It was with great expectation that the African National Congress was overwhelmingly returned to power in 1999. The party had discharged itself honourably during the first term. It established institutions of democracy and passed progressive legislation. All forms of discrimination are prohibited. Laws aimed at improving the working conditions of millions of workers, including the most vulnerable, are in place. On the political and the sporting front, Madiba dazzled the country with his magic. With the party having taken control of the entire state machinery — the police, the army, the bureaucracy, intelligence structures, para-statals and the public broadcaster — the ANC government was ready to deliver.
The party’s political dominance has, sadly, not translated into the fast-tracking of development and a deepening of democracy. Not even the most sceptical could have foreseen that, less than four years later, the people’s government would be a target of derision and scorn from its traditional allies. Trade unions, churches, students, the homeless and the landless have taken to the streets against the government.
The much-acclaimed and non-negotiable growth, employment and redistribution strategy (Gear) has proved to be an economic disaster. Foreign direct investment has yet to come. One million jobs have been lost, capital has taken flight out of the country, and the currency has plummeted to unprecedented levels — this happens despite “the fundamentals being in place”, as it is put. Some will argue that, as result of Gear, South Africa has less debt, that it has lower inflation, higher tax revenues and access to cheaper financing than at any time in the past 20 years.
But while the majority remains trapped in abject poverty, billions are squandered on warships, warplanes and state-of-the-art jet planes for personal comfort. Corruption and incompetence have become the defining features of the government. Political office has become a weapon to use to settle personal and political scores.
Sakhela Buhlungu, Wits lecturer and a proud member of the ANC, articulates these developments succinctly: “The party leaders are now career politicians who seek to entrench themselves in power … Many leaders have moved into the positions and the houses of the former oppressors and are carrying on as before.”
Buhlungu continues: “All the negative aspects associated with working in exile, such as secretiveness, defensiveness, democratic centralism and lack of accountability to the membership of the party, remain.”
No less a figure than the alliance veteran Gwede Mantashe comes close to concurring: “The error that we have to avoid is to give the liberation movement absolute trust, absolute power — and an absolute mandate. The result of this is the emergence of dictatorships. This leads to people repeating, verbatim, what the centre of power says.”
Mantash adds: “In dictatorships, a network of cadres is developed to sustain the centre of power, ensuring that it hears only things it wishes to hear. In return, these cadres are appointed to strategic positions with little attention paid to skills. Deployment is then based on patronage rather than delivery [and] critical minds are labelled ultra-Left or counter-revolutionary. At this point, the revolution is poised to devour its children.”
The culture of fear suffocates political discussion. It is not uncommon for members of the ruling alliance to switch off their cellphones during interviews or political discussions. This, as they point out, is not out of courtesy but because they fear that their phones might be tapped. Discussions and debates have since shifted from policy to individuals.
We are now mid-term of the second ANC government. This fact and the coming national conference of the ANC should provide the organisation with an opportunity to reflect and take stock. The conference provides an opportunity for the ruling party to unveil again ambitious plans and promises. There is animated discussion around the state of the alliance, black economic empowerment, land reform, crime and health. Conspicuously and conveniently missing is a discussion around power and the centralisation of it.
One does not have to be a genius to appreciate that the political and intellectual paralysis the country experienced around the HIV/Aids crisis had a lot to do with centralisation of power. Political appointees — notably government ministers, and ANC premiers, MPs, MECs and MPLs — were reduced to minions.
Speaking out against the puppet master or paymaster would have meant being removed from political office. And that would have meant losing both the salaries and status that comes with position. Everyone can be bought.
Given the havoc the pandemic wreaks among our people, this silence is not only immoral; it is also an indictment of the members of the ruling party. It is a silence that speaks to our collective collusion in the deaths of thousands of babies. Dr Kgosi Letlape, chairperson of the 16 000-strong South African Medical Association, the doctors’ trade union, puts it more bluntly: “South Africa is the only country in the world that does not have a policy for the treatment of HIV/Aids. As such, millions of South Africans are dying from a disease for which there is treatment, albeit not a cure. Consequently, South Africa’s government, medical profession and society are effectively part of a system that is committing genocide.”
Letlape’s words should send a chill down our spines: “The number of HIV/Aids-related deaths has been equated to dropping a bomb on a high school every day. The death tolls of South Africans in both world wars and the armed struggle against apartheid pale in comparison to the numbers of those killed by the deadly disease.” Yet the ruling party does not want to discuss the cause of the government’s prevarication.
The pandemic threatens to undermine any effort towards the country’s economic recovery. Medical and econometric studies indicate that prevention and treatment would make economic sense. From the human perspective, the government’s approach is callous, to say the least. The approach reflects the ruling elite’s moral bankruptcy — a ruling elite that could easily sacrifice millions on the altar of expediency.
Fortunately, these failures are easy to cover up. All you need is to build a bridge, a stadium, a conference centre, or something similar — and name each after a struggle icon. Better still, ensure that South Africa becomes the world’s leading conference host. After all, the world’s leading nations would not come to South Africa unless we are doing well — or so the logic goes.
There you have it folks — the state of the nation. A country faced with a political, moral, economic and intellectual crisis. This is not the making of an African renaissance. It is an African nightmare in the making.
This is Sipho Seepe’s last column. He is due to leave shortly to take up a Fulbright scholarship in the United States