GNUTOPIA: 100 days of political promise

When Springbok captain Siya Kolisi brought the Rugby World Cup to the Union Buildings after a glorious, nation-boosting final in October last year, he had a message for President Cyril Ramaphosa. As the first African captain of a Springbok rugby team, his leadership of the manne for a second successive world cup, out of four in total for the country, spoke of a transformation in South African rugby that had somehow occurred without the heavy hand of government interference. The Springboks’ version of a merit-based transformation had made them world beaters, and the failing country celebrated for days, generators in the background drowned out for a while by the cheers.

So, surely here was a lesson writ large, a cautionary tale stood on its head, a template if you like for a better future for South Africa. And Kolisi seemed to know it.

His message to Ramaphosa that day, without having to say it in so many words, was that the Springboks drew upon a deep pool of resilience, diversity, talent and readiness to serve the people that our stricken ANC government seemed not to. While in the recent past local governments and in particular metros had seen some political fluidity — with the DA using its Cape Town showcase to boost its case at local level, and the EFF ploughing the racial divide to some effect — government at the top had become ossified. Filled to the rafters with ANC time-servers and party big men, it had become the biggest obstacle to South Africa’s success.

Doom-laden talk about South Africa being a “failed state” became a staple of political columnists, with the politically correct consensus emerging that we were a “failing state”, which categorisation allowed for unmerited “optimism”.

So, for a “failing state” to then field a world-conquering rugby team whose heroes were drawn from all the hues of our maligned racial rainbow, and which exemplified the qualities said to constitute the best of the South African spirit, suggested that Rassie Erasmus and the Springboks were doing a lot right. Most important, though, is that they were doing something that our government conspicuously wasn’t. In a word, that difference was in diversity, and how the Springboks transcended the racial divide, energised by an ethos of tapping into each other's strengths, complementing and adapting skills sets and revelling in teamwork and co-operation.

Kolisi said: “We wanted to show you that diversity is our strength in South Africa.” He continued: “We hope the celebrations don’t end this week. This unity that we see continues going forward.” It was an emperor without clothes moment, drawing awkward attention to our ANC government's lack of diversity, obviously on a racial level, which few dared criticise for fear of being labelled racist, but ideologically speaking too. The ANC cabinet marched, or strolled, to the familiar lounge music of out-of-touch party policies, finessed and blunted by Ramaphosa who alone seemed to understand the limits that the “real world” imposed on the comrades’ overreach.

Perhaps inadvertently, developments of the preceding 30 years had produced an apparent anomaly: while the ANC had been steadfast in observing the tenets of nonracialism, it had done little to promote it. In practice it was increasingly African nationalist-chauvinist, even populist, in outlook and ideology. Minorities — whites, coloureds and Indians — took refuge in political hideouts, in the DA mostly, but also in the Freedom Front Plus and the Patriotic Alliance (PA). A de facto one-party state inhabited a comfort zone undisturbed by ideas from beyond the shallow and brackish intellectual pool it fished in. 

How had we sunk so far, such capable people and yet our country a failure in the making? Much of the answer lies in the monopoly on power the ANC enjoyed for too long, just as a possible solution offers itself in breaking that stranglehold, and insisting on an accountable and diverse government and state.

With the possible exception of a few years at the birth of democratic South Africa in April 1994, the ANC had, before the May 2024 election, ruled South Africa with a near monopoly on power. The interim constitution had provided for a government of national unity (GNU), but mostly it served to boost the egos of former president FW de Klerk and IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi (he had a good run as minister of home affairs). De Klerk soon realised he had no real power, a predicament made even worse by the fact that first deputy president Thabo Mbeki ran the show from behind the scenes, at all hours of day and night.

Mbeki’s “I am an African” speech in May 1996 signalled his leaning towards an African nationalist interpretation of the South African freedom project, and a break from the much-derided “rainbow nation” utopianism of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Mbeki would bring an assertiveness to the ANC’s political outlook that had been blunted under the reconciliation focus of Nelson Mandela. He also drove the creation of a black middle class, implementing policies that his critics say impoverished the masses and politicised the state.

Two things happened on the way to Mbeki’s renaissance dream: after a few promising years that stemmed from the ANC ditching its idealistic reconstruction and development programme and replacing it with the neoliberal growth, employment and redistribution plan, the economic programme ran out of steam. There was growth, but it was jobless, its critics said. In any event, things were dealt a hammer blow by the global financial crisis in 2008, and in that same year South Africa experienced its first load-shedding, for two weeks in January.

Compounding the pain, Jacob Zuma won the ANC presidency in December 2007 at Polokwane, reaffirming the Africanist tilt begun by Mbeki, but with a roughhouse, militant and racially charged edge. State capture and corruption on an industrial scale would soon follow, accompanied by the near destruction of state-owned enterprises and a hollowing-out of government capability.

Destined to fail?

After standing by meekly as the rot in government deepened, deputy president Ramaphosa took centre stage, assuming the ANC presidency in December 2017 amid a wave of “Ramaphoria”. It was soon apparent that the euphoria was entirely misplaced. The excuse for his inertia this time was that he was being held hostage by the so-called radical economic transformation faction of the party, and the decay continued. Eskom, Transnet, Prasa, SAA. The list of failed state entities grew, and South Africa’s prospects of ever becoming an economy that could even come close to meeting the expectations of its people became ever more remote. A failed state seemed our inescapable destiny.

At the heart of this looming failure lay at least one common feature, which was the tendency of the government and its agencies to serve primarily either those employed at these bodies or those who benefited from contracts they often failed to fulfil, or did so inadequately. This perversion of purpose in public life, exemplified in public by the high-living style of our top politicians and civil servants, left ordinary South Africans without proper public transport, and substandard education and health care. And at the top of this self-serving malaise sat a cabinet, some of whose ministers openly promoted their own agendas. Then energy minister Gwede Mantashe had to have his “arm twisted” by Ramaphosa to allow South Africans the luxury of electric power when they needed it; then home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi also needed persuading on the need for visas for foreigners with rare skills.

Little wonder that Ramaphosa took the hardly surprising step of leaving them out of the big decisions. Think Deng Xiaoping lite, and his single-handed opening of China, as a guide to what might have alerted Ramaphosa to the existential necessity to seek his own counsel. This required the buy-in of big business, which obviously seemed to critics as another form of state capture, this time by older, white money.

It’s easy to forget, now — as we luxuriate in electricity, and load-shedding is forgotten — that the gloomy prognostications for South Africa’s future before May 29, what was said to be a make-or-break election, captured our deserved fate. And in a manner  typically South African, the implications of an election result that left all parties below 50% were ignored before May 29. That would be tomorrow’s problem. The DA insisted we had to be “saved”, the ANC promised “more”.

The DA’s “moonshot pact” was always going to be a nonstarter in terms of attaining power and contributed little to the individual parties’ fortunes at the May 29 polls. While the DA did make some inroads into disaffected ANC supporters in the Free State and the Vaal, the ANC was hurt by its potential supporters’ indifference to and abstention from the formal democratic process. The election outcome confirmed the racial nature of South Africa’s politics and society, an observation made garishly clear by the PA’s strong and unashamed “coloured” profile and appeal. Similarly, Zuma’s own ethnic spaza shop, the MK Party, damaged the ANC overall, hence its falling to just below 40%.

Having portrayed the DA as the party that would “take South Africa back to apartheid”, one might have thought it would be difficult to now enter into a coalition with this monster. But the DA could give the ANC two vital things: the probable “blessing” of the markets, and a majority in the National Assembly. It’s just a small leap from there to arguing that tying your fortunes as a liberation movement to white monopoly capital will undoubtedly advance the cause of the national democratic revolution. And then the rest is history.

And if, as the DA, you’re able to argue that a slow dance with the devil of state capture and cadre deployment will “save South Africa” and promote a liberal, “equal opportunity” society, then you have all the makings of a modern political Pride and Prejudice. Love will prevail.

On the edge

To continue the dance-floor analogy, though, if everyone is going to be dancing in the centre of the floor, who’s left to dance at the edges? And the answer is, only the most outcast, asocial and misanthropic elements, shuffling to their own mshini wam beat. And if you can gather other state capture miscreants around you, you can have a party all of your own, at the edges but menacing and constantly threatening to upend the decorum that prevails in the main dance.

To sugarcoat an alliance with the DA that was needed to a) Save South Africa and b) Save the ANC, Ramaphosa quite unsurprisingly looked to past successes, in this case reviving the once brilliant idea of a GNU that would break the deadlock in which South Africa found itself pre-1994. Not for the first time, South Africa was to proceed on a track that arguably would never have come about as it did without the negotiating genius of Ramaphosa. He’s perfected the art of never leaving anyone with the impression that they have lost, even when it’s obvious to all except them that they have. His manner is to disarm, and he is a master at it.

In writing about politics, it’s often frowned upon to dwell on the personal, especially in an age when teamwork is said to be valued. But it is Ramaphosa’s towering stature in the ANC, and in the country despite his detractors decrying an alleged lack of backbone, that has made the GNU and the de facto alliance with the DA a reality that South Africa is not going to easily shrug off in a fit of political fancy. In the bride’s home, the indefatigable Helen Zille has long foreseen the GNU becoming a reality, and has worked tirelessly (mostly behind the scenes) to eventuate it.

The slow dance has become a living-in-sin, and plate-throwing is to be expected. Aggrieved exes in the SACP are banging on doors late at night, sobbing about infidelity.

Few among those who make a living from trading in doom will accept this as a proper marriage, but it’s inarguable that the GNU is already more properly reflective of South Africa’s diversity as one nation, and not the two of Mbeki vintage. Of course, there are now more white and other faces, which is no great harm in a racially diverse country, but more importantly, a new vigour and competitive spirit are taking hold. Home affairs previously made headlines for ham-fisted attempts to make Zimbabweans’ lives more difficult, now Leon Schreiber has cleared a huge backlog of ID and visa applications and talks enthusiastically about a move to full digitalisation of a notoriously corrupt department. It’s not exactly rocket science, as they say, but it’s stuff that can be done. And it promotes confidence in the government at a time when it’s sorely needed. Accountability could be the big winner.

The new ministers have brought the equivalent of immigrant zeal to their departments, and it was little wonder that ANC ministers were soon squealing about being upstaged. And beyond their political adversaries sitting alongside them in the cabinet, opposition party ministers also face the daunting prospect of a bureaucracy tailored for serving personal and ANC party interests.

Why South Africa hadn’t looked earlier and more closely and responsibly at the predictable outcome of the May 29 election — namely an ANC-DA-IFP governance alliance (with smaller parties tagged on as camouflage) — has much to do with how we viewed politics before May 29. The GNU was the country’s worst-kept secret, even as we were encouraged to think of elections as a process that produced “winners”. But we realise now that the best we can hope for is a true reflection of relative strengths. The winners are those parties that do as well as or better than in the previous election: and everyone comes in below 50%.

South Africa’s first GNU was deemed necessary to ease the transition from apartheid to democracy. Its second is to transition from a failing (or failed) state to something that has a more reasonable chance of giving effect to the lofty promises of our constitution.

And just like that the switch can be flipped. History is full of examples of unity-type liberal governments in troubled societies whose deemed failure to live up to their promises paved the way to revolution and dictatorship. Think Weimar Germany, or the Kerensky government before the Russian Revolution. Both made impressive strides but were damned by faint praise and the status quo’s inability to stand up to the populist allure of the hollow promises of their critics. And a coalition of the reasonable can be replaced, in a flash, by its antithesis.

The GNU will come under pressure to prove its worth, and it will have to do so in circumstances not of its choosing. Expect the bar to be raised even higher, for there are many who will want to see it fail.