This has been published in TimesLive 27 November 2024
Establishing the Government
of National Unity (GNU) has been lauded as the best way to govern South Africa.
It is the culmination of a decades-old sought-after political alternative to
apartheid by the liberal centre: the protection of minority rights without
undermining majority party influence and governance. Parties with majority
influence and support in the country have become candidates for hegemonic or
ideological mergers and acquisitions. Radical Economic
Transformation (RET) is a significant factor in this political landscape, as it
represents a call for economic freedom and a challenge to the status quo.
Because
of its political brand equity and the ease of acquiring its membership, the African
National Congress (ANC) has made it one of the capturable political movements
of our time. The ANC, with its history of struggle against apartheid, its
overall legitimacy to govern, and the moral force of its restitution and
retribution programs, has a significant influence on South African politics.
However, this influence also makes it vulnerable to maverick and radical breeds
of politicians.
It
would be expected that not all of what the ANC stands for enjoys the support of
all South Africans. It still stands out as a global moral leader against
apartheid and any form of human stereotyping. The economic status quo of South
Africa cannot easily coexist with what defines its past, present, and
future.
Not
since the call for economic freedom in our lifetime by a generation of the
ANCYL, which morphed this call into Radical Economic Transformation, has the
ANC's approach to this aspect of transformation been a tremor to the economic
Establishment. However, after the in-ANC Establishment responded relatively
moderately, the state capital tension moved from confrontation.
An
economic transformation stalemate condition was foregrounded. Strategic and
influential RSA think tanks were provoked into developing a non-racial elite
consensus that would actively reshape the political and social balance of
power. The Cyril Ramaphosa anti-corruption and state capture, which represented
a dimension of the reshaping strategy, threatened the RET's ability to project
political power and significantly diminished its ability to deter Ramaphosa's
anti-corruption and state capture interventions. While the RET advocates, most
of whom were liquidated by a guilty-by-association to a well-branded and
communicated anti-corruption and state capture posture, were weakened, the
socio-economic reality of RSA made this a short-term victory.
In
the long term, the radical economic transformation appeal, especially outside
the purview of moderates in the ANC, would be an asset for any individual or
organisation wanting to start a social revolution or a political party with RET
as its animating force and motive. What has seemed to be a greater risk to the
status quo is when the ANC becomes that organisation. The democratic and
liberal alliance, mainly consisting of RSA's advanced elites and 'multiparty'
establishments, started working on a process to restrain the potential of the
ANC leading a theory-less RET program and instead mastermind a process to
stabilise the balance of political and social capital power.
With declining electoral fortunes since the 2014 national elections and subsequent unseating from power in major urban centres of RSA, the possibility of no absolute power to govern at the national level spurred the Establishment to think of deterrence to truncate a social revolution.
It
would ultimately come to the Establishment's ability to alter the economic
freedom's cost-benefit calculus in our Lifetime-RET complex to prevent an
undesirable capital status quo. The brute truth is that deterrence is not the
end of a matter but a measure to prevent an adversary from crossing a specific
line. The instability-stability paradox that played itself in municipal
coalition governments was pivoted as a somewhat panacea to dealing with
corruption and state capture as appendages of an absolute power to govern
context. Two conditions to get a less than 50% performance by any political
party were modelled: voter apathy and an increase in contesting political
parties.
The post-2021 local government elections and the political instability that comes with it ignited a need for dialogue about the possibility of this repeating itself in 2024. While governance stability was the friendlier agenda item, the emerging elephant in the room was what would happen if the EFF entered into a coalition with the ANC. The planning context flipped quickly into this mode and a coalition between the ANC and DA. The GNU concept and the need for a national dialogue became the most viable deterrents against an ANC-EFF coalition government.
The
grand plan to shape decisions on how to act once the 2024 elections have
happened was to be scuppered by the unapologetic and somewhat military
intelligence-style resurgence of Jacob Zuma, the person and the MK Party as the
institutional locus for an alternative to the ANC. With the third largest party
status, a reservoir of ANC heritage, significant proven support in KZN, and growing
discontent about service delivery, the GNU arrangement might catalyse a social
revolution. The exodus of political mobilisation talent from the ANC and EFF,
the consolidation of Independent African churches behind the Zuma-MK Party
complex, and RSA socioeconomic challenges are decisively redefining the
deterrence dynamic that the fragile GNU is arguably all about. The unconfirmed
reports of in-ANC sleepers point to a brittle GNU coalition arrangement. CUT!!!
Comments
Post a Comment