutional framework. </p>
<p>The future of South Africa hangs in the balance. The country can either continue on its current downward spiral, with a <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/598212/young-people-plan-to-leave-south-africa-as-brain-drain-concerns-grow/">growing brain drain</a>, or it can change direction to upward development trajectory. </p>
<p>Either way, this is about much more than the ANC. </p>
<p>Too much time has been spent discussing the societal spill overs from the party’s organisational and <a href="https://theconversation.com/vacuum-of-ideas-at-anc-policy-conference-bodes-ill-for-south-africas-governing-party-188259">intellectual problems</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196673/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thapelo Tselapedi 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>It has become increasingly clear that the country needs to start thinking of life without Ramaphosa - and the ANC - in charge.Thapelo Tselapedi, Politics lecturer, Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.