The th!nc Foundation

  The journey towards the 16th of December 2027 ANC National Elective Conference begins in December 2024 at the four influential regions of Limpopo Province. With a 74% outcome at the 2024 National and Provincial elections, which might have arguably saved the ANC from garnering the 40% saving grace outcome, Limpopo is poised to dictate the cadence of who ultimately succeeds Cyril Ramaphosa, the outgoing ANC President.  The ANC faces one of its existential resilience-defining sub-national conferences since announcing its inarguably illusive and ambitious renewal programme. Never has it faced a conference with weakened national voter support, an emboldened opposition complex that now has a potential alternative to itself in the MK Party-led progressive caucus and an ascending substrate of the liberal order defending influential leaders within its ranks. The ideological contest between the left and right within the ANC threatens the disintegration of its electora...

This was published as "Talking about language in a colonial tongue" in the Sunday Times on 22 September 2024. The South African Constitution opens with the words, 'we, the people of South Africa, recognise the injustices of the past'. One of the most profound injustices of the past is the suppression of African languages, relegating them to a secondary status. Instead, the English language, privileged by the imperialism-driven power of RSA's primary colonialism and Afrikaans, privileged by apartheid as a (secondary) colonialism of a special type, was institutionalised as the doorways to knowledge, science, commerce, and industry. This historical context is crucial to understanding the current state of language rights in South Africa. The marginalisation of African languages had significant consequences for non-first-language speakers. They found themselves disadvantaged in science, trade, and industry, forced to navigate a world where their grammar and vocabular...

  Despite the underlying desire to control narrative formation, manipulation, and characterisation, as well as imposing its hegemony on the GNU, the call for the SG to step down by the DA is a flawed proposition. It's unclear whether the SG himself or the science his team of statisticians uphold is under scrutiny. While it's true that science doesn't correct itself, scientists do so through rigorous validation methods. Therefore, the call for the SG to step down, a product of the subjective nature of politics, cannot be trusted. It further erodes the trust in science the political world has gotten used to.  The brute truth is that a body of established facts, in this case, census information, constitutes scientific knowledge. This means science will always have insiders and outsiders, a reason enough to build bridges and reduce the resultant rift. Politics and facts deniers have laid siege to science. Calls for the outcome of a scientific process such as a national census...

This was published in TimesLive on 17 September 2024 under the same title. The administrative order of the Republic of South Africa is deteriorating to the point of disintegration before our eyes. The relative decline of a strong RSA state and the concomitant erosion of the public and civil service ethic associated with competitive nations continue unabated. Repeated Auditor-General reports painting stirrings of a crisis, fragile, and, in some instances, failed state conditions in municipalities, indicating potential fissures in the system that could put the democratic order at risk. The cabinet-approved professionalisation framework may have revitalised the centrality of a capable state in any endeavour to put RSA on a growth and development path. Still, it has equally deepened the crisis of where-the-tyre-hits the road issues of the public service and senior management service ideation.  Meanwhile, the shifting priorities of the public service reform politics and the increasing...

This was published in the Sunday Times on 29 August 2024.    In retrospect, South Africa's electricity delivery in the last fifteen years is most curious. Several times during this period, RSA has had the worst stages of load-shedding and, thus, energy supply instability. In a post-2017 period, acutely in 2023, exceptions have been the rule. There is renewed vigour to restore the RSA electricity supply sector to stability. The country is on its way to fewer supply interruptions required for economic growth and investment.  No less notable than the primary process reengineering interventions at ESKOM have been the infusion of a new, able, and somewhat strategic c-suite anchored by executive authority vibrancy of a sector respected and Ramaphosa-appointed Minister of Energy, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa. Of all the variables associated with the almost total collapse of the national electricity grid and across value chain challenges, a recalibration of c-suite leadership made ...

  The mainstream South African establishment, including some internal to the ANC, views the ANC's permanent 'we are in a revolution' rhetoric as not being in step with what should genuinely be RSA's national interest. The ANC is inarguably the nexus of RSA politics, when it sneezes a lot catches cold. It will continue to command a significant national influence as a political movement, even if it looks like it is running out of runways. This might mean that even in the unlikelihood of its replacement by the MK Party, arguably its ideological adjunct, it will only be a change of guard, not an approach. As one of its longest serving leaders, OR Tambo, is alleged to have said, it can only collapse at its own peril. Justified as the concerns about its rhetoric are, revolution rhetoric becomes the most potent source of political and social capital when unemployment, inequality, and poverty, are as high as they are in RSA.  In a constitutional order that allows free politic...

This was published in TimesLive on 11 September 2024 under the same tile.  Whenever there is a discourse about the 'outstanding' aspects of the liberation struggle, there is a tendency to view South Africa from a presumption of a liberation struggle that was fought, won, and ended with a treaty. A case has been made that a National Democratic Revolution, which transfers (political, economic, and social control) power to the people, has hastened the arrival of a post-1994 South Africa.  Closer interaction with the facts about the build-up to 27th April 2024 and the signing of the 1996 Constitution reveals a historical record sharply at odds with the dominant narrative of a liberation struggle that was outrightly won. One of the most exciting narratives is the enigmatic representation of uMkhonto we Sizwe and mass action as decisive in ushering in the political settlement and accord. In reality, the end of apartheid was a combination of it being a crime against humanity, its A...

The greatest conundrum for a movement that masterminded the RSA political settlement is reconciling its centrist, absolute power-dependent perspective of government with the emerging and disruptive multiparty and coalition government-based democracy. The leadership instability that comes with losing absolute power to govern runs through the entire organisation's rubric. The internal convulsions that preceded the loss of absolute power and were about creating the conditions and the desire for a renewed ANC have now resurfaced in the form of renewal for who and what questions. To renew the ANC, a reconfigured and stable distribution of internal to the ANC power architecture and a broad acceptance of the new rules that govern the conduct of members in a context where state power is shared with the immediate pre-2024 national elections opposition complex is required. One of the realities to contend with is that- it is not that political parties or factions within them should not be...

Historical analogies serve as guiding lights for individuals and nations during times of uncertainty. South Africa, currently navigating a significant phase of political uncertainty, is no exception. Its leaders and thinkers have drawn parallels from its past, finding comfort in how the nation has reacted and adapted under similar circumstances. The challenge of political inclusion within a constitutionally defined framework, juxtaposed with economic exclusion from the value chains and templates of the economic system, is a recurring theme in South Africa's history. The urgency of economic transformation is not just a matter of debate; it's a call for immediate and decisive action. The lessons from history can guide us in this endeavour, but the need for action is pressing. In the aftermath of the South African War, also called the Anglo-Boer War, the 1909 National Convention, a sequel to the 1902 Treaty of Vereeniging, a forgive-and-forget political settlement produced the 191...

This was published in TimesLive on 04 September 2024 under the same title. The revolutionary alliance, the tripartite alliance between the ANC, SACP, and COSATU, is at a crucial juncture that demands immediate attention. The context, supposedly occasioned by the 2024 election outcome, is pressing and requires innovative and fresh thinking. The demands of 'national unity' bend the alliance to the ideological purpose with which it is ideologically at variance. For alliance partners to believe it is still a means to some later phase of the revolution, especially in its current form, is not a semantic quibble; it is a serious ideological and moral issue.  Like the weather, the ideological contradictions of or in the alliance have arrived at a point where, to some, they are there to be lived and not resolved. As the complexity of locating the alliance's foundational objects grows, so does its partner's need to identify the various opposites characterising it and determine ...