The National Treasury-Gate – What is the class agenda, interest and content of the #ZumaMustFall campaign in 2017 – Is it the same as December 2015? Part Two
Zuma and the reshuffling of his Cabinet in 2017
In the name of “efficiency and effective governance”, the South African President used his Constitutional prerogative to chop and change the 4th South African Minister of Finance in less than 2 years and 9 other Cabinet Ministers and Deputy Ministers.
The uproar in the country (and the world) coming from monopoly capital, religious leaders, trade unions, civil and not so civil society, opposition parties, from the left to the right, came to dominate the media space and conversations in factories, families and our streets with one common dominator – #ZumaMustFall.
Of course the ructions and divisions within the African National Congress run so deep in respect of the call for Zuma to fall, that the different factions broke ranks with each other at a national, provincial and branch level.
The rallying cry of the #ZumaMustFall campaign is that our society must not allow the looting of state coffers by Zuma and his henchmen.
This campaign claims that what makes the dismissal or removal of Pravin Gordhan more suspect, has been Gordhan’s protection and defense of the National Treasury against the Guptas, whose banking solutions have all but run dry, and whose alleged lust for the Nuclear Deal has generated an appetite for looting.
Other arguments, to reinforce the theory of the 2017 #ZumaMustFall campaign, lie in the failure of the South African president to decisively deal with the shambles that all State Owned Enterprises find themselves in; the drama caused by the Social Development Ministry which gave a billion rand tender to Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) (which is not South African or Black owned); the social development ministers failure to honor a constitutional court judgement; as well as the crisis and mismanagement caused within the SABC by the minister of communication. The reward for the former Minister of Communication, Faith Muthambi, was a sideways deployment to the Public Service Ministry.
The list of crony governance is just too long to mention in this short article. All of the aforementioned arguments are plausible and require that the working class take an active lead in the struggle to end capitalist state capture, but on terms that set out working class demands to secures the interest of the working class and the poor. In other words we cannot be led by class forces whose only interest is a “smarter” president coming from the ANC whose goal is to secure the position of (white) monopoly capital.
As we up the ante, within a potpourri of social and class forces to have Zuma removed, the critical question to be asked in 2017, as we did in 2015, is – which class forces stand to gain the most from this important site of struggle?
It is also important to ask the question as to how to turn this period of crisis (of legitimacy and economic crisis) into something that will benefit the working class. Yes, in as much as we must analyze the class forces at play but then we must use the crisis and popular feelings of ordinary people to concretely benefit the working class and build working class hegemony.
Who stands to gain – drawing on historical tactical and strategic questions?
In raising this pertinent question we are not for a moment undermining the need for our society to defend constitutional and democratic institutions against capitalist state capture. As NUMSA, we have lodged a complaint with the Public Protector for her office to investigate the Road Accident Fund, (RAF).
The one part of our complaint is that given that the RAF is technically insolvent and it’s chaotic financial state means it is routinely having its computers seized by the sheriff of the court and auctioned off to settle debts, we would like the public protector to investigate whether the RAF is in violation of the Protection of Personal Information Act.
It is the duty of all government agencies, like the RAF to ensure that all personal information of the public remains confidential, and, that it doesn’t end up in the wrong hands. We are concerned that some of these computers are auctioned off to the public with the confidential information of RAF claimants inside the hard drive.
The second part of our complaint is that we want the Public Protector to establish whether the technical insolvency of the RAF is due to mismanagement.
We want to make the point that reference to state capitalist capture does not narrowly refer to the Guptas (as some would have it today). But more importantly, it refers to the historical and present-day role White Monopoly Capital plays in the Mining, Energy and Finance Complex (MEC) and it represents the landowners, a tiny white minority, who still own most of the land in this country.
This has resulted in the creation of an unequal society, where, according to Oxfam, the entire wealth of South Africa is owned by three White men, and the Black and African majority suffer as a result of high unemployment, poverty and extreme inequality. This was precisely the situation under Apartheid.
Using Lenin as a pathfinder we want to talk about important things which must help us clarify the questions we raise in this article on what for example constitutes democracy and what constitute tactical class alliances, what the opportunities are, the risks and dangers therein.
Before we are accused of failing to see a potential revolutionary moment to defend democracy against a “soft coup” and dictatorship, we want to borrow from Lenin’s correct analysis of democracy. Lenin made the following important points about democracy;
"We Social-Democrats always stand for democracy, not "in the name of capitalism," but ithe path for our movement, which clearing is impossible without the development of capitalism."n the name of clearing the path for our movement, which clearing is impossible without the development of Capitalism”
"Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich -- that is the democracy of capitalist society."
"But democracy is by no means a limit one may not overstep; it is only one of the stages in the course of development from feudalism to capitalism, and from capitalism to Communism."
"Whoever wants to reach socialism by any other path than that of political democracy will inevitably arrive at conclusions that are absurd and reactionary both in the economic and the political sense."
“Democracy is for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich - that is the democracy of capitalist society”
“Whoever wants to reach Socialism by any other path than that of political democracy will inevitably arrive at conclusions that are absurd and reactionary both in the economic and the political sense.”
From this outlook it is crystal clear that democracy plays an important role but from a class perspective Lenin is clear under which conditions we struggle for democracy, not in the name of capitalism.
Before we argue the basis upon which we draw our conclusions insofar as what the class agenda, interest and content is of the #ZumaMustFall in 2017 is, let us turn to the question of class alliances that has always shaped the struggle of the working class for total emancipation.
In a book entitled Antonio Gramsci – A Great and Terrible World: The Pre-Prison Letters, 1908-1926 edited and translated by Derek Boothman, Bill Bonnar’s review of the book makes the following critical points;
“In a capitalist country which has a democratic political system; how does the ruling class rule? The standard Marxist reply would be through its control of the institutions of the state. For Gramsci this was true as far as it went but did not tell the full story.
In a capitalist democracy the ruling class rules through consent because the majority of workers overtly or tacitly support the system. For them the ideas of capitalism have become the common sense ideas of the age. At the same time the ruling class doesn’t rule alone but forms alliances with other classes and social/cultural movements in society broadening its support base.
For socialism to succeed the ideas of socialism has to move from a set of utopian ideas to a blueprint for the practical reorganization of the existing society, along socialist lines, with those ideas replacing capitalist ideas as the common sense of the age. The working class will also require to form strategic alliances with other social and cultural movements.
Implicit in this strategy is the idea that socialism will not be achieved through a single dramatic revolutionary moment as in Russia, but rather, involves a process of transformation over a period of time.
The timescale and nature of this transformation will be set by the relative balance of forces between the working class and the capitalist class and their respective allies. The aim will be the election of a left government committed to a transformational programme supported by a mass, radical movement in the country.
This programme is likely to stop short of socialism but when implemented, it will shift the balance of power from the capitalist class to the working class, in favour of the latter ready for the next stage of struggle and the road to socialism.”
Again historical Marxist wisdom has it that the working class cannot achieve its total emancipation in some purist revolution, unless it considers intra-class alliances from time to time, depending on the class balance of power, material conditions at play and of course, whether such alliances seek not to tie the hands of the working class in its historical mission.
Not staying aloof from inter class struggles and alliances, the working class should however never aid an agenda that replaces one butcher with another. The world knows all too well what Cyril Ramaphosa’s role was in Marikana and the mass murder of mineworkers by the South African Police Services.
The cold reality is that some of those who are calling for Zuma to fall are actively campaigning for Ramaphosa to become the next South African President. Ramaphosa has the backing of COSATU and the SACP, and perhaps even Save South Africa and others are also supportive of him.
The other hero of the campaign is Pravin Gordhan. It is necessary to mention that Pravin Gordhan is no hero of the working or the middle strata given the austerity measures that he has implemented over the years. Just because Gordhan plays by the ‘rules’ of democracy doesn’t mean he is good for the majority or for democracy.
What is at play in 2017 as it was in 2015 – To partake or not to partake?
We cannot escape the question that if Zuma is removed who would replace the CEO of the Capital state to subject the working class, rural poor, students and informal sector workers to the endless pain and misery they have suffered under neo-liberal Capitalism since 1994. Factually this is the state and the crisis of the South African working class:
35.6% of the population of working age is unemployed, if we include those who have stopped looking for work.
47% of all workers earn below the proposed national minimum wage of R3500.
26% of South Africans are hungry every day; half do not have sufficient access to affordable, nutritious and safe food to meet basic health requirements.
Malnutrition is the major underlying cause of the 64% of deaths of children under 5, one in five children are undersized because of malnutrition, whilst millions more are deficient in minerals and vitamins necessary for optimal development.
The total net wealth of 3 South African billionaires is the equivalent of the total combined wealth of 50% of the population; the richest 1% of the population has 42% of the country's wealth; and the wealth of South Africa's top 10% grew 64% in first 17 years after 1994, whereas the wealth of the poorest 10% did not grow at all.
In 1994 about 4 million people were recipients of social welfare or grants. In 2017 it is at 17 million people. The social welfare grants are necessary for the poorest of the poor but it says something about the failure to build an economy that can create jobs and redistribution of wealth
Our economy is still in the hands of mainly white and male monopoly capitalists which uses the wealth, created by workers’ labour to enrich themselves to the point that we have become the world’s most unequal society.
We must ask those who are marching under the banner of the #ZumaMustFall, where are they in the struggle of the working class when for years we have been struggling with Zuma and the ANC Government on some of the following issues:
- Labour brokers and outsourcing are still being used to undermine secure jobs and push down wages;
- Re-industrialisation which is killing manufacturing in our country and the subsequent job losses
- Collective bargaining which is under attack by employers and their mouthpieces in the Free Market Foundation who want to make negotiated agreements optional for employers;
- Strike ballots that are imposed on workers and their trade unions and which are made mandatory, regardless of a union’s constitution;
- The plans to impose “compulsory arbitration” in strikes which the ANC government believes are going on for too long;
- The imposition of the national minimum wage of R20 an hour which will keep millions of workers living in poverty.
In this context what demands do the working class have, as a class for itself or shall our class interest be subordinated to some of those who march with us only to hijack the working class once more? We shall have to be clinical in asking who amongst those marching for Zuma to Fall are with the working class and the poor as we struggle with the following;
- The killing of mineworkers in Marikana and farm workers in De Doorns
- The State helping the Banks to get away with criminal and illicit trading under Apartheid and in the post 1994 South Africa
- Not criminalizing the construction firms and other monopolies for price fixing
- Allowing private ownership of the South African Reserve Bank
- The ANC government making South Africa the most unequal society in the world through neo-liberal polices imposed on the working class
- The deepening levels of unemployment, poverty, inequality and corruption
Clearly it will not be the end for the road for the working class when Zuma falls.
As NUMSA we want to see full employment, a national living wage, a 40 hour working week and full maternity paid leave. We want to have the stolen land returned without compensation, we want the mines, banks and monopoly industry returned under democratic worker control, we want re-industrialization and beneficiation of the mines, we want free and decolonized education for our children housing and free quality basic services. We want an enshrined right to immediately recall a political representative who acts against the interest of the people.
We want a total transition from Capitalism to Socialism. It is an ideal that we know our fellow capitalist marches will recoil from.
We must stop the rot together with others who are genuinely concerned with the prospect of looting (whether some may feel excluded from the looting), but we must do so on our own terms and with our own class demands.
What form, shape, character and direction this #ZumaMustFall takes is dependent on whether the working class is properly engaged. Already all sorts of opportunistic efforts are underway by forces that have different motives not in line with that of the working class.
Even the insults thrown at us by the Colonialist Mistress in the DA, Helen Zille, have taken a back seat and quietism by many of those in the struggle for Zuma to fall.
In conclusion:
This struggle against the disciples of neo-liberalism, which is cloaked in radical economic transformation, calls for a national strike and rolling mass action if we are to embolden the working class.
To organize the current popular feelings amongst ordinary people there needs to be the organizing of an effective spear and shield for all those who want to build a socialist SA under working class leadership so that the real rot of the system can be fought. This of course can be nothing but the building of a Workers Party.
Numsa is not standing on the sidelines but is putting forward alternative actions and an alternative socialist agenda in the present.
Left forces must be rallied and organised to develop a clearer line of march with clear working class demands.
Karl Cloete is NUMSA Deputy General Secretary "Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich -- that is the democracy of capitalist society.""But democracy is by no means a limit one may not overstep; it is only one of the stages in the course of development from feudalism to capitalism, and from capitalism to Communism."
