multiparty democracy
Ebrahim Harvey
left field
The increasing convergence between the ruling African National Congress and the state, similar to National Party rule before, represents dangers for our infant and fragile democracy. This is so in spite of the fact that white racist rule is gone and we have had a non-racial democracy since 1994.
The ANC’s growing centralisation of power in the state apparatus is bad because, among other reasons, it threatens to undermine the important democratic changes and gains made since 1994. Whereas the earlier moves to expand and consolidate its control over the state machinery were more subtle it is now more overt.
The ANC, in the absence of a united, strong and serious left opposition inside and outside Parliament, is using its political power to secure control over all organs of the state apparatus. While this process has been under way since 1994, it has gained momentum since the ANC won the 1999 elections with a bigger majority than in 1994.
Almost all key posts in the state and civil service have been filled by ANC loyalists. It controls the security apparatus, such as the police, intelligence and army, all government departments and largely Parliament. This enables it most times to run roughshod over the opposition. But the ANC’s aim is also to deploy its cadres to other major institutions of society, like the media and policy centres.
Those policy “analysts” who argue that political appointments are both inevitable and progressive at this stage of our transition, in order to ensure smooth implementation of government policies, fail to analyse the nature, objectives, impact and appropriateness of these policies in meeting vast social needs. For instance, the policies in place have failed to reduce, let alone eradicate, poverty and unemployment, which continue to grow. The ANC fails to realise or admit that in spite of what the government has done to improve conditions since 1994 people are on the whole worse off today than they were then.
The hegemony of the ANC is also said to be necessary for overcoming resistance to change and carrying out the transformation of the state and society in the interests of its people. That is only partly true, but what kind of transformation is this and whose interests does it serve?
Because the ANC has cultivated the public image that only it represents the true interests and aspirations of our people, particularly black people, the assumption is that what is good for the party is good for the masses. While there are many examples to explode this fallacy in the ANC’s current economic policies, which largely serve the interests of big business, best illustrate the point.
Therefore it is not so much the centralisation of power and encroaching authoritarianism that is the biggest problem, bad as it is, but the capitalist economic policy framework in which it is enveloped. “Change” and “transformation” are understood in narrow party terms and are largely meant to consolidate and expand its rule on a reformist basis and not to adopt policies for the eradication of poverty, unemployment and inequalities.
But it is leaders and cadres who are not expected to question the dominant party line on either policy or strategy who are appointed or deployed to key posts. To date no ANC Cabinet minister, MP or leading civil servant has challenged any of the fundamental party policy positions. At a lower level we have seen that when an ANC councillor, Trevor Ngwane, opposed the iGoli 2002 plan he was suspended. Ngwane accused the party of betraying its democratic traditions.
The ANC’s zeal to control every lever of power in state and society poses serious problems. Its decision to appoint an executive mayor in Johannesburg who will take decisions without a say from opposition parties is an indication of this. President Thabo Mbeki’s often conspicuous and aloof absence from Parliament and the ANC’s decision to curtail opposition questioning time are further indications.
Inside the formal shell of parliamentary and multiparty democracy grows a one-party dictatorship. The party can decide what to do or not to do in the “national interest”, often a euphemism for party interests. The decision last year of the Cabinet, controlled by the ANC, to buy R32-billion worth of military weapons while millions are without food, jobs and houses is a case in point. The latest is that the government is planning to spend billions more on additional weapons.
Beneath the cloak of “democratic centralism” in the ANC is the growth instead of stifling bureaucratic centralism. How the ANC has treated opposition to its economic policies within the alliance is a glaring example.
This is not only bad for our democracy but for the party itself in that a culture of silence and obeisance grows within it which arrests much-needed critical thought and participation. The fact that not a single ANC or alliance partner leader questioned Mbeki’s recent approach to HIV/Aids is an example. This strengthens the hand of Mbeki over ANC MPs, ministers, office bearers, the ordinary membership, its alliance partners and ultimately civil society in that it discourages broader debate, participation and opposition.
It already often appears that the figure of Mbeki looms larger than the party. While Nelson Mandela’s power was more diffuse in both party and government Mbeki has a keen, concentrated and strategic focus that leaves little or no room for dissent.
The more intolerant and authoritarian the top leadership of the ANC is the more it encourages intolerance, bureaucracy, toadyism, opportunism and even corruption at lower levels of the party.
The more the contradiction between the ruling party and the needs and interests of the black masses, which remain unfulfilled, grows, and bursts upon the scene, the more authoritarian the ANC will become to quell mass opposition. As it struggles to straddle the great divide between labour and capital, a product of our brutal past, and the growing divide between itself and labour, the ANC is placed in the invidious position of having to defend both its rule and that of capital.
The authoritarianism of the ANC moves in a direction opposite to that which the expansion and deepening of democracy requires. Until a left mass opposition to the ANC emerges the party will continue to spread its tentacles and smother not only opposing parties but the poor themselves. Already, Fatima Meer, leading academic, community leader and long-time supporter of the ANC, has stated that it is no longer a party of the poor.