COMMENTARY

After Apartheid and Mandela

South Africas 2014 Elections
Vishnu Padayachee

The Africa National Congress was

comfortably re-elected in May,
but coming as these elections
did, 20 years after the end of
apartheid, and the first since the
passing away of Nelson Mandela,
calls for a review of South Africas
more recent past.

Vishnu Padayachee (padayacheev2@ukzn.

ac.za) is with the Institute for Social and
Economic Research, Rhodes University,
Grahamstown, South Africa.
Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

June 14, 2014

1 Introduction

ignificant elections are taking place

across the world in 2014, from
the European Parliament and US
Congress in the developed world to
populous emerging market democracies
such as Indonesia, Turkey, Brazil, India
and South Africa. In these latter three
so-called BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India,
China and South Africa) nations aspiring to be serious global players, elections
are taking place amidst domestic challenges. Of slowing economies, widespread corruption and frequent scandals, growing wealth and income disparities, South Africa now has arguably

vol xlIX no 24

the highest level of per capita servicedelivery protests in the world.

While the Indian National Congress
was routed in a landslide victory by
a strong opposition Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) headed by Narendra Modi
(now-prime minister), the Brazilian
Workers Party also faces a strong opposition coalition that is likely to oust the
incumbent government later this year.
For the Congress Party which had ruled
India for much of its post-Independence
history, these results were nothing short
of catastrophic.
Such an outcome seemed highly unlikely in South Africa, which re-elected
the African National Congress (ANC) on
7 May 2014. This result should be something of a wake-up call to other former
liberation movements in Africa and Asia
which delivered independence from colonial rule but later became embroiled in
corruption and patronage politics and
lost touch with the masses. Coinciding
21

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
22

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

notoriously racist society run for the benefit

of whites only; and perhaps two decades of
ANC rule are too short to undo the legacy
of neglect and harassment endured by the
poor Black majority for over a century. But
South Africas continuing fi rst world corporate capitalism and the third world conditions most citizens live in are both to a significant extent a product of post-apartheid
government. The arrival of democracy
since 1994 in the form of black majority
rule has seen an increase in economic inequality. The social glue for this paradoxical situation is the ANCs ability to count
on the votes of the black majority whose
interests it systematically neglects (Hart
and Padayachee 2013).

So how did we get here? What policy

choices did the ANC, then the ANC-led
government make after 1994? In the early
1990s, following its unbanning, the ANCled Congress alliance, at the instigation
of countries like Canada, set up its own
macroeconomic policy advisory group,
the Macroeconomic Research Group
(MERG). This was no easy task for the
movement, given its lack of attention for
decades to economic policy. The approach adopted, coming as it did in the
context of a highly democratic style of
decision-making adopted by the unions
and civil society movements in the
struggle against apartheid, may well
have sown the seeds for a growing
mistrust and suspicion between the alliance partners that characterises policymaking to this day.
MERG produced an economic policy
framework that focused on state-led infrastructure and social investment
(housing, transport, education, health)
which was much needed following years
of neglect of these areas by the apartheid state. It was argued that such state
investment would create multiplier effects throughout the economy in a way
that would crowd-in private investment. However MERG was unceremoniously dumped at its birth (in December
1993). An IMF Compensatory and Contingency Financing Facility (CCFF) (with
their usual conditionality) was hurriedly
agreed to by the ANC in the Transitional
Executive Council, a kind of co-governance machinery with representation by
both the old and likely incoming parties.
A dirigiste plan for economic transformation (the Reconstruction and
vol xlIX no 24

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Economic & Political Weekly

COMMENTARY

Development Programme or RDP) led by

the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) was agreed to by the ANC
as its economic manifesto to fight the
elections. But this plan was effectively
dumped too within two years, the RDP
office closed in early 1996, and with the
currency coming under severe pressure,
a new (essentially market-friendly)
strategy the Growth, Employment and
Redistribution Strategy (GEAR) was
produced under much secrecy and announced in June 1996 as non-negotiable.
South Africas own giant multinational
corporations (including Anglo-American,
Billiton, South African Breweries, Dimension Data and Old Mutual) took the gap
created up by the more liberal regime that
was GEAR, not to invest within South
Africa, but to seek the primary listing of its
shares in London in 1997-98, so easing
the repatriation of funds out of South
Africa by various means.
The interesting point to note about
state expenditure after GEAR was that
spending in many areas of economic
and social services increased even in
real terms. Expenditure in education
remains the largest single line item
(though a much too large part of this is
current rather than capital investment),
and by 2013 some 15 million South
Africans benefited from state social
grants of various kinds, which alone
have been crucial in staving off extreme poverty among this vulnerable
constituency of unemployed, disabled,
young, old and ill.
Arguably the Zuma administrations
greatest success has been in health, especially on HIV-AIDS. Compared to
Mbekis strangely unscientific, quirky
and ultimately tragic stance over the
cause and treatment of the infection,
the Zuma administration, under a dedicated and well-informed health minister, has rolled out an effective treatment regime that has seen mother to
child transmission down, a doubling of
those on anti-retroviral treatment, and
hence an increase in life expectancy
Increased state expenditure has also
been accompanied by a dramatic growth
in corruption and inefficiency, in part
due to the ANC policy of cadre deployment, where until recently when new
Economic & Political Weekly

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June 14, 2014

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

vol xlIX no 24

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).

It is a telling statement of the state of

opposition politics in South Africa that
despite the parlous state of the economy,
rampant levels of corruption and scandals, and daily and violent protests on its
streets, the most powerful force against
the ANC-led government lies within the
Congress alliance itself, in the form of
COSATUs largest and most militant affiliate, the National Union of Metalworkers
of South Africa (NUMSA). NUMSA strongly and wholly opposes the National Development Plan (which COSATU and the
South African Communist Party (SACP)
also oppose in part) labelling it a continuation of GEAR, the 1996 neo-liberal
class project, and has publicly called for
a socialist solution to South Africas
ongoing capitalist crisis. (For more on
the latter see special issue of Transformation 81/2, 2013.)
It is worth making the observation
here that intellectual debate in South
Africa since 1990 has been nothing

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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
24

as it had predicted in Gauteng, the countrys industrial and financial heartland.

In fact the DA received increased support
in all of the metropolitan centres apart
from Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, so much
so that these metros, with their growing
middle-class voters of all races, may
come within the reach of DA control in
local government elections in 2016, unless the ANC government visibly turns
things around. There is a real possibility
that the ANC may become an essentially
rural party if these trends continue.
However the DAs relative success was
quickly tarnished following the internecine battles within the party after the
decision of its parliamentary leader
Lindiwe Mazibuko to quit her post to
study at Harvards Kennedy School of
Government. The new parliamentary
leader is the young, black Gauteng leader
Mmusi Maimane, apparently a favourite
of the party leader Helen Zille, whose
autocratic style of leadership was one
reason why Mazibuko quit her post.
Journalist and former DA staffer Gareth
van Onselen, described Zille as a dominant and authoritarian personality.
The EFF, a party led by former ANC
Youth League leader Julius Malema,
achieved remarkable support across the
country, winning 6.35% of the vote at its
very first attempt, with only minimal
resources at its disposal. Clearly Malemas

populist rhetoric, which includes a

promise to nationalise the mines and
banks, appealed to many people, including workers in the platinum belt around
Marikana, where in August 2012 police
are alleged to have shot and killed 44
striking miners. The EFF took over as the
official opposition in that province
(north-west) as well as in Limpopo, the
home province of Julius Malema. But
whether the EFF can master the politics
of parliament in the way it appears to
have mastered the politics of the street,
remains unclear. Some commentators
predict that like other breakaway parties like the Pan Africanist Congress
(PAC) and Congress of the People (COPE),
the EFF too will struggle to build upon its
debut in national elections.
The COPE, another breakaway from
the ANC, which gleaned over 1.2 million
votes in 2009, was annihilated in this
election along with almost all the socialist and black consciousness-leaning parties, including AZAPO and the PAC. Agang
(SA), a new party led by struggle veteran
and now businesswoman, Mamphela
Ramphele, a former managing director
at the World Bank and a struggle activist
of long-standing, fared only little better
than the latter group of fringe parties,
winning just two seats in the national
parliament (Ramphele chose herself to
bow out of parliamentary politics).

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vol xlIX no 24

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COMMENTARY

President Zuma appointed his new

(and very large) cabinet of 35 ministers
and the same number of deputy-ministers in late May. While markets looked
for safe hands and stable leadership
and continuity and consistency in policy
and personnel in the cluster of economics ministries, some changes did occur.
The minister of finance was replaced
without good reason or explanation
(though with an equally competent successor, the former deputy minister of
finance) and a new ministry for small
business was established. The rest of the
team was more or less intact, which was
a positive signal to markets.
As one looks ahead, it is clear that
there is a pressing need for greater policy
coherence among these economic departments and a greater focus on a policy
framework that unambiguously promotes growth and employment, and reverses the dangerous trend in social and
economic inequality. Essential too will
be the restoration of a more harmonious
labour relations environment, which
will have to mean that the mining companies in particular will have to shake
off all vestiges of its apartheid era cheap
labour policy and commit to a living
wage and to social and economic investment in the impoverished mining communities upon whose labour it is dependent. Progressive unions including
COSATU too will have to reverse the
threats of splits and breakaways and try
to rebuild a stronger workers movement
directed at addressing workers needs on
the shop floor and communities, rather
than jockeying for power and privileges
at party political levels. Increased state
expenditure on, and enhanced state capacity directed at alleviating poverty
and improving service delivery to the
poorest should be high priorities of the
new government. Any signals that suggest that the ANC-led government is seriously committed to addressing corruption will be welcomed by both the markets and citizens alike.
4 Challenges Ahead
Only a very partial reading of the last 20
years would characterise this critical era
in the countrys history as one of unbridled success. But 1994 was without
Economic & Political Weekly

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June 14, 2014

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

vol xlIX no 24

remind ourselves too that there were

gains made in the 1980s and consolidated after 1994 in establishing
through struggle a highly progressive
industrial relations system a strong,
independent, non-racial labour movement, centralised bargaining, one industry one union, equity, conditions of
employment that have been severely
compromised over recent years.
Marikana is evidence of how tragically wrong things have gone in this regard. Restoring a sound and progressive labour relations regime must rank
alongside a new and sustainable energy
policy and a cheaper and more stable
ICT platform, as other key elements of
any developmental plan. The real beneficiaries of the past 20 years of democracy has been a new elite of BEE (Black
Economic Empowerment) sponsored
black mining capitalists, a new strata of
state bureaucrats and professionals
who undergird a growing middle class
in and around the metros of Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, and of
course South Africas giant mining, industrial and financial conglomerates,
who took the gap opened up by the globalisation of the economy post-1994 to
exit and seek a better life in London
and elsewhere. Neither a finely crafted
liberal constitution nor the much
vaunted notion of macroeconomic balance means much to the many millions
of South Africans, especially those who
are young and black and female, whose
lives have either stagnated or regressed
markedly over the last 20 years.
References
Ashman, Samantha, Ben Fine, Vishnu Padayachee
and John Sender (2014, forthcoming): The Political Economy of Restructuring South Africa,
in Haroon Bhorat, et al (ed.), The Oxford Companion to South African Economics (Cape Town:
Oxford University Press).
Freund, Bill (2013): Swimming Against the Tide:
The Macro-Economic Research Group in the
South African Transition 1991-94, Review of
African Political Economy.
Hart, Keith and Padayachee (2013): A History of
South African Capitalism in National and
Global Perspective in Capitalism of a Special Type: South African Capitalism Before
and After Apartheid, Transformation, 81/2,
July 2013.
Saul, John (2005): The Next Liberation Struggle:
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy in Southern Africa (Pietermartizburg: UKZN Press).

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