The ANC under Cyril Ramaphosa is attempting to forge a new government of national unity. (Photo by Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images)
In 1995, a year before his death, South African economist Harold Wolpe gave the following assessment of the process that brought about the end of apartheid and the birth of Nelson Mandela’s government of national unity.
“[T]he apartheid-induced impasse of the South African economy predisposed the dominant forces to seek a reformist path out of the apartheid system … despite the regime’s military/security power, it was unable to destroy the mass democratic and trade union movement which had emerged so strongly and with such deep roots among the masses in the 1980s,” Wolpe wrote.
“At the same time the democratic, political and trade union movements were not strong enough to overthrow the regime. Although the combined effect of international pressure, mass mobilisation, underground work, armed struggle and trade union pressure was powerful enough to drive the government to the negotiating table, it was not sufficient to dislodge it.”
Wolpe’s article was about the new government’s Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), which set out the radical transformation of South African society and the country’s economy.
While he admitted that it was probably too early to say whether the RDP’s dream would eventually be realised — and that such a revolution would more probably happen incrementally, over a lengthy period — Wolpe had his doubts.
At the heart of his reservations was his view that the RDP might ultimately be hamstrung by the government’s efforts to create consensus amid what he called “contradictory unity”.
Nearly 30 years after Wolpe made this analysis, the ANC under Cyril Ramaphosa is attempting to forge a new government of national unity, though under markedly different circumstances.
As it stands, the only big parties that appear to be entertaining the idea are the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) — the latter party being the more natural fit, having worked with the ANC in Mandela’s government of national unity.
Announcing this decision, Ramaphosa assured the public that the new government would advance the “progressive agenda of social and economic transformation”.
But the ANC’s predicament — its massive decline in support in last month’s vote — is very much linked to its failure to bring about the kind of transformation many believed it would in 1994. And so it is fair to question whether a government of national unity, which would potentially subsume whatever revolutionary spirit is left in the ANC, can do what the party hasn’t been able to in the past three decades.
When Oxford Economics weighed the potential economic effects of a post-election pact between the ANC and the DA, it flagged higher political regime risk — noting that the two parties have never partnered up. The size of the party’s support base makes it the most consequential in the context of a power-sharing agreement.
The DA rose to become the official opposition after its precursor, the Democratic Party, did not make the cut to be part of Mandela’s government of national unity, composed of the ANC, the National Party and the IFP.
In 1994, the Democratic Party led their campaign with the slogan “freedom, federalism and free enterprise”. The party only won 1.7% of the vote nationally. The ANC’s 1994 election slogan was “a future we can share”.
In his report to the ANC’s 50th national conference in 1997, Mandela criticised South Africa’s white parties, including the Democratic Party, the Freedom Front and the National Party — which had withdrawn from the government of national unity the year prior.
Seemingly affirming Wolpe’s reservations, he said: “The reality of the last three years is that the white parties have essentially decided against the pursuit of a national agenda.” In the five general elections that followed, the ANC had enough support to pursue its agenda without the help of any other parties.
Some may argue that Ramaphosa’s ANC is a far cry from Mandela’s — and thus perhaps much more aligned to the DA than one might think.
There is some truth to this. After all, with the ANC-led government’s jettisoning of the RDP in favour of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy, it became more accepting of the free market approach. The two parties might well be better positioned to work with one another than they were in the first years of democracy, given their shared views on certain economic reforms.
But what will be the cost? For the ANC, there is the real risk that it will be forced into abandoning its progressive principles in an effort to create stability — a predicament that could see it being relegated to opposition party territory in future elections. The DA could end up suffering the same fate as the National Party.
Worst of all, the process of closing the yawning gap between the rich and poor could end up stalling for another five years, after which South Africa will, hopefully, have found a truly leftist party to jumpstart this effort again.