The ANC says it will not embark on populist macroeconomic policies amid growing fears that the governing party will lose its electoral majority in 2024, a situation that might force it to form coalitions with opposition parties.
The prospect of a poor performance in next year’s polls has raised fears the ruling party will adopt populist economic policies to attract votes.
The governing party is facing mounting pressure from society and its alliance partners, Cosatu and the SA Communist Party (SACP), to provide additional social protection against economic and social challenges. The government is also facing an unprecedented energy crisis, infrastructure bottlenecks and rising unemployment.
The SA economy is battling slow growth with the International Monetary Fund cutting its growth forecast for the country to just 0.1% because of electricity shortages. The SA Reserve Bank expects growth of 0.2% for this year.
“This is our seventh election and we have been very consistent about not running populist election campaigns,” the ANC’s head of policy and research Febe Potgieter says.
She told Business Day on the sidelines of the four-day ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting that public sector wages are not an election issue, but because Cosatu is aligned to the ANC, it places the governing party in a “tricky” situation.”
“Our position is that [public sector wages] are a matter for the bargaining council. We assume that ministers have consulted with the Treasury regarding the 7.5%,” she said.
The government buckled to pressure from labour unions earlier this year when it agreed to implement a 7.5% wage hike for 1.3-million public servants — possibly undermining Treasury’s budget commitments.
The 7.5% wage offer is set to increase the R690bn public sector wage bill to more than R741bn. National Treasury had pencilled in an average annual growth rate of 1.6% in government employee salaries for 2023/2024.
Workers showed their dissatisfaction with the ANC during Cosatu’s national conference in 2022 when ANC chairperson and minerals and energy minister Gwede Mantashe was booed offstage. They said then they were irked by the high cost of living, low salary increases, poor service delivery, load-shedding, high unemployment and what they regard as the ANC’s intransigence towards corruption.
Potgieter said the NEC will urge Cosatu to give assurances that ANC members will not receive a hostile reception during this year’s workers’ day celebrations on May 1.
The SACP and Cosatu are expected to hold joint celebrations in the Free State on May Day.
“Cosatu has briefed us [the ANC] that it is calling a special central executive committee meeting to address this matter because we certainly don’t expect disruptions from certain sections of the affiliates to disrupt the May Day rally,” Potgieter said.
“We are confident that May Day this year will focus on the commemorations and addressing general issues that workers face.”
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