The view that the country’s survival depends on Cyril Ramaposa as president is short-sighted. (Photo: Delwyn Verasamy, M&G)
Four years ago a billionaire ascended to the highest seat of political power in our democratic order. This development was not, for the most part, met with outrage and scathing critique, but welcomed with euphoric relief — especially by the middle class and rich.
Since his ascension to power, South Africa has edged ever closer to collapse. Inequality has not decreased but rather continued to flourish. Poverty and destitution have not been confronted. The terror of violent crime still defines daily life for the masses of people and unemployment continues to thrust the lives of millions into precarity and despair.
Yet even as these crises escalate in both severity and scope, President Cyril Ramaphosa has evaded serious scrutiny and thorough critique from many prominent voices within mainstream media.
There is the popular perception of Ramaphosa as a “nice guy”, whose reformist agenda has been hindered by the greed of state looters, his own indecisiveness and his lack of clear judgment. Coinciding with the Phala Phala debacle, are discussions that portray Ramaphosa as the country’s only saviour.
The emerging concern is that Ramaphosa being removed or resigning from the presidency will herald a new era of parasitic corruption. Many fear that a reinvigorated kleptocracy in the ANC, infamously known as the “radical economic transformation” faction”, would mean a heightened assault on the judiciary, a drastic weakening of state capacity and the emboldening of authoritarian tendencies within the ruling party. Such a development would hasten the country’s demise and produce more suffering for its people.
The concerns about what will unfold once Ramaphosa and his neoliberal, reformist faction are removed from power are understandable and reasonable.
Ramaphosa’s anti-corruption efforts have not proven to be an entirely negligible obstacle to those seeking to use the state as a mechanism for the accumulation of wealth and undemocratic political power.
Undoubtedly the president vacating his position creates an opportunity for his political opponents and it would be strange if such an opportunity was not taken advantage of.
But the perspective that maintains Ramaphosa is critical to the country’s survival is short-sighted. It overlooks how the president and his executive have been instrumental in propelling the country’s ongoing demise.
Moreover, this view presents the illusion that there are no alternatives to overcoming the country’s numerous and interconnected crises, claiming we are trapped to choose between gluttonous kleptocrats and neoliberal technocrats. Or worse, that neoliberal macroeconomic policy is the singular and best pathway to human development, climate protection and just economic growth.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this unfolding debate is the conception of Ramaphosa in moral terms. The likeability of the president, the eagerness to see him as a “nice guy”, works to conceal his problematic class position as a billionaire or in other words, a member of the propertied class.
What is constantly overlooked is how this position renders the president perpetually averse to implementing the far-reaching socioeconomic reforms the country desperately needs. Furthermore, elevating Ramaphosa as the key to the country’s renewal reduces the long and complex process of social change to a process dependent on the moral fibre of individuals.
Years of disastrous governance and gruelling socioeconomic conditions have lowered our expectations of government and political leadership in general.
A closer look at Ramaphosa’s presidency reveals that neoliberal capitalism, and the politicians who reinforce it through policy, create the conditions and strengthen the class relations which allow kleptocrats and xenophobic nationalists to thrive, all while weakening state capacity and therefore our ability to respond to the crisis.
Since the height of Ramaphoria and even now as it withers in popularity, it is rare to find criticism of Ramaphosa that relates to his class position as a billionaire and how this comes into direct conflict with his mandates as the president of our democracy.
It is vital to remember that property relations, the bedrock of our economy, mean that Cyril Ramaphosa is one of the immensely powerful, unelected and privileged few who have dominance over economic production.
This class is not driven by respectable moral values but by the imperative to maximise profit in their numerous business ventures. It is this imperative and the relations that sustain it, which come into direct conflict with the interests and well-being of most South Africans.
Briefly reflecting on critical moments in Ramaphosa’s term so far, it becomes clear the president’s government does not work primarily in the interests of South Africans, but to fortify and sustain neoliberal capitalism.
Simply defined neoliberalism is “a political project to re-establish the conditions for capital accumulation and to restore the power of economic elites”.
In the South African context, this has meant pursuing macroeconomic policies of austerity, privatisation, labour market flexibility and private sector deregulation.
The Covid-19 pandemic was a bleak reminder of the socioeconomic injustices that permeate life in South Africa as the country endured a severe increase in extreme poverty, food insecurity and unemployment. The government’s response to this crisis was woefully inadequate.
Financial, food and healthcare relief to individuals, communities and households was negligible. Economic sovereignty was reduced as foreign loans were secured to finance the pandemic response. The police and military subjected poor and working-class communities to humiliation and brutality.
After the initial harsher stages of the lockdown, three million South Africans were plunged into unemployment, the majority of them being women. Wrecked by the pandemic and the government’s response, it is not surprising that in the following months xenophobic sentiment swelled as people blamed their hunger and joblessness on migrants.
Now more than ever, xenophobic forces — produced by the project of ANC neoliberalism — are politically articulate, organised beyond sporadic outbursts, social media savvy and increasingly violent.
Looking to tackle government debt, attract investor confidence and stimulate economic growth, Ramaphosa’s finance ministers have deepened austerity. According to the Institute for Economic Justice “abundant international evidence shows how austerity leads to rising unemployment, falling incomes and increased inequality”.
Cuts to government spending on basic education, healthcare and social protection result in under-resourced schools and a lower quality of education alongside overcrowded and understaffed hospitals.
Importantly, the reductions to spending on social protection (such as unemployment grants) amplify hunger, financial precarity, and poverty and make workers vulnerable to their employees as their disposability, due to mass unemployment, is leveraged against their needs for higher wages and demands for better working conditions.
Moreover, because the state is retreating in its provision of basic services and the realising of socioeconomic rights (here austerity converges with debilitating public service resulting from systemic corruption), citizens are forced to turn to the private sector, strengthening their dependency on the market and its disastrous deficiencies: rising food and fuel prices, soaring levels of consumer debt, recession and retrenchments.
Maintaining and extending the power capitalists have over workers is one of the central objectives of austerity and neoliberalism. It is this power asymmetry that allows employers to exploit and extract as much value as they can from their workers, at a lower cost.
Ramaphosa is indeed a reformer. He and his cabinet are reforming macroeconomic policy to reinforce the capitalist economy threatened by years of kleptocratic governance and the resulting political instability. The wealth neoliberalism produces is relished by a few and the costs of implementing this project — be they economic, social or political — are paid by the working class, poor and even middle class in recent years.
The toll of neoliberalism fosters discontent and disillusionment within the population. It is these potent feelings and economic conditions which fuel right-wing populism, nationalism and xenophobia.
In the absence of employment opportunities and thorough social protection or effective human development programmes, criminality and corruption thrive.
Ramaphosa’s attempts to ensure the security and safety of South Africans are undermined by his own economic policies, compelling a growing number of people to seek alternative means of survival. Even if this entails the violation of human rights, corroding state capacity, and violence.
One could predict that the government’s response to climate change and the national energy crisis, if unchallenged, will be the most disastrous chapter of Ramaphosa’s legacy. Eskom remains compelled to be run like a corporate entity, instead of a utility ensuring the equitable provision of a public good.
Millions are still energy poor while municipal dysfunction and tariff hikes squeeze the utility’s revenue streams, restraining Eskom’s ability to maintain and install new capacity or repay its debt. Compounded by years of corruption, the outcome is the rising frequency of blackouts and the socioeconomic instability it unleashes.
Climate change, instead of provoking the government to shift its ideological framework, has been contorted into an opportunity to hasten the unbundling of Eskom and the privatisation of the energy sector, opening up a new zone of commodification for domestic and international capital.
Beyond the reality that energy privatisation will have dire socio-economic outcomes, attempting to finance the much-needed transition to a low-carbon economy through foreign loans is once again a surrender of economic sovereignty.
To secure its Just Energy Transition Partnership, the government will continue to implement neoliberal reforms and to pay its debt, austerity will be intensified, aggravating the economic conditions and relations that produce poverty, unemployment and inequality.
Like many politicians around the world in the past 30 years, Ramaphosa works to stabilise and fortify capitalism through neoliberal policy and governance.
It should not surprise us that the man who labelled striking miners at Marikana as criminals and demanded that “concomitant action” be taken by police to address the strike, all while directly discouraging resolution through negotiation between Lonmin and its mineworkers, is now advancing policies that assault the well-being of South Africa’s poor and working-class majority.
Andile Zulu is with the Alternative Information and Development Centre in Cape Town. He writes in his personal capacity.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.