The rolling blackouts imposed by Eskom last week were reminiscent of 1983, when the utility was challenged by serious drought and lost about 3,000MW of generating capacity.
Some three-fifths of that was attributable to the drought and the remainder to unreliable supplies from the Cahora Bassa scheme in Mozambique. PW Botha and his National Party (NP) colleagues were extremely irritated by the blackout, which followed divisions in the party that had led to the breakaway of the Conservative Party.
Like the ANC today, the NP had a lot on its plate at the time, including a political transition that led to the institutionalisation of the tricameral parliament, the energy crisis and an underperforming economy that had shrunk by 1.8% in 1983.
Faced with by-elections in 1984 and high interest rates, specifically on mortgages held by Afrikaner working-class voters, an angry constituency as a result of blackouts and political reforms, NP candidate Piet Welgemoed attracted 6,053 votes, against 5,305 for Schalk Pienaar of the Conservative Party. The NP had carried the seat by 4,500 votes just three years earlier.
The escalating black revolt in SA, a debt standstill and failing economy forced the NP to the negotiating table, which eventually led to a democratic dispensation. This raises the question: are blackouts an indicator of a failing regime, as posited in Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s Why Nations Fail?
Cahora Bassa also featured in public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan’s speech last week following Cyclone Idai’s destruction in Mozambique. The opportunity costs of a blackout include job losses, low growth and a shrinking tax base. In 1984 the NP government put pressure on the central bank to cut interest rates shortly before the by-elections discussed above.
Similarly, the ANC election machinery has been quick to respond to the anger of the public arising from the blackouts and general incompetence that have characterised ANC governance in recent years. Higher education minister Naledi Pandor allocated an additional R967m to the national student financial aid scheme to settle historic debt owed to universities by 52,514 students. While undoubtedly welcome to those concerned, the timing raises a number of concerns in the buildup to an election.
A number of SA’s universities and colleges have voted overwhelmingly for EFF student representative councils over the past year, and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Pandor’s largesse is intended to win the hearts and minds of this constituency. Jacob Zuma’s fee-free tertiary education bonanza springs to mind.
Moreover, President Cyril Ramaphosa has also been sending mixed messages on the campaign trail on matters such as the nationalisation of the SA Reserve Bank and the land reform programme, which has suddenly become urgent after years of neglect and under-resourcing.
The ANC has made huge strides since 1994 in addressing economic exclusion and the marginalisation of black people in general. But it has failed dismally in changing the economic structure that served a minority into a broad and inclusive economy for the many.
A recent open letter by a group of ANC elders decried the surge in acts of corruption associated with the ANC and its government, shoddy and unacceptable levels of service to the populace, and poor administration of many local, provincial and national government institutions. But they fell short of calling for the scrapping of ANC policies such as black economic empowerment and preferential procurement, which have been captured by black elite groups and are ineffective, exclusionary and marginalise millions of South Africans just as apartheid policies did.
Acemoglu and Robinson argue that when governments promote vested interests they block innovation and growth, resulting in failing nations. A vote for the ANC as represented by those on the list submitted to the Electoral Commission of SA is therefore a vote for a failing nation.
• Mondi is a senior lecturer in the Wits School of Economic and Business Sciences
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