Politics have taken an extraordinary turn in South Africa. At the centre of an emerging dispute are two of the country's foremost liberal organisations - the SA Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) and the Democratic Alliance (DA), the country's main opposition party.
They are in head-on disagreement over (a) the National Development Plan (NDP or "the Plan"), the most important policy document ever placed before parliament by the African National Congress government, and (b) Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE). Logically, more policies in dispute will follow in time.
Following the launch of the NDP in November 2011 DA leader Helen Zille welcomed the Plan stating that it "pointed to an emerging consensus at the non-racial, progressive centre of South African politics. The developing policy coherence on the fundamental issues facing South Africa is an exciting and significant development. The NDP is rooted in the same analytical framework that underpins the DA's own political philosophy - the ‘open, opportunity society for all'."
The SAIRR though has now rejected the NDP outright: "It is fundamentally flawed - riddled with ideological dyslexia, economic confusion and conflicting ideas - and will fail to achieve its social and economic goals. The NDP fails to commit to the deregulation of the labour market, abandon racial policy, and propose effective steps to improve the quality of the education system, making its investment, growth, and employment goals unattainable".
Piet le Roux (representing Solidarity Union, which supports the SAIRR's rejection of NDP), said at an Institute seminar about two weeks ago: "In early July, the SAIRR published its analysis of the NDP, becoming the first well-known non-ANC aligned organisation publicly to reject the NDP".
Le Roux explains: "The ANC supports the NDP to further the National Democratic Revolution (NDR). The NDR is the ANC's broad strategic orientation to gain control over all centres of power in South Africa, redistribute wealth and income and implement its idea of racial transformation. When the ANC adopted the NDP at its 53rd National Conference in Mangaung in December 2012, it resolved the following: 'Having considered the National Development Plan, (it is) agreed that it forms an important basis for the development of a long-term plan to build a national democratic society that...seeks to advance the National Democratic Revolution. Le Roux comments: "That the ANC at Mangaung could accept the NDP as furthering the NDR should sound a note of caution".