If you listen carefully, you can hear the death rattle of a dying government. It reminds me of 1993. Not so much South Africa, but Britain and the Tory government of John Major.
The Conservative Party had been in power since 1979, but once it had dispensed with Margaret Thatcher in 1991 it was on borrowed time, short on both ideas and political discipline. Somehow, Major narrowly hung on to a majority at the 1992 general election — as much because Rupert Murdoch’s red-top tabloids turned voters against Labour’s loquacious leader Neil Kinnock — a case of rooi gevaar that the Nats would have been proud of back in the day. But neither Major nor his party knew what to do with the power that his party had narrowly clung to.
Down south, the National Party era of dominance — and apartheid — was drawing to a close. The “first” transition gained unstoppable momentum and was soon to be concluded decisively a year later as political power transferred to the ANC.
Thirty years later and a second transition — this time away from ANC power — is also gaining momentum, although this one will be far less clear-cut and far more messy.
But this is not what I have in mind. The sense of déjà vu comes from the telltale signs of a government that is in its death throes.
Ramaphosa now reminds me of Major then. He ended last year with a resounding election victory at the ANC national conference, and an apparently more loyal top seven to support him, but ever since has seemed hamstrung, unable to use the ostensibly greater power that the ANC’s Nasrec II conference in December bequeathed him.
Ramaphosa is imprisoned by his divided, fractious party — with its fundamental faultline between those who are honest and those who are corrupt — just as Major was by his party, with its equivalent faultline on Europe, between the headbanger anti-Brussels brigade and the pro-Europeans.
In the face of such divisions, it takes extraordinary leadership to transcend the drag factor. And Ramaphosa’s leadership, like Major’s, is ordinary, not extraordinary.
As a government runs out of road politically and policy-wise, like a car running out of petrol, it will start to stutter and finally shudder to a halt.
During the stuttering phase, a certain absurdity may well take root. As the fire goes out, the head of government and his allies will run around flapping their arms desperately trying to fan some life into the dying embers.
As the conversations become more anxious when the realisation sets in that the administration has no answers to the biggest problems of the day, with the political lieutenants concerned as much about their own future career prospects as those of their principal, so the prescriptions become more ridiculous.
It goes like this: “Mr President, the key ministers are at loggerheads and the public servants are all at sea or useless. Eskom’s a basket case. And since you don’t have the balls to sort it out, we need someone else to herd the cats.”
“I’ll appoint a minister of electricity, in the presidency, so with my authority he can take the action needed to solve the electricity crisis.”
“Good idea, sir. And since your leadership was most decisive and trusted during the Covid emergency in 2020, why not declare another national state of disaster?”
“Okay. But do I really need one?”
“No, but it will show you’re taking things seriously and doing something.”
Thereupon such announcements appear in the State of the Nation address. With fanfare. Except that in all the excitement no one thought to brief the cabinet ahead of time, so there are confusing mixed messages in the immediate aftermath.
And someone forgot to check that certain paperwork is required before appointing such a minister. And there’s a bit more consultation to do about who should get the job. A month idles by, while the load-shedding notches ever upwards.
About the time needed to figure out that the state of disaster was a totally bad idea, and probably unlawful. Almost as silly as creating an unnecessary minister of electricity.
Shades of Yes Minister or its modern incarnation, The Thick of It.
Like an out-of-form batter, such governments also run out of luck. They get kicked when they are down. Major’s suffered Black Wednesday not long after the 1992 election, when billions of reserve funds were lost as the Bank of England tried in vain to prop up the pound against a market attack on sterling.
It was partly bad luck, but it cost the Tory party its reputation for economic rectitude.
Ramaphosa’s administration is stuck in the same death cycle. Almost anything can be a banana skin to such a government, such is the loss of control, discipline and sense of direction.
So when the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who’s due here for the Brics conference later in the year, it’s awkward, to say the least, because the law is clear: as a signatory to the ICC treaty, South Africa must execute the arrest if Putin enters her jurisdiction.
The North Gauteng high court held as much in relation to Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir a few years back when the Zuma administration not only declined to arrest the Sudanese leader but shamelessly provided untrue instructions about his whereabouts to the government’s counsel as he stood before the court.
The government’s response to the ICC summons last week was a shambles. Regardless of the merits of the ICC and whether South Africa should withdraw from the treaty until such time as far greater consistency in the application of the international rule of law can be achieved, the communications were disastrous.
No one can trust a government that handles such things so badly. It is a symptom of a deeper malaise. If the ANC loses its majority next year, as is now more likely than not, it will never regain it. ANC voters are dying, but not being born. Those alive now to witness its terminal decline will probably never forgive it for the harm to lives and livelihoods of extended power cuts.
In 1993 in Britain, it was the former chancellor of the exchequer, Norman Lamont, who plunged the knife into his former boss in the House of Commons when he accused Major of “giving the impression of being in office but not in power”.
This is where South Africa finds itself. While Britain had to wait another four years until the next election in 1997, when Tony Blair’s “new” Labour Party won a landslide, South Africa’s voters will have the opportunity to intervene at the ballot box in just over a year’s time.
Yet, what emerges from the 2024 national election is unlikely to be a panacea. The fact that for the first time since 1994, the identity of the president after the election may not be known before the election is itself a game-changer.
When no single party wins a majority, the options become numerous. Depending on precisely how far the ANC falls, this will, in turn, determine the number of scenarios in play. Few if any of them offer the prospect of real stability; more uncertainty is the only certainty.
And no great new leader is waiting in the wings. Anything but.
The implication is straightforward. In the absence of strong and capable political leadership, South Africans will have to find leadership from other sectors — civil society and the private sector — and will have to find a way to prosper despite their presidents rather than because of them.
After all, with apparently no sense of irony, Ramaphosa said as much last week on Freedom Day.
He recognises that his government’s and his party’s end is nigh. But his sense of duty remains intact, so Ramaphosa won’t walk away even though he might be forgiven for wanting to, and even though he knows the game is up.
Richard Calland is associate professor in public law at the University of Cape Town and a founding partner of The Paternoster Group, which provides political risk analysis to clients doing business in Africa.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.
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