JAUNDICED EYE
Approaching our most momentous election in 30 years, the country oscillates between giddy excitement and acute anxiety.
The former is a response to the possible end to the absolute grip that the African National Congress (ANC) has on power. The latter also.
Elation is understandable. It’s the old joke of what the hell the outpaced dog will do if, by some fluke, it does catch the car. In South Africa, the ANC is a now spluttering car and the collective opposition is the gratified but bewildered mutt.
After decades of ANC electoral invincibility, all the parties arrayed against the ANC are scrabbling to work out what to do if, as now seems likely, the ANC vote percentage drops into the mid-40s. Everyone, from Jacob Zuma and Julius Malema on the left, through John Steenhuisen and Herman Mashaba on the centre-right, to the ultimate mad dog of fringe politics, Gayton Mackenzie, is secretly hoping that they will be the perfect fit for the glass slipper Cyril Ramaphosa might be holding. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Then there’s the angst. That's not only because of the negative impact of a potentially radical shift left by the ANC on investments and ties with the West. There is also concern over the potential chaos of a high-stakes free-for-all in a country where politicians recklessly threaten violence.
Economic Freedom Front (EFF) leader Malema has already demanded for his party the Finance portfolio as the price of post-election cooperation with the ANC. This is the guy who in the past was ready to “kill for Zuma” and to unleash the slaughter of whites, “but not just yet”, and is now making common cause with former-president Jacob Zuma’s umKhonto weSizwe party (MKP).
Consequently, the political climate hasn’t been so charged since the fraught 1994 elections. Those were volatile days. Around 20,000 had died in fighting between Inkatha and the ANC, most of them in KwaZulu-Natal and most of them in the four years before the election. Right-wing groups threatened insurrection and left-wingers hinted at vengeance.
When liberation icon Chris Hani, the General Secretary of the SA Communist Party, was assassinated in 1993 by a white right-winger, the country teetered at the brink of an explosion, to be talked down by President Nelson Mandela. The dire scenarios of violence and throat-slitting of minorities fortunately never materialised, but it was nevertheless a nervous time.
Many stocked up on canned goods, with baked bean supplies placed under particular strain. Others took conveniently timed holidays that placed them and their families out of potential harm’s way when the polls opened on 27 April, which we today celebrate as Freedom Day.
In that sense, at least, things are calmer and democracy more embedded. There’s no concern, as there justifiably was in 1994, of a potential military coup d’état. Nor has the public felt driven to a blowout, so to speak, on baked beans.
That’s not to say there’s no trepidation over physical safety. Former President Jacob Zuma’s umKhonto weSizwe party (MKP) warned of “anarchy and riots” if the ANC succeeded in having it disbarred from the election — which the ANC tried but failed to do — or if MKP was “robbed” at the ballot box. In December, the SA Local Government Association said that the situation was particularly tense in KZN, with increasing political violence and the assassination in 2023 of at least 18 ward councillors.
General Roland de Vries, a former Deputy Chief of the South African Army, this week warned that the country was a tinderbox that might at any moment explode, reliant on a government that lacked the capacity and will to protect its citizens. “Very little resilience is left in the South African state. A less serious incident may spiral out of control due to the state’s inability to respond effectively, giving political factions the opportunity to escalate the situation.”
In a BizNews interview, De Vries says that the inability of law enforcement agencies to deal with large-scale unrest, evident from the July 2021 riots in KZN and Gauteng, serves as “a template for planning the next wave of violence”. In the politically febrile atmosphere surrounding the 29 May election, there was a range of “trigger events” that criminals and troublemakers could exploit to incite anarchy.
The obvious counter to De Vries’s example of 2021, when the police were helpless for four days in the face of looting mobs, is that South Africa is surely now better prepared for such an eventuality. In many rural areas, community/police cooperation has improved, with farmers and private security companies informally integrated into SA Police Service (SAPS) deployment plans.
A security expert who travels the country exhaustively says not: "SAPS is perhaps better prepared in some aspects, but the vital element of actionable intelligence is still very unreliable and poorly managed. Their ability to proactively take action is as bad as it has ever been.
"They lack the resources to deal with large-scale civil unrest should it break out simultaneously over numerous locations or a wide area," he says. He estimates that SAPS has perhaps sufficient manpower and ammunition to cope for 48-72 hours before starting to run out. In 2021, the police ran dry within 24 hours in some places.
De Vries, who managed the transformation of the newly created SA National Defence Force before his retirement in 1999, says there is a dangerous nexus between criminality and politicians. He alludes to “certain political groups and individual destabilisers” who have extra-legal agendas that may piggyback on factional conflict, vigilantism, and anti-immigrant campaigns such as Operation Dudula.
Central to this is, of course, the malevolent but canny Zuma. Initially, the ANC's response to the launch late last year of MKP was scornful disdain. Such ANC arrogance, coupled with Ramaphosa’s fear of conflict and the party's abysmal organisational skills — it doesn't register trademarks, misses regulatory and appeal deadlines, and forgets to file motions — has cost it dearly.
By the time the ANC awoke to the threat posed by MKP — three different sets of polls estimate MKP at upwards of a quarter of the vote in KZN and 10%-15% nationally — it was too late.
First, an ANC Electoral Court application to have MKP’s electoral registration declared unlawful failed. Then the same court overturned the decision of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to strike Zuma from the ballot on grounds of a 15-month sentence for contempt of court, which was never served because of a pardon from Ramaphosa. And finally, this week, in the Durban High Court, the ANC lost, with costs awarded against it, its claim that it held copyright on the logo adopted by MKP.
The IEC has appealed the rejection of the removal of Zuma from the ballot to the Constitutional Court. It says the IEC must urgently, for the sake of the integrity of the elections, have clarity on this important matter of principle.
On Wednesday, after cogitating for two weeks, the ConCourt belatedly sprung into action, giving Zuma’s legal team only 24 hours to file an answering affidavit. However, Zuma’s team pleaded for an extension to 30 April, which has now been granted.
That leaves barely four weeks before election day. What makes the timing even tighter, if the IEC is to succeed in invalidating Zuma’s candidacy before voting takes place. Failing judicial cooperation from the ConCourt in taking Zuma out of the election, some appear to be hoping for divine intervention.
This week News24 ran a highly speculative story under the headline Zuma’s ill-health sparks concern after recent falls. Based on “four independent sources” — one of whom demonstrated their independence by saying that MKP saw Zuma as a “meal ticket” and that a “bitter” Zuma saw MKP as a “funding scheme” — the story implies that Zuma is a dead man walking. Even if he were to make it through to 29 May, his failing health might result in him not being around for long afterwards. The subtext is: don't waste your votes on MKP, folks.
All these last-minute manoeuvrings by the ANC play directly into Zuma's hand, giving him new examples with which to bulk out his well-worn narrative of victimisation by the ANC, the judiciary, and the forces of white monopoly capital.
It also indicates an ANC that's rattled and under pressure. Politicians under pressure often make bad decisions.
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