Professional Documents
Culture Documents
After Apartheid and Mandela
After Apartheid and Mandela
EPW
1 Introduction
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COMMENTARY
with the twentieth anniversary of democracy and the end of apartheid, the
2014 South Africa elections are the first
since the death of its founding democratic president, the iconic and towering
figure that was Nelson Mandela. His
passing in December 2013 has tended to
draw attention (certainly among ordinary South Africans of all races and
ages) to the serious failings of both his
successors, Thabo Mbeki (1999-2009)
and Jacob Zuma (2009 to present). The
sheer scale and regularity of the scandals, court cases and investigations that
surround Zuma, his family and close political comrades are such that many people and parties including the leaders of
the right of centre Democratic Alliance
(DA) and the populist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) appear to have forgotten Mbekis own flawed presidency,
or have forgiven and now long for the
pipe-smoking, Africanist and worldly
figure of the countrys second president.
No progressive South African would
like to say, we told you so, but the result of poor policy choice, based on the
narrow view of a few influential comrades at the top of the ANCs political and
economic hierarchy, that there is no alternative to market-friendly policies in a
post-cold war era have led us to the
present. The absence until 2011 of an effective, funded industrial policy to boost
manufacturing growth, the arrogant
and condescending manner in which
the ANC went about economic policymaking, as well as corruption and inefficiency in the delivery of services are
explored below (for more in this see
Freund 2013).
2 Less Poor, More Unequal
Over the past 10 years with rising commodity prices, there has been an increase in output and employment in
every minerals and natural resourcebased country in the world. Only in
South Africa has there been a contraction in employment (Robin Renwick,
Business Day, 12 May 2014). Not surprising then that communities and workers
have taken to the streets, and that the
countrys labour relations system, once
thought of as a model, lies in ruins.
Official unemployment is around 25% (it
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would be around 40% counting discouraged workers) and inequality (increasingly also within black South Africans)
is so stark that the country now has the
dubious claim to having the worlds
highest GINI coefficient. Ashman, Fine,
Padayachee and Sender in a recent
review point out that:
Assessment of two decades of post-apartheid economic development cannot ignore
stark realities. Most shocking is that income
inequality has increased since 1994 with
South Africa now the most unequal society
in the world. Wealth has become even more
concentrated in the top decile of the population. [It has been estimated that] across
1994, 2000 and 2008, the richest 10% of the
population took 54%, 57% and 58% of total
income. The share of wealth of the bottom
50% of the population decreased from 8.3%
in 1993 to 7.8% in 2008. Poverty figures
are more debated than those of inequality, with the impact of the introduction of
social grants (the child support grant, the
disability grant and the old age pension)
leading some to conclude that South Africa
is less poor, more unequal . Nevertheless,
poverty remains endemic, especially in the
rural areas of the former homelands. There
are other extremes as well as poverty amidst
wealth, including record levels of unemployment, HIV infection, Maternal Mortality,
and violently repressed social protest, frequently sparked by the inability to pay for
(commodified) services such as increasingly
costly water and electricity (In Bhorat et al,
forthcoming 2014).
South Africa has not fared well in relation to its peers. It is number 50 overall
in the The World Economic Forums Global Competitiveness Index, but then the
other BRICs are not much different: China 26, Brazil 53, India 56 and Russia 66.
The top 10 is dominated by European
countries, with Switzerland (the source
of the report) number 1. South Africas
detailed profile is extreme. Since 1994, it
scores near the top on a range of indicators related to business (corporate
governance and financial market development, for example) and near the bottom on human development indicators
(life expectancy and education) and
labour productivity.
Inequality is endemic in our world, despite
the rise of democracy as the only legitimate
form of government. What we have here [in
South Africa] is a world-class business sector surrounded by human misery. It would
have been easy to explain such dualism
not long ago, when South Africa was a
June 14, 2014
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legislation was passed, struggle comrades were simply given for jobs for
which they had little or no qualifications
or experience. As a result, at local government levels where delivery takes
place, the leakage of state funds into the
pockets of bureaucrats and their private
sector partners have defrauded the
state, set back the delivery of social services, and may be the single biggest contributor to the high, persistent and increasingly violent service-delivery protests that marked the political landscape
in the run-up to the 2014 elections.
Zumas claim in his 2014 State of the
Nation address that such protests were
in fact a sign of the success of government policy arising from unsatisfied
expectations of those few who are
awaiting new houses and the like is scientifically disingenuous and politically
disgraceful. A key issue in the elections
was the appalling state of service delivery in the sprawling formal and informal settlements in and around the major
cities, the unrelenting and increasingly
violent protests, generated by a combination of poverty and the collapse of basic service provision, including water,
sanitation, health and housing, and the
force of police reaction to these protests.
Here is what Jay Naidoo, a minister in
the first Mandela government and a
former secretary general of the progressive COSATU, had to say about what has
been happening in Bekkersdal, one such
township site:
When I went to Bekkersdal in December
last year (2013) to visit the assaulted community and to understand what was driving the slew of violent protests I came to
a realisation. South Africa is burning while
our politicians navel gaze in self-admiration.
Bekkersdal represents a microcosm of what
is happening in our townships. The acting
Gauteng police commissioner Lieutenant
General Lesetja Mothiba said a week ago
that the province experienced 569 service protests over the course of past three
months. One in five of those protests had
turned violent. This is a shocking indictment. But what do we really understand of
the anger in the country? Do we as citizens
properly grasp the very real meltdown happening before our eyes? Visit Bekkersdal, because it will break your heart. It bears all the
hallmarks of the conflicts and struggles of
the 1980s. Roads strewn with the rubble of
makeshift barricades. Police are encamped
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outside the township with a battery of armoured vehicles. It brought back painful
memories of the days when guns enforced
the will of a hated Apartheid regime.
As was the case in the past, the communitys
litany of problems is not a policing or security issue that can be solved with force.
Its a political problem that defines South
Africas current malaise. Residents spoke
to me about how they believed they were
being betrayed by democracy. Because they
have zero access to the sort of municipal basics that Johannesburgs northern suburbs
take for granted, Bekkersdals residents feel
like they have been left behind. I know it
is a fact. Imagine the sight of raw sewage
and heaps of rotting garbage in the pristine
suburbs of Sandton. Here is an example of
municipal leadership guilty of corrosive and
systemic dereliction of duty. Maladministration and corruption has squandered
public finances meant to serve the people.
At the tail end of 2013, the township was a
disaster (Daily Maverick, 12 February 2014).
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COMMENTARY
short of pathetic and self-serving, compared to the rich and diverse debates of
the 1970s and 1980s, even though the
latter were dominated by progressive
white academics hugely influenced
by western Marxism. Then the South
African struggle had implications globally. Recall Harry Magdoff and Paul
Sweezys famous editorial in the
Monthly Review of April 1986: [a] victory for counter-revolution the stabilization of capitalist relations in South
Africa even in somewhat altered form
would be a stunning defeat for the
world revolution (in Saul 2005:27).
3 2014 Election Results
Despite all the problems, from the state
of the economy to corruption at the
highest levels of the state, the scandal of
obscene abuse of taxpayer money on the
presidents private residence at Nkandla
in rural KwaZulu-Natal (as evident in
the report of the public protector) and to
the crisis in service delivery, the ANC
won comfortably. The governing party
won the elections with 62.15% of the
total vote, slightly but not alarmingly
down from the 65.9% it won in 2009.
The turnout was relatively high at over
73%, though millions did not register to
vote and fell outside these calculations.
Clearly and despite the relative success
of the DA in winning over some black
voters, Nelson Mandelas ANC, as the
main component in the struggle that
ended apartheid and delivered democracy in 1994, still has a hold on the hearts
and minds of a significant majority of
South Africans.
The official opposition, the DA, carries
the label of a white party, however
much it tries to claim its own role in the
struggle. The DA controlled the Western
Cape provincial government (where
there is a coloured majority and a relatively small black population). Despite
claims that it would get some 30% of the
national vote and win Gauteng province,
the DA came in with only 22% of the national votes and extended its majority in
the Western Cape province. It also took
over as the official opposition in the
Northern Cape, Free State, KwaZuluNatal and Eastern Cape provinces, and
did remarkably well, though not as well
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doubt a significant moment in this countrys history. The triumph over the inhumanity and brutality of apartheid, nobly
led by the ANC, was of world historic significance. No one should deny the gains
made by ending apartheid, the restoration of the dignity of its citizens and the
opening up of opportunities for all. A remarkable achievement was the constitution agreed upon by all parties at the
time of the negotiations, but since then
the real issue is about how the state, politicians and citizens live up to and work
with the constitution that matters, more
than its fine declarations. Here some disturbing signs can be detected. Improvements in areas such as housing, electrification, sanitation and education have
been real and important, but they are
patently not enough.
The former governor of the Reserve
Bank is correct to remind us of the need
to guard 1994 gains on the economic
front, especially in turning around the
budget deficit, restoring price stability
and settling the massive ($25 billion)
net open foreign currency situation,
that hung over the economy like a dark
cloud for about a decade (Financial
Mail, 2 May 2014). Whatever the merits
of these claims about the parlous state
of our national finances around 1994,
they are no more the overriding concern of ordinary folk. For we have yet to
build on the foundation laid then in
ways that promote industrialisation,
sustainable growth and employment.
In this we are not alone as a country, of
course. An effective and funded industrial and infrastructural programme
prioritising job creation is central to
this objective.
The objectives of the National Development Plan (NDP) are fairly trite and
can hardly be questioned. How we create the truly developmental state,
which all policy documents sycophantically reference, imbued with the capacity and skills, and the mutually beneficial connections between capital, workers and citizens, as well how we create
a state apparatus shot through with a
culture of service (rather than of plunder and pillage for personal gain)
these are among the key questions and
challenges ahead. And we need to
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