Tài liệu State of the Nation - South Africa 2008 pdf

List of tables and figures viiForeword ix Acronyms xii Introduction: Uncertain democracy - elite fragmentation and the disintegration of the ‘nationalist consensus’ in South Africa xv P

Edited by Lungisile Ntsebeza & Peter Kagwanja

Edited By Peter Kagwanja & Kwandiwe Kondlo

First published 2009

ISBN (soft cover) 978-0-7969-2199-4

ISBN (pdf) 978-0-7969-2285-4

© 2009 Human Sciences Research Council

The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors They do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Human Sciences Research Council (‘the Council’)

or indicate that the Council endorses the views of the authors In quoting from this publication, readers are advised to attribute the source of the information to the individual author concerned and not to the Council.

Typeset by Simon van Gend

Cover design by Farm Design

Cover photo by Russell Mbulelo Kana

Print management by comPress

Printed by Logo Print, Cape Town, South Africa

Distributed in Africa by Blue Weaver

Distributed in North America by Independent Publishers Group (IPG)

Call toll-free: (800) 888 4741; Fax: +1 (312) 337 5985

List of tables and figures vii

Foreword ix

Acronyms xii

Introduction: Uncertain democracy - elite fragmentation and

the disintegration of the ‘nationalist consensus’ in South Africa xv

Peter Kagwanja

Part I: Politics

1 The Polokwane moment and South Africa’s democracy at the crossroads 3

Somadoda Fikeni

2 Modernising the African National Congress:

The legacy of President Thabo Mbeki 35

Part II: Economics

5 The developmental state in South Africa: The difficult road ahead 107 Sampie Terreblanche

6 Globalisation and transformation of the South African merchant navy:

A case of flag of (in)convenience shipping? 131

Shaun Ruggunan

7 Service delivery as a measure of change:

State capacity and development 151

David Hemson, Jonathan Carter and Geci Karuri-Sebina

Donald Gibson, Amina Ismail, Darryll Kilian and Maia Matshikiza

Part III: Society

9 Beyond yard socialism: Landlords, tenants and social power

in the backyards of a South African city 203

Leslie Bank

10 Internationalisation and competitiveness in South African urban governance: On the contradictions of aspirationist urban policy-making 226

Scarlett Cornelissen

Part IV: South Africa, Africa and the globe

11 South Africa and the Great Lakes: A complex diplomacy 253

Table 1.1 ANC membership and voting delegates at the December 2007

conference 17Table 1.2 Polokwane conference election results for top six NEC positions

18Table 1.3 2004 election results: National Assembly 25

Table 3.1 Major South African political parties represented in the

National Assembly after the 1994, 1999 and 2004 elections,

by percentage 72Table 6.1 Unicorn’s ships and flagging practices 134

Table 10.1 Economic development goals in South Africa’s three largest

metropolises, 2006–2111 239Table 10.2 Johannesburg Development Agency’s main partnerships and

development projects 242Table 10.3 Durban Investment Promotion Agency’s main partnerships

and development projects 243Table 11.1 South African foreign policy priorities, 2004–2008 255

Table 12.1 Kofi Annan’s plans for the reform of the UN Security

Council, 2005 284Table 12.2 AU plans for UN Security Council reform, 2005 288

Figures

Figure 8.1 Conceptual models of development 180

Figure 8.2 Ecosystem services and their relationship to human

well-being 181Figure 8.3 Levels of soil, vegetation and overall degradation in South Africa,

c 1998 185Figure 8.4 Status of terrestrial ecosystems, South Africa, 2004 188

The exciting times in which we live as South Africans just never end The period 1994 to 1999, sometimes referred to as the era of ‘Madiba magic’, was a heroic one; it was a time of tasting and celebrating the possibilities of our new democracy From 1999 to 2004, the period some refer to as the era

of ‘Mbeki logic’, responses to managerial imperatives came to the fore and

we witnessed the implementation of comprehensive policy reforms and the steady growth of our economy The years 2004 to the present have combined the hope and optimism of the Madiba period and the orientation towards policy implementation and public service management of the Mbeki period with an increasing sense of uncertainty and anxiety as the leadership contests within the African National Congress (ANC) dominate public attention The latter trend culminated in the December 2007 ANC National Conference in Polokwane, the subsequent recall of President Mbeki, the split within the ruling party, and the formation of a new political party – the Congress of the People

These developments have generated much debate and the expression of a wide range of views Some political analysts emphasised the basic dimension of ‘a changing of the guard’ and its associated manifestations in the redefinition

of existing relations between party and state, between the leadership and the led, and between the haves and the have-nots, as well as the consolidation

of internal democracy in the ANC-led alliance in a way that amounts to the reinvention of socio-political and economic emancipation Other analysts saw in the changes the settling in of a possible mediation of polarisations and disparities in our political economy and society Yet others saw in the same changes the dynamism of stable continuity As a result of these varied perspectives, the conversations and debates about the likely future political, social and economic trajectory of the country are ongoing and have become

interestingly robust The chapters in this edition of State of the Nation

encompass these varied perspectives and are a sample of the ongoing debates

In keeping with its commitment to ‘social science that makes a difference’, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) is proud to present the selection of views contained in this edition, which continues the tradition of contributing

to the ongoing dialogue and wide-ranging debates between researchers,

policy-makers, public managers and policy activists, as well as revealing and revelling in the vibrancy of our democracy and sharing contemporary insights into the challenges facing our nation As with previous editions, the editors of this edition have attempted to strike a balance in their coverage

of issues – a balance between focusing on South Africa’s internal politics, society and economy, and concentrating on South Africa’s external relations, most critically with other African nations but also in relation to the country’s bilateral and multilateral relations with the rest of the world

The interpretations of our situation offered in this volume are diverse, including some that are critical of government policies, state institutions, political parties – including the ruling party – and global institutions However, all the contributors have sought to interpret their topics based upon both historical understanding and empirical research, and the chapters reflect

a nuanced take on aspects of the state of our nation Neither the introductory chapter by the editors nor the perspectives presented in the subsequent chapters represent the views of the HSRC and, as is the case with all HSRC Press publications, editorial independence is respected and upheld as a matter

of principle

I would like to record our gratitude to the four donor organisations that continue to provide solid support to this project Atlantic Philanthropies, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and the Ford Foundation provided the generous financial assistance which enabled the compilation and production

of this publication Equally important was the contribution of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which financed several workshops in the HSRC’s Democracy and Governance Research Programme The latter Foundation has

in the past also supported the launch workshops which allowed us to extend the debate on the state of the nation well beyond the academy

The success of State of the Nation is in large measure due to the commitment

and effort of its editors and in this regard I would like to single out the contribution of the founding editors John Daniel, Adam Habib and Roger Southall in launching what has now become a flagship publication of the HSRC The contributions of subsequent editors that variously included Sakhela Buhlungu and Jessica Lutchman are also acknowledged Thank you all for the continuing legacy of scholarship in the nexus of social science and public policy

For a number of reasons the transitions between various groups of editors have not been as seamless as we would have desired and we have struggled with ensuring continuity amidst change Lungisile Ntsebeza, Peter Kagwanja and Kwandiwe Kondlo, Executive Director of the HSRC’s Democracy and Governance Research Programme, deserve a special word of thanks in this regard The delayed production of this edition was overcome through tapping into collaboration networks and by drawing upon an outstanding commitment to ensuring that this important national project continues We will continue to tap into these networks and draw upon this commitment

to ensure continuity for the future As part of these efforts a new lead editor will be appointed following the resignation of Lungisile Ntsebeza from the

editorial team A decision has also been made to publish State of the Nation

at the beginning of each calendar year to coincide with the beginning of the academic year in South African institutions of higher education, rather than towards the end of the calendar year as was previously the case

As with previous editions, Garry Rosenberg, Mary Ralphs, Karen Bruns, Utando Baduza and all the staff of the HSRC Press have continued to play their part in ensuring the success of this project and I convey the appreciation

of their colleagues

State of the Nation is a mechanism for dialogue and public debate aimed at

engendering the kind of knowledge that public policy needs in order to be more effective I trust that this edition keeps us on course towards achieving this goal

Africom African Command

ANC African National Congress

Apla Azanian People’s Liberation Army

Asgisa Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa

AU African Union

Azapo Azanian People’s Organisation

BC Black Consciousness

BCF Black Consciousness Forum

BCM Black Consciousness Movement

BEE Black Economic Empowerment

BPC Black People’s Convention

CBD Central Business District

CBO Community-based organisation

Codesa Convention for a Democratic South Africa

Cosatu Congress of South African Trade Unions

CTRU Cape Town Routes Unlimited

DA Democratic Alliance

DBSA Development Bank of Southern Africa

DEAT Department of Environmental Affairs and TourismDME Department of Minerals and Energy

DPSIR Drivers-pressures-state-impacts-responses

DRC Democratic Republic of Congo

DVRA Duncan Village Residents’ Association

ESI Environmental Sustainability Index

EU European Union

FDD Force for the Defence of Democracy

Fifa Fédération Internationale de Football AssociationFLS Frontline States

FNL Forces for National Liberation

FoC Flag of convenience

Frelimo Frente de Libertação Moçambique

GDP Gross domestic product

GEAR Growth, Employment and Redistribution programmeHSRC Human Sciences Research Council

ICC International Convention Centre

ICT Information and communications technology

ID Independent Democrats

IDP Integrated Development Plan

IFP Inkatha Freedom Party

ILO International Labour Organization

IMF International Monetary Fund

IRIN UN Integrated Regional Information Network

IT Information technology

ITF International Transport Workers Federation

JDA Johannesburg Development Agency

JOC Joint Operations Command

MCS Marine Crew Services

MDC Movement for Democratic Change (Zimbabwe)

MK Umkhonto we Sizwe

MP Member of parliament

MPLA Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola

NDR National Democratic Revolution

NEC National Executive Committee

Nepad New Partnership for Africa’s Development

NFSD National Framework for Sustainable Development

NGC National General Council

NGO Non-governmental organisation

NNP New National Party

NP National Party

NPA National Prosecuting Authority

NSDP National Spatial Development Perspective

NWC National Working Committee

OAU Organisation of African Unity

OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

OPDS Organ for Politics, Defence and Security

PAC Pan-Africanist Congress

PRC People’s Republic of China

PSC Public Service Commission

RDP Reconstruction and Development Programme

RLDF Royal Lesotho Defence Force

RSC Regional Services Council

SAAF South African Air Force

SABC South African Broadcasting Association

SACP South African Communist Party

SADC Southern African Development Community

SADF South African Defence Force

SAfMA Southern African Millennium Ecosystem AssessmentSamsa South African Maritime Safety Authority

Sanco South African National Civic Organisation

Sars South African Revenue Service

Saso South African Students’ Organisation

SASSA South African Social Security Agency

Satawu South African Transport and Allied Workers UnionSopa Socialist Party of Azania

SRI Socially Responsible Investment

Swapo South West African People’s Organisation

TETA Transport Education and Training Authority

UCDP United Christian Democratic Party

UDF United Democratic Front

UDM United Democratic Movement

UN United Nations

UNDP United Nations Development Progrmme

Unita National Union for the Total Independence of AngolaUNOMSA UN Observer Mission in South Africa

UNSC United Nations Security Council

Wesgro Western Cape Trade and Investment Promotion AgencyZanu-PF Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic FrontZapu Zimbabwe African People’s Union

fragmentation and the disintegration of the

‘nationalist consensus’ in South Africa

Peter Kagwanja

Since ethnonationalism is a direct consequence of key elements of

modernization, it is likely to gain ground in societies undergoing

such a process It is hardly surprising, therefore, that it remains

among the most vital – and most disruptive – forces in many parts

of the contemporary world (Muller 2008: 33)

Two historic events have heralded the disintegration of nationalism in South Africa: the electoral defeat of the nationalist icon President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe in March 2008, forcing him to sign a power-sharing deal with the opposition; and the forced exit of President Thabo Mbeki, another architect of African nationalism, in September of the same year Faced with bloodletting power struggles, escalating violent crime, joblessness, grinding poverty and mass protests by the impoverished across the country against spiralling food prices, the high cost of living and poor service delivery, former President Mbeki prefaced his annual ‘State of the Nation’ address on 9 February 2007 with a passionate appeal to the unifying impulse of nationalism Mbeki’s speech has become emblematic of South Africa’s troubling transition from the ‘age of hope’ of the early post-apartheid years to a new ‘age of despair’

(Mashike 2008) This volume of State of the Nation draws attention to

nationalism as the salient issue that has framed the seismic shifts in South Africa’s politics, economy, society and foreign relations in the run-up to and aftermath of the historic 52nd African National Congress (ANC) National Conference in Polokwane in December 2007 – which sounded the death knell

to the Mbeki presidency (1999–2008)

In the 15 years since the demise of the parochial nationalisms of the apartheid era, South Africa’s democracy has become increasingly uncertain What

was identified elsewhere in immediate post-colonial Africa as ‘the era of the beautiful bride’, where the nationalist euphoria of the liberation period served as the glue that held together the broad elite consensus, has come to a close And with it, the outlook for South African nationalism, which reached its apex under Mbeki, looks bleak Mbeki’s South Africa is a dramatic story, unequalled elsewhere in Africa Far from producing one united and equitable nation, post-apartheid development strategies have created what analysts have dubbed ‘two different countries’ (Herbst 2005: 93): one Lockean, largely white, wealthy and secure; the other Hobbesian, overwhelmingly black, poverty-stricken and crime-ridden The ‘two countries’, however, share one

of the world’s reputably most liberal constitutions and a vibrant pluralist democracy characterised by regular free and fair elections – albeit up to this point dominated by the ruling ANC – and an economy that has grown faster

in the last 15 years than it did in the 1980s, increasingly attracting foreign investments and its capital penetrating deeper into the African markets The glue that held Mbeki’s two countries together was a broad-based elite consensus grounded on the miracle of transition in the 1990s, clinched under the eminent statesman Nelson Mandela, and South Africans’ astonishingly high optimism despite the odds During his ‘State of the Nation’ address on

3 February 2006, Mbeki declared, ‘Our country has entered its age of hope,’ appealing to this extraordinary sense of optimism even as the impoverished mounted protests (Mashike 2008: 433) But the glue of nationalist euphoria is seemingly coming loose, poising the ‘two countries’ on the edge of a dangerous clash Post-Mbeki South Africa is at the crossroads: the elite consensus has fallen apart, optimism is giving way to pessimism and the future of democracy and the nationalist project is becoming increasingly uncertain Most of the

contributions to this volume of State of the Nation were written well before

Polokwane and Mbeki’s own exit from the presidency However, in a profound sense, the chapters shed light on the dynamics that led to these epoch-making events now shaping a post-Mbeki South Africa The editors have, however, revised this introduction and the first chapter to update the volume and place it in the context of post-Mbeki politics, with its high point being the unprecedented split of the ANC and the resultant far-reaching implications for the future of South Africa’s democracy

The decline of elite consensus and the ‘clash of peoples’

Long before President Mbeki was forced to exit, South Africa had already experienced bouts of the worldwide surge of ethnonationalism, defined in dramatic terms as the ‘clash of peoples’, now poised to drive global politics for generations to come (Muller 2008) Underpinning South Africa’s 1994 political settlement was the idea of civic or liberal nationalism: that ‘all people’ are considered part of the nation regardless of their ethnic, racial, religious

or geographic origins (Chipkin 2007) This conceptualisation of nationalism bequeathed the country with a liberal Constitution and a panoply of public bodies, collectively known as Chapter 9 institutions, aimed at fortifying democracy and promoting and protecting the rights of the ‘people’ Civic nationalism produced a unifying vision of the nation, designed to trump the varieties of insular nationalism or ethnicity that bedevilled South Africa at the height of apartheid (Geertsema 2006; Ramutsindela 2002) Indeed, the post-apartheid ‘nationalist consensus’, based on the liberal vision(s) of the nation, is now collapsing, caving in to a new upsurge of narrow sentiments of ethnonationalism or the idea that nations are defined by common language, heritage, faith and often a common ethnic ancestry (Muller 2008)

Some trace the woes of civic nationalism to Mbeki’s ‘activist presidency’, which accented African nationalism and often resorted to the language of class and racial struggle to counter criticism, especially from white critics (Herbst

2005) In his controversially titled book – Do South Africans Exist? – Ivor

Chipkin (2007) resorts to this criticism of Mbeki to launch his strident attack

on African nationalism as inherently anti-democratic However, Chipkin’s analysis misses the nuanced observation made by other scholars that it is not African nationalism but, rather, the hard-to-reconcile contradictions of South Africa’s civic nationalism that pose the greatest threat to democracy Mbeki’s own activism reflected these contradictions which Herbst (2005: 94) eloquently sums up as ‘the imperative to continue the struggle against racism; the need to enforce the solidarity of the liberation movement; the exigencies

of participation in a multiparty democracy; and the desire to govern in a manner that promotes the interests of all South Africans.’

These contradictions also largely account for the bitter succession struggles within and between former liberation movements like the ANC, discussed in

this volume of State of the Nation These struggles have, in turn, eroded the

necessary cohesion of the elite and stoked the embers of ethnonationalism, threatening what Archbishop Desmond Tutu once celebrated as ‘the rainbow nation’ The failure of the ‘nation-building project’ under the Mandela and Mbeki administrations to reverse the entrenched racial and economic injustice and inequalities and to create access to services, jobs and other means of livelihood for an increasingly impoverished and disillusioned black majority has also created fertile ground for ethnonationalism, including xenophobia Weak, lethargic and provincial opposition parties and former liberation movements lack the vision, tactics, ideological force or political capacity to halt the country’s slide to ethnonationalism The preponderant rise of ethnonationalism was recently commented on by one of the founders

of the United Democratic Front (UDF), Allan Boesak, who warned that the liberation movement was recreating apartheid’s system of racial and ethnic categorisation, demeaning coloured citizens, ‘ruthlessly and thoughtlessly’ abandoning struggle solidarity, and moving the ANC towards ‘ethnic

nationalism’ (Business Day 25.08.08).1 In the same vein, Anthony Butler

laments that ‘Mbeki and Zuma have…together undermined a century of efforts to counter tribalism in the liberation movement Ethnic balance has

been central to the ANC since its founding’ (Business Day 25.08.08) The

divisive succession struggle has turned ethnonationalism into the axis around which politics in South Africa is increasingly coming to rotate

The resurgence of ethnonationalism in South Africa has dimmed the future

of Mbeki’s African Renaissance project, which is rooted in the old movements

of pan-Africanism, including Kwame Nkrumah’s concept of the ‘African

personality’ and Aimé Césaire’s ‘negritude’ But African Renaissance has its

recent roots in Mbeki’s famous ‘I am an African’ speech, delivered on behalf of the ANC on the occasion of the adoption of the new democratic Constitution

in May 1996 The speech captured the dual identity of ‘the peoples’ in South Africa as both ‘South Africans’ and ‘Africans’ (Chipkin 2007) ‘I am an African’ marked South Africa’s ideational move from a ‘white tip of a black continent’

to embrace an ‘African identity’ Mbeki’s turn to African Renaissance was not

a regression to parochial nationalism, but a strategic move to promote liberalism This followed widespread criticism that the ‘new’ South Africa

neo-in the 1990s was ‘little more than the West’s lackey on the southern tip of Africa’ (Landsberg 2000: 107; Tieku 2004) The indisputable achievement

of the Mbeki presidency was its unrelenting peacemaking efforts in parts of

Africa paralysed by ‘uncivil’ nationalism, such as Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan

Driving Mbeki’s African Renaissance project has been a small but fervent cadre of ‘liberation diplomats’ who entered the Union Buildings with Mbeki in 1999, touting African nationalist solidarity At the turn of the new millennium, Pretoria’s ‘liberation diplomats’ were convinced that the end

of the Cold War and the preponderance of neo-liberal ideas had rendered the radical populism and socialist ideology of their own party, the ANC, unattractive (Tieku 2004) Pretoria’s pan-Africanists robustly exported South Africa’s version of liberal nationalism to the rest of the continent, where ‘new wars’ based on ethnonationalism had eroded the capacity of the state as a motor of development (Hagg & Kagwanja 2007) They not only re-engineered continental institutions such as the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), founded by pan-Africanists such as Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere decades ago, but also created new ones as vehicles for their neo-liberal agenda This culminated in the emergence of a web of transnational institutions such

as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU), designed to ‘conclude the work of earlier pan-African movements and…to reinvent the African state to play its effective and rightful role on the global terrain’ (Kagwanja 2006: 159; Ahluwali 2002) Paradoxically, not all South African citizens shared their neo-liberal vision of improving the image of Africa in order to attract foreign investments and make the ‘new’ South Africa an important global trading nation (Ahluwali 2002) Moreover, even

as they enmeshed themselves in this web of continental institutions, Mbeki’s

‘Renaissance knights’ failed to find a healthy balance between their promotion

of the liberal norms of democracy and human rights and the imperative of African solidarity Widespread accusations that Mbeki sacrificed democracy

at the altar of nationalist solidarity by failing to openly condemn illiberal regimes such as Robert Mugabe’s in Zimbabwe have stuck like grease on his administration This contradiction, which lingered on throughout the Mbeki era (1999–2008), reached its acme during South Africa’s tenure as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 2007/08

The future of the ‘liberation’ cadres looks uncertain They suffered a serious setback when Zimbabwe’s opposition won the 27 March 2008 elections,

humiliating Mbeki’s mentor and ally, Robert Mugabe, the latter also celebrated

as a nationalist hero across Africa and its diaspora (Gevisser 2007) Pretoria’s cynics have written off Mbeki’s African agenda as a drain on their resources, with little to show for the huge investment in Africa except the air miles Others lament that Africa failed to throw its lot behind South Africa for a veto-wielding seat in the UNSC, the one ambition that united all its citizens But this also reflects badly on Pretoria’s diplomats for their tragic failure to win the hearts and minds of fellow citizens and to carry them along on the African agenda Mbeki’s African Renaissance project is struggling to recover from the May 2008 bout of xenophobic attacks, which killed 65 people, largely African nationals Mbeki’s defeat by his rival, former ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma, and his eventual exit from power have created uncertainty over the future of Pretoria’s pan-Africanists and the political capacity of the African Renaissance project As Gumede (2008) warns, it has also ushered in

an unsettling moment in South Africa’s history with deep implications for the consolidation of its infant democracy

Globally, the epitaph of Mbeki’s South Africa is also unflattering South Africa’s strong nationalist stance in defence of Africa’s sovereignty, as well as its support for a rule-based global multilateral order against the unilateral proclivity and meddling in Africa by major powers, alienated its allies in the west At its twilight, critics in the west gratuitously labelled Mbeki’s South Africa a ‘rogue democracy’ for the sin of backing pariah regimes in the UNSC

(Washington Post 28.05.08).2

The ANC: the clash of political cultures

Fikeni (Chapter 1, this volume) paints a bleak picture of the ANC as a party

in the grip of a fierce clash between the two nationalist traditions that evolved during the anti-apartheid struggle The first is the ‘centralising logic’ in the ANC structures in exile This political culture tended to emphasise centralisation of power, teamwork, secrecy and discipline, but also intellectualism (Southall

2007; Sunday Nation 28.09.08).3 It emerged as a logical response to the liberation movement’s need for cohesion, coherence and effectiveness in the face of the acutely dangerous and harsh environment outside South Africa In the succession tussle, Mbeki has emerged as the consummate symbol of the centralising logic of the ‘exiles’ This centralising logic is contrasted with the

decentralised tendency of the ANC ‘inxiles’ or ‘remainees’ The decentralising logic gained prominence in response to Sharpeville, when leaders of more centralised movements such as the ANC and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) were arrested or forced into exile Anti-apartheid lobby groups such

as the UDF evolved as decentralised mass movements with deep grassroots support designed to operate below the radar of apartheid security apparatuses

on the home front The Zuma faction of the ANC has identified with this political tradition of the ‘inxiles’

Upon coming to power, Mbeki prioritised the restructuring of the governance structures and decision-making machinery – both of the government and the ANC – to create what one of his spin doctors, Frank Chikane, celebrated as

‘integrated governance’ (Chikane 2001) During Mbeki’s first term (1999–2004), the presidency was restructured in line with the recommendations of the 1998 Presidential Review Commission to ensure ‘efficient and effective management of government by the president together with the deputy president and cabinet’ (South Africa 1998) The result was an oversized presidency, which by 2004/05 comprised an establishment of 469 people with

a budget of R170 million, a nearly 100 per cent increase from the R89 million

in 2001 (Southall 2007: 3; Sunday Times 19.09.04)

Mbeki’s second term (2004–2008) saw an accelerated move to tighten the administrative nuts and bolts and to realign the party with the governmental structures In June 2005 the ANC’s National General Council (NGC) produced

a document titled Organisational Design of the ANC: A Case for Internal Renewal The blueprint sought to restructure the ANC into a more streamlined

and technocratic organisation with its structures at the regional and branch levels aligned to those of the government, thus bringing the party grassroots

under the firm control of the party headquarters and the government (Mail

& Guardian 24.06.05).4 The Mbeki administration tightened the noose on the ANC to rein in ‘unruly’ regions and branches and to limit the scope of what it saw as creeping patronage and factionalism, which were blamed for the spates of popular protests in poor townships over service delivery which rocked the country from 2004 These protests, which took on an increasingly violent streak, rose from 5 800 in 2004/05 to over 10 000 in 2006 (Bond 2007) Critics saw the centralising model as creating an ‘imperialist presidency’, itself

a reflection of Mbeki’s authoritarian style The centralising political culture, rolled out in earnest after 2004, immediately alienated the ‘inxiles’, who

gradually began to fight back This clash between the two political cultures and styles within the ANC largely framed the succession struggle within and between the various factions of the ANC elite, culminating in Mbeki’s ousting

on 24 September 2008

The ANC alliance

The succession tussle marked the culmination of the drawn-out ideological battles within the ANC alliance – the ANC government, the South African Communist Party (SACP), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), and women and youth leagues Ideological schisms within the ANC can be traced to the organisation’s turn to neo-liberalism during the Mandela era (1994–1999) The battle lines became clearly marked when the market-friendly Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) framework was adopted in 1996 to replace the left-leaning Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) Critics in Cosatu and the SACP of the ANC’s neo-liberal turn were not persuaded that GEAR was worth its ink as a blueprint designed

to transform South Africa into a competitive trading nation They never hid their bitter feelings that the framework was a stumbling block to the implementation of the ideals of the Freedom Charter and the RDP (ANC 1997a, 1997b)

The neo-liberal turn created three distinct ideological groupings within the ANC and its alliance First were the remnants of the ANC radical past, clamouring for a return to the party’s traditional populism and socialist orientation of the exile era, mainly in the SACP and Cosatu; second were old-regime officials or ‘realists’, urging for a policy driven by economic interests rather than by the ethical and ideological imperatives of African nationalism; and third was a small but vocal and powerful group of ‘neo-liberals’ or

‘idealists’ at the helm of government, pushing Mbeki’s pan-African agenda in Africa and globally (Evans 1999; Mills 2004) The succession struggle widened the rift between these groups, increasingly contributing to the collapse of the elite consensus By 26 June 2005, when the ANC celebrated 50 years of its ‘socialist manifesto’, the Freedom Charter, ideological cleavages with its erstwhile leftist allies had reached breaking point Mbeki’s critics lamented that the idea of the state controlling the commanding heights of the economy had been effectively replaced by a pro-market economic policy and a gentle relationship with private capital, once loathed as the underwriter of apartheid

Mbeki’s own intellectual aloofness and his hardball style tended to amplify his existential challenge of holding together the ANC tripartite alliance

In addition to the centralising proclivity rooted in the exile political culture, Mbeki’s hardball approach carried the ‘modernising veneer’ of contemporary European leaders such as Britain’s Tony Blair and Germany’s Gerhard Schröder On this point, Gevisser (2007: 773) has observed eloquently that: When, in 1994, Nelson Mandela asked Kenneth Kaunda’s advice

as to who should be his successor, Kaunda had replied that Thabo

Mbeki best carried Oliver Tambo’s ‘great unifier’ legacy into the

new democratic era…Mbeki, for his part, chose not to follow in

Tambo’s footsteps at all, taking his cue rather from a very different

kind of political operative: there were times when his strategy

seemed to be a self-conscious mimicking of Tony Blair’s ‘New

Labour’ revolution He had become a party strongman, not in the

crass old Stalinist way, but with the modernising veneer of a Blair

or a Schröder The left was to shut up or ship out Many fierce

discussions took place in 2001 and 2002

Part of the problem is that Mbeki put his faith in the bureaucratic-executive state, leaving tensions with the ANC to play out in dangerously public and palpable ways The funeral of Mbeki’s father, Govan Mbeki, in September

2001 produced one of the ugliest spectacles in the intra-ANC conflict As Gevisser (2007: 771) states:

[Jeremy] Cronin [deputy secretary of the SACP] also highlighted

something that was obvious to me: the way in which, despite

Govan Mbeki’s active membership of the SACP and stalwart

support of Cosatu campaigns, the alliance partners were

clearly marginalised from the proceedings: ‘The control of the

microphone was firmly in the hands of the Mbeki family and

the ANC leadership Messages of support and condolences to the

family excluded the SACP and Cosatu Govan Mbeki might have

had the agency to insist on being buried in Zwide, but not even he

could dictate, fully, the terms of his own burial.’

A short-lived truce occurred between the warring ANC allies in the aftermath

of the party’s 51st conference in Stellenbosch in December 2002 This truce

paved the way for the ANC’s emphatic victory in the 2004 general election, which ushered in Mbeki’s second term

The Stellenbosch conference popularised the notion of the ‘developmental state’, which the ANC left interpreted as a significant move by the Mbeki administration to recognise the limits of the market as a tool for social transformation and to recommit itself to RDP consensus on state-driven development In this volume, Sampie Terreblanche argues that ‘the shift away from a fundamental restructuring of the South African economy (as was envisaged in the RDP) to address the “deep-seated structural crisis” towards a strengthening of neo-liberal capitalism…makes it extremely difficult to institutionalise the envisaged developmental state’ However, the developmental state remained a vaguely defined concept void of any real substance except for the official lip-service and high-profile debates The Mbeki–Zuma tussle thrust the developmental state back into public debate

Enter Zuma: the collapse of the elite consensus

As to whether Mbeki had a better alternative to firing his 65-year-old deputy, Jacob Zuma, after the latter’s friend and financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was convicted of fraud and whether such a decision would have preserved ANC unity will remain one of the ‘might-have-beens’ of history The reality is that Mbeki’s decision to ‘release’ Zuma from office was hailed in the west as ‘a milestone even in South Africa’s history’ (Herbst 2005: 96) Mbeki’s good intentions and moral responsibility in responding to what the presiding judge labelled as a ‘mutually beneficial symbiosis’ in the relationship between Zuma and Shaik and its potential harm to South Africa’s infant democracy never wholly convinced internal critics, who saw the move as part of the intrigues For instance, it was noted that until Zuma was fired, he had remained a loyal member of the president’s inner circle, seemingly undisturbed by Mbeki’s alleged high-handed style and serving as ‘an important executioner of his leader’s will’ (Gumede 2008: 262)

Zuma’s sacking rang familiar bells for the so-called ‘walking wounded’, a reference to an ever-growing cadre of ANC veterans who blamed Mbeki for dimming their political stars (Gumede 2008; see also Gumede in this volume) Zuma’s decision to fight back energised and emboldened these disgruntled ANC members who, from as early as 2000, were reportedly involved in

behind-the-scenes manoeuvres to depose Mbeki The story is told of how from 2000 Cyril Ramaphosa, the former secretary-general of the ANC and now a prominent businessman and Mandela’s choice as his successor, was inundated with appeals to challenge Mbeki’s leadership, and how similar unsuccessful overtures were made to Zuma in 2002 It is in this context that

in 2001 Mbeki accused Ramaphosa, Tokyo Sexwale and Mathews Phosa, who had earlier fallen out with him, of plotting behind the scenes to topple him This, according to Gumede (2008: 264), prompted Mandela to step in

to appeal that Mbeki should be allowed to complete his term Mbeki finally apologised to the trio, but forced Zuma to issue a public statement denying

he had ‘residential ambitions’

After June 2005, support for Zuma from this disgruntled group and the ANC alliance leadership – the SACP, Cosatu, the ANC Women’s and Youth Leagues – provided him with the lifeline he badly needed to make a comeback Months ahead of his August 2008 trial on 16 charges including fraud, corruption, money laundering and racketeering, Zuma supporters succeeded in shaping a public perception that the trial was a political conspiracy to block Zuma from ascending to South Africa’s presidency Zuma strategists quickly repackaged him as a ‘friend of the poor’, ‘friend of the left’ and a ‘man of the people’, contrasting him to the ‘intellectually aloof and arrogant’, ‘autocratic’, ‘pro-rich’, ‘pro-business’ and ‘elitist’ Mbeki For his part, Zuma shrewdly played the nationalist and ethnic cards in a fierce battle to win the hearts and minds of the ANC rank and file Appealing to the nationalist discourse, he presented himself as a unifier in the tradition of Oliver Tambo, the revered ANC leader Analysts noted that during his rape trial, he not only spoke Zulu in court but also invented ‘new Zulu cultural norms’ to suit his case (Gumede 2008: 262) The succession tussle not only eroded the political capacity of state institutions (Southall 2007) but, more subtly, it intensified the ethnic polarisation of politics

Ethnonationalism after Polokwane

In his chapter in this volume, Somadoda Fikeni examines the ‘Polokwane moment’ when Mbeki lost the ANC presidency As early as October 2005, Mbeki’s policy chief, Joel Netshitenzhe, hinted that it was not clear that the same person should necessarily fill the offices of state president and president

of the party (Mail & Guardian 14–20.10.05) This gave weight to the view that

Mbeki was considering prolonging his political life beyond 2009 when he was expected to step down as state president but, like other African leaders such as Namibia’s Sam Nujoma, remaining in control of the powerful party machine and thus being the real power behind the throne His public support for a woman president for the country confirmed this view, with fingers pointing

to his deputy, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

Mbeki’s decision to stand for a third term as the ANC president raised the political stakes in the run-up to the ANC’s 52nd National Conference in Polokwane on 16–20 December 2007 As Fikeni shows, this decision stirred ethnic antagonism to a dangerous degree The agenda of ending the Xhosa dominance in the ANC never featured in the party’s public discussions or among its alliance partners But the idea was ubiquitously raised in debates within and outside the ANC The ‘dynastic’ lineage of Xhosa political heavyweights, from Oliver Tambo to Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, was widely invoked to justify a non-Xhosa party leader to succeed Mbeki as party president and, ultimately, state president ‘There were signs of ethnic mobilisation among the Zulus who rallied behind Zuma, showing little tolerance for any internal deviation in that region,’ writes Fikeni By the same token, in Mbeki’s Xhosa homeland of the Eastern Cape, the ANC leadership declared their support for their son in his bid for ANC presidency Zuma’s KwaZulu-Natal province answered back by declaring support for their son, with his ardent supporters donning t-shirts with ‘100% Zulu Boy’ printed

on them As communal consciousness and tensions escalated, Mbeki was met with intense hostility in KwaZulu-Natal when he travelled there for the reburial of the liberation veteran Moses Mabhida, and for the celebration of Ghandi’s legacy

The ground shifted from ethnonationalism to acute exploitation of nationalism

in the Zuma–Mbeki power tussle Both Zuma and Mbeki engaged a higher gear in the rush for icons and symbols of resistance against apartheid Mbeki’s

‘State of the Nation’ address on 3 February 2007 was perfectly choreographed and designed to appeal to nationalist sensibilities The president opened his speech with a lengthy eulogy to ‘Mama Adelaide Tambo’, the wife of the late ANC president Oliver Tambo and a nationalist icon in her own right He had also invited to the President’s Box in Parliament Albertina Luthuli, daughter

of South Africa’s first Nobel Peace laureate, Inkosi Albert Luthuli; the activists

of the 1956 Women’s March and the 1976 Soweto Uprising; and ‘eminent

patriots from all our provinces’ He seized the moment to wave the National Orders named after these nationalist icons, including the Order of Luthuli and the Order of the Companions of OR Tambo He closed the introduction to his speech by referring to the Freedom Charter, adopted nearly 50 years earlier (Mbeki 2007)

Respective factions also battle for custodianship of ANC traditions and values, with each camp portraying itself as the genuine custodian while depicting the rival camp as a betrayer of these traditions Names of ANC elders such as Luthuli, Tambo, Mandela and Chris Hani were liberally invoked in political campaigns and public utterances by both Mbeki and Zuma and their supporters, and the country plunged into a string of festivities commemorating these icons and historic events such as the Bambata Rebellion This instrumentalisation of

nationalism took an ugly turn in July 2007 with the screening of a 24-minute documentary titled Unauthorised: Thabo Mbeki, a brazen attempt to link

Mbeki to the 1993 assassination of SACP leader Chris Hani

Broad Daylight Films, the producer of the documentary, claimed that it was based on a formal investigation into an alleged plot against Mbeki in

2001 where the ‘alleged plotters, Tokyo Sexwale, Mathews Phosa and Cyril Ramaphosa, were said to have spread a rumour linking Mbeki to the Hani

assassination’ (Mail & Guardian 19.07.07).5 The documentary’s maker, Redi Direko, reportedly appeared in the documentary to be debunking the rumour Many commentators dismissed the film as ‘unbelievable’ and as ‘merely a sign

of paranoia’ (Mail & Guardian 19.07.07) The South African Broadcasting

Corporation decided not to broadcast the documentary on public television, but its screening in Johannesburg sparked a ferocious rumour across the country In short, a documentary primarily about rumour ended up pushing the rumour mill into overdrive, badly hurting Mbeki’s standing at a critical campaign moment

The Chris Hani rumour reinforced public perceptions of Mbeki’s brutal style

of handling rivals, including the alleged abuse of power with regard to hiring and firing in government To drive this point home, Mbeki’s alacrity in sacking Zuma and the former deputy minister of health, Nozizwe Madlala-Routlege, and in suspending the head of the National Prosecuting Authority, Vusi Pikoli, all in 2007, was juxtaposed with his unwillingness to lay off publicly controversial officials such as the minister of health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, and the since suspended commissioner of police, Jackie Selebi

The failed ‘third way’

The power struggle started taking its toll on party unity and elite consensus ahead of the crucial 2009 general election ANC elders such as Pallo Jordan began exploring the idea of a ‘third way’ to unify and heal a divided ANC The names of Mbeki’s long-time rivals, Cyril Ramaphosa and Tokyo Sexwale, were suggested as compromise candidates Sexwale took the plunge into the presidential race and fired the initial shots at the presidency but withdrew when the first round of provincial nominations indicated that he stood no chance Ramaphosa refused to go for the top seat, saying that he wouldn’t enter the ‘wrong race’ and would only join if both Mbeki and Zuma stepped aside Both Sexwale and Ramaphosa backed the Zuma campaign Another name brought up as possible compromise leader was that of Kgalema Motlanthe, the ANC deputy president Both Mbeki and Zuma flatly shrugged off suggestions of yielding to a younger compromise candidate Zuma was convinced that he could and had to win the race against Mbeki, an essential step in saving himself from prosecution by becoming the ANC and national president Supporters of both men had invested so heavily in their champions that they were unwilling to support a compromise candidate for fear of losing patronage Mbeki’s decision to stand for a third term convinced even those not allied to Zuma not to vote for Mbeki in Polokwane

The appointment on 25 September 2008 of the left-leaning intellectual and reputedly highly skilled political operator Kgalema Motlanthe as the caretaker president comes as a return to the idea of a ‘third way’ Motlanthe has the skills and stature needed to heal the nation and unite the ANC, bringing it back to its former glory as a dignified, non-tribalist and non-racial liberation

movement (Business Day 25.08.08) However, there are no signs that Zuma

and his supporters will yield to the idea of a ‘third way’, and Motlanthe is unlikely to stake a claim to power However, increasing fear of the ANC splitting might make this a necessary political choice

The Polokwane moment and South Africa’s uncertain democracy

Analyses ahead of the ANC conference in Polokwane in December 2007 ruled out a ‘winner takes all’ result, predicting a party divided down the middle ‘It

is unlikely there will be a winner-takes-all national executive committee and top six,’ predicted the director of the Centre for African Renaissance Studies,

Shadrack Gutto ‘Rather, they are likely to be formed from both [Mbeki’s and

Zuma’s] lists’ (Mail & Guardian Online 2007).6 On the contrary, the Zuma faction swept the board during both the provincial nominations and at the actual conference attended by 6 000 people

Zuma scored 60.8 per cent against Mbeki’s 39.2 per cent out of a total of

4 075 voting delegates, representing 2 694 ANC branches Zuma’s supporters took five of the top six positions in the National Executive Committee (NEC) and the National Working Committee, the powerful structure that monitors the day-to-day activities of the ANC, including its role in government The triumph of Zuma’s camp signified the success of a well-coordinated grassroots campaign, backed by the ANC alliance partners The Zuma victory marked a fundamental turning point in the history of South Africa’s democracy and civic nationalism It was viewed in some quarters as a return

of people’s power, a view articulated by one caller to SAFM Radio’s After Eight Debate on 19 December 2007: ‘I think people are saying we have power, and

the power still remains with the poor, and that is what people were saying here [Polokwane].’ But the protracted and fractious intra-ANC tussle had far-reaching implications for democratic institutions, including opposition parties, the judiciary, Chapter 9 institutions and other social movements More unflattering is the view by some analysts that Zuma’s election as the ANC president and Mbeki’s potential successor not only inaugurates ‘an unsettling period in post-apartheid South Africa’s history’, but also poses

a ‘severe threat to the country’s on-going quest to consolidate its infant democracy’ (Gumede 2008: 261)

There are genuine concerns about the consequences of the party’s structures lapsing into indiscipline in ways that undermine democracy For instance, a new culture of politics involving violence and the intimidation of critics has become rampant The new ANC Youth League president, Julius Malema, and the Cosatu secretary-general, Zwelinzima Vavi, vowed to shoot and kill for Zuma This has complicated the work of democratic institutions – such as the Human Rights Commission (HRC) – set up during the transition as pillars of democracy The HRC took a firm stand on Malema and Vavi, demanding that they withdraw their utterances and apologise In the end, the HRC accepted Malema’s rationalised answer that ‘killing for Zuma’ was used metaphorically Despite that, the HRC had made its point: the incipient culture of violence and threat in South African politics was a real threat to the country’s nascent

democracy The judiciary, particularly the Constitutional Court, also came under attack, accused by ANC firebrands of being ‘counter-revolutionary’ When more sober minds within the ANC, such as now caretaker president Khalema Motlanthe, warned against attacks on the judiciary, they also came under fire from ANC colleagues

Together, Mbeki and Zuma have undermined a century of efforts to counter tribalism in the liberation movement Countering communal consciousness has been a central plank of ANC politics In view of the depth of missionary education in the Eastern Cape, perceptions of ‘Xhosa dominance’ were inevitable and in some respects well founded

Nevertheless, rotation in leadership positions and subtle procedural conventions discouraged ethnic mobilisation Mbeki’s succession after three decades of Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela’s leadership was bound to provoke ethnic sentiments But it is the power wrangle with Zuma that gave new impetus to a strong ethnonationalist ideology In the context of growing ethnic suspicion, Zuma’s alleged role in the arms deal has been interpreted as

a plot by a ‘Xhosa cabal’ to deny the presidency to a Zulu successor Despite the rise of ethnonationalism, the ANC is still the only institution in South Africa capable of managing society’s fundamental conflicts The absence

of an effective opposition has made the ruling party elite extraordinarily complacent But the prospect of a splinter party within the ANC by those unhappy with the way Mbeki was pushed out of power has the potential of weakening the ANC and entrenching ethnonationalism

Liberation movements: the failed transition to democratic parties

A review of the state of South Africa’s democracy is incomplete without a critical analysis of the state of the liberation movements other than the ANC, particularly the PAC and the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) The year 2007 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the brutal death of Steve Bantu Biko, the founder of the BCM, who was murdered by the apartheid security police in September 1977; similarly, 2008 marked the thirtieth anniversary

of the death of Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe, the founder of the PAC, who died in February 1978 Like the ANC, other nationalist movements have been undergoing their own unravelling, confronting the same challenges

in the transition from liberation movement to opposition political party

in a democracy Thus the main aim of the chapter on the PAC by Thabisi Hoeane and the chapter on the BCM by Thiven Reddy is to assess how former liberation movements have adjusted to this challenge The focus on former liberation movements becomes even more critical as South Africa grapples with the question of the role of opposition parties in the context

of the apparent unravelling of the ANC after Polokwane Both Hoeane and Reddy paint a bleak picture of these movements, whose performance in the

1994, 1999 and 2004 general elections was dismal This raises the fundamental question of why these liberation movements have not emerged as alternatives

to the ANC in the 2009 elections

One of the distressing developments in democratic South Africa, notes Hoeane in this volume, is the decline of the PAC as a liberation movement grounded on African nationalism The PAC was formed in April 1959 as a breakaway from the ANC by some members, led by its founding president Robert Sobukwe, who objected to the ANC’s non-racial policies Instead, the party opted for an approach grounded on mass action, growing into a mighty liberation movement based on militant African nationalism But as Hoeane rightly observes, the political weakness and insignificance of the PAC in the current political dispensation hardly reflects the crucial part it played during the struggle, especially during the anti-pass campaigns of the 1960s What

is puzzling about the PAC is that although its political outlook is grounded

on African nationalism, an ideology that is embraced by the vast majority of South Africans, the party has not become a formidable force in post-apartheid politics or an alternative voice to the ANC Owing to a combination of factors including leadership wrangles and weak vision, the PAC ranks among the weakest parties, with its share of the national vote not exceeding 2 per cent in the past three general elections

The PAC has been its own enemy Although unbanned together with the ANC

in 1990, the PAC marginalised itself through serious tactical mistakes by its leadership, particularly the decision by those backing the Maoist Leballo not

to join the peace process leading to the transition to democracy in 1994 A splinter section of the party entered the race in the 1994 general elections, but its electoral performance has been dismal The PAC has succumbed to serious organisational problems, indiscipline and chronic infighting, which have reduced it to a minor political party still battling with the challenge of transforming itself from a liberation movement to a formidable political party

in a democratic South Africa As late as 2007, the PAC was rocked by splits, leading to some of its disgruntled members establishing another political organisation, the African People’s Convention Even one of its splinter parties, Patricia de Lille’s Independent Democrats, has fared better, and the PAC’s slide

in electoral performance has continued As a result, and as Hoeane points out, the PAC has been unable to sustain Sobukwe’s legacy of African nationalism and non-racialism Worse still, the PAC has lost its ideological turf, outwitted

by the ANC, which articulated a nuanced Africanist orientation framed by Mbeki’s precept of African Renaissance If the PAC is to remain relevant and

to reclaim its lost glory and stature in South African politics, its leadership has to do the heavy work of ending infighting, becoming more tactical and translating the ideas of its founders into practical reality

Also facing an existential crisis is the BCM, which emerged in the mid-1960s

as a grassroots anti-apartheid activist movement to fill the political vacuum created by the clampdown – banning and jailing – on the ANC and PAC leadership in the wake of Sharpeville Almost echoing Hoeane’s comment on the PAC, Reddy laments that ‘organisations representing Black Consciousness (BC) ideas remain weak and fragmented’ Although Reddy’s observation that ‘a revival in BC ideas, values and practices in official and civil society discourses’

is reassuring, organisations formed to carry the torch of Black Consciousness, such as the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo), are still wrapped in crisis Reddy attributes the crisis of the Black Consciousness-inspired movements

to a number of factors First is an ideologically based approach to the apartheid struggle rather than the issue-based approach taken by the ANC and the UDF in the 1980s, which proved much more successful in mobilising large numbers of people Second is the dearth of tactic and vision, with Azapo being ‘unable to develop a strategy’ to effectively respond to the National Party’s dramatic decision to embark on a political settlement in the late 1980s and early 1990s

anti-A widespread criticism of Black Consciousness is that its ideas are outdated, hindering the new multiracial South Africa But Reddy is apt in his conclusion that as long as ‘unequal material conditions of life – conditions that specifically made notions of whiteness and blackness seem like common sense’ – prevail,

‘the ideas of black assertiveness, black pride and the quest for dignity remain’ However, the connection between the growing prevalence of Black Consciousness ideas in post-1994 South Africa and the apparent failure of the

ANC’s nationalist project in service delivery and empowerment of the black majority deserves further analysis Unlike the PAC, the Black Consciousness-inspired parties seem to be preparing to utilise the leadership struggle that currently bedevils the ANC to propel themselves forward as alternatives to the ANC The three main factions of the BCM – Azapo, the Socialist Party of Azania (Sopa) and the Black People’s Convention (BPC) – have resolved to forge a united front ahead of the 2009 elections, but it is unlikely that Black Consciousness parties will chip significant political space from the ANC However, it is difficult to scan the political horizon and predict the future of either the PAC or the BCM, which once stood a good chance of posing a threat

to the ANC, if the leadership crisis continues to fester

The opposition

This volume does not have a chapter specifically devoted to the opposition

in South Africa, although different chapters, especially Fikeni’s on the Polokwane moment, pay attention to this important aspect of South Africa’s democracy Shades of ethnonationalism have inadvertently prevented the main opposition parties from exploiting the troubles in the ANC and the ruling party’s declining nationalist appeal to win power and fortify the ideals of a civic nation and citizenship The Democratic Alliance (DA) is,

so far, South Africa’s main opposition party Descendent from the Federal Progressive Party before it became the Democratic Party in the 1980s, the

DA has been identified mainly with the English-speaking section of white South Africa But the DA’s marriage of convenience with the mainly Afrikaner New National Party in the run-up to the 1999 elections may have succeeded

in uniting South Africa’s white voters, so preventing the ANC from winning the Western Cape provincial government But the collapse of the DA’s short-lived alliance with the New National Party pushed a sizeable segment of white Afrikaners into an alliance with the ANC

The DA has since been unable to shake the perception that it champions the interests of, particularly, white liberals The party has largely succeeded

in rallying whites behind it through its focused campaign on issues such as escalating violent crime and corruption, cast largely as the failure of the ANC leadership Its fierce opposition to almost all the ANC’s black empowerment policies and economic transformation strategies as an assault on white privileges has cemented its position as the voice of the white minority But

the DA’s failure to offer alternative frameworks for pulling the majority out of the mire of poverty has progressively alienated the black majority, sealing the party’s fate as an electoral force outside of white-dominated areas Its cynical exploitation of apartheid-era racial fault lines to counter ANC dominance has won the DA substantial support from coloured and Indian voters, especially

in the Western Cape, a card it will inevitably play again in 2009 Now led by Tony Leon’s successor, Helen Zille, the party has a realistic chance of capturing the Western Cape if the ANC does not resolve its internal divisions fast and

in a sustainable way The DA has a template in coalition-building in the Cape Metropolitan Council, where it brought together smaller parties to win the crucial municipality But it also needs to do a lot of spadework to win into its ranks senior black leaders and to transform itself into a political formation capable of building a credible multiracial constituency

Similarly, while the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) remains a formidable player

in South African politics ahead of the 2009 elections, it has still to make inroads into areas outside of its KwaZulu-Natal turf The political dominance the IFP exercised in 1994 and 1999 – its core constituency was in areas inhabited by Zulu people in KwaZulu-Natal and hostels in Gauteng – shrank significantly in 2004 Complicating the IFP roadmap for a political comeback

is the fact that KwaZulu-Natal is Zuma’s home province and the main source

of his presidential vote in 2009 Moreover, the IFP founder and long-time leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, has announced his intention to step down from the party leadership in 2009 A strategic coalition with the DA might be the surest shield against an onslaught by the ANC, a strategy that pundits of the two parties are reportedly pondering Despite this, the spectre of a culture

of ethnic violence involving IFP and ANC supporters haunts the prospect of

of the nation and citizenship Yet, subtle blips of ethnonationalism threaten

this ‘nationalist consensus’ that underpinned South Africa’s transition to democracy The lingering question is whether South Africa’s opposition parties have the requisite vision, tactics and political will to forge a united front to effectively challenge or wrest power from the ANC, so following in the footsteps of Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which defeated the ruling Zanu-PF

The tale of two countries and the crisis of service delivery

Despite President Mbeki’s project to centralise and modernise both the state and the ANC as instruments of service delivery, the nation-building project has failed to ensure social citizenship, including access to services and opportunities in the modern sector for the majority of South Africans Although the economy has grown at an average of 3 per cent annually in the last 15 years, a significant improvement from the apartheid years, this has been several percentage points shy of the 6 per cent needed to pull 45 per cent of South Africa’s 44 million out of poverty and to reduce chronic unemployment The existence of a two-tier economy signifies the dramatic and urgent need

to redistribute wealth South Africa is widely said to have a Gini coefficient7

of around 0.6, making it, along with Brazil, the most unequal society in the world (Herbst 2005: 99) This is a recipe for destabilisation, racial and ethnic tensions and violence, as witnessed in the May 2008 xenophobia The state has responded to the crisis by paying lip-service to the developmental state while increasing the dependence of the poor on the state through generous social grants, with the number of South Africans receiving these grants increasing from 2.6 million in 1994 to 6.8 million in 2003

Courting the developmental state: too little too late

Faced with widespread protests, South Africa looked to the east, adopting the idea of the developmental state, used widely in the parlance of the international political economy to describe the state-driven socio-economic planning that characterised late twentieth-century East Asia (Wade 2003; Woo-Cumings 1999) South Africa’s choice of a developmental state, as opposed to a regulatory one, sought to intervene more directly in the post-apartheid economy to promote the growth of new industries and to reduce the dislocations caused by shifts in investment and profits from old to new

industries Part of the problem is that it is not always clear whether the notion

of a developmental state in South Africa is meant to replace GEAR policies or whether the developmental state will formulate and implement policies that will co-exist with GEAR

Sampie Terreblanche’s analysis in this volume puts the notion of a developmental state in South Africa in the spotlight – a notion that gained much currency during the succession debate as the ANC attempted to ward off criticism from its alliance partners Discussion about the concept began at the 2002 ANC Congress in Stellenbosch, gaining momentum in the run-up to the elections in 2004 and, particularly, during the local government elections

in 2006 Within the ANC, the case for a developmental state was formalised

in 2005 in a document titled ‘Development and Underdevelopment’ (ANC 2005) that drew lessons from East Asia The Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (Asgisa), which Mbeki unveiled during his ‘State of the Nation’ address in February 2006, is a clear manifestation of the ANC’s move towards a developmental state Mbeki envisioned the developmental state as an instrument for effectively addressing unemployment and poverty

In June 2007, the ANC adopted a key document called Strategy and Tactics (ANC 2007c), which declared a developmental state as its policy.

The chapter by Terreblanche casts the discussion wider within the context of global corporatism and global capitalism, examining the way in which the ANC has responded to these forces While arguing that global capitalism imposes severe constraints on the ANC, Terreblanche warns against assumptions that

‘the worsening of South Africa’s social problems over the past 14 years should

be blamed exclusively on global corporatism and on global capitalism’ Internal failures also have a role to play For instance, Southall has rightly argued that the ANC’s ‘aspirations to transform South Africa into a genuinely “developmental state” are critically threatened by worryingly dysfunctional aspects of the state’ (2007: 20) The ANC conference in Polokwane recommitted the ANC to the Freedom Charter and to ‘building a developmental state and not a welfare state given that in a welfare state, dependency is profound’ (ANC 2007a) With the ascendancy of the left in the ANC following Polokwane and Mbeki’s exit, the debate on the developmental state is poised to escalate in the run-

up to the 2009 elections and beyond But at the heart of the problem is how the developmental state in South Africa will resolve potential tensions between private interests, especially the enterprises that are in private

hands (particularly big capital), and the aspirations to empower the poor majority within a market economy But the real challenge rests in giving the developmental state a real name and practical meaning What, precisely, does the term entail in practice?

The debate on the developmental state is closely linked to the parallel

question of service delivery, discussed in detail in previous issues of State

of the Nation (Daniel et al 2003; Daniel et al 2005) and by David Hemson,

Jonathan Carter and Geci Karuri-Sebina in this volume Also central to this debate is the state of the environment, characterised by Donald Gibson, Amina Ismail, Darryll Kilian and Maia Matshikiza’s chapter in this volume

as ‘the foundation for development’ The deepening environmental crisis relating to the state of land degradation, water availability and quality, air pollution, degradation of biodiversity by development, and climate change have far-reaching implications for the growth and development envisaged

by the developmental state While pursuing the imperative of development and service delivery, South Africa has to develop a national framework for sustainable development, which Gibson and co-authors rightly describe as ‘a strategic lever of change’ Such a strategy is needed given that South Africa’s developmental path depends on the integrity of its natural resource base

Underpinning the debate on sustainable development and the environment

is the question of power, which is the main focus of Leslie Bank’s chapter on landlord–tenant power relations in South African urban spaces, especially in townships where traditions and modernity exist side by side Bank shows that power relations in ‘yard socialism’ also have gender implications as women exert more social power in what were traditionally male domains

Scarlett Cornelissen’s chapter on the internationalisation and competitiveness

of urban governance in South Africa underscores the centrality of apartheid policy-making in transforming urban spaces, which are increasingly being linked to global forces, especially neo-liberalism On the whole, Cornelissen warns against the impact of internationalisation overriding the need to provide for the primary developmental needs of urban residents, especially in poor neighbourhoods

Within or drawing apart? South Africa’s African policy after Mbeki

One of the enduring legacies of apartheid is the transformation of race and ethnicity as both legal and political identities, resulting in a brutally divided society that is still grappling with the question of post-apartheid identity, the tension palpable between its ‘white’ and ‘African’, ‘west’ and ‘Africa’ identities South Africa’s identity became the topic of a high-profile Africa-wide debate

in the mid-1990s – under the banner ‘South Africa and Africa: Within or Apart?’ – where it was noted that apartheid South Africa ‘has stood aside and apart from the rest of the continent’ The question was then posed: ‘Will [post-apartheid] South Africa stand up for its own and Africa’s interests against the continent’s growing international isolation?’ (Adedeji 1996: 4) Earlier, in

a widely cited 1993 article in Foreign Affairs, the eminent statesman Nelson

Mandela declared that ‘South Africa cannot escape its African destiny’, warning that ‘if we [South Africans] do not devote our energies to this continent we too could fall victim to the forces that have brought ruin to its various parts’ (Mandela 1993: 86) But Mbeki’s ‘I am an African’ declaration unambiguously resolved the twoness in South Africa’s identity by firmly declaring South Africa within and indeed part of the African continent and its peoples After 1999, Mbeki popularised the concept of an African Renaissance

as the vehicle for South Africa’s engagement with Africa The concept was defined officially as ‘a holistic vision…aimed at promoting peace, prosperity, democracy, sustainable development, progressive leadership and good governance’ (Gevisser 2007: 587), reflecting the Mbeki administration’s liberal agenda in Africa Both the Mandela and Mbeki administrations underscored the need to transform Africa into an important frontier for foreign investments, including South Africa’s (Kagwanja 2006; Tieku 2004) The African Renaissance project has also been propelled by the imperative of the solidarity of African liberation movements (Ahluwali 2002; Evans 1999) The chapter by Che Ajulu examines South Africa’s peace diplomacy in Africa, indisputably one of the high points of the Mbeki administration Ajulu rightly notes that South Africa’s peace diplomacy is conceptually underpinned

by the idea of ‘liberal peace’, defined by experts such as Michael Duffield (2000: 23) as a ‘political humanitarianism’ that stresses conflict resolution and prevention to create a working and favourable environment for market forces to function effectively South Africa’s peace diplomacy was successful in

the Great Lakes region: it helped to restore relative peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where multiparty elections were held in 2006 for the first time in 40 years, and in Burundi a power-sharing government was put in place in 2005 South Africa’s intervention in Côte d’Ivoire, however, was less successful The exit of Mbeki and his ‘liberation diplomats’ from power raises the question of the future of the African Renaissance and South Africa’s role

in African nationalism

Significantly, the December 2007 ANC Polokwane conference restated South Africa’s commitment to African nationalism and its African identity, revealing a possible continuity in the post-Mbeki African policy The ANC also reiterated its moral mission as ‘a unifier and premier representative of the African people beyond the borders of South Africa’ (ANC 2007a) The ANC endorsed the key foreign policy priorities towards Africa developed

by the Mbeki administration: peace and the peaceful resolution of conflicts; peacekeeping activities; building and reforming institutions on the continent; and ensuring influence in global political issues

Economic diplomacy or sub-imperialism?

The Polokwane conference has, however, added a new economic accent to the African Renaissance project by endorsing a radical policy shift to economic diplomacy Arguably, the stress on economic diplomacy is a strategic move

to reap the peace dividends as many African countries emerge from war, post-conflict reconstruction and development The ANC has identified a three-pronged foreign policy agenda: consolidation of the African agenda; South–South co-operation; and North–South co-operation While these reveal clear continuities with the Mbeki era, there are salient differences of style, emphasis and approach The ANC has also moved to give teeth to its African policy priorities defined by its economic interests

The party has endorsed the strengthening of the capacity of Pretoria’s diplomatic missions in Africa and abroad to assist South African businesses

to gain access to the business opportunities available overseas and on the continent This requires countering the view that South Africa is reverting

to the sub-imperial practices of the apartheid era by creating equitable partnerships, encouraging African countries to engage in intra-African trade and eliminating trade barriers and existing imbalances between Pretoria and

African capitals The ANC is, however, concerned about the increasingly negative reputation of and brash approach by South African businesses operating in Africa, which undermines the country’s image In this regard, the party has recommended a code of good business practice to curb negative practices such as child labour, bribery and exploitation by South African companies

While recommending that the Department of Foreign Affairs be renamed the Department of International Relations and Co-operation to reflect its role in international co-operation, the ANC reaffirmed one institution and endorsed the creation of two new institutions as spearheads of its African policy To that end, the ANC recommended strengthening and increasing the funding for the African Renaissance and International Co-operation Fund Act (No 51 of 2002), created by Parliament in January 2001, as the instrument for supporting South Africa’s Renaissance project The ANC government increased the Fund’s resources from a few million dollars to US$46 million for the 2008/09 budget cycle The party delegates also endorsed the following two funds to strengthen South Africa’s foreign policy capacity:

the Pan-African Infrastructure Fund as a motor of African development

•฀

with US$1 billion from governments of Africa; and

the South African Development Partnership Agency, with a fund located

to be strengthened, its laws to be harmonised, for Nepad to be used as the developmental blueprint, and for civil society and the general citizenry to

be involved in continental governance Similarly, in regard to South–South

relations, the ANC conference endorsed the current policy of strengthening engagement with India and Brazil, under the banner of IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa), as well as with China, but cautioned against government-centred co-operation that excludes party-to-party relations as well as civil society formations.

The ANC has also pronounced itself on the debate regarding the proposed creation of the African Union Government The most radical expression of this debate is inspired by Kwame Nkrumah’s clarion call in the 1960s that

‘Africa must unite’, now articulated fervently by Libya’s strongman, President Muammar Gaddafi, as heir to Nkrumah’s pan-Africanist legacy (Nkrumah 1963) South Africa has backed the ‘gradualist approach’ espoused by Tanzania’s founding president, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, who proposed the creation of regional economic communities as building blocks for a united Africa The Polokwane conference shared in the overarching ideological thrust of African nationalism driving the debate, in principle supporting the establishment of

an African Union Government as a necessary step in the creation of ‘a united continent of Africa capable of engaging other powerful nations’ and, in the process, of moving ‘toward a strategic goal for the unification of Africa’ (ANC 2007a, 2007b) But the ANC has rejected Gaddafi’s idea of forming an African Union Government immediately In line with its ‘economic diplomacy’, the ANC insists that ‘the process [of forming an African Union Government] must be informed by a developmental agenda for Africa with immediate focus

on building Regional Economic Communities/regional blocs, with emphasis

on regional integration’ (ANC 2007b) In large measure, the ANC position on the Union Government debate heralds the continuation of the intra-African ideological and power struggle that dominated Africa during the Mbeki era Key protagonists in this continental power struggle are Africa’s emerging regional powers such as South Africa, Nigeria, Libya and Egypt and sub-regional powers such as Kenya, Senegal, Ghana and Algeria

Quiet diplomacy and African solidarity: a post-Mbeki dilemma

Top of the list of ‘negatives’ of the Mbeki administration was Mbeki’s ‘quiet diplomacy’ policy towards Zimbabwe’s Mugabe Here, Mbeki failed to strike

a favourable balance between, on the one hand, his commitment to African nationalism and liberation-era ties of solidarity and, on the other, South Africa’s human rights foundation, the democratic freedoms of Zimbabwe’s

people and the security of the inhabitants of the 14-nation southern African region But far from departing from the path of nationalist solidarity, the outcomes of the ANC conference actually signalled a deepening of these ties The party underlined the need to reinforce relations, particularly among former liberation movements such as Namibia’s South West African People’s Organisation (Swapo), the MPLA in Angola, Frelimo in Mozambique and Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF, among others The ANC has promised to provide structured support for the former liberation movements in the region, to conduct an audit of the ideological orientation and character of the parties

on the continent, and to identify those that share the same political vision as the ANC, with a view to ‘strengthening relations with all progressive and like-minded parties in the region, continent and the world’ (ANC 2007a)

In this regard, the party organised celebrations with its counterparts in Angola, Namibia, Cuba and Russia to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the historic battle of Cuito Cuanavale, which paved the way for the demise of racist regimes in southern Africa Since January 2008 the ANC president, Jacob Zuma, has visited most of the frontline states to strengthen ties with the former liberation parties The ANC has also expressed solidarity with the peoples of Western Sahara and advocated the lifting of the military, security and media blackout imposed on the Frente Polisario (Polisario Front), which has been fighting against the Moroccan occupation and extraction of the wealth of the occupied territory, now under the mandate of the United Nations But the ANC has cast its net wider to avoid ideologically pigeonholing South Africa, urging that ‘relations with other ruling parties in the continent that might not share the same vision with the ANC must be promoted and such relations could be based on common interests’ (ANC 2007a)

Nevertheless, the orgy of xenophobic attacks in May 2008 has not only taken its toll on South Africa’s relations with the rest of Africa, especially those countries whose nationals were affected, but also on Mbeki’s African Renaissance and South Africa’s moral leadership on the continent Significant spadework is needed to restore the image of the 2010 World Cup as an ‘African event’ and to erase the fears of insecurity, especially by the African peoples,

around the event (Reuters 30.06.08).8

Another issue is the future of Zimbabwe, where ANC alliance partners Cosatu and the SACP have been supporting the opposition MDC in its struggle against the country’s liberation party, Zanu-PF In contrast, the Mbeki-era