New South African Review 2. Paul Hoffman

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СКАЧАТЬ certain senior ANC figures the ANC is not ‘just another party’ in a pluralist setting. Pluralism, by definition, requires an unconditional acceptance that other parties have the right to organise and to compete with the dominant party irrespective of arguments over the historical record. Currently an uneasy tension prevails between the liberal-democratic values embodied in the 1996 constitution and the militant and frequently militaristic liberationist rhetoric emanating from sections of the ruling party. That rhetoric is usually distinguished by its intolerance of dissenting voices and an impatience with the basic ingredients of liberal and popular democracy such as free speech, a separation of powers and the sovereignty, not of the dominant political party, but of the constitution. Julius Malema’s infamous statement that he would ‘kill for Zuma’ was repeated and amplified by the Cosatu general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi (2008) (who later regretted making the statement). In May 2009, Umkhonto we Sizwe (the former armed wing of the ANC) veterans declared that they would make the opposition-controlled Western Cape ‘ungovernable’. With regard to the judiciary, the partisan meddling, interference and threats evident from senior ANC figures during the long Mbeki-Zuma conflict (whether from those seeking to bring Zuma to trial on charges of corruption or those campaigning to have the charges dropped) suggested that some in the party did not view the independence of the judiciary as a bedrock principle, but saw it more instrumentally and opportunistically as a temporary expedient to be adhered to (or not) as the occasion and political convenience demanded. The 2008 denunciation by the ANC secretary general, Gwede Mantashe, of the Constitutional Court – itself composed of ‘counter-revolutionaries’ – is instructive in this regard (Matthews, 2008). One of the defining struggles of South African politics over the next decade will be between the reality of one-party dominance, the liberationist ethos sustaining it (and the morbid symptoms to which it will give rise) and the strength and resilience of the country’s liberal democratic infrastructure and the capacity of constitutional values, not merely to survive, but to flourish in a political environment shaped by the hegemony of a single party.

      In one significant respect the ANC has emulated its apartheid-era predecessor. In the aftermath of the 1948 election, the National Party populated the higher echelons of the state with its own loyalists. The ANC, through its policy of ‘cadre deployment’, has followed suit. Not only are key institutions like the South African Broadcasting Corporation, the South African National Defence Force, the Reserve Bank, and South African Police Services presided over by reliable (though not always competent) ANC figures, but the leaks from the intelligence services to make the prosecution of Zuma impossible also shows an alarming ascendancy of party over state. Moreover, as was

      the case under Mbeki, loyalty to Zuma personally has become the litmus test for senior state appointments. Zuma’s appointment of Menzi Simelane as head of the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions, Moe Shaik as head of the Secret Service, and Bheki Cele as National Police Commissioner placed close comrades in strategically important state positions.

      Supporters of Zuma suggest in his defence that he has repudiated the authoritarianism of Thabo Mbeki. We are more sceptical, given inter alia his pronouncements on the party’s electoral immovability and its imagined divine endorsement which suggest, to us, that he too embraces the notion of ANC exceptionalism – and it is that exceptionalist culture which provides the setting in which authoritarian attitudes may thrive.

      There can be little doubt that levels of state corruption are rising in the Zuma era. The ANC’s ally in the Tripartite Alliance, and therefore a more difficult voice for the leadership to dismiss, Cosatu, argues that the business interests of the South African government pose a real threat to democracy and that if the ruling party does not take a tough stance on this ‘We will be en route to Zimbabwe and other failed revolutions elsewhere in the world’ (Mail & Guardian, 17 April 2010). In June 2010, Cosatu’s warnings of the emergence of a crony state were amplified more starkly by its general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, previously a staunch Zuma ally, when he stated that South Africa was ‘heading rapidly in the direction of a full-blown predator state in which a powerful, corrupt and demagogic elite of political hyenas increasingly controls the state as a vehicle for accumulation’ (The Economist, 4 September 2010). The disbanding of the Scorpions – a unit set up in 1999 specifically to expose corruption and which incurred the ANC’s wrath by its willingness to scrutinise the behaviour of the very highest officials in the land, including Zuma himself – was troubling in this respect. It should also be noted that, in contrast to his later rhetoric, Vavi strongly supported Zuma’s decision on the Scorpions.

      Writing in Business Day (11 February 2011), Moeletsi Mbeki – former President Thabo Mbeki’s brother – argued that the post-apartheid state relates to business interests in a corrupt fashion and the easy movement between the ANC and the business world triggered by black economic empowerment (BEE) is a particular concern. In a similar vein, Rapule Tabane (Mail & Guardian, 4 June 2010) commented that ‘when competent, honest business people have no hope of securing business if they do not endear themselves to the politicians (and share their profits with them) and, more importantly, when our younger brothers and sisters have no chance of finding work unless they lick the arses of politicians, we are no different to the corrupt Kenya Obama wrote about’.

      The proposal to shackle the media with a tribunal also represents a potentially sinister development. In the Mail & Guardian (30 July 2010), Michael Trapido asked: ‘Are we to be told in Mugabe-like fashion when millions are on the brink of starvation that colonialism and apartheid are responsible while a handful of fat cats live like Donald Trump? Is the government seriously expecting the media to condone their hiding of information?’ For John Kane-Berman (Business Day, 16 August 2010), the proposed media tribunal is essentially an attempt to reduce the media to the status of an instrument of the ANC’s ‘national democratic revolution’.

      Justice Malala (Times Live, 30 August 2010), a fierce critic, argues that ‘the ANC … has the weakest, greediest, most corrupt and compromised leadership since its birth ninety-eight years ago. These so-called leaders want to shut down the medium that exposes their corruption, looting and hypocrisy’. Equally strident is Rhoda Kadalie (Business Day, 31 August 2010) who bemoans a crisis of governance under the ANC: ‘Whether it is children killed through reckless driving, corrupt MPs, an unruly SABC, Sisulu or irregular mining deals, they all point to one thing – a creeping anarchic state where things fall apart because the centre is out of control’. The view of much of the media was effectively captured by Lee Hall who, in an open letter to President Zuma (Mail & Guardian, 2 October 2010), argued that: ‘The African National Congress have signally failed their own people. They have failed the country. And they have failed Africa. It is time now for them either to mend their ways, or else to go – before the Zanufication of South Africa becomes irreversible.’

      KEY DIFFERENCES: The experience of liberation

      Despite the force and accuracy of at least some of the above commentaries, taken collectively they appear crude, one-dimensional and overstated. South Africa is not Zimbabwe, although we might add the caveat that Zanufication is a process rather than an event and that Zimbabwe was not always as it appears today. The process gives Zanufication a gradual, incremental character, with the symptoms identified above embedding themselves over time, if left unchallenged. Therefore the more appropriate question is not ‘has South Africa become the new Zimbabwe?’ but, rather, ‘in what direction are things moving and do they appear to place South Africa on a Zimbabweanstyle trajectory?’

      According to his biographer, Mark Gevisser (2007: 433), Mbeki was almost alone among the ANC leadership in his admiration for Zanu in the independence elections of 1980. In general, the ANC was dismayed by the Zanu victory. It had close links to Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) and the ANC’s armed wing had fought with Zipra СКАЧАТЬ