SA’s government of national unity has been celebrated as if it is a silver bullet. But let’s not break out the bubbly just yet. Beneath this façade lies an arrangement about as sturdy as a house of cards in a wind tunnel.
Between the ANC’s family feuds, SA’s endless economic malaise and the rise of populist rage, the GNU might be less stable than some folk imagine, driven as they are by hope and a desire to maintain the integrity of the bubble they occupy.
The ANC, long considered a broad church, is now looking increasingly like a dysfunctional family reunion; one side of the room is focused on land expropriation and what they can get out of it, while the other is texting business elites for expensive lunch dates.
With intense infighting involving radical economic transformers squaring off against the more business-friendly moderates, the ANC is destined to split over time. And the more divided the ANC, the shakier the GNU becomes.
SA’s poor majority has always been promised the moon — housing, jobs, prosperity and more. But in reality, instead of wealth trickling down, poverty seems to be moving up. And while the GNU talks a good game about inclusivity, in practice the seats are reserved for VIPs, with the largely black majority scrabbling for the crumbs. Plus ça change.
Let’s be honest — President Cyril Ramaphosa isn’t exactly your textbook man of the people. Sure, he’s got the political pedigree, but this is the guy who used to get his morning updates from the stock market before he even glanced at the headlines. With a portfolio that would make most CEOs blush, it’s hard to imagine him downing a Black Label beer while shooting the breeze at the local shebeen. Ramaphosa may talk the talk, but when it comes to walking the walk for the poor, his billionaire shoes are made for boardrooms, not the dusty streets of Soweto.
Bad horror movie
Then there’s former president Jacob Zuma, whose political comeback attempts are like a bad horror movie — just when you think he’s finished, there he is — back in the frame. Zuma has a real gift for connecting with the uniquely configured rural vote as he makes a disingenuous play for those left out by the ANC’s elites. The old boy can pull a crowd to listen to his brand of fiery rhetoric.
His attraction of former EFF figures to his MK party — all clad in the vestments of the ANC — hints at an amalgamation of the rural constituency with aspects reminiscent of Hugo Chávez’s Venezuelan playbook, which delivered Chávez, via democratic elections, the reins of power in 1998.
But even Chávez — a far more honest ideologue than the populist Zuma — remains a polarising figure in Venezuela and internationally. Supporters highlight his efforts to empower the poor and reduce social inequalities, while critics point to economic mismanagement, authoritarian tendencies and the erosion of democratic institutions during his tenure. His presidency set the stage for the political and economic crises that continue to affect Venezuela. In the long run Zuma and MK may well seek to replicate some of the Chávista aura.
Zuma’s supporters see him as a political Robin Hood — minus the tights, thankfully — promising to take from the rich and give to the poor. The reality, of course, was more like robbing from state coffers and giving to his cronies. But hey, corruption aside the man’s got charisma, and in a country in which discontent is as common as potholes, that counts for something. I guess the worrying message is: don’t write him off.
Bear in mind too that SA’s political dynamics share commonalities with other nations in the region in which power-sharing agreements and unity governments have proved short-lived due to conflicting political visions and unsustainable compromises.
Are you beginning to see the long-term irrelevance of champions of minorities and neoliberalism in this very African scenario?
• Cachalia is a former DA MP and public enterprises spokesperson.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.