State of the Nation: South Africa 2008

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SoN 2008 Title Page.pdf 2008/05/06 12:29:10 PM

Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za

South Africa 2008

Ntsebeza & Peter Kagwanja Edited by By Lungisile Peter Kagwanja & Kwandiwe Kondlo

State of the Nation 2008 minus kepe.indb 3

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Published by HSRC Press Private Bag X9182, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa www.hsrcpress.ac.za


First published 2009 ISBN (soft cover) 978-0-7969-2199-4 ISBN (pdf) 978-0-7969-2285-4 © 2009 Human Sciences Research Council The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Human Sciences Research Council (‘the Council’) or indicate that the Council endorses the views of the authors. In quoting from this publication, readers are advised to attribute the source of the information to the individual author concerned and not to the Council. Typeset by Simon van Gend Cover design by Farm Design Cover photo by Russell Mbulelo Kana Print management by comPress Printed by Logo Print, Cape Town, South Africa Distributed in Africa by Blue Weaver Tel: +27 (0) 21 701 4477; Fax: +27 (0) 21 701 7302 www.oneworldbooks.com Distributed in Europe and the United Kingdom by Eurospan Distribution Services (EDS) Tel: +44 (0) 20 7240 0856; Fax: +44 (0) 20 7379 0609 www.eurospanbookstore.com Distributed in North America by Independent Publishers Group (IPG) Call toll-free: (800) 888 4741; Fax: +1 (312) 337 5985 www.ipgbook.com


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Contents List of tables and figures Foreword

ix

Acronyms

xii

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Introduction: Uncertain democracy - elite fragmentation and the disintegration of the ‘nationalist consensus’ in South Africa xv Peter Kagwanja Part I: Politics 1

The Polokwane moment and South Africa’s democracy at the crossroads 3 Somadoda Fikeni

2

Modernising the African National Congress: The legacy of President Thabo Mbeki 35 William M Gumede

3

The state of the Pan-Africanist Congress in a democratic South Africa 58 Thabisi Hoeane

4

Black Consciousness in contemporary South African politics Thiven Reddy

84

Part II: Economics 5

The developmental state in South Africa: The difficult road ahead Sampie Terreblanche

6

Globalisation and transformation of the South African merchant navy: A case of flag of (in)convenience shipping? 131 Shaun Ruggunan

7

Service delivery as a measure of change: State capacity and development 151 David Hemson, Jonathan Carter and Geci Karuri-Sebina


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8

The state of our environment: Safeguarding the foundation for development 178 Donald Gibson, Amina Ismail, Darryll Kilian and Maia Matshikiza

Part III: Society


9 Beyond yard socialism: Landlords, tenants and social power in the backyards of a South African city 203 Leslie Bank 10 Internationalisation and competitiveness in South African urban governance: On the contradictions of aspirationist urban policy-making 226 Scarlett Cornelissen Part IV: South Africa, Africa and the globe 11

South Africa and the Great Lakes: A complex diplomacy Che Ajulu

253

12 Cry sovereignty: South Africa in the UN Security Council, 2007–2008 275 Peter Kagwanja 13

Praetorian solidarity: The state of military relations between South Africa and Zimbabwe 303 Peter Kagwanja and Martin Revayi Rupiya

Contributors Index

332

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Tables and figures Tables Table 1.1 Table 1.2


Table 1.3 Table 3.1

Table 6.1 Table 10.1 Table 10.2 Table 10.3 Table 11.1 Table 12.1 Table 12.2

ANC membership and voting delegates at the December 2007 conference 17 Polokwane conference election results for top six NEC positions 18 2004 election results: National Assembly 25 Major South African political parties represented in the National Assembly after the 1994, 1999 and 2004 elections, by percentage 72 Unicorn’s ships and flagging practices 134 Economic development goals in South Africa’s three largest metropolises, 2006–2111 239 Johannesburg Development Agency’s main partnerships and development projects 242 Durban Investment Promotion Agency’s main partnerships and development projects 243 South African foreign policy priorities, 2004–2008 255 Kofi Annan’s plans for the reform of the UN Security Council, 2005 284 AU plans for UN Security Council reform, 2005 288

Figures Figure 8.1 Conceptual models of development 180 Figure 8.2 Ecosystem services and their relationship to human well-being 181 Figure 8.3 Levels of soil, vegetation and overall degradation in South Africa, c. 1998 185 Figure 8.4 Status of terrestrial ecosystems, South Africa, 2004 188

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Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za State of the Nation 2008 minus kepe.indb 8

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Foreword The exciting times in which we live as South Africans just never end. The period 1994 to 1999, sometimes referred to as the era of ‘Madiba magic’, was a heroic one; it was a time of tasting and celebrating the possibilities of our new democracy. From 1999 to 2004, the period some refer to as the era of ‘Mbeki logic’, responses to managerial imperatives came to the fore and we witnessed the implementation of comprehensive policy reforms and the steady growth of our economy. The years 2004 to the present have combined the hope and optimism of the Madiba period and the orientation towards policy implementation and public service management of the Mbeki period with an increasing sense of uncertainty and anxiety as the leadership contests within the African National Congress (ANC) dominate public attention. The latter trend culminated in the December 2007 ANC National Conference in Polokwane, the subsequent recall of President Mbeki, the split within the ruling party, and the formation of a new political party – the Congress of the People. These developments have generated much debate and the expression of a wide range of views. Some political analysts emphasised the basic dimension of ‘a changing of the guard’ and its associated manifestations in the redefinition of existing relations between party and state, between the leadership and the led, and between the haves and the have-nots, as well as the consolidation of internal democracy in the ANC-led alliance in a way that amounts to the reinvention of socio-political and economic emancipation. Other analysts saw in the changes the settling in of a possible mediation of polarisations and disparities in our political economy and society. Yet others saw in the same changes the dynamism of stable continuity. As a result of these varied perspectives, the conversations and debates about the likely future political, social and economic trajectory of the country are ongoing and have become interestingly robust. The chapters in this edition of State of the Nation encompass these varied perspectives and are a sample of the ongoing debates. In keeping with its commitment to ‘social science that makes a difference’, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) is proud to present the selection of views contained in this edition, which continues the tradition of contributing to the ongoing dialogue and wide-ranging debates between researchers,

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state of the nation 2 0 0 8

policy-makers, public managers and policy activists, as well as revealing and revelling in the vibrancy of our democracy and sharing contemporary insights into the challenges facing our nation. As with previous editions, the editors of this edition have attempted to strike a balance in their coverage of issues – a balance between focusing on South Africa’s internal politics, society and economy, and concentrating on South Africa’s external relations, most critically with other African nations but also in relation to the country’s bilateral and multilateral relations with the rest of the world.


The interpretations of our situation offered in this volume are diverse, including some that are critical of government policies, state institutions, political parties – including the ruling party – and global institutions. However, all the contributors have sought to interpret their topics based upon both historical understanding and empirical research, and the chapters reflect a nuanced take on aspects of the state of our nation. Neither the introductory chapter by the editors nor the perspectives presented in the subsequent chapters represent the views of the HSRC and, as is the case with all HSRC Press publications, editorial independence is respected and upheld as a matter of principle. I would like to record our gratitude to the four donor organisations that continue to provide solid support to this project. Atlantic Philanthropies, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and the Ford Foundation provided the generous financial assistance which enabled the compilation and production of this publication. Equally important was the contribution of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which financed several workshops in the HSRC’s Democracy and Governance Research Programme. The latter Foundation has in the past also supported the launch workshops which allowed us to extend the debate on the state of the nation well beyond the academy. The success of State of the Nation is in large measure due to the commitment and effort of its editors and in this regard I would like to single out the contribution of the founding editors John Daniel, Adam Habib and Roger Southall in launching what has now become a flagship publication of the HSRC. The contributions of subsequent editors that variously included Sakhela Buhlungu and Jessica Lutchman are also acknowledged. Thank you all for the continuing legacy of scholarship in the nexus of social science and public policy.

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foreword

For a number of reasons the transitions between various groups of editors have not been as seamless as we would have desired and we have struggled with ensuring continuity amidst change. Lungisile Ntsebeza, Peter Kagwanja and Kwandiwe Kondlo, Executive Director of the HSRC’s Democracy and Governance Research Programme, deserve a special word of thanks in this regard. The delayed production of this edition was overcome through tapping into collaboration networks and by drawing upon an outstanding commitment to ensuring that this important national project continues. We will continue to tap into these networks and draw upon this commitment to ensure continuity for the future. As part of these efforts a new lead editor will be appointed following the resignation of Lungisile Ntsebeza from the editorial team. A decision has also been made to publish State of the Nation at the beginning of each calendar year to coincide with the beginning of the academic year in South African institutions of higher education, rather than towards the end of the calendar year as was previously the case. As with previous editions, Garry Rosenberg, Mary Ralphs, Karen Bruns, Utando Baduza and all the staff of the HSRC Press have continued to play their part in ensuring the success of this project and I convey the appreciation of their colleagues. State of the Nation is a mechanism for dialogue and public debate aimed at engendering the kind of knowledge that public policy needs in order to be more effective. I trust that this edition keeps us on course towards achieving this goal. Dr Olive Shisana President and Chief Executive, HSRC

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Acronyms Africom ANC Apla Asgisa AU Azapo BC BCF BCM BEE BPC CBD CBO Codesa Cosatu CTRU DA DBSA DEAT DME DPSIR DRC DVRA ESI EU FDD Fifa FLS FNL FoC Frelimo GDP GEAR HSRC

African Command African National Congress Azanian People’s Liberation Army Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa African Union Azanian People’s Organisation Black Consciousness Black Consciousness Forum Black Consciousness Movement Black Economic Empowerment Black People’s Convention Central Business District Community-based organisation Convention for a Democratic South Africa Congress of South African Trade Unions Cape Town Routes Unlimited Democratic Alliance Development Bank of Southern Africa Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Department of Minerals and Energy Drivers-pressures-state-impacts-responses Democratic Republic of Congo Duncan Village Residents’ Association Environmental Sustainability Index European Union Force for the Defence of Democracy Fédération Internationale de Football Association Frontline States Forces for National Liberation Flag of convenience Frente de Libertação Moçambique Gross domestic product Growth, Employment and Redistribution programme Human Sciences Research Council

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acronyms

ICC ICT ID IDP IFP ILO IMF IRIN IT ITF JDA JOC MCS MDC MK MP MPLA NDR NEC Nepad NFSD NGC NGO NNP NP NPA NSDP NWC OAU OECD OPDS PAC PRC PSC RDP RLDF RSC

International Convention Centre Information and communications technology Independent Democrats Integrated Development Plan Inkatha Freedom Party International Labour Organization International Monetary Fund UN Integrated Regional Information Network Information technology International Transport Workers Federation Johannesburg Development Agency Joint Operations Command Marine Crew Services Movement for Democratic Change (Zimbabwe) Umkhonto we Sizwe Member of parliament Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola National Democratic Revolution National Executive Committee New Partnership for Africa’s Development National Framework for Sustainable Development National General Council Non-governmental organisation New National Party National Party National Prosecuting Authority National Spatial Development Perspective National Working Committee Organisation of African Unity Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Organ for Politics, Defence and Security Pan-Africanist Congress People’s Republic of China Public Service Commission Reconstruction and Development Programme Royal Lesotho Defence Force Regional Services Council

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state state of of the the nation nation 22000088

SAAF SABC SACP SADC SADF SAfMA Samsa Sanco Sars Saso SASSA Satawu Sopa SRI Swapo TETA UCDP UDF UDM UN UNDP Unita UNOMSA UNSC Wesgro Zanu-PF Zapu

South African Air Force South African Broadcasting Association South African Communist Party Southern African Development Community South African Defence Force Southern African Millennium Ecosystem Assessment South African Maritime Safety Authority South African National Civic Organisation South African Revenue Service South African Students’ Organisation South African Social Security Agency South African Transport and Allied Workers Union Socialist Party of Azania Socially Responsible Investment South West African People’s Organisation Transport Education and Training Authority United Christian Democratic Party United Democratic Front United Democratic Movement United Nations United Nations Development Progrmme National Union for the Total Independence of Angola UN Observer Mission in South Africa United Nations Security Council Western Cape Trade and Investment Promotion Agency Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front Zimbabwe African People’s Union

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Introduction: Uncertain democracy – elite fragmentation and the disintegration of the ‘nationalist consensus’ in South Africa


Peter Kagwanja

Since ethnonationalism is a direct consequence of key elements of modernization, it is likely to gain ground in societies undergoing such a process. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that it remains among the most vital – and most disruptive – forces in many parts of the contemporary world. (Muller 2008: 33) Two historic events have heralded the disintegration of nationalism in South Africa: the electoral defeat of the nationalist icon President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe in March 2008, forcing him to sign a power-sharing deal with the opposition; and the forced exit of President Thabo Mbeki, another architect of African nationalism, in September of the same year. Faced with bloodletting power struggles, escalating violent crime, joblessness, grinding poverty and mass protests by the impoverished across the country against spiralling food prices, the high cost of living and poor service delivery, former President Mbeki prefaced his annual ‘State of the Nation’ address on 9 February 2007 with a passionate appeal to the unifying impulse of nationalism. Mbeki’s speech has become emblematic of South Africa’s troubling transition from the ‘age of hope’ of the early post-apartheid years to a new ‘age of despair’ (Mashike 2008). This volume of State of the Nation draws attention to nationalism as the salient issue that has framed the seismic shifts in South Africa’s politics, economy, society and foreign relations in the run-up to and aftermath of the historic 52nd African National Congress (ANC) National Conference in Polokwane in December 2007 – which sounded the death knell to the Mbeki presidency (1999–2008). In the 15 years since the demise of the parochial nationalisms of the apartheid era, South Africa’s democracy has become increasingly uncertain. What

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was identified elsewhere in immediate post-colonial Africa as ‘the era of the beautiful bride’, where the nationalist euphoria of the liberation period served as the glue that held together the broad elite consensus, has come to a close. And with it, the outlook for South African nationalism, which reached its apex under Mbeki, looks bleak. Mbeki’s South Africa is a dramatic story, unequalled elsewhere in Africa. Far from producing one united and equitable nation, post-apartheid development strategies have created what analysts have dubbed ‘two different countries’ (Herbst 2005: 93): one Lockean, largely white, wealthy and secure; the other Hobbesian, overwhelmingly black, poverty-stricken and crime-ridden. The ‘two countries’, however, share one of the world’s reputably most liberal constitutions and a vibrant pluralist democracy characterised by regular free and fair elections – albeit up to this point dominated by the ruling ANC – and an economy that has grown faster in the last 15 years than it did in the 1980s, increasingly attracting foreign investments and its capital penetrating deeper into the African markets. The glue that held Mbeki’s two countries together was a broad-based elite consensus grounded on the miracle of transition in the 1990s, clinched under the eminent statesman Nelson Mandela, and South Africans’ astonishingly high optimism despite the odds. During his ‘State of the Nation’ address on 3 February 2006, Mbeki declared, ‘Our country has entered its age of hope,’ appealing to this extraordinary sense of optimism even as the impoverished mounted protests (Mashike 2008: 433). But the glue of nationalist euphoria is seemingly coming loose, poising the ‘two countries’ on the edge of a dangerous clash. Post-Mbeki South Africa is at the crossroads: the elite consensus has fallen apart, optimism is giving way to pessimism and the future of democracy and the nationalist project is becoming increasingly uncertain. Most of the contributions to this volume of State of the Nation were written well before Polokwane and Mbeki’s own exit from the presidency. However, in a profound sense, the chapters shed light on the dynamics that led to these epoch-making events now shaping a post-Mbeki South Africa. The editors have, however, revised this introduction and the first chapter to update the volume and place it in the context of post-Mbeki politics, with its high point being the unprecedented split of the ANC and the resultant far-reaching implications for the future of South Africa’s democracy.

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The decline of elite consensus and the ‘clash of peoples’ Long before President Mbeki was forced to exit, South Africa had already experienced bouts of the worldwide surge of ethnonationalism, defined in dramatic terms as the ‘clash of peoples’, now poised to drive global politics for generations to come (Muller 2008). Underpinning South Africa’s 1994 political settlement was the idea of civic or liberal nationalism: that ‘all people’ are considered part of the nation regardless of their ethnic, racial, religious or geographic origins (Chipkin 2007). This conceptualisation of nationalism bequeathed the country with a liberal Constitution and a panoply of public bodies, collectively known as Chapter 9 institutions, aimed at fortifying democracy and promoting and protecting the rights of the ‘people’. Civic nationalism produced a unifying vision of the nation, designed to trump the varieties of insular nationalism or ethnicity that bedevilled South Africa at the height of apartheid (Geertsema 2006; Ramutsindela 2002). Indeed, the post-apartheid ‘nationalist consensus’, based on the liberal vision(s) of the nation, is now collapsing, caving in to a new upsurge of narrow sentiments of ethnonationalism or the idea that nations are defined by common language, heritage, faith and often a common ethnic ancestry (Muller 2008). Some trace the woes of civic nationalism to Mbeki’s ‘activist presidency’, which accented African nationalism and often resorted to the language of class and racial struggle to counter criticism, especially from white critics (Herbst 2005). In his controversially titled book – Do South Africans Exist? – Ivor Chipkin (2007) resorts to this criticism of Mbeki to launch his strident attack on African nationalism as inherently anti-democratic. However, Chipkin’s analysis misses the nuanced observation made by other scholars that it is not African nationalism but, rather, the hard-to-reconcile contradictions of South Africa’s civic nationalism that pose the greatest threat to democracy. Mbeki’s own activism reflected these contradictions which Herbst (2005: 94) eloquently sums up as ‘the imperative to continue the struggle against racism; the need to enforce the solidarity of the liberation movement; the exigencies of participation in a multiparty democracy; and the desire to govern in a manner that promotes the interests of all South Africans.’ These contradictions also largely account for the bitter succession struggles within and between former liberation movements like the ANC, discussed in this volume of State of the Nation. These struggles have, in turn, eroded the

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necessary cohesion of the elite and stoked the embers of ethnonationalism, threatening what Archbishop Desmond Tutu once celebrated as ‘the rainbow nation’. The failure of the ‘nation-building project’ under the Mandela and Mbeki administrations to reverse the entrenched racial and economic injustice and inequalities and to create access to services, jobs and other means of livelihood for an increasingly impoverished and disillusioned black majority has also created fertile ground for ethnonationalism, including xenophobia. Weak, lethargic and provincial opposition parties and former liberation movements lack the vision, tactics, ideological force or political capacity to halt the country’s slide to ethnonationalism. The preponderant rise of ethnonationalism was recently commented on by one of the founders of the United Democratic Front (UDF), Allan Boesak, who warned that the liberation movement was recreating apartheid’s system of racial and ethnic categorisation, demeaning coloured citizens, ‘ruthlessly and thoughtlessly’ abandoning struggle solidarity, and moving the ANC towards ‘ethnic nationalism’ (Business Day 25.08.08).1 In the same vein, Anthony Butler laments that ‘Mbeki and Zuma have…together undermined a century of efforts to counter tribalism in the liberation movement. Ethnic balance has been central to the ANC since its founding’ (Business Day 25.08.08). The divisive succession struggle has turned ethnonationalism into the axis around which politics in South Africa is increasingly coming to rotate. The resurgence of ethnonationalism in South Africa has dimmed the future of Mbeki’s African Renaissance project, which is rooted in the old movements of pan-Africanism, including Kwame Nkrumah’s concept of the ‘African personality’ and Aimé Césaire’s ‘negritude’. But African Renaissance has its recent roots in Mbeki’s famous ‘I am an African’ speech, delivered on behalf of the ANC on the occasion of the adoption of the new democratic Constitution in May 1996. The speech captured the dual identity of ‘the peoples’ in South Africa as both ‘South Africans’ and ‘Africans’ (Chipkin 2007). ‘I am an African’ marked South Africa’s ideational move from a ‘white tip of a black continent’ to embrace an ‘African identity’. Mbeki’s turn to African Renaissance was not a regression to parochial nationalism, but a strategic move to promote neoliberalism. This followed widespread criticism that the ‘new’ South Africa in the 1990s was ‘little more than the West’s lackey on the southern tip of Africa’ (Landsberg 2000: 107; Tieku 2004). The indisputable achievement of the Mbeki presidency was its unrelenting peacemaking efforts in parts of

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Africa paralysed by ‘uncivil’ nationalism, such as Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. Driving Mbeki’s African Renaissance project has been a small but fervent cadre of ‘liberation diplomats’ who entered the Union Buildings with Mbeki in 1999, touting African nationalist solidarity. At the turn of the new millennium, Pretoria’s ‘liberation diplomats’ were convinced that the end of the Cold War and the preponderance of neo-liberal ideas had rendered the radical populism and socialist ideology of their own party, the ANC, unattractive (Tieku 2004). Pretoria’s pan-Africanists robustly exported South Africa’s version of liberal nationalism to the rest of the continent, where ‘new wars’ based on ethnonationalism had eroded the capacity of the state as a motor of development (Hagg & Kagwanja 2007). They not only re-engineered continental institutions such as the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), founded by pan-Africanists such as Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere decades ago, but also created new ones as vehicles for their neo-liberal agenda. This culminated in the emergence of a web of transnational institutions such as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU), designed to ‘conclude the work of earlier pan-African movements and…to reinvent the African state to play its effective and rightful role on the global terrain’ (Kagwanja 2006: 159; Ahluwali 2002). Paradoxically, not all South African citizens shared their neo-liberal vision of improving the image of Africa in order to attract foreign investments and make the ‘new’ South Africa an important global trading nation (Ahluwali 2002). Moreover, even as they enmeshed themselves in this web of continental institutions, Mbeki’s ‘Renaissance knights’ failed to find a healthy balance between their promotion of the liberal norms of democracy and human rights and the imperative of African solidarity. Widespread accusations that Mbeki sacrificed democracy at the altar of nationalist solidarity by failing to openly condemn illiberal regimes such as Robert Mugabe’s in Zimbabwe have stuck like grease on his administration. This contradiction, which lingered on throughout the Mbeki era (1999–2008), reached its acme during South Africa’s tenure as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 2007/08. The future of the ‘liberation’ cadres looks uncertain. They suffered a serious setback when Zimbabwe’s opposition won the 27 March 2008 elections,

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humiliating Mbeki’s mentor and ally, Robert Mugabe, the latter also celebrated as a nationalist hero across Africa and its diaspora (Gevisser 2007). Pretoria’s cynics have written off Mbeki’s African agenda as a drain on their resources, with little to show for the huge investment in Africa except the air miles. Others lament that Africa failed to throw its lot behind South Africa for a veto-wielding seat in the UNSC, the one ambition that united all its citizens. But this also reflects badly on Pretoria’s diplomats for their tragic failure to win the hearts and minds of fellow citizens and to carry them along on the African agenda. Mbeki’s African Renaissance project is struggling to recover from the May 2008 bout of xenophobic attacks, which killed 65 people, largely African nationals. Mbeki’s defeat by his rival, former ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma, and his eventual exit from power have created uncertainty over the future of Pretoria’s pan-Africanists and the political capacity of the African Renaissance project. As Gumede (2008) warns, it has also ushered in an unsettling moment in South Africa’s history with deep implications for the consolidation of its infant democracy. Globally, the epitaph of Mbeki’s South Africa is also unflattering. South Africa’s strong nationalist stance in defence of Africa’s sovereignty, as well as its support for a rule-based global multilateral order against the unilateral proclivity and meddling in Africa by major powers, alienated its allies in the west. At its twilight, critics in the west gratuitously labelled Mbeki’s South Africa a ‘rogue democracy’ for the sin of backing pariah regimes in the UNSC (Washington Post 28.05.08).2

The ANC: the clash of political cultures Fikeni (Chapter 1, this volume) paints a bleak picture of the ANC as a party in the grip of a fierce clash between the two nationalist traditions that evolved during the anti-apartheid struggle. The first is the ‘centralising logic’ in the ANC structures in exile. This political culture tended to emphasise centralisation of power, teamwork, secrecy and discipline, but also intellectualism (Southall 2007; Sunday Nation 28.09.08).3 It emerged as a logical response to the liberation movement’s need for cohesion, coherence and effectiveness in the face of the acutely dangerous and harsh environment outside South Africa. In the succession tussle, Mbeki has emerged as the consummate symbol of the centralising logic of the ‘exiles’. This centralising logic is contrasted with the

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decentralised tendency of the ANC ‘inxiles’ or ‘remainees’. The decentralising logic gained prominence in response to Sharpeville, when leaders of more centralised movements such as the ANC and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) were arrested or forced into exile. Anti-apartheid lobby groups such as the UDF evolved as decentralised mass movements with deep grassroots support designed to operate below the radar of apartheid security apparatuses on the home front. The Zuma faction of the ANC has identified with this political tradition of the ‘inxiles’. Upon coming to power, Mbeki prioritised the restructuring of the governance structures and decision-making machinery – both of the government and the ANC – to create what one of his spin doctors, Frank Chikane, celebrated as ‘integrated governance’ (Chikane 2001). During Mbeki’s first term (1999– 2004), the presidency was restructured in line with the recommendations of the 1998 Presidential Review Commission to ensure ‘efficient and effective management of government by the president together with the deputy president and cabinet’ (South Africa 1998). The result was an oversized presidency, which by 2004/05 comprised an establishment of 469 people with a budget of R170 million, a nearly 100 per cent increase from the R89 million in 2001 (Southall 2007: 3; Sunday Times 19.09.04). Mbeki’s second term (2004–2008) saw an accelerated move to tighten the administrative nuts and bolts and to realign the party with the governmental structures. In June 2005 the ANC’s National General Council (NGC) produced a document titled Organisational Design of the ANC: A Case for Internal Renewal. The blueprint sought to restructure the ANC into a more streamlined and technocratic organisation with its structures at the regional and branch levels aligned to those of the government, thus bringing the party grassroots under the firm control of the party headquarters and the government (Mail & Guardian 24.06.05).4 The Mbeki administration tightened the noose on the ANC to rein in ‘unruly’ regions and branches and to limit the scope of what it saw as creeping patronage and factionalism, which were blamed for the spates of popular protests in poor townships over service delivery which rocked the country from 2004. These protests, which took on an increasingly violent streak, rose from 5 800 in 2004/05 to over 10 000 in 2006 (Bond 2007). Critics saw the centralising model as creating an ‘imperialist presidency’, itself a reflection of Mbeki’s authoritarian style. The centralising political culture, rolled out in earnest after 2004, immediately alienated the ‘inxiles’, who

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gradually began to fight back. This clash between the two political cultures and styles within the ANC largely framed the succession struggle within and between the various factions of the ANC elite, culminating in Mbeki’s ousting on 24 September 2008.


The ANC alliance The succession tussle marked the culmination of the drawn-out ideological battles within the ANC alliance – the ANC government, the South African Communist Party (SACP), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), and women and youth leagues. Ideological schisms within the ANC can be traced to the organisation’s turn to neo-liberalism during the Mandela era (1994–1999). The battle lines became clearly marked when the marketfriendly Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) framework was adopted in 1996 to replace the left-leaning Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). Critics in Cosatu and the SACP of the ANC’s neo-liberal turn were not persuaded that GEAR was worth its ink as a blueprint designed to transform South Africa into a competitive trading nation. They never hid their bitter feelings that the framework was a stumbling block to the implementation of the ideals of the Freedom Charter and the RDP (ANC 1997a, 1997b). The neo-liberal turn created three distinct ideological groupings within the ANC and its alliance. First were the remnants of the ANC radical past, clamouring for a return to the party’s traditional populism and socialist orientation of the exile era, mainly in the SACP and Cosatu; second were oldregime officials or ‘realists’, urging for a policy driven by economic interests rather than by the ethical and ideological imperatives of African nationalism; and third was a small but vocal and powerful group of ‘neo-liberals’ or ‘idealists’ at the helm of government, pushing Mbeki’s pan-African agenda in Africa and globally (Evans 1999; Mills 2004). The succession struggle widened the rift between these groups, increasingly contributing to the collapse of the elite consensus. By 26 June 2005, when the ANC celebrated 50 years of its ‘socialist manifesto’, the Freedom Charter, ideological cleavages with its erstwhile leftist allies had reached breaking point. Mbeki’s critics lamented that the idea of the state controlling the commanding heights of the economy had been effectively replaced by a pro-market economic policy and a gentle relationship with private capital, once loathed as the underwriter of apartheid.

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Mbeki’s own intellectual aloofness and his hardball style tended to amplify his existential challenge of holding together the ANC tripartite alliance.


In addition to the centralising proclivity rooted in the exile political culture, Mbeki’s hardball approach carried the ‘modernising veneer’ of contemporary European leaders such as Britain’s Tony Blair and Germany’s Gerhard Schröder. On this point, Gevisser (2007: 773) has observed eloquently that: When, in 1994, Nelson Mandela asked Kenneth Kaunda’s advice as to who should be his successor, Kaunda had replied that Thabo Mbeki best carried Oliver Tambo’s ‘great unifier’ legacy into the new democratic era…Mbeki, for his part, chose not to follow in Tambo’s footsteps at all, taking his cue rather from a very different kind of political operative: there were times when his strategy seemed to be a self-conscious mimicking of Tony Blair’s ‘New Labour’ revolution. He had become a party strongman, not in the crass old Stalinist way, but with the modernising veneer of a Blair or a Schröder. The left was to shut up or ship out. Many fierce discussions took place in 2001 and 2002. Part of the problem is that Mbeki put his faith in the bureaucratic-executive state, leaving tensions with the ANC to play out in dangerously public and palpable ways. The funeral of Mbeki’s father, Govan Mbeki, in September 2001 produced one of the ugliest spectacles in the intra-ANC conflict. As Gevisser (2007: 771) states: [Jeremy] Cronin [deputy secretary of the SACP] also highlighted something that was obvious to me: the way in which, despite Govan Mbeki’s active membership of the SACP and stalwart support of Cosatu campaigns, the alliance partners were clearly marginalised from the proceedings: ‘The control of the microphone was firmly in the hands of the Mbeki family and the ANC leadership. Messages of support and condolences to the family excluded the SACP and Cosatu. Govan Mbeki might have had the agency to insist on being buried in Zwide, but not even he could dictate, fully, the terms of his own burial.’ A short-lived truce occurred between the warring ANC allies in the aftermath of the party’s 51st conference in Stellenbosch in December 2002. This truce

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paved the way for the ANC’s emphatic victory in the 2004 general election, which ushered in Mbeki’s second term. The Stellenbosch conference popularised the notion of the ‘developmental state’, which the ANC left interpreted as a significant move by the Mbeki administration to recognise the limits of the market as a tool for social transformation and to recommit itself to RDP consensus on state-driven development. In this volume, Sampie Terreblanche argues that ‘the shift away from a fundamental restructuring of the South African economy (as was envisaged in the RDP) to address the “deep-seated structural crisis” towards a strengthening of neo-liberal capitalism…makes it extremely difficult to institutionalise the envisaged developmental state’. However, the developmental state remained a vaguely defined concept void of any real substance except for the official lip-service and high-profile debates. The Mbeki–Zuma tussle thrust the developmental state back into public debate.

Enter Zuma: the collapse of the elite consensus As to whether Mbeki had a better alternative to firing his 65-year-old deputy, Jacob Zuma, after the latter’s friend and financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was convicted of fraud and whether such a decision would have preserved ANC unity will remain one of the ‘might-have-beens’ of history. The reality is that Mbeki’s decision to ‘release’ Zuma from office was hailed in the west as ‘a milestone even in South Africa’s history’ (Herbst 2005: 96). Mbeki’s good intentions and moral responsibility in responding to what the presiding judge labelled as a ‘mutually beneficial symbiosis’ in the relationship between Zuma and Shaik and its potential harm to South Africa’s infant democracy never wholly convinced internal critics, who saw the move as part of the intrigues. For instance, it was noted that until Zuma was fired, he had remained a loyal member of the president’s inner circle, seemingly undisturbed by Mbeki’s alleged high-handed style and serving as ‘an important executioner of his leader’s will’ (Gumede 2008: 262). Zuma’s sacking rang familiar bells for the so-called ‘walking wounded’, a reference to an ever-growing cadre of ANC veterans who blamed Mbeki for dimming their political stars (Gumede 2008; see also Gumede in this volume). Zuma’s decision to fight back energised and emboldened these disgruntled ANC members who, from as early as 2000, were reportedly involved in

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behind-the-scenes manoeuvres to depose Mbeki. The story is told of how from 2000 Cyril Ramaphosa, the former secretary-general of the ANC and now a prominent businessman and Mandela’s choice as his successor, was inundated with appeals to challenge Mbeki’s leadership, and how similar unsuccessful overtures were made to Zuma in 2002. It is in this context that in 2001 Mbeki accused Ramaphosa, Tokyo Sexwale and Mathews Phosa, who had earlier fallen out with him, of plotting behind the scenes to topple him. This, according to Gumede (2008: 264), prompted Mandela to step in to appeal that Mbeki should be allowed to complete his term. Mbeki finally apologised to the trio, but forced Zuma to issue a public statement denying he had ‘residential ambitions’. After June 2005, support for Zuma from this disgruntled group and the ANC alliance leadership – the SACP, Cosatu, the ANC Women’s and Youth Leagues – provided him with the lifeline he badly needed to make a comeback. Months ahead of his August 2008 trial on 16 charges including fraud, corruption, money laundering and racketeering, Zuma supporters succeeded in shaping a public perception that the trial was a political conspiracy to block Zuma from ascending to South Africa’s presidency. Zuma strategists quickly repackaged him as a ‘friend of the poor’, ‘friend of the left’ and a ‘man of the people’, contrasting him to the ‘intellectually aloof and arrogant’, ‘autocratic’, ‘prorich’, ‘pro-business’ and ‘elitist’ Mbeki. For his part, Zuma shrewdly played the nationalist and ethnic cards in a fierce battle to win the hearts and minds of the ANC rank and file. Appealing to the nationalist discourse, he presented himself as a unifier in the tradition of Oliver Tambo, the revered ANC leader. Analysts noted that during his rape trial, he not only spoke Zulu in court but also invented ‘new Zulu cultural norms’ to suit his case (Gumede 2008: 262). The succession tussle not only eroded the political capacity of state institutions (Southall 2007) but, more subtly, it intensified the ethnic polarisation of politics.

Ethnonationalism after Polokwane In his chapter in this volume, Somadoda Fikeni examines the ‘Polokwane moment’ when Mbeki lost the ANC presidency. As early as October 2005, Mbeki’s policy chief, Joel Netshitenzhe, hinted that it was not clear that the same person should necessarily fill the offices of state president and president of the party (Mail & Guardian 14–20.10.05). This gave weight to the view that

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Mbeki was considering prolonging his political life beyond 2009 when he was expected to step down as state president but, like other African leaders such as Namibia’s Sam Nujoma, remaining in control of the powerful party machine and thus being the real power behind the throne. His public support for a woman president for the country confirmed this view, with fingers pointing to his deputy, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Mbeki’s decision to stand for a third term as the ANC president raised the political stakes in the run-up to the ANC’s 52nd National Conference in Polokwane on 16–20 December 2007. As Fikeni shows, this decision stirred ethnic antagonism to a dangerous degree. The agenda of ending the Xhosa dominance in the ANC never featured in the party’s public discussions or among its alliance partners. But the idea was ubiquitously raised in debates within and outside the ANC. The ‘dynastic’ lineage of Xhosa political heavyweights, from Oliver Tambo to Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, was widely invoked to justify a non-Xhosa party leader to succeed Mbeki as party president and, ultimately, state president. ‘There were signs of ethnic mobilisation among the Zulus who rallied behind Zuma, showing little tolerance for any internal deviation in that region,’ writes Fikeni. By the same token, in Mbeki’s Xhosa homeland of the Eastern Cape, the ANC leadership declared their support for their son in his bid for ANC presidency. Zuma’s KwaZulu-Natal province answered back by declaring support for their son, with his ardent supporters donning t-shirts with ‘100% Zulu Boy’ printed on them. As communal consciousness and tensions escalated, Mbeki was met with intense hostility in KwaZulu-Natal when he travelled there for the reburial of the liberation veteran Moses Mabhida, and for the celebration of Ghandi’s legacy. The ground shifted from ethnonationalism to acute exploitation of nationalism in the Zuma–Mbeki power tussle. Both Zuma and Mbeki engaged a higher gear in the rush for icons and symbols of resistance against apartheid. Mbeki’s ‘State of the Nation’ address on 3 February 2007 was perfectly choreographed and designed to appeal to nationalist sensibilities. The president opened his speech with a lengthy eulogy to ‘Mama Adelaide Tambo’, the wife of the late ANC president Oliver Tambo and a nationalist icon in her own right. He had also invited to the President’s Box in Parliament Albertina Luthuli, daughter of South Africa’s first Nobel Peace laureate, Inkosi Albert Luthuli; the activists of the 1956 Women’s March and the 1976 Soweto Uprising; and ‘eminent

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patriots from all our provinces’. He seized the moment to wave the National Orders named after these nationalist icons, including the Order of Luthuli and the Order of the Companions of OR Tambo. He closed the introduction to his speech by referring to the Freedom Charter, adopted nearly 50 years earlier (Mbeki 2007). Respective factions also battle for custodianship of ANC traditions and values, with each camp portraying itself as the genuine custodian while depicting the rival camp as a betrayer of these traditions. Names of ANC elders such as Luthuli, Tambo, Mandela and Chris Hani were liberally invoked in political campaigns and public utterances by both Mbeki and Zuma and their supporters, and the country plunged into a string of festivities commemorating these icons and historic events such as the Bambata Rebellion. This instrumentalisation of nationalism took an ugly turn in July 2007 with the screening of a 24-minute documentary titled Unauthorised: Thabo Mbeki, a brazen attempt to link Mbeki to the 1993 assassination of SACP leader Chris Hani. Broad Daylight Films, the producer of the documentary, claimed that it was based on a formal investigation into an alleged plot against Mbeki in 2001 where the ‘alleged plotters, Tokyo Sexwale, Mathews Phosa and Cyril Ramaphosa, were said to have spread a rumour linking Mbeki to the Hani assassination’ (Mail & Guardian 19.07.07).5 The documentary’s maker, Redi Direko, reportedly appeared in the documentary to be debunking the rumour. Many commentators dismissed the film as ‘unbelievable’ and as ‘merely a sign of paranoia’ (Mail & Guardian 19.07.07). The South African Broadcasting Corporation decided not to broadcast the documentary on public television, but its screening in Johannesburg sparked a ferocious rumour across the country. In short, a documentary primarily about rumour ended up pushing the rumour mill into overdrive, badly hurting Mbeki’s standing at a critical campaign moment. The Chris Hani rumour reinforced public perceptions of Mbeki’s brutal style of handling rivals, including the alleged abuse of power with regard to hiring and firing in government. To drive this point home, Mbeki’s alacrity in sacking Zuma and the former deputy minister of health, Nozizwe Madlala-Routlege, and in suspending the head of the National Prosecuting Authority, Vusi Pikoli, all in 2007, was juxtaposed with his unwillingness to lay off publicly controversial officials such as the minister of health, Manto TshabalalaMsimang, and the since suspended commissioner of police, Jackie Selebi.

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The failed ‘third way’ The power struggle started taking its toll on party unity and elite consensus ahead of the crucial 2009 general election. ANC elders such as Pallo Jordan began exploring the idea of a ‘third way’ to unify and heal a divided ANC. The names of Mbeki’s long-time rivals, Cyril Ramaphosa and Tokyo Sexwale, were suggested as compromise candidates. Sexwale took the plunge into the presidential race and fired the initial shots at the presidency but withdrew when the first round of provincial nominations indicated that he stood no chance. Ramaphosa refused to go for the top seat, saying that he wouldn’t enter the ‘wrong race’ and would only join if both Mbeki and Zuma stepped aside. Both Sexwale and Ramaphosa backed the Zuma campaign. Another name brought up as possible compromise leader was that of Kgalema Motlanthe, the ANC deputy president. Both Mbeki and Zuma flatly shrugged off suggestions of yielding to a younger compromise candidate. Zuma was convinced that he could and had to win the race against Mbeki, an essential step in saving himself from prosecution by becoming the ANC and national president. Supporters of both men had invested so heavily in their champions that they were unwilling to support a compromise candidate for fear of losing patronage. Mbeki’s decision to stand for a third term convinced even those not allied to Zuma not to vote for Mbeki in Polokwane. The appointment on 25 September 2008 of the left-leaning intellectual and reputedly highly skilled political operator Kgalema Motlanthe as the caretaker president comes as a return to the idea of a ‘third way’. Motlanthe has the skills and stature needed to heal the nation and unite the ANC, bringing it back to its former glory as a dignified, non-tribalist and non-racial liberation movement (Business Day 25.08.08). However, there are no signs that Zuma and his supporters will yield to the idea of a ‘third way’, and Motlanthe is unlikely to stake a claim to power. However, increasing fear of the ANC splitting might make this a necessary political choice.

The Polokwane moment and South Africa’s uncertain democracy Analyses ahead of the ANC conference in Polokwane in December 2007 ruled out a ‘winner takes all’ result, predicting a party divided down the middle. ‘It is unlikely there will be a winner-takes-all national executive committee and top six,’ predicted the director of the Centre for African Renaissance Studies,

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Shadrack Gutto. ‘Rather, they are likely to be formed from both [Mbeki’s and Zuma’s] lists’ (Mail & Guardian Online 2007).6 On the contrary, the Zuma faction swept the board during both the provincial nominations and at the actual conference attended by 6 000 people. Zuma scored 60.8 per cent against Mbeki’s 39.2 per cent out of a total of 4 075 voting delegates, representing 2 694 ANC branches. Zuma’s supporters took five of the top six positions in the National Executive Committee (NEC) and the National Working Committee, the powerful structure that monitors the day-to-day activities of the ANC, including its role in government. The triumph of Zuma’s camp signified the success of a well-coordinated grassroots campaign, backed by the ANC alliance partners. The Zuma victory marked a fundamental turning point in the history of South Africa’s democracy and civic nationalism. It was viewed in some quarters as a return of people’s power, a view articulated by one caller to SAFM Radio’s After Eight Debate on 19 December 2007: ‘I think people are saying we have power, and the power still remains with the poor, and that is what people were saying here [Polokwane].’ But the protracted and fractious intra-ANC tussle had far-reaching implications for democratic institutions, including opposition parties, the judiciary, Chapter 9 institutions and other social movements. More unflattering is the view by some analysts that Zuma’s election as the ANC president and Mbeki’s potential successor not only inaugurates ‘an unsettling period in post-apartheid South Africa’s history’, but also poses a ‘severe threat to the country’s on-going quest to consolidate its infant democracy’ (Gumede 2008: 261). There are genuine concerns about the consequences of the party’s structures lapsing into indiscipline in ways that undermine democracy. For instance, a new culture of politics involving violence and the intimidation of critics has become rampant. The new ANC Youth League president, Julius Malema, and the Cosatu secretary-general, Zwelinzima Vavi, vowed to shoot and kill for Zuma. This has complicated the work of democratic institutions – such as the Human Rights Commission (HRC) – set up during the transition as pillars of democracy. The HRC took a firm stand on Malema and Vavi, demanding that they withdraw their utterances and apologise. In the end, the HRC accepted Malema’s rationalised answer that ‘killing for Zuma’ was used metaphorically. Despite that, the HRC had made its point: the incipient culture of violence and threat in South African politics was a real threat to the country’s nascent

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democracy. The judiciary, particularly the Constitutional Court, also came under attack, accused by ANC firebrands of being ‘counter-revolutionary’. When more sober minds within the ANC, such as now caretaker president Khalema Motlanthe, warned against attacks on the judiciary, they also came under fire from ANC colleagues.


Together, Mbeki and Zuma have undermined a century of efforts to counter tribalism in the liberation movement. Countering communal consciousness has been a central plank of ANC politics. In view of the depth of missionary education in the Eastern Cape, perceptions of ‘Xhosa dominance’ were inevitable and in some respects well founded. Nevertheless, rotation in leadership positions and subtle procedural conventions discouraged ethnic mobilisation. Mbeki’s succession after three decades of Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela’s leadership was bound to provoke ethnic sentiments. But it is the power wrangle with Zuma that gave new impetus to a strong ethnonationalist ideology. In the context of growing ethnic suspicion, Zuma’s alleged role in the arms deal has been interpreted as a plot by a ‘Xhosa cabal’ to deny the presidency to a Zulu successor. Despite the rise of ethnonationalism, the ANC is still the only institution in South Africa capable of managing society’s fundamental conflicts. The absence of an effective opposition has made the ruling party elite extraordinarily complacent. But the prospect of a splinter party within the ANC by those unhappy with the way Mbeki was pushed out of power has the potential of weakening the ANC and entrenching ethnonationalism.

Liberation movements: the failed transition to democratic parties A review of the state of South Africa’s democracy is incomplete without a critical analysis of the state of the liberation movements other than the ANC, particularly the PAC and the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). The year 2007 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the brutal death of Steve Bantu Biko, the founder of the BCM, who was murdered by the apartheid security police in September 1977; similarly, 2008 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe, the founder of the PAC, who died in February 1978. Like the ANC, other nationalist movements have been undergoing their own unravelling, confronting the same challenges in the transition from liberation movement to opposition political party

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in a democracy. Thus the main aim of the chapter on the PAC by Thabisi Hoeane and the chapter on the BCM by Thiven Reddy is to assess how former liberation movements have adjusted to this challenge. The focus on former liberation movements becomes even more critical as South Africa grapples with the question of the role of opposition parties in the context of the apparent unravelling of the ANC after Polokwane. Both Hoeane and Reddy paint a bleak picture of these movements, whose performance in the 1994, 1999 and 2004 general elections was dismal. This raises the fundamental question of why these liberation movements have not emerged as alternatives to the ANC in the 2009 elections. One of the distressing developments in democratic South Africa, notes Hoeane in this volume, is the decline of the PAC as a liberation movement grounded on African nationalism. The PAC was formed in April 1959 as a breakaway from the ANC by some members, led by its founding president Robert Sobukwe, who objected to the ANC’s non-racial policies. Instead, the party opted for an approach grounded on mass action, growing into a mighty liberation movement based on militant African nationalism. But as Hoeane rightly observes, the political weakness and insignificance of the PAC in the current political dispensation hardly reflects the crucial part it played during the struggle, especially during the anti-pass campaigns of the 1960s. What is puzzling about the PAC is that although its political outlook is grounded on African nationalism, an ideology that is embraced by the vast majority of South Africans, the party has not become a formidable force in post-apartheid politics or an alternative voice to the ANC. Owing to a combination of factors including leadership wrangles and weak vision, the PAC ranks among the weakest parties, with its share of the national vote not exceeding 2 per cent in the past three general elections. The PAC has been its own enemy. Although unbanned together with the ANC in 1990, the PAC marginalised itself through serious tactical mistakes by its leadership, particularly the decision by those backing the Maoist Leballo not to join the peace process leading to the transition to democracy in 1994. A splinter section of the party entered the race in the 1994 general elections, but its electoral performance has been dismal. The PAC has succumbed to serious organisational problems, indiscipline and chronic infighting, which have reduced it to a minor political party still battling with the challenge of transforming itself from a liberation movement to a formidable political party

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in a democratic South Africa. As late as 2007, the PAC was rocked by splits, leading to some of its disgruntled members establishing another political organisation, the African People’s Convention. Even one of its splinter parties, Patricia de Lille’s Independent Democrats, has fared better, and the PAC’s slide in electoral performance has continued. As a result, and as Hoeane points out, the PAC has been unable to sustain Sobukwe’s legacy of African nationalism and non-racialism. Worse still, the PAC has lost its ideological turf, outwitted by the ANC, which articulated a nuanced Africanist orientation framed by Mbeki’s precept of African Renaissance. If the PAC is to remain relevant and to reclaim its lost glory and stature in South African politics, its leadership has to do the heavy work of ending infighting, becoming more tactical and translating the ideas of its founders into practical reality. Also facing an existential crisis is the BCM, which emerged in the mid-1960s as a grassroots anti-apartheid activist movement to fill the political vacuum created by the clampdown – banning and jailing – on the ANC and PAC leadership in the wake of Sharpeville. Almost echoing Hoeane’s comment on the PAC, Reddy laments that ‘organisations representing Black Consciousness (BC) ideas remain weak and fragmented’. Although Reddy’s observation that ‘a revival in BC ideas, values and practices in official and civil society discourses’ is reassuring, organisations formed to carry the torch of Black Consciousness, such as the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo), are still wrapped in crisis. Reddy attributes the crisis of the Black Consciousness-inspired movements to a number of factors. First is an ideologically based approach to the antiapartheid struggle rather than the issue-based approach taken by the ANC and the UDF in the 1980s, which proved much more successful in mobilising large numbers of people. Second is the dearth of tactic and vision, with Azapo being ‘unable to develop a strategy’ to effectively respond to the National Party’s dramatic decision to embark on a political settlement in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A widespread criticism of Black Consciousness is that its ideas are outdated, hindering the new multiracial South Africa. But Reddy is apt in his conclusion that as long as ‘unequal material conditions of life – conditions that specifically made notions of whiteness and blackness seem like common sense’ – prevail, ‘the ideas of black assertiveness, black pride and the quest for dignity remain’. However, the connection between the growing prevalence of Black Consciousness ideas in post-1994 South Africa and the apparent failure of the

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ANC’s nationalist project in service delivery and empowerment of the black majority deserves further analysis. Unlike the PAC, the Black Consciousnessinspired parties seem to be preparing to utilise the leadership struggle that currently bedevils the ANC to propel themselves forward as alternatives to the ANC. The three main factions of the BCM – Azapo, the Socialist Party of Azania (Sopa) and the Black People’s Convention (BPC) – have resolved to forge a united front ahead of the 2009 elections, but it is unlikely that Black Consciousness parties will chip significant political space from the ANC. However, it is difficult to scan the political horizon and predict the future of either the PAC or the BCM, which once stood a good chance of posing a threat to the ANC, if the leadership crisis continues to fester.

The opposition This volume does not have a chapter specifically devoted to the opposition in South Africa, although different chapters, especially Fikeni’s on the Polokwane moment, pay attention to this important aspect of South Africa’s democracy. Shades of ethnonationalism have inadvertently prevented the main opposition parties from exploiting the troubles in the ANC and the ruling party’s declining nationalist appeal to win power and fortify the ideals of a civic nation and citizenship. The Democratic Alliance (DA) is, so far, South Africa’s main opposition party. Descendent from the Federal Progressive Party before it became the Democratic Party in the 1980s, the DA has been identified mainly with the English-speaking section of white South Africa. But the DA’s marriage of convenience with the mainly Afrikaner New National Party in the run-up to the 1999 elections may have succeeded in uniting South Africa’s white voters, so preventing the ANC from winning the Western Cape provincial government. But the collapse of the DA’s shortlived alliance with the New National Party pushed a sizeable segment of white Afrikaners into an alliance with the ANC. The DA has since been unable to shake the perception that it champions the interests of, particularly, white liberals. The party has largely succeeded in rallying whites behind it through its focused campaign on issues such as escalating violent crime and corruption, cast largely as the failure of the ANC leadership. Its fierce opposition to almost all the ANC’s black empowerment policies and economic transformation strategies as an assault on white privileges has cemented its position as the voice of the white minority. But

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the DA’s failure to offer alternative frameworks for pulling the majority out of the mire of poverty has progressively alienated the black majority, sealing the party’s fate as an electoral force outside of white-dominated areas. Its cynical exploitation of apartheid-era racial fault lines to counter ANC dominance has won the DA substantial support from coloured and Indian voters, especially in the Western Cape, a card it will inevitably play again in 2009. Now led by Tony Leon’s successor, Helen Zille, the party has a realistic chance of capturing the Western Cape if the ANC does not resolve its internal divisions fast and in a sustainable way. The DA has a template in coalition-building in the Cape Metropolitan Council, where it brought together smaller parties to win the crucial municipality. But it also needs to do a lot of spadework to win into its ranks senior black leaders and to transform itself into a political formation capable of building a credible multiracial constituency. Similarly, while the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) remains a formidable player in South African politics ahead of the 2009 elections, it has still to make inroads into areas outside of its KwaZulu-Natal turf. The political dominance the IFP exercised in 1994 and 1999 – its core constituency was in areas inhabited by Zulu people in KwaZulu-Natal and hostels in Gauteng – shrank significantly in 2004. Complicating the IFP roadmap for a political comeback is the fact that KwaZulu-Natal is Zuma’s home province and the main source of his presidential vote in 2009. Moreover, the IFP founder and long-time leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, has announced his intention to step down from the party leadership in 2009. A strategic coalition with the DA might be the surest shield against an onslaught by the ANC, a strategy that pundits of the two parties are reportedly pondering. Despite this, the spectre of a culture of ethnic violence involving IFP and ANC supporters haunts the prospect of a peaceful election. The trouble with parties such as the United Democratic Movement is their over-reliance on a single towering leader such as Bantu Holomisa. The same is true of Patricia de Lille’s Independent Democrats. Besides their feeble national profile, these parties are prone to ethnonationalism linked to the ethnic formations of their regions or constituencies. It is fair to conclude that, despite the serious internal problems facing the ANC, the opposition can hardly pose a real threat to its dominance. Ultimately, the opposition’s chance for survival depends on a vibrant democracy based on a civic vision of the nation and citizenship. Yet, subtle blips of ethnonationalism threaten

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this ‘nationalist consensus’ that underpinned South Africa’s transition to democracy. The lingering question is whether South Africa’s opposition parties have the requisite vision, tactics and political will to forge a united front to effectively challenge or wrest power from the ANC, so following in the footsteps of Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which defeated the ruling Zanu-PF.


The tale of two countries and the crisis of service delivery Despite President Mbeki’s project to centralise and modernise both the state and the ANC as instruments of service delivery, the nation-building project has failed to ensure social citizenship, including access to services and opportunities in the modern sector for the majority of South Africans. Although the economy has grown at an average of 3 per cent annually in the last 15 years, a significant improvement from the apartheid years, this has been several percentage points shy of the 6 per cent needed to pull 45 per cent of South Africa’s 44 million out of poverty and to reduce chronic unemployment. The existence of a two-tier economy signifies the dramatic and urgent need to redistribute wealth. South Africa is widely said to have a Gini coefficient7 of around 0.6, making it, along with Brazil, the most unequal society in the world (Herbst 2005: 99). This is a recipe for destabilisation, racial and ethnic tensions and violence, as witnessed in the May 2008 xenophobia. The state has responded to the crisis by paying lip-service to the developmental state while increasing the dependence of the poor on the state through generous social grants, with the number of South Africans receiving these grants increasing from 2.6 million in 1994 to 6.8 million in 2003.

Courting the developmental state: too little too late Faced with widespread protests, South Africa looked to the east, adopting the idea of the developmental state, used widely in the parlance of the international political economy to describe the state-driven socio-economic planning that characterised late twentieth-century East Asia (Wade 2003; Woo-Cumings 1999). South Africa’s choice of a developmental state, as opposed to a regulatory one, sought to intervene more directly in the postapartheid economy to promote the growth of new industries and to reduce the dislocations caused by shifts in investment and profits from old to new

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industries. Part of the problem is that it is not always clear whether the notion of a developmental state in South Africa is meant to replace GEAR policies or whether the developmental state will formulate and implement policies that will co-exist with GEAR. Sampie Terreblanche’s analysis in this volume puts the notion of a developmental state in South Africa in the spotlight – a notion that gained much currency during the succession debate as the ANC attempted to ward off criticism from its alliance partners. Discussion about the concept began at the 2002 ANC Congress in Stellenbosch, gaining momentum in the run-up to the elections in 2004 and, particularly, during the local government elections in 2006. Within the ANC, the case for a developmental state was formalised in 2005 in a document titled ‘Development and Underdevelopment’ (ANC 2005) that drew lessons from East Asia. The Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (Asgisa), which Mbeki unveiled during his ‘State of the Nation’ address in February 2006, is a clear manifestation of the ANC’s move towards a developmental state. Mbeki envisioned the developmental state as an instrument for effectively addressing unemployment and poverty. In June 2007, the ANC adopted a key document called Strategy and Tactics (ANC 2007c), which declared a developmental state as its policy. The chapter by Terreblanche casts the discussion wider within the context of global corporatism and global capitalism, examining the way in which the ANC has responded to these forces. While arguing that global capitalism imposes severe constraints on the ANC, Terreblanche warns against assumptions that ‘the worsening of South Africa’s social problems over the past 14 years should be blamed exclusively on global corporatism and on global capitalism’. Internal failures also have a role to play. For instance, Southall has rightly argued that the ANC’s ‘aspirations to transform South Africa into a genuinely “developmental state” are critically threatened by worryingly dysfunctional aspects of the state’ (2007: 20). The ANC conference in Polokwane recommitted the ANC to the Freedom Charter and to ‘building a developmental state and not a welfare state given that in a welfare state, dependency is profound’ (ANC 2007a). With the ascendancy of the left in the ANC following Polokwane and Mbeki’s exit, the debate on the developmental state is poised to escalate in the runup to the 2009 elections and beyond. But at the heart of the problem is how the developmental state in South Africa will resolve potential tensions between private interests, especially the enterprises that are in private

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hands (particularly big capital), and the aspirations to empower the poor majority within a market economy. But the real challenge rests in giving the developmental state a real name and practical meaning. What, precisely, does the term entail in practice? The debate on the developmental state is closely linked to the parallel question of service delivery, discussed in detail in previous issues of State of the Nation (Daniel et al. 2003; Daniel et al. 2005) and by David Hemson, Jonathan Carter and Geci Karuri-Sebina in this volume. Also central to this debate is the state of the environment, characterised by Donald Gibson, Amina Ismail, Darryll Kilian and Maia Matshikiza’s chapter in this volume as ‘the foundation for development’. The deepening environmental crisis relating to the state of land degradation, water availability and quality, air pollution, degradation of biodiversity by development, and climate change have far-reaching implications for the growth and development envisaged by the developmental state. While pursuing the imperative of development and service delivery, South Africa has to develop a national framework for sustainable development, which Gibson and co-authors rightly describe as ‘a strategic lever of change’. Such a strategy is needed given that South Africa’s developmental path depends on the integrity of its natural resource base. Underpinning the debate on sustainable development and the environment is the question of power, which is the main focus of Leslie Bank’s chapter on landlord–tenant power relations in South African urban spaces, especially in townships where traditions and modernity exist side by side. Bank shows that power relations in ‘yard socialism’ also have gender implications as women exert more social power in what were traditionally male domains. Scarlett Cornelissen’s chapter on the internationalisation and competitiveness of urban governance in South Africa underscores the centrality of postapartheid policy-making in transforming urban spaces, which are increasingly being linked to global forces, especially neo-liberalism. On the whole, Cornelissen warns against the impact of internationalisation overriding the need to provide for the primary developmental needs of urban residents, especially in poor neighbourhoods.

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Within or drawing apart? South Africa’s African policy after Mbeki One of the enduring legacies of apartheid is the transformation of race and ethnicity as both legal and political identities, resulting in a brutally divided society that is still grappling with the question of post-apartheid identity, the tension palpable between its ‘white’ and ‘African’, ‘west’ and ‘Africa’ identities. South Africa’s identity became the topic of a high-profile Africa-wide debate in the mid-1990s – under the banner ‘South Africa and Africa: Within or Apart?’ – where it was noted that apartheid South Africa ‘has stood aside and apart from the rest of the continent’. The question was then posed: ‘Will [postapartheid] South Africa stand up for its own and Africa’s interests against the continent’s growing international isolation?’ (Adedeji 1996: 4). Earlier, in a widely cited 1993 article in Foreign Affairs, the eminent statesman Nelson Mandela declared that ‘South Africa cannot escape its African destiny’, warning that ‘if we [South Africans] do not devote our energies to this continent we too could fall victim to the forces that have brought ruin to its various parts’ (Mandela 1993: 86). But Mbeki’s ‘I am an African’ declaration unambiguously resolved the twoness in South Africa’s identity by firmly declaring South Africa within and indeed part of the African continent and its peoples. After 1999, Mbeki popularised the concept of an African Renaissance as the vehicle for South Africa’s engagement with Africa. The concept was defined officially as ‘a holistic vision…aimed at promoting peace, prosperity, democracy, sustainable development, progressive leadership and good governance’ (Gevisser 2007: 587), reflecting the Mbeki administration’s liberal agenda in Africa. Both the Mandela and Mbeki administrations underscored the need to transform Africa into an important frontier for foreign investments, including South Africa’s (Kagwanja 2006; Tieku 2004). The African Renaissance project has also been propelled by the imperative of the solidarity of African liberation movements (Ahluwali 2002; Evans 1999). The chapter by Che Ajulu examines South Africa’s peace diplomacy in Africa, indisputably one of the high points of the Mbeki administration. Ajulu rightly notes that South Africa’s peace diplomacy is conceptually underpinned by the idea of ‘liberal peace’, defined by experts such as Michael Duffield (2000: 23) as a ‘political humanitarianism’ that stresses conflict resolution and prevention to create a working and favourable environment for market forces to function effectively. South Africa’s peace diplomacy was successful in

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the Great Lakes region: it helped to restore relative peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where multiparty elections were held in 2006 for the first time in 40 years, and in Burundi a power-sharing government was put in place in 2005. South Africa’s intervention in Côte d’Ivoire, however, was less successful. The exit of Mbeki and his ‘liberation diplomats’ from power raises the question of the future of the African Renaissance and South Africa’s role in African nationalism. Significantly, the December 2007 ANC Polokwane conference restated South Africa’s commitment to African nationalism and its African identity, revealing a possible continuity in the post-Mbeki African policy. The ANC also reiterated its moral mission as ‘a unifier and premier representative of the African people beyond the borders of South Africa’ (ANC 2007a). The ANC endorsed the key foreign policy priorities towards Africa developed by the Mbeki administration: peace and the peaceful resolution of conflicts; peacekeeping activities; building and reforming institutions on the continent; and ensuring influence in global political issues.

Economic diplomacy or sub-imperialism? The Polokwane conference has, however, added a new economic accent to the African Renaissance project by endorsing a radical policy shift to economic diplomacy. Arguably, the stress on economic diplomacy is a strategic move to reap the peace dividends as many African countries emerge from war, post-conflict reconstruction and development. The ANC has identified a three-pronged foreign policy agenda: consolidation of the African agenda; South–South co-operation; and North–South co-operation. While these reveal clear continuities with the Mbeki era, there are salient differences of style, emphasis and approach. The ANC has also moved to give teeth to its African policy priorities defined by its economic interests. The party has endorsed the strengthening of the capacity of Pretoria’s diplomatic missions in Africa and abroad to assist South African businesses to gain access to the business opportunities available overseas and on the continent. This requires countering the view that South Africa is reverting to the sub-imperial practices of the apartheid era by creating equitable partnerships, encouraging African countries to engage in intra-African trade and eliminating trade barriers and existing imbalances between Pretoria and

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African capitals. The ANC is, however, concerned about the increasingly negative reputation of and brash approach by South African businesses operating in Africa, which undermines the country’s image. In this regard, the party has recommended a code of good business practice to curb negative practices such as child labour, bribery and exploitation by South African companies.


While recommending that the Department of Foreign Affairs be renamed the Department of International Relations and Co-operation to reflect its role in international co-operation, the ANC reaffirmed one institution and endorsed the creation of two new institutions as spearheads of its African policy. To that end, the ANC recommended strengthening and increasing the funding for the African Renaissance and International Co-operation Fund Act (No. 51 of 2002), created by Parliament in January 2001, as the instrument for supporting South Africa’s Renaissance project. The ANC government increased the Fund’s resources from a few million dollars to US$46 million for the 2008/09 budget cycle. The party delegates also endorsed the following two funds to strengthen South Africa’s foreign policy capacity: • the Pan-African Infrastructure Fund as a motor of African development with US$1 billion from governments of Africa; and • the South African Development Partnership Agency, with a fund located in the Department of Foreign Affairs, as a key strategic approach to its post-Mbeki foreign policy agenda. Strengthening the capacity of pan-African institutions such as the SADC, Nepad and the African Union has been the touchstone of Mbeki’s African policy (Kagwanja 2006). Critics of Mbeki’s institutional approach view these institutions as carrying the same state-centric hue as his internal management style, which is underpinned by his ‘imperial presidency’. In this regard, the Polokwane resolutions stressed the need for a radical turn away from these continental bureaucracies to a more people-centred approach to regional capacity-building. The party suggested the revamping of ‘flesh and blood’ pan-African bodies such as the African Union Economic and Social Council, the now moribund Pan-African Women’s Organisation and the Pan-African Youth Movement. Again, the ANC also called for the Pan-African Parliament to be strengthened, its laws to be harmonised, for Nepad to be used as the developmental blueprint, and for civil society and the general citizenry to be involved in continental governance. Similarly, in regard to South–South

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relations, the ANC conference endorsed the current policy of strengthening engagement with India and Brazil, under the banner of IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa), as well as with China, but cautioned against governmentcentred co-operation that excludes party-to-party relations as well as civil society formations. The ANC has also pronounced itself on the debate regarding the proposed creation of the African Union Government. The most radical expression of this debate is inspired by Kwame Nkrumah’s clarion call in the 1960s that ‘Africa must unite’, now articulated fervently by Libya’s strongman, President Muammar Gaddafi, as heir to Nkrumah’s pan-Africanist legacy (Nkrumah 1963). South Africa has backed the ‘gradualist approach’ espoused by Tanzania’s founding president, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, who proposed the creation of regional economic communities as building blocks for a united Africa. The Polokwane conference shared in the overarching ideological thrust of African nationalism driving the debate, in principle supporting the establishment of an African Union Government as a necessary step in the creation of ‘a united continent of Africa capable of engaging other powerful nations’ and, in the process, of moving ‘toward a strategic goal for the unification of Africa’ (ANC 2007a, 2007b). But the ANC has rejected Gaddafi’s idea of forming an African Union Government immediately. In line with its ‘economic diplomacy’, the ANC insists that ‘the process [of forming an African Union Government] must be informed by a developmental agenda for Africa with immediate focus on building Regional Economic Communities/regional blocs, with emphasis on regional integration’ (ANC 2007b). In large measure, the ANC position on the Union Government debate heralds the continuation of the intra-African ideological and power struggle that dominated Africa during the Mbeki era. Key protagonists in this continental power struggle are Africa’s emerging regional powers such as South Africa, Nigeria, Libya and Egypt and subregional powers such as Kenya, Senegal, Ghana and Algeria.

Quiet diplomacy and African solidarity: a post-Mbeki dilemma Top of the list of ‘negatives’ of the Mbeki administration was Mbeki’s ‘quiet diplomacy’ policy towards Zimbabwe’s Mugabe. Here, Mbeki failed to strike a favourable balance between, on the one hand, his commitment to African nationalism and liberation-era ties of solidarity and, on the other, South Africa’s human rights foundation, the democratic freedoms of Zimbabwe’s

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people and the security of the inhabitants of the 14-nation southern African region. But far from departing from the path of nationalist solidarity, the outcomes of the ANC conference actually signalled a deepening of these ties. The party underlined the need to reinforce relations, particularly among former liberation movements such as Namibia’s South West African People’s Organisation (Swapo), the MPLA in Angola, Frelimo in Mozambique and Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF, among others. The ANC has promised to provide structured support for the former liberation movements in the region, to conduct an audit of the ideological orientation and character of the parties on the continent, and to identify those that share the same political vision as the ANC, with a view to ‘strengthening relations with all progressive and likeminded parties in the region, continent and the world’ (ANC 2007a). In this regard, the party organised celebrations with its counterparts in Angola, Namibia, Cuba and Russia to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the historic battle of Cuito Cuanavale, which paved the way for the demise of racist regimes in southern Africa. Since January 2008 the ANC president, Jacob Zuma, has visited most of the frontline states to strengthen ties with the former liberation parties. The ANC has also expressed solidarity with the peoples of Western Sahara and advocated the lifting of the military, security and media blackout imposed on the Frente Polisario (Polisario Front), which has been fighting against the Moroccan occupation and extraction of the wealth of the occupied territory, now under the mandate of the United Nations. But the ANC has cast its net wider to avoid ideologically pigeonholing South Africa, urging that ‘relations with other ruling parties in the continent that might not share the same vision with the ANC must be promoted and such relations could be based on common interests’ (ANC 2007a). Nevertheless, the orgy of xenophobic attacks in May 2008 has not only taken its toll on South Africa’s relations with the rest of Africa, especially those countries whose nationals were affected, but also on Mbeki’s African Renaissance and South Africa’s moral leadership on the continent. Significant spadework is needed to restore the image of the 2010 World Cup as an ‘African event’ and to erase the fears of insecurity, especially by the African peoples, around the event (Reuters 30.06.08).8 Another issue is the future of Zimbabwe, where ANC alliance partners Cosatu and the SACP have been supporting the opposition MDC in its struggle against the country’s liberation party, Zanu-PF. In contrast, the Mbeki-era

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ANC backed the Mugabe regime, undermining a concerted response to the Zimbabwe crisis. Peter Kagwanja and Martin Rupiya’s chapter in this volume focuses on the hitherto little-discussed military aspects of ‘quiet diplomacy’. While tracing this relation from the liberation days, the chapter highlights the dilemma posed by Zimbabwe’s ‘securocrats’ in the effort to restore accountable governance in the country, but also the inability of South Africa and the region to do anything because of existing military ties harking back to the liberation days. Although the MDC won the March 2008 elections, the overarching power of a largely pro-Zanu-PF military continues to haunt a genuine transition to a secure democracy. The military, largely supported by war veterans and youth militias, is the last bastion of President Mugabe’s power. This dominance of a heavily politicised military socialised on the nationalist ideology will continue to haunt the power-sharing agreement that Mbeki brokered between President Mugabe’s party and the MDC.

A ‘rogue democracy’? South Africa in the UNSC What has been characterised as Mbeki’s ‘activist presidency’ on African issues has significant ripples in global politics. This global activism of the Mbeki era has been underpinned by the belief that ‘the international front was one of the key pillars of the struggle that led to the defeat of the apartheid regime in 1994 and remains one of the catalysts in the creation of a better world’ (Herbst 2005). At this point in the anti-apartheid struggle, nationalist solidarity and human rights found common ground in global activism. However, these values of nationalist solidarity and human rights clashed badly as South Africa’s global activism reached a whole new level during the country’s tenure as a non-permanent member of the UNSC from January 2007 to December 2008. The chapter in this volume by Peter Kagwanja highlights the role of Mbeki’s African nationalism, particularly the quest for South Africa’s and Africa’s sovereignty from the west. This became the driving force behind South Africa’s policy in the UNSC, in the process trumping the imperatives of human rights and democracy. South Africa’s decision to actively block discussions in the UNSC about human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, Belarus, Cuba, North Korea and Uzbekistan shocked many who hitherto had believed Pretoria was a natural ally of the west.

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Many lamented that South Africa was the only real democracy to vote against a UN resolution condemning ‘ethnic cleansing’ by the military government in Myanmar and demanding that the junta stop and free jailed dissidents, including Aung San Suu Kyi. South Africa was also accused of dragging out discussions in the UNSC on the Iranian nuclear crisis by calling for less condemnatory language in the resolution. Moreover, Pretoria’s diplomats in the UNSC blocked another resolution condemning alleged rape and attacks on civilians in Darfur, Sudan, and opposed another resolution in the General Assembly censuring the use of rape as a weapon of war. Visibly angry with South Africa’s new activism and ‘disregard for human rights’, western analysts parodied South Africa as a ‘rogue democracy’. This position is summed up by the columnist Michael Gerson: Whatever the reasons, South Africa increasingly requires a new foreign policy category: the rogue democracy. Along with China and Russia, South Africa makes the United Nations impotent. Along with Saudi Arabia and Sudan, it undermines the global human rights movement. South Africa remains an example of freedom – while devaluing and undermining the freedom of others. It is the product of a conscience it does not display. (Washington Post 28.05.08: 13)9 The labelling of South Africa as a ‘rogue democracy’ became a topic of heated debates within the country, adding fuel to the fire of the succession struggle within the ANC (Mail & Guardian 29.05.08).10 South Africa’s position in the UNSC came as a political windfall to the Zuma faction, which began to be embraced in the west as a preferable alternative to Mbeki. Like Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah five decades earlier, Mbeki, once the ‘blue-eyed boy’ of the west, had drunk too deep from the cup of radical African nationalism, thus turning into an unrelenting basher of the west. In addition, the labour movement within the ANC, led by Zuma, was close to the opposition MDC in Zimbabwe (which also has labour roots) and remained highly critical of Mbeki’s deference to Mugabe. The Zuma faction in the ANC was thus widely seen as a replacement for Mbeki, who was written off as ‘ “yesterday’s man” – indifferent to the cause that gave rise to the ANC itself ’ (Washington Post 28.05.08: 13). However, perhaps the west raised the toast too early. Apart from the Zimbabwe issue, both the Mbeki and Zuma factions seemed to be in agreement on the ANC’s radical ideological stance vis-à-vis the west, particularly America. The

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ANC conference was unanimous in its view of a global order characterised by weak global governance linked to the persistence of ‘the situation in which an exploitative socio-economic system rules the world’, itself dominated by one ‘hyper-power’ (ANC 2007a). In a tone reminiscent of the ANC populist traditions of the liberation era, the Polokwane conference decried the fact that: We live in a situation in which an exploitative socio-economic system rules the world, and the danger should not be underestimated of widening wars of conquest and other more sophisticated means of subversion in search of resources, markets and geopolitical advantage. The system of capitalism holds sway across the world; and it is underpinned by the unique dominance of one ‘hyper-power’. (ANC 2007a) It added: Imperialism has mutated into a sophisticated system in the globalised world, often associated with violence and aggression in its pursuit for exploitation of resources in the developing countries and its impact on the African continent. This situation of unipolarity also has secondary multi-polar features reflected in geopolitical blocs among developed and developing countries. (ANC 2007a) The conclusion was reached that the ANC should take concrete measures to counter the new global hegemony, including strengthening its own ideological infrastructures and those of ‘other progressive forces and to develop a common agenda with an objective of realising a just and a better world’ (ANC 2007a). In the light of the growing global influence of China, South Africa has been accused of attempting to align itself with Beijing, Brazil and India in a new non-aligned movement – to redress what one official calls an ‘imbalance of global power’, meaning an excess of American power. South Africa’s fierce resistance to the US move to establish an African Command (Africom) on African soil has tended to confirm its commitment to this new non-alignment. In a similar vein, Pretoria accused Washington of trying to ‘enlarge its military presence in Africa under the cover of fighting terrorism, fundamentalism and extremism’, and actively lobbied African countries to reject overwhelmingly ‘this latest American design to interfere in continental affairs’ (ANC 2007a).

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The ANC Polokwane conference urged Africa to remain united and resolute in rejecting Africom. The Mbeki administration’s relations with Washington reached a critical breaking point at the height of Zimbabwe’s electoral crisis, when Mbeki reportedly dispatched a four-page letter addressed to President Bush, criticising the US for ‘interference’ in Zimbabwe and telling him ‘to butt out, that Africa belongs to him’ (Cape Argus 29.05.08; News24 29.05.08).11


Conclusion This volume does not consider several burning issues that are high on the public’s priority agenda, such as the state of education, the health sector, crime and violence, and the brutal resurgence of racism. However, some of the topics not covered in this volume will receive attention in future issues of State of the Nation. An attempt was made, however, to cover as many issues as possible. The theme of nationalism was used to tie together most of the issues and to provide a core concept that clearly explains the larger context of the seismic changes taking place in South Africa. The bitter power struggle within the ANC has led to the decline of elite consensus, and the related disintegration of the nationalist consensus in South Africa. The victory of the Zuma faction may have reasserted the power of the people, the ordinary South Africans. But a new culture of violence and intimidation and creeping indiscipline in the ANC movement have the potential to undermine the gains made in entrenching democracy in the post-apartheid era. In their protracted struggle, both Zuma and Mbeki have collectively undermined nearly a century of ANC effort to contain ethnonationalism. Increasing communal consciousness and shifting ethnic imbalances as a result of the various strategies to distribute wealth are likely to create tension within and between communal groups in South Africa. It is unlikely that the new ANC team will deliver on all the expectations of the various constituencies supporting them. This is likely to lead to frustrations and intensified feelings of ethnic disaffection and marginalisation, so deepening the ethnonationalist ideologies and sensibilities. Events taking place within South Africa have ripples in Africa, where Mbeki’s African Renaissance has been embraced as a unifying ideology that seeks to revitalise African nationalism as a force of stability, economic growth and development. But the imperative of African solidarity has tended to conflict with the need to promote democracy and human rights in countries such as Zimbabwe. The agenda of promoting a rule-based multilateral world order

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and asserting the sovereignty of Africa has been the hallmark of South Africa’s role in global politics, especially in the UNSC. However, this also presented a new dilemma of finding a balance between the struggle for global governance and the defence of human rights and democracy across the world. These are some of the challenges a new ANC administration after 2009 has to grapple with, over and above internal challenges.


Notes 1

Butler A, ‘South Africa: Motlanthe’s vision shows path back to former glory for ANC’.

2

Gerson M, ‘The despot’s democracy’, available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/27/AR200805270 2556.html, accessed on 6 October 2008.

3

Kagwanja P, ‘Thabo Mbeki: Dwarf at home, giant away’.

4

Robinson V, ‘Redesigning the rule’.

5

‘ANC: Mbeki “link” to Hani death is hurtful.’

6

Gutto S, ‘Rhetoric, ambition and the ANC’, available at http://www.mg.co.za/ article/2007-12-16-rhetoric-ambition-and-the-anc, accessed on 3 October 2008.

7

A number between 0 and 1 as a measure of inequality.

8

‘World Cup chief condemns South Africa violence.’

9

Gerson M, ‘The despot’s democracy’.

10 Trapido M, ‘Is South Africa a “rogue democracy”?’, available at http:// www.thoughtleader.co.za/, accessed on 6 October 2008. 11 Fabricius P, ‘Bush to reply to Mbeki’s “butt”’ (Cape Argus), available at http://www. iol.co.za, accessed on 20 December 2008; ‘Mbeki tells Bush to “butt out”’ (News24), available at http://www.news24.com, accessed on 11 October 2008.

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Available at http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/pubs/umrabulo/umrabulo2.html. Accessed on 11 April 2008 ANC (1997b) Developing a strategic perspective on South African foreign policy. Johannesburg: Umanyona ANC (2005) Development and underdevelopment: Learning from experience to overcome the two-economy divide. ANC Today 3–9 June 5(22). Available at http:// www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2005/at22.htm. Accessed on 16 April 2008


ANC (2007a) ANC 52nd National Conference 2007 resolutions. Polokwane, South Africa, 16–20 December. Available at http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/conf/ conference52/index.html. Accessed on 14 April 2008 ANC (2007b) ANC National Policy Conference report. Gallagher Estate, Midrand, South Africa, 27–30 June. Available at http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/conf/ conference52/index.html. Accessed on 14 April 2008 ANC (2007c) Strategy and tactics of the ANC: Building a national democratic society. Polokwane, South Africa, 16–20 December. Available at http://www.anc.org.za/ ancdocs/history/conf/conference52/strategy-f.html. Accessed on 13 April 2008 Bond P (2007) Zuma, the center left and the left–left. Royal African Society, December. Available at http://www.royalafricansociety.org. Accessed on 28 September 2008 Chikane F (2001) Integrated governance: A restructured presidency at work. Pretoria: Office of the President Chipkin I (2007) Do South Africans exist? Nationalism, democracy and the identity of the people. Johannesburg: Wits University Press Daniel J, Habib A & Southall R (Eds) (2003) State of the nation: South Africa 2003–2004. Cape Town: HSRC Press Daniel J, Southall R & Lutchman J (Eds) (2005) State of the nation: South Africa 2005– 2006. Cape Town: HSRC Press Duffield M (2000) Global governance and the new wars: The merging of development and security. London: Zed Books Evans G (1999) South Africa’s foreign policy after Mandela: Mbeki and his concept of African Renaissance. The Round Table 88(352): 621–628 Geertsema J (2006) White natives? Dan Roodt, Afrikaner identity and the politics of the sublime. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 41(3): 103–120 Gevisser M (2007) The dream deferred: Thabo Mbeki. Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers

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Gumede WM (2008) South Africa: Jacob Zuma and the difficulties of consolidating South Africa’s democracy. African Affairs 107(427): 261–271 Hagg G & Kagwanja P (2007) Identity and peace: Reconfiguring conflict resolution in Africa. African Journal on Conflict Resolution 7(2): 9–35 Herbst J (2005) Mbeki’s South Africa. Foreign Affairs 84(6): 93–105 Kagwanja P (2006) Power and peace: South Africa and the refurbishing of Africa’s multilateral capacity for peacemaking. Journal of Contemporary African Studies 24(2): 159–184 Landsberg C (2000) Promoting democracy: The Mandela–Mbeki doctrine. Journal of Democracy 11(3): 107–121


Mandela N (1993) South Africa’s future foreign policy. Foreign Affairs 72(5): 86–94 Mashike T (2008) Age of despair: The unintegrated forces of South Africa. African Affairs 107(428): 433–453 Mbeki T (2006) State of the nation address of the president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki. Joint Sitting of Parliament, Cape Town, 3 February. Available at http:// www.dfa.gov.za/docs/speeches/2006/mbek0203.htm. Accessed on 16 April 2008 Mbeki T (2007) State of the nation address by the president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, to the joint sitting of Parliament, 9 February. Available at http:// www.info.gov.za/speeches/2007/07020911001001.htm. Accessed on 12 September 2008 Mills G (2004) South Africa’s foreign policy, 1994–2004. In E Sidiropolous (Ed.) Apartheid past, Renaissance future. Johannesburg: South African Institute of International Affairs Muller J (2008) Us and them: The enduring power of ethnic nationalism. Foreign Affairs 87(2): 18–35 Nkrumah K (1963 [1970]) Africa must unite. New York: International Publishers Ramutsindela MF (2002) Afrikaner nationalism, electioneering and the politics of a volkstaat. Politics 18(3): 179–188 South Africa (1998) Developing a culture of good governance: Report of the Presidential Review Commission on the reform and transformation of the public service in South Africa. Presented to the president of South Africa, Mr NR Mandela, 27 February. Available at http://www.polity.org.za/polity/govdocs/reports/presreview/index.html. Accessed on 10 September 2008

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Southall R (2007) The ANC state: More dysfunctional than developmental? In S Buhlungu, J Daniel, R Southall & J Lutchman (Eds) State of the nation: South Africa 2007. Cape Town: HSRC Press Tieku TK (2004) Explaining the clash and accommodation of interests of major actors in the creation of the African Union. African Affairs 103(411): 249–267 Wade R (2003) What strategies are viable for developing countries today? The World Trade Organization and the shrinking of ‘development space’. Review of International Political Economy 10(4): 621–644


Woo-Cumings M (1999) The developmental state. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press

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Part I: Politics


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1

The Polokwane moment and South Africa’s democracy at the crossroads

Somadoda Fikeni


Every revolution is the consequence of one revolution and the beginning of another. (François Chateaubriand, cited in Sparks 2003: 15) Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past. (Karl Marx, cited in Tucker 1972: 437) South Africa’s ruling ANC’s 52nd National Conference in December 2007 in Polokwane was a watershed moment and, by all accounts, the most significant political event since 1994. The Polokwane moment as discussed in this chapter includes major political events preceding the conference, the actual conference and the developments that resulted from the conference. The conference itself, significant as it was, did not resolve a number of critical issues that have troubled South Africa’s democratic transition, thus leaving the country at a crossroads. The Polokwane moment is by far the greatest test that South Africa’s young democracy and the ruling ANC ever faced. It has far-reaching implications in terms of the consolidation of democracy, the dismantling of the apartheid legacy and the attainment of social justice. During the Polokwane conference the new ANC leadership under Jacob Zuma was swept to power in a decisive manner, while the incumbent ANC leadership under Mbeki suffered a crushing defeat. What followed was an unprecedented and prolonged transition in which the winners took control of the party apparatus but the losers remained in control of government, thus creating two centres of power. This introduced a complex power play that signified the phasing in of the new leadership and the phasing out of the old leadership without any agreed-upon roles and rules of transition. The 18-month window period created by the interval between the ANC’s leadership election and the

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country’s national elections produced a gap that presented a power vacuum signified by the politics of interregnum, where the old took its time to die and the new took too long to be born. Key positions taken in this chapter are outlined as a prelude to the discussion. The events surrounding the Polokwane conference were a culmination of South Africa’s troubled transition in which a number of issues had not been resolved. Polokwane was about the failure of South Africa’s transition on many fronts. It was the failure of transition to a more equitable post-apartheid order, especially from the standpoint of the 87 per cent black population. It was also the failure of the ANC to make a transition from a liberation movement to a ruling political party within a liberal democratic framework. Free download from www.hsrcpress.co.za

Social forces and deep historical structural forces have a decisive role in influencing the events that culminated in Polokwane and its aftermath. However, much of the literature, especially the mainstream media, has privileged individual political actors or political leaders’ roles over these forces.1 The position taken in this chapter is that both the broader social forces or structural issues and the role of individual political leaders or contingency factors matter. Therefore, an eclectic approach that takes into account both factors is adopted in this discussion.2 More specifically, the role of and choices made by political agents or leaders are interpreted within the context of larger political and socio-economic factors. The Polokwane conference was mainly about a change of leadership or guard, and with it a possible change of leadership style, than about a major policy shift. Therefore the ideological and policy-related challenges that face the ANC-led alliance will, albeit in different forms, continue into the future. As a result, South Africa’s troubled transition is more likely to be a lasting rather than a passing phenomenon. In the final analysis, post-Polokwane is not so much about ANC consolidation as it is about internal bleeding and fracturing (Gumede 2008). Buhlungu, Daniel, Southall and Lutchman (2007) have characterised the ANC-led government as more dysfunctional than developmental. Despite this, the opposition, it is argued, is too weak to take full advantage of this situation. In other words, the ANC’s succession struggle was a bloody battle between two contesting factions and the ANC was the net loser. This then will allow the giant movement to stagger and stumble forward as the dominant player in South Africa’s political landscape for a considerable period, in spite of its serious internal problems.

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S outh A frica’ s democracy at the crossroads


The gathering storm As the ANC entered the second decade as ruling party of a democratic South Africa, there were increasing signs of discontent within its core constituencies and alliance partners – the storm was gathering. The increased protests against poor service delivery (Southall in Buhlungu et al. 2007), sharp differences between the ANC leadership and its alliance partners over the perceived alienation from government decision-making, as well as contestation over ANC policy direction signified the growing divisions. The expulsion of Jacob Zuma from his position as the country’s deputy president in 2005 was a turning point that led to an open rebellion and direct challenge to the ANC leadership, thus setting the stage for leadership change in Polokwane. The failure of the ANC government to significantly reduce poverty and unemployment in the face of sustained economic growth; Mbeki’s leadership style that tended to centralise power, thus creating an imperial presidency that alienated key players within the ANC and its alliance partners; and the ANC’s failure to adjust from a mass-based liberation movement to its new role as a ruling party were at the core of this discontent. In a bid to modernise South Africa’s economic system within the context of the dominant global neo-liberal market-driven economy, in 1996 Mbeki spearheaded the adoption of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) macroeconomic policy without first seeking the backing of the ANC and its alliance partners (Alexander 2002; Marais 1998; Sparks 2003). The ANC adopted this policy in its 1997 conference in Mafikeng without much input or deliberation. The more left-leaning Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), which emphasised the critical role of the state in addressing issues of development, was a product of extensive consultations within the ANC-led alliance but it was eclipsed and phased out as the GEAR policy was implemented (Alexander 2002; Bond 2006; Sparks 2003). The introduction of GEAR created a lot of resentment, particularly within the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), which saw this as an ideological U-turn by the government and an abandonment of the ANC’s traditional social democratic position. Within the ANC, resentment arose out of the perception that government was usurping the role of the party, which ought to inform government policies rather than the government dictating policies to the ANC.

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Thabo Mbeki’s project to centralise and modernise both the state and the ANC’s power under his presidency is well documented in a range of studies and observations and has even been characterised as ‘presidentialism’ or ‘imperial presidency’ (Buhlungu et al. 2007; Daniel et al. 2003; Gevisser 2007; Gumede 2005). That Mbeki was, between 1999 and 2007, at the helm of both the ruling party and the government tended to amplify and exaggerate this centralising tendency. The alienation of alliance partners and the ANC structures in and outside government was attributed to this tendency, which inevitably produced patronage–clientage networks in an era when materialism and the desperate struggle to access resources through positions of power and influence were becoming dominant factors of the ANC. The rebellion against Mbeki and the political establishment he came to symbolise was, to some extent, motivated by these tendencies. But this centralisation of power, it is argued, cannot be attributed to the personal attributes of an individual political leader. What needs to be understood are the underlying historical and socio-political conditions that encouraged or tolerated this tendency, as well as the political culture that was mobilised to challenge it. Mbeki’s centralising tendencies must be understood in the broader context of a clash of political cultures between the ANC in exile and the Mass Democratic Movement (MDM) inside South Africa during the anti-apartheid liberation struggle. In response to the precarious and harsh realities of the exile environment, the ANC adopted a leadership style that emphasised centralisation of power, of which the key tenets were a commandist style of leadership and strict observation of discipline (Buhlungu et al. 2007).3 On the other hand, the 1980s MDM adopted a more decentralised and grassroots-based mobilisation. Mbeki’s centralisation project may have suited exile conditions of democratic centralism but it was in direct contrast to the political culture of the inxiles.4 It is quite conceivable that Mbeki’s and the ANC leadership’s acceptance of power centralisation was influenced by the exile experience, coupled with the national democratic revolution and the SACP’s notion of a revolution that must seize organs of state power in order to effectively transform a society. This historic mission of seizing and transforming the state and society would be at odds with the liberal pluralist notion, which gives room to a diverse community of interests and incremental reform rather than revolution. It is therefore possible that when the centralising project alienated or even

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targeted some powerful political formations within the ANC-led alliance, those who mobilised against the establishment were evoking the grassroots mass mobilisation that resonated with the more decentralised approach of the 1980s, when ANC branches, regions, provinces and leagues wielded more power and called their leadership to account. Anthony Butler reinforces this view in his assertion that, ‘The ANC combines the hierarchy and democratic centralism of an exile movement with the mass organizational politics that once characterized the domestic anti-apartheid struggle’ (Buhlungu et al. 2007: 38). The greatest challenge was maintaining the balance of energising and mobilising the rank and file without degenerating into decentralised anarchy, something that the post-Polokwane ANC leadership is still dealing with as it grapples with the implications of returning the ANC to the people. The centralisation and the decentralisation of the liberation movement’s power both have their roots in the struggle history and conditions that necessitated these different responses. In 2005 President Thabo Mbeki addressed Parliament, where he announced his decision to relieve Jacob Zuma of his role as the deputy president of the country after the latter’s business associate and financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was found guilty of fraud and corruption. Earlier, the head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Bulelani Ngcuka, had indicated in a media briefing that even though there was prima facie evidence of Zuma’s involvement in corrupt activities with Shaik, they had decided not to try him as there was no guarantee of winning the case against him. In taking this decision to expel Zuma from his Cabinet, Mbeki had taken into account international, and to some degree national, expectations and demands for good governance and low tolerance of corruption, but he failed to balance this with the ANC alliance’s expectation that a fellow comrade occupying a senior position ought to have been treated differently, including broad consultations with party and alliance leadership before taking such a drastic measure. As Mbeki’s stature rose in international circles, where he was applauded for taking a tough stance against corruption, his star waned sharply within the ANC and its alliance partners, who saw his actions as a monumental act of disregard for the party that had deployed him and therefore as a violation of the party code. His leadership style and alienation of ANC senior leaders, as well as the general failures of government, came under the spotlight and were the rallying

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cry and call to war for the ANC and alliance cadres who were mobilising for new ANC leadership under Zuma. Zuma’s expulsion from government was the turning point that led to an open rebellion against Mbeki’s ANC leadership, first witnessed during the 2005 ANC National General Council meeting in Pretoria.


Zuma, who had always been part of the Mbeki-led government, with no distinct policy or ideological position of his own, was suddenly adopted by the aggrieved and alienated leadership of the ANC alliance partners – Cosatu and the SACP, and the ANC Youth League. He was branded as a pro-poor, worker-friendly leader with working-class roots and, even more important, he was presented as the person who would make the endangered alliance work. This position was adopted to make sure that there was a distinction between Zuma and Mbeki and so the basis for a real alternative was established despite the two leaders’ indistinguishable policy positions. Riding on the wave of sympathy and anger among the ANC and its alliance members, Zuma, who has solid liberation credentials in his own right, became an accidental hero and the champion of the anti-establishment and anti-Mbeki course. Leaders who had fallen out of favour with Mbeki or who had been subjected to investigations or even charged by the NPA/Scorpions found common cause and regrouped around Zuma. These included Tony Yengeni, Billy Masetlha, Ngoako Ramathlodi, Siphiwe Nyanda and Mac Maharaj. Zuma was characterised as ‘a friend of the poor’, ‘worker-friendly’, ‘a friend of the left’ and ‘a man of the people’, as opposed to Mbeki, who was portrayed by his opponents as ‘intellectually arrogant’, ‘aloof ’, ‘autocratic and authoritarian’, ‘pro-rich and pro-business’, ‘politically intolerant’ and ‘elitist’. Initially, a tentative and rather reluctant Jacob Zuma assumed his role as the face and leader of the disaffected segments of the ANC-led alliance. His key supporters repeatedly stated that he was being associated with corruption as part of a vast political conspiracy to exclude him from being the next president of the ANC and the country, a charge Zuma reiterated in his speeches and court cases. The anti-establishment campaigners asserted that state resources and institutions such as the NPA were being used to eliminate and politically destroy Zuma and government opponents. Bulelani Ngcuka, the former head of the NPA, was often cited as one prominent example of the state’s abuse of its power in targeting figures such as Zuma, Yengeni, Ramatlhodi and Maharaj. The appointment of Bulelani Ngcuka’s wife, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, as

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the country’s deputy president, replacing Zuma, further compounded the situation and fanned the flames of conspiracy claims. Pro-Zuma ANC deployees in government also used state resources at their disposal, apparently to settle political scores as well. An example was the investigation of a proMbeki businessman, Saki Macozoma, by the National Intelligence Agency, sanctioned by Billy Masetlha. This is but one demonstration of how the ANC’s internal succession struggle spilled over into government, thus affecting the effective functioning of the state. In June 2005 during the National General Council meeting of the ANC held in Pretoria, the first signs of an open ANC grassroots rebellion against Mbeki and the ANC leadership became clear. They were forced to admit that the Zuma affair had been badly communicated with the structures on the ground. The ANC leadership was also forced to reverse its suspension of Zuma as the ANC deputy president. It became clear that Zuma’s expulsion from government had become a defining moment for those who were mobilising to challenge and remove the Mbeki-led ANC leadership. The Zuma rape case, from which he was acquitted, further deepened divisions within the ANC and intensified conspiracy theories among those who saw this as further proof that anything would be used to settle political scores. On the other hand, the rape case raised further questions about Zuma’s moral discretion, sense of judgement and position on gender issues, particularly towards women. The Mbeki-led government and the ANC introduced a number of policy interventions in response to the growing discontent and direct criticism from the ANC alliance partners. The notion of a developmental state as a key catalyst for broader development was introduced in 2005. This was an implicit admission that the market-driven neo-liberal GEAR policy had not succeeded in addressing the pressing needs of the population, particularly with respect to the redistribution of the economic spoils. A series of other interventions, such as the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa and the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition, were introduced. In 2006 the land summit was held to assess ways of speeding up land redistribution. All these interventions came too late and did not convince the main critics of Mbeki’s government. The June 2007 policy conference and the Polokwane conference endorsed the notion of a developmental state to spearhead development and intervene on behalf of the poor. Mbeki’s critics and alliance partners attributed the adoption of a developmental state and a mixed economy to the

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pressure they had put on the ANC and the government. This effectively took away credit from Mbeki, who was still at the helm of the party when these policy changes were introduced. However, Mbeki’s supporters claim credit for the policy intervention and point out that continuities in these policies suggest that the leadership struggle was more about personalities than about the core essence of policy.


The build-up to Polokwane In 2007 South Africans witnessed the brutal election campaign for the ANC leadership between Mbeki and Zuma. It was a very sophisticated campaign and permeated funerals, government functions, alliance party congresses, public and traditional ceremonies, memorials, the media and strikes. The open competition and campaign for party leadership signified a break with ANC tradition, which had previously ensured the careful management of succession and the resolution of divisions out of public view. Such a bitter contest, albeit on a lesser scale, leading to a change of leadership had last been seen in the 1950s (Gumede 2005, 2008). The campaign culminated in Polokwane, where, in a dramatic fashion, the Zuma-led ANC faction swept to power, wiping away the incumbent leadership under Mbeki. Policy debate was a characteristic feature of this campaign year and led to a number of policy positions being proposed at the ANC policy conference in June 2007 and resolutions being adopted during the Polokwane conference. This chapter now turns to an account of key events in 2007 that preceded the Polokwane conference. These include campaign themes and strategies, the alignment of forces on both sides, as well as the abortive attempts to introduce third-option candidates. The narrative then presents and analyses the nomination processes and their outcomes and the actual elections during the Polokwane conference. During 2007 South Africa, Africa and the world watched the unfolding seismic political developments that characterised the ANC’s struggle for leadership succession, culminating in the organisation’s 52nd National Conference held in Polokwane. For the first time in its history, the ANC had to contend with an open American-style presidential election campaign. As noted, succession had previously been carefully managed to avoid such bitter contests: leadership succession had been relatively smooth from Luthuli to Tambo to Mandela to

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Mbeki. The South African Constitution prohibited Mbeki from running for a third term but there were no such limitations for ANC presidency, so Mbeki made himself available as a candidate. He had the support of a majority of National Executive Committee (NEC) members, most of whom were also Cabinet ministers, premiers and ANC deployees in government. Some leaders of the ANC Women’s League as well as sections of black business also showed support for his candidacy. Zuma received clear endorsement from the leadership of Cosatu, the SACP, the ANC Youth League, the Umkhonto we Sizwe Veterans Association and a section of disaffected ANC leaders who had been sidelined by the Mbeki government. An analysis of the political strategies of the key candidates for ANC leadership is instructive as it reveals the character of the contenders and their support bases. Zuma’s key backers departed from tradition by inviting him to address their policy conferences and important events in a bid to profile him as the next president of the ANC. Mbeki was snubbed by not being invited to address these conferences and he also chose not to attend some of those he considered to be potentially hostile in their reception of him. Zuma used his signature liberation song, ‘Awuleth’umshini Wam’, as a rallying song that was also meant to resuscitate militant combat tradition and memory. This had particular resonance with former Umkhonto we Sizwe combatants, who had felt neglected by the new democratic government, as well as with the militant youth of the ANC Youth League and the Young Communist League. As former head of the ANC Intelligence Unit during the exile years, Zuma had a close association with the military wing of the ANC. Former combatants felt that he was one of them and therefore more likely to attend to their plight and bring them into the mainstream focus of the ANC’s post-1994 politics. Many had been disappointed by the manner in which their assimilation into the South African Defence Force (SADF) had been handled; most of their enemy combatants or former SADF senior leaders were left in charge. The fact that Thabo Mbeki had not been closely associated with or himself been a combatant in exile was amplified and contrasted with Zuma’s combat history and Robben Island experience as proof that he knew the difficulties of the struggle, not just the diplomatic side of it. Mbeki’s extensive international engagements and diplomatic missions were cited as proof that he was a jetsetter who had little time for or understanding of the grassroots politics at home, hence his detachment from the daily grind of such reality.

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Traditionally, top Cosatu, SACP and ANC Youth League leaders had been co-opted to top government or Cabinet positions. Yet the current leadership, such as Blade Nzimande, Zwelinzima Vavi and Fikile Mbalula, had not been offered such an opportunity and, given their antagonistic relationship with Mbeki, such prospects were remote. With the ascendance of Zuma as president their prospects of being in government would significantly improve, as their organisations would also forge closer ties with the ANC. Their commitment to Zuma’s presidency was both personal and strategic. Clearly understanding how the ANC conference in December was going to decide the future of the ANC alliance partnership and policy directions, these organisations went on a massive recruitment drive. They encouraged their members to take ANC membership and to play an active role in the ANC in order to feature prominently in the branch delegations to the conference and so influence the leadership nomination process. When looking at the significant increase in ANC membership in many provinces, this strategy seems to have been a great success. Negative campaigns became part of the strategy in this bitter contest. Malicious allegations were leaked to the rumour-hungry media by both the Mbeki and the Zuma factions. For example, there was the unsubstantiated rumour that Mbeki had had a hand in the killing of Chris Hani, who was seen as his political rival. Mbeki was portrayed as a dangerous schemer who would, at the slightest provocation, get rid of his political opponents: Tokyo Sexwale, Mathews Phosa, Cyril Ramaphosa, Billy Masetlha, Nozizwe MadlalaRoutledge, Mac Maharaj and many others were provided as evidence of his intolerance of political opposition. This, by extension, was often cited as proof that Mbeki was using state resources to settle political scores. Other rumours doing the rounds included Mbeki’s alleged womanising, his implication in the arms deal, and his selective targeting of those accused of corruption while protecting his close friends. The delayed release of an SABC-commissioned documentary on Thabo Mbeki further fuelled these rumours, with wide speculation on what information the documentary contained. On the other hand, Mbeki’s supporters repeatedly circulated damaging allegations about Zuma’s association with Schabir Shaik as proof that he was a person of poor judgement and prone to corruption. His alleged serial escapades with women, the number of children he had with several women, his polygamous marriages and the details of his rape case were often presented

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as proof of his African traditionalist tendencies, which were inimical to women’s liberation and gender equity. The fact that he did not have a formal education was often introduced by Mbeki supporters as ample proof that he was not fit to govern the ANC and the country.


Some of these prejudicial and stereotypical claims had no factual basis but they were repeated to the point where they assumed the status of ‘truth’ for those who were already biased against these political leaders. Fact and fiction became increasingly difficult to separate and the print media’s utilisation of anonymous sources from within the ANC camps gave momentum to the spread of these allegations. Thabo Mbeki’s declaration of his candidacy for the third term as ANC president did not provide an answer as to who was going to be the ANC’s candidate for the country’s presidency. As noted, Mbeki was constitutionally prevented from running for a third term. He later indicated that he would prefer a woman president for the country and many read this to mean that Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka or Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma would be his preferred candidate. This infuriated his opponents, who accused him of trying to bypass Zuma, whom they saw as the next logical choice for the position. On the other hand, the appointment of Zuma, who still faced serious fraud allegations and could be found guilty, left some wondering what would happen if he was elected ANC president and then convicted of these charges. It is then that the notion of Kgalema Motlanthe, the Zuma camp’s candidate for deputy president, possibly becoming the country’s next president was touted. This was one indication of how fluid the situation had become. Ethnicity was drawn into the equation in this desperate struggle for ANC leadership. The end of Xhosa dominance of the ANC leadership was not publicly discussed by the ANC or alliance leaders, but it was widely talked about within and outside the ANC. The fact that ANC presidents Tambo, Mandela and Mbeki were all Xhosa-speaking was presented as ample proof of the need for a non-Xhosa leader. There were signs of ethnic mobilisation among the Zulus in KwaZulu-Natal, who rallied behind Zuma and showed little tolerance for any internal deviation in the region. The Eastern Cape ANC leadership declared their support for Mbeki’s bid for the ANC presidency, while KwaZulu-Natal made a similar declaration for Zuma. The latter’s supporters wore t-shirts with ‘100% Zulu Boy’ and ‘100% Zuma’ written on them, and Mbeki was met with hostility when he attended government or

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ANC functions in KwaZulu-Natal, for example during the commemoration and reburial of Moses Mabhida and the celebration of Ghandi’s legacy. The prospect of open ethnic mobilisation and hostilities became a real possibility but this was diffused by the leaders as well as by the diverse support for both candidates across the provinces. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the ANC leadership struggle was the battle for custodianship of ANC traditions and values. Each side portrayed itself as the genuine custodian of these traditions and values while accusing the other of having betrayed the tradition. Reference to ANC elders such as Luthuli, Tambo, Mandela and Hani became a common feature of political campaigns and public pronouncements by both Mbeki and Zuma and their key supporters. Coincidentally, there happen to have been a series of commemorative events on OR Tambo, Moses Mabhida, Chris Hani, the Bambata Rebellion and other events, which became a theatre for reclaiming custodianship of the legacy and values of these icons. Realising the divisiveness and the damaging effect of the two-way race between Mbeki and Zuma, several leaders – such as Pallo Jordan – started talking about the possibility of a ‘third way’ or a compromise candidate being elected as both a compromise and a potential unifier of the ANC. This possibility was widely debated and the business community threw their weight behind Tokyo Sexwale and Cyril Ramaphosa as options. There was an air of excitement when Sexwale declared his candidacy and there were rumours that Ramaphosa was contemplating joining the race. When the first round of provincial nominations indicated that Sexwale stood no chance as long as Mbeki and Zuma were in the race, he declared his support for Zuma. Sexwale’s dismal performance demonstrated that within ANC politics the business sector, which had backed Sexwale’s candidacy and welcomed Ramaphosa’s possible entry as a candidate, did not have that much influence, especially when pitted against the ANC and its alliance’s mobilising machinery. Moreover, the lines had been drawn for years in the ANC’s bitter struggle for succession and control of the ANC and the Zuma and Mbeki factions had reached a point of no return. The outcome of the provincial and the ANC leagues’ (women and youth) nominations provided a foretaste of what was to happen in Polokwane. Each faction stuck strictly with their list of candidates without any overlapping names, particularly in the top six positions.

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Zuma got the predicted endorsement of Cosatu, the SACP and the ANC Youth League. ANC provincial nominations gave Zuma five provinces (KwaZuluNatal, Free State, Mpumalanga, Gauteng and the Northern Cape) whereas Mbeki got the support of four (Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Limpopo and North West). Zuma got a solid majority in the provinces he won, with an almost clean sweep from KwaZulu-Natal, his home province. On the other hand, Mbeki managed to win with smaller margins, even in his home province of the Eastern Cape. Perhaps the most crushing blow was the ANC Women’s League’s endorsement of Zuma over Mbeki (Zuma got 29 votes to Mbeki’s 25). The latter had been seen as being pro-women in his appointments, his policy programmes and his pronouncements as well as in his signal that he would support a woman for the position of the country’s president if he were to win. It became very clear that women, particularly at the grassroots level, were more influenced by their provincial ANC preferences than by the leadership of the Women’s League. Even more significant is the fact that the ANC Women’s League endorsed Kgalema Motlanthe with 27 votes to Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s 25 (Business Day 27.11.07). The rest of the endorsements were also in line with the list of the Zuma camp. This not only showed up fractures within the ANC Women’s League over the ANC leadership, but also demonstrated the gap between the ANC’s female leadership and the rankand-file female members. The mobilisation and campaigns that marked the ANC’s succession battle also led to an increase in ANC membership, which rose from 416 846 in 2002 when the Stellenbosch conference was held, to 440 708 in 2005, and to 621 237 when the Polokwane conference took place in December 2007 (Motlanthe 2007: 7). This represents a significant increase of about 54.75 per cent or nearly 220 000 from the time of the National General Conference and Zuma’s expulsion in 2005 to the 2007 elective conference (Mail & Guardian Online 19.12.07). An analysis of the trends in ANC membership suggests that South Africa’s richest and most industrialised provinces, Gauteng and the Western Cape, which also happen to have the fastest population growth, have experienced a decline or no increase in ANC membership. The Western Cape had the lowest number of delegates attending the Polokwane conference, surpassed even by the sparsely populated Northern Cape. The most significant increases in ANC membership came from the predominantly rural provinces – the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, the Northern Cape and the North West.

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The Eastern Cape more than doubled its membership from 2005 to 2007 and KwaZulu-Natal nearly doubled its membership as well. According to Jonathan Faull (Mail & Guardian Online 19.12.07):


The national audit suggests that Zwelinzima Vavi’s call for Cosatu members to flood the ranks of the ANC in order to influence its trajectory has failed to make a marked impact on patterns of recruitment…The apparent increasing rural bias of membership patterns undermines the potential impact of Cosatu on the ANC in the medium term. As to whether this will translate into a new government that will be more responsive to the plight of the rural section of South Africa’s population remains to be seen in both the policies and the implementation of programmes in the next few years.

The Polokwane conference The Polokwane conference was held from 16 to 20 December 2007. About 6 000 people attended and there were 4 0755 voting delegates representing 2 694 branches (Mail & Guardian Online 19.12.07). The ANC’s audited membership at the time was 621 237. The remaining 400 voting delegates came from the NEC, the provincial executive committees, and the Youth and Women’s Leagues. The Eastern Cape, which has the highest membership of all the provinces, had 906 delegates, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 608 – the two provinces thus accounting for 41 per cent of the total number of voting delegates. About 400 non-voting delegates were drawn from provincial premiers, ANC members of Parliament, ministers and their deputies. Approximately 200 international delegates attended the conference. About 800 ANC staff members, security staff and the South African and international media were also there (Financial Mail 7.12.07). Table 1.1 gives a breakdown of ANC membership according to the provinces (Motlanthe 2007: 7) and the voting delegates (Citizen 17.11.07; Financial Mail 14.12.07; Star 13.12.07). The conference itself had a carnival atmosphere, with competing songs from the two camps. On the first day the heckling of the chair of the meeting, Mosiuoa Lekota, a staunch campaigner and supporter of Mbeki, almost delayed the proceedings. There were rumours that the Mbeki camp had promised voting delegates large sums of money if they took photos, using

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Table 1.1 ANC membership and voting delegates at the December 2007 conference


Province

Membership

Voting delegates

Eastern Cape

153 164

906

KwaZulu-Natal

102 742

608

Limpopo

67 632

400

Free State

61 310

363

Gauteng

59 909

354

Mpumalanga

54 913

325

North West

47 353

280

Northern Cape

37 267

220

Western Cape

36 947

219

621 237

3 675

Total

their cell phones, of their ballot papers indicating that they had voted for Mbeki. Rumours abounded that the company that was running the technical side of the elections was linked to one or the other camp. Claims of vote rigging as well as possible interference with the electronic tallying of votes led to extra measures being adopted – both manual and electronic – to capture results and this also delayed the counting process. During the conference the top six NEC positions as well as the remaining 80 NEC positions were elected. The election results of the top six positions are reflected in Table 1.2. In this election Zuma got about 60 per cent while Mbeki got just under 40 per cent of the vote. This pattern was repeated for all candidates with only minor, statistically insignificant variances, thus suggesting block voting in each camp. The Zuma camp made a clean sweep of all six top positions; the Mbeki camp was routed – as was to be expected after the bitter contest had solidified factions. The outcome of provincial nominations was almost a mirror image of the actual voting patterns during the Polokwane conference. This suggests that the last-minute intense campaigning by both sides did not have an impact. The other 80 NEC positions also indicated the success of Zuma’s supporters, with a strong representation of SACP leaders. Most of the people in Mbeki’s Cabinet and government in general, as well as his core supporters or those associated with him, did not make it onto the NEC. Among these are senior

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Table 1.2 Polokwane conference election results for top six NEC positions Position

Candidate and result

Candidate and result

President

Jacob Zuma 2 329 (60.75%)

Thabo Mbeki 1 505 (39.26%)

Deputy President

Kgalema Motlanthe (2 346)

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (1 444)

Baleka Mbete

Joel Netshitenzhe

(2 326)

(1 475)

Gwede Mantashe

Mosiuoa Lekota

(2 378)

(1 432)

Thandi Modise

Thoko Didiza

(2 304)

(1 455)

Mathews Phosa

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka (1 374)

Chairperson Secretary-General


Deputy Secretary-General Treasurer

(2 328) Source: SABC News Research, ‘ANC Top Six Election Results’, 20.12.07.

ANC leaders such as Ronnie Kasrils, Alec Erwin, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, Aziz Pahad, Dipuo Peters, Smuts Ngonyama, Mosiuoa Lekota, Essop Pahad, Lindiwe Hendricks, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Ngconde Balfour, Ebrahim Rasool, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, Frene Ginwala, Charles Nkqakula, Popo Molefe, Saki Macozoma, Sello Moloto and Nosimo Balindlela. Remarkably, some of the Cabinet ministers did make it to the new NEC. They had not been closely associated with the Mbeki camp, thus suggesting that government and the Cabinet itself was not a united monolith under Mbeki but more differentiated in orientation with regards to the struggle that had afflicted the ANC. The Cabinet ministers and deputy ministers who made it to the NEC are Jeff Radebe, Zola Skweyiya, Pallo Jordan, Lindiwe Sisulu, Makhenkesi Stofile, Malusi Gigaba, Derek Hanekom and Joyce Mabudafhasi. ANC veterans Pallo Jordan and Zola Skweyiya had shown some independence from both the Zuma and the Mbeki camp during the campaign for leadership. Some of these leaders went on to be part of the National Working Committee – Pallo Jordan, Jeff Radebe, Lindiwe Sisulu and Makhenkesi Stofile. On the other hand, the dominance of Zuma’s core supporters in both the NEC and the National Working Committee was quite emphatic. Most telling was the number of ANC leaders who had been alienated by or fallen out of favour with Mbeki who made it to these top leadership structures: Mathews

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Phosa, Billy Masetlha, Jeremy Cronin, Tokyo Sexwale, Blade Nzimande, Tony Yengeni, Siphiwe Nyanda, Cyril Ramaphosa, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, Angie Motshekga, Ace Magashule, Enoch Godongwana, Ngoako Ramathlodi and Fikile Mbalula. Most of these leaders were seriously aggrieved by what they perceived to have been either their victimisation or their alienation for differing with the Mbeki-led leadership. Gumede (2008) refers to this group as the ‘walking wounded’, a category that includes the new ANC president, Jacob Zuma. This makes the prospects of genuine reconciliation and party unity more remote and triumphalism and possibly purging a more realistic prognosis. At the end of the conference many people were asking: Why did Mbeki lose the Polokwane elections? What accounts for the Zuma win? The short answer to that is the fact that Zuma ran an effective campaign supported and endorsed by the ANC alliance’s most effective mobilising machinery, which included the ANC Youth League, the SACP, Cosatu and some ANC provincial and regional leaders. His campaign had a coherent and effective message against the political establishment, as well as grassroots appeal. This message penetrated the branches of the ANC, which at the end of the day were going to influence the election outcome in Polokwane. Zuma’s charisma and accessibility were added advantages. Another point is that most of the ANC leaders who had been alienated by Mbeki had a sense of urgency and intensity in their campaign that their colleagues who were comfortably in government positions did not have. On the other hand, Mbeki relied heavily on the state apparatus, Cabinet ministers, the party elite and the emerging black business class for his campaign. He was associated with government failure to make a meaningful impact on poverty and unemployment, and his leadership style also alienated him from the ANC grassroots. His campaign also came very late and targeted the general public – in the form of presidential imbizos and government functions – rather than the branches and ANC structures that were going to matter most in December 2007. The Polokwane conference was not all about votes and a change of guard. It was also a conference in which the ANC’s highest decision-making body had to take policy decisions and adopt resolutions that would influence the ANC in government.6 Salient aspects of the policies that were adopted are highlighted in this chapter, with a brief analysis. The ANC changed its constitution and increased the size of its NEC from 66 to 86, including the top six positions. A

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policy of 50/50 gender representation in the NEC’s 80 members was adopted; a last-minute attempt to apply this to the top six positions as well was rejected. ANC veterans were given the same status as the ANC Women’s League and the Youth League, to be represented and have voting rights in subsequent ANC conferences. Perhaps concerned with the rise of careerism, factionalism and poor discipline, the ANC also adopted a resolution calling for the launch of a party school that would be responsible for political education. The ANC passed a resolution calling for the disbandment by June 2008 of the Scorpions, the special investigations agency of the NPA that had been accused of targeting Zuma and other ANC leaders, and the incorporation of this function under the national police service. This resolution was quite specific, perhaps indicating the urgency of the matter and the intense resentment towards this body. There was also a call for the establishment of a media tribunal that would reinforce what was described as the media’s ineffective self-regulatory mechanism. This has predictably drawn a sharp and critical response from the media bodies and the opposition parties. The conference resolved that there was a need to review the role and powers of provinces in relation to local and national government and proposed that the government should assist in investigating this matter further, pointing out that even if changes were to come they would not take effect in the next few years. The scrapping of the floor-crossing legislation received unanimous acceptance. The presidential power to appoint premiers and mayors of the metropolitan municipalities was also reversed and consultation with provincial leadership is now a requisite step before the NEC endorsement or decision. The position adopted at the June 2007 Gallagher Estate policy conference that the state should be a developmental one, active in leading transformation and development, was adopted. The concept of a mixed economy in which both the market and state enterprises would operate was also endorsed. There was more emphasis than ever before on the need for a rural development strategy, thus ushering in a new era in which rural areas would benefit from being prioritised in the government’s intervention programmes. The conference also resolved to prioritise and put more resources into health and education. There was no fundamental departure from the ANC’s policies, and emphasis was placed on more effective implementation of existing policies and better delivery mechanisms. While there was an increase in representation of leaders from the left, this has not translated into a leftward shift in any significant

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way. As Motlanthe stated during a press briefing at the end of the conference, ‘There may be shifts in emphasis with policy implementation, but the basic policy will remain unchanged’ (Die Burger-Polokwane Digest 19.12.07). Zuma has since gone around the world and across the country assuring mainly the business sector that there will be no policy changes as the emphasis is more on effective and speedy delivery. If this turns out to be the case, as indications show, then Polokwane was more about a change of guard and leadership style than about an ideological shift or policy change.


The two centres of power A unique situation unfolded in the period after Polokwane: the old leadership that had been defeated in Polokwane was still in government and the new leadership was largely outside the government. There were no clearly defined or agreed-upon rules of engagement or mechanisms for transition between the contestants. The 18-month window period created by the interval between the ANC’s leadership election and the country’s general election has produced a gap and presented a power vacuum. This set the stage for the new leadership’s aggressive efforts to consolidate control over their deployees in government and assert their authority in various ANC leadership structures. This often happened at the expense of ANC leaders seen as having been closely associated with Thabo Mbeki. Initially the new ANC leadership seemed to stumble in co-ordinating its message, as there were many, often contradictory, voices from the new NEC and alliance leaders. One such example was the tripartite alliance agreement that would allow Mbeki and the current government leadership to complete their terms of office, but there were many voices thereafter which insisted that Mbeki had to leave earlier and that early elections be called. The post-Polokwane modus vivendi often illustrated and amplified strategic ambiguities in the actions and pronouncements of the ANC leadership. For example, on the question of the Zimbabwe crisis, Zuma and the new ANC leaders declared their support for Mbeki’s approach to the crisis – his quiet diplomacy – while at the same time openly attacking quiet diplomacy. Also, the new ANC leadership and its alliance partners criticised the policies and programmes of the Mbeki-led government while simultaneously assuring the business and international community that there would be no policy changes, something that has started to concern Cosatu (Sowetan 15.08.08).

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This ambiguity is also caused by the fact that before his expulsion from government in 2005, Zuma had been part of many of the Mbeki government’s policy decisions and had not voiced any different opinions. Zuma took the initiative to address and lay to rest fears of various communities, such as white Afrikaners, the business community in South Africa and abroad, and the media. In these forums he made pronouncements that seemed to contradict the ANC’s policy positions on matters such as the death penalty, affirmative action and the flexibility of labour laws. He often had to retract statements, explain himself or allow ANC spokespersons to do damage control. The alliance partners and the ANC Youth League have shown signs of being independent and too assertive, to the point of being overbearing in the ANC, something that is setting the stage for future contradictions and even conflict, especially around policy matters and deployments in government. There is also an undercurrent of the political elite’s struggle for access to positions and resources, often camouflaged in the ideological and policy rhetoric. It did not take long after the Polokwane conference for the new leadership to flex its muscle in a bid to consolidate its power. There were reminders that ANC leaders in government were serving at the behest of the ANC, which had deployed them in the first place. Threats of recalling some ANC members in government grew in frequency and intensity. The deployment of new leaders seen as supporters of Zuma in parliamentary portfolios was the first clear sign that the new leadership would not wait for 2009 to assert itself and consolidate its hold on power. The provincial elective conferences and the ANC Women’s League and Youth League conferences also ensured that leaders who were known supporters of Zuma were put in positions of leadership, while those known to be Mbeki supporters were either defeated or withdrew from the leadership race. Talk of political purges was in the air and former Cosatu president Willie Madisha was finally eliminated as he was removed from the leadership of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union. The ANC elective conferences had a new feature of ill-discipline and bitter contests for positions, thus highlighting the depth of divisions and the desperate nature of the power struggles, as well as eroding party discipline and control of its members. Mindful of the fact that Mbeki had had the backing of the South African and international business community because of his macroeconomic policies, Zuma embarked on an international campaign to charm and assure business

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leaders that he would continue with most of the existing economic policies. Mbeki’s international stature seems to have encouraged Zuma to address leaders of western European countries, some African leaders and Indian leaders in a bid to raise his international profile and assure the world that he was equal to the task of heading South Africa (Mail & Guardian Online 27.01.08). Zuma has also worked hard to win the hearts and minds of the white population, especially the Afrikaner community, by addressing its forums and visiting poor white settlements (Mail & Guardian 05.03.08; 18.04.08). Perhaps the most dramatic flexing of muscle by the new ANC leadership was the removal and replacement of the Western Cape and Eastern Cape premiers who, though forced to resign for different reasons, had been staunch supporters of Mbeki. In many quarters this was interpreted as clear evidence of political purging. The ANC leadership justified it as interventions that were necessary to make sure that the ANC was prepared for the 2009 elections without the liabilities presented by the recalled leaders in these two provinces. In the Western Cape, the manner of Ebrahim Rasool’s removal and the subsequent protest resignation of some of his MECs could potentially affect the ANC’s performance in the province, where no party has a stronghold on provincial government. The ANC leadership also made it clear that they wanted Kgalema Motlanthe to be absorbed into the Cabinet in order to ensure a smooth transition and transfer of power from Mbeki’s leadership to the incoming leaders after the 2009 elections. Motlanthe had earlier been deployed in Parliament in preparation for his eventual absorption into the Cabinet. Although Mbeki took his time in appointing Motlanthe to his Cabinet, he eventually did so in July 2008. The push to disband the Scorpions and incorporate them into the police service, using an ANC parliamentary majority, and ANC delegates in Cabinet were other prominent cases of the new leadership’s consolidation of its position flowing directly from the ANC conference resolutions. Events leading to and flowing from the Polokwane conference also demonstrated an incipient political culture of coercion or violence couched in the rhetoric of revolution and liberation struggle. This signalled a new and potentially damaging political intolerance which was also witnessed in the physical conflicts during some of the provincial and ANC Youth League’s elective conferences. The stabbing of the Western Cape’s ANC secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha, the attack on some of the ANC’s top leaders in the OR

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Tambo District Municipality region, the physical confrontations at the North West provincial conference, as well as the threat of violence if the Zuma trial went ahead or if he was convicted are some of the instances that demonstrate this. The provincial congresses of the ANC have been characterised by violence between factions supporting different candidates, and in some instances conferences have had to be postponed. The purging of those who differed with the alliance partners’ support of Zuma is yet another sign of the increasing political intolerance in the general atmosphere of triumphalism, which makes it difficult to deal with the question of party unity and reconciliation after the strife that marked the battle for leadership. Attacks on key state institutions such as the judiciary could also be seen in this light or as an attempt by the new leadership to force the hand of the judiciary to give relief in the Zuma case. Several media articles7 provide accounts of instances that demonstrate the ANC and its alliance partners’ incipient culture of violence and political intolerance, which has been on the rise and is becoming a defining factor in settling differences or achieving political objectives. Given that Zuma is still facing a fraud trial and depends on some of the more militant alliance leaders to provide critical support as he stakes his claim for the country’s presidency, he is in a weak position to prevail on his core supporters to refrain from the militant and even violent rhetoric. Motlanthe’s stand against this extreme language may lead to his isolation if he is not joined by other ANC leaders. The current transitional period has seen the new ANC leadership consolidating its position and asserting itself while we witness the erosion of Mbeki’s power as the balance of forces shifts from the Union Buildings to Luthuli House. There are still strategic ambiguities and lack of a coherent message from the new ANC leadership, especially on the policy front. This may change when elections draw closer and the election manifesto has been drawn and articulated.

Democracy after Polokwane The leadership strife within the ruling party and the subsequent leadership changes has implications for the opposition parties and the institutions of democratic governance. South Africa’s one-party dominance and the ruling party’s deep penetration of government institutions indicate the significance

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of the ANC’s intra-party developments and their wider implications for all other role-players and democratic institutions. The ANC has been progressively increasing its share of votes in the last three national elections, achieving 62.65 per cent in 1994, 66.35 per cent in 1999 and 69.69 per cent in 2004 (Kadima 2006). But the number of people who voted for the ANC in the same elections has actually declined from 12 237 655 in 1994 to 10 601 330 in 1999 and stabilised at 10 880 915 in 2004 (Kadima 2006). These numbers clearly indicate the ANC’s dominance in South Africa. The decline in the actual number of people who voted for the ANC, without translating into a gain for the opposition parties, can be understood as voter apathy rather than the core constituency of the ruling party moving into the opposition’s ranks. The ANC further increased its share during the 2007 floorcrossing period.8 Table 1.3 lists the electoral strength of the major parties after the 2004 national elections. Table 1.3 2004 election results: National Assembly Party

% votes*

No. of seats

African National Congress

69.69

279

Democratic Alliance

12.37

50

Inkatha Freedom Party

6.97

28

United Democratic Movement

2.28

9

Independent Democrats

1.73

7

Source: http://electionresources.org.za Note: *The remaining 6.96% is made up of smaller parties that are represented in Parliament but are not listed in the table.

The main opposition party, the DA, is a descendant of the Federal Progressive Party that became the Democratic Party (DP) in the 1980s. The party was led and mainly constituted by the English-speaking section of white South Africa and it was the parliamentary liberal opposition to the apartheid regime. During the build-up to the 1999 elections, the DP and the New National Party (NNP) entered into a coalition that took control of the Western Cape provincial government, thus keeping the party that had the most votes, the ANC, out of power in that province. The collapse of the DP–NNP coalition and the subsequent dissolution of the NNP led to a mass exodus of the mainly Afrikaner NNP members as they joined the Democratic Alliance (DA). The DA,

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under the leadership of Tony Leon, consciously targeted coloured and Indian voters and made serious inroads into these constituencies. The leadership and the core constituency of the DA remain primarily white. The DA has opposed most of the policies and transformation efforts that were seen as eroding white privilege or empowering blacks. The DA, mainly because of these structural problems, has failed to retain any senior black leader in its ranks and each one who left cited the DA’s failure to transform itself and accommodate black people as the main reason for their alienation and subsequent departure. The DA’s perceived and real opposition to efforts to end apartheid’s legacy has not endeared it to most of the black majority. The ANC and some former liberation political parties have, so far, managed to portray the DA as a party defending white privilege and opposing transformations that could benefit the black majority. If the ANC’s internal divisions in the Western Cape are not resolved, then the DA may have a realistic chance of winning the province by forming a coalition to prevent an ANC takeover. The DA managed to put together a coalition of smaller parties to win the Cape Metropolitan Council and there is every indication that, given a chance, it would do the same at a provincial level. The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) presents a fascinating case for the 2009 elections. Between 1994 and 1999 the IFP was the dominant party in KwaZulu-Natal. Its core constituency is traditional Zulus in rural areas and the hostels in Gauteng. However, KwaZulu-Natal is Zuma’s home province. His strong following in the province and his appeal to traditional constituencies, especially among the Zulu, may prove to be a weapon that could erode the IFP’s support. The fact that Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the IFP’s leader and founder, has indicated that he will not accept IFP leadership in 2009 may also assist the ANC in the province, as a new IFP leader may not have the same appeal and stature as Buthelezi. More recently established parties such as the United Democratic Movement and the Independent Democrats have benefited much from the individual profiles and efforts of their leaders, Bantu Holomisa and Patricia de Lille, with very little indication of a broadening in their high-profile leadership. To some extent, the IFP suffers from the same risk of having a leader who has more profile than the party, thus raising questions as to what happens when they leave politics or their parties. These parties are still strongly associated with specific regions and ethnic groups, where they perform well, but their national

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profile is weak. The former liberation movements – such as the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) and splinter groups of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) – are deeply fractured, with the PAC currently in total disarray and undergoing a serious implosion that may leave it with an even more marginal status after the next elections. These organisations are discussed in greater detail in Chapters 3 and 4. The history and politics of coalitions in post-apartheid South Africa is analysed in detail by Denis Kadima (2006). He concludes that the opposition is deeply fractured and has a history of failed coalitions, especially in the last few years. This then precludes the possibility of opposition parties coming together to form a formidable coalition that could challenge the ANC. Through its deployment strategy since 1994, the ANC has penetrated the ranks of government bureaucracy and its key institutions, creating a situation where the distinction between the state and the party is blurred. This state of affairs has had a negative impact, as the ANC’s internal problems have spilled over into these government institutions. The repeated charges that state institutions were used by Mbeki’s government to settle political scores arose, to a large extent, from this close link between the party and the state. Just months before the Polokwane conference, the country’s intelligence service, the NPA, and the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) were embroiled in the ANC’s leadership struggle.9 In the post-Polokwane era the new ANC leadership, in its attempt to assert itself, has sent a clear signal that it wants to take control of or have a direct influence over the government’s key institutions. Perhaps more significant is a relentless attack on the judiciary and other state institutions that are linked to the Zuma trial, with the aim of forcing them to drop the case or questioning their legitimacy ahead of the trial. Key Zuma supporters have threatened violence and instability if the Zuma trial continues. The new ANC Youth League president, Julius Malema, and Cosatu’s secretarygeneral, Zwelinzima Vavi, vowed to shoot and kill for Zuma. When the Human Rights Commission threatened to bring charges against them unless they withdrew their utterances, they unleashed a barrage of attacks against the body and reluctantly provided a rationalisation of their statements without giving an outright apology. The secretary-general of the ANC accused the judiciary, particularly the judges in the Constitutional Court, of being counter-revolutionary. Many observers and, more significantly, Motlanthe

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warned that these sustained attacks could possibly undermine the country’s judiciary, something that would not be in the interests of entrenching South Africa’s constitutional democracy. It should be recalled that the Polokwane conference resolved that the Scorpions should be disbanded and incorporated into the police service and the ANC parliamentarians and Cabinet have so far complied with this resolution. There is every indication that the Scorpions will be disbanded by the ANC using its parliamentary muscle.


Scenarios for 2009 and beyond Before the Polokwane conference there was a plethora of scenarios drawn by political observers and policy experts, but conference outcomes have significantly reduced the potential number of scenarios to only a few. The unfolding events in the aftermath of Polokwane suggest several scenarios, especially for 2009, the period when national and provincial elections take place and a new government is formed. The question that has preoccupied many people in the aftermath of Polokwane is whether the new ANC president, Jacob Zuma, will become South Africa’s next president. Given the legal challenges that Zuma is facing, there is speculation about whether he will lead the ANC election campaign and ascend as the country’s next president. The one scenario that has been presented is that Zuma may be found guilty and therefore be excluded as the ANC’s candidate for the country’s presidency. Barring some unforeseen catastrophic development, Zuma is in all likelihood going to be the ANC’s candidate for the country’s presidency and, given the ANC and its alliance partners’ dominance on the South African political landscape, he is assured of the position. The very first ANC NEC meeting held under the new leadership in January 2008 adopted a position that endorsed Zuma as its candidate for the country’s presidency. Zuma’s key alliance partners have become more vocal on this issue, thus pre-empting any discussion of an alternative candidate such as the ANC’s deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe. The most vocal Zuma supporters in the ANC Youth League, Cosatu and the SACP, as well as some leaders within the ANC, have demanded that the case against Zuma be dropped as they claim that he will not have a fair trial in what they portray as a political conspiracy that was meant to prevent Zuma from becoming the country’s next president. There is a small but increasing number

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of people within the ANC alliance, the black business sector and some opinion makers, who are beginning to suggest that a political intervention is needed to avert the potentially destabilising effect of the Zuma case and the possible reopening of the arms deal investigation, which may entangle an even larger number of political and government leaders. Judging by Zuma’s previous record of challenging the validity and fairness of his fraud case, we can expect a prolonged and delayed case that will allow him to become the country’s president in 2009, thus making it even more difficult to continue with his trial without disrupting the business of government. In this case a special dispensation which would allow him to serve as president while deferring his case until he steps down at the end of his term is one likely option. The other possibility is the dismissal of the case while he is in office; this would vindicate him and leave him stronger. Democratic South Africa is still confronted by very high levels of unemployment and poverty as well as the scourge of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and the youth are the most affected age group. The wave of rebellion against the Mbeki-led group of ANC leaders, who are also leaders in government, was to a great extent premised on the understanding that the new Zuma-led leadership of the ANC would be pro-poor and bring about fundamental changes that would improve the material conditions of the masses. The support that Zuma received from Cosatu and the SACP leadership was also premised on the notion that they could directly influence policy and programme changes in government. Early indications are that there is limited scope for policy change; instead, the signs are that there will be many policy continuities with more emphasis on strengthening implementation and changing government leaders and officials. If these interventions do not speed up service delivery that has a real impact on poverty and unemployment and in curbing corruption, then frustrations within the ANC and its alliance partners may lead to new tensions that could put further strain on the ANC-led alliance. This could manifest itself in yet another succession battle if Zuma serves only one term, as he has promised. In 2012 the ANC could see a replay of the bitter struggles witnessed in the build-up to the 2007 Polokwane elections. In this case alliance partners might try to take over direct control of the ANC while core ANC members would probably try to resist such a takeover. If the SACP and Cosatu are frustrated in their attempts to use the tripartite alliance to achieve their policy agendas, then we may see the formation of

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a breakaway party to the left of the centrist ANC. The SACP has on several occasions in the past threatened to become an independent party that would contest elections and present its agenda directly to the voters. Although the SACP would be a formidable political force, especially if it managed to get many Cosatu members to join its efforts, it would be unlikely to replace the ANC in government. A real or perceived hostile takeover of the ANC by either the SACP or the Cosatu leadership could cause a rift that would lead to a breakaway group by the hardcore ANC members – such a party would have a realistic chance of challenging and even defeating the ANC. The current ANC leadership’s push for consolidation of its power, coupled with attempts to contain Mbeki’s power, may lead to a breakaway of the Mbeki faction which may feel it is no longer welcome within the ANC. This will still look minor compared with the aforementioned ideologically-driven split that is likely to afflict the ANC in the future. The South African opposition may gain from the current ANC infighting and even make serious inroads in provinces such as the Western Cape and the Northern Cape. It is not inconceivable that the DA could gain more votes and join forces with smaller parties such as Patricia de Lille’s Independent Democrats to form the Western Cape’s provincial government. The opposition, however, does not pose an immediate threat and is not in a position to dethrone the ANC, the party that brought Uhuru or liberation to the people of South Africa. As noted, opposition parties still face deep structural limitations, including issues around race and ethnicity, being confined to provinces or certain municipal areas, as well as the fact that many still depend on the profile of their leaders without being deeply institutionalised.

Conclusion The Polokwane moment as presented in the foregoing discussion demonstrates a range of unresolved political and socio-economic issues that are troubling South Africa’s democratic transition. Foremost is the ruling ANC’s failure to make the transition from a mass-based liberation movement into a modern ruling party within the framework of a liberal constitutional democracy, where the role of the state and the party are delineated. Polokwane was also a culmination of two distinct political traditions and cultures: the one being a commandist democratic centralism that suited the conditions of

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exile politics and the other a more decentralised grassroots-based politics of broad participation that was common inside South Africa’s Mass Democratic Movement in the 1980s. Mbeki’s leadership style – which created an imperial presidency, concentrated power in the hands of the party leadership and conflated state and party leadership and functions – alienated the alliance partners and the rank and file of the party. The progressive alienation of the ANC’s core constituencies created perfect conditions for internal party rebellion, which led to the toppling of Mbeki’s party leadership in Polokwane. In the final analysis, Polokwane was more about a change of guard and leadership style than about a fundamental shift in key ANC policies. This policy continuity in the face of leftist alliance partners who expected substantial policy changes and ideological renewal sets the stage for more internal fracture within the alliance and more intra-party strife. As has been demonstrated, the policy change and liberation rhetoric is counterbalanced by the reality of a pragmatic approach emphasising policy continuities and effective service delivery. Although the ANC remains the most dominant party on the South African political landscape, the post-Polokwane era does not necessarily translate into ANC unity and consolidation, as the party is still saddled with factionalism, divisions and deep fractures. The opposition parties are not in a position to take full advantage of the ANC’s internal woes because of their inherent weaknesses, mainly emanating from legacy issues such as the racial and ethnic compositions of their core constituencies. Notes 1

The analytic framework that privileges individual political actors or political agencies over structural issues seems to have been influenced by or to have benefited from a trend in post-1994 South Africa in which biographies and autobiographies of political leaders have been a major feature. These political texts cover a range of figures such as Nelson Mandela (Buthelezi 2002), Walter and Albertina Sisulu (Sisulu 2002), Desmond Tutu (Allen 2006), Oliver Tambo (Baai 2006; Callinicos 2004; Jordan 2007), Thabo Mbeki (Hadland & Rantao 1999; Jacobs & Calland 2002; Mathebe 2001; Mulemfo 2005; Roberts 2007), Ahmed Kathrada (Kathrada 2004), Ronnie Kasrils (Kasrils 1993), Chris Hani (Mali 1993), Robert Sobukwe (Pogrund 1997), Steve Biko (Biko 1996) and, more recently, Jacob Zuma (Gordin 2008).

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2

This is discussed in greater detail in Bratton and Van de Walle (1997). The eclectic approach this book adopts is called the structured contingency approach, in which structural issues and contingency or agency issues are accommodated in trying to understand the interplay of factors that shape political transitions in Africa. This analytic framework is also adopted in Chazan et al. (1999).

3

Fikeni (1992) makes similar observations in the Namibian exile context, in which Swapo demonstrated an extreme form of centralisation of power.

4

Inxiles or remainees are the opposition forces that conducted the struggle inside South Africa, in contrast to the exile-based opposition forces.

5

The number of delegates representing branches was slightly reduced due to the last-minute disqualification of delegates by the ANC’s credentials committee. This reduced the number from just over 4 000 to about 3 900 (see http://en.wikipidia.org/ wiki/52nd_National_Conference_of_the_ANC).

6

See ANC conference resolutions at http://anc.org.za.

7

See Makhudu Sefara’s ‘ANC’s legacy of violence’ (City Press 31.03.08), Kaiphus Kgosana’s ‘ANC’s season of storms’ (City Press 14.06.08) and Sefara’s ‘Will ANC body parts fit?’ (City Press 26.07.08).

8

South Africa passed legislation that allowed members of political parties to cross to other parties if such defections constituted at least 10 per cent of the existing party members in Parliament. This tended to favour big parties, which were less likely to have a mass defection of 10 per cent or more of their membership. Smaller parties, however, with fewer members, satisfied this 10 per cent threshold even if only one or two members decided to join other parties or become independents.

9

Billy Masetlha, the head of the intelligence service, was relieved of his duty after authorising the secret surveillance of one of Mbeki’s key business supporters, Saki Macozoma, and after circulating and giving authenticity to an email claiming that there was an organised plot from the Mbeki camp to prevent Zuma from becoming the country’s president. The SABC was accused of pro-Mbeki and anti-Zuma bias in its coverage of the 2007 ANC leadership succession campaign. The NPA, the main body behind Zuma’s investigation and trial, was inevitably the chief target of Zuma’s supporters, who described it as a key institution that was being used in a political plot to thwart Zuma’s chances of heading the ANC and the country.

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References Alexander N (2002) An ordinary country: Issues in the transition from apartheid to democracy in South Africa. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press Allen J (2006) Rabble rouser for peace: The authorized biography of Desmond Tutu. London: Rider Books Baai S (2006) OR Tambo: Teacher, lawyer and freedom fighter. Houghton: Mutloatse Arts Heritage Trust Biko S (1996) I write what I like: A selection of his writings. London: Bowerdean Publishing


Bond P (2006) Talk left, walk right: South Africa’s frustrated global reforms. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press Bratton M & Van de Walle N (1997) Democratic experiments in Africa: Regime transitions in comparative perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Buhlungu S, Daniel J, Southall R & Lutchman J (Eds) (2007) State of the nation: South Africa 2007. Cape Town: HSRC Press Buthelezi J (2002) Rolihlahla Dalibhunga Nelson Mandela: An ecological study. Victoria: Amashenge Publishers Callinicos L (2004) Oliver Tambo: Beyond the Engeli Mountains. Cape Town: David Philip Chazan N, Lewis P, Mortimer R, Rothchild D & Stedman J (1999) Politics and society in contemporary Africa. Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers Daniel J, Habib A & Southall R (Eds) (2003) State of the nation: South Africa 2003–2004. Cape Town: HSRC Press Fikeni S (1992) Exile and return: The politics of the Namibian exile movement. MA thesis, Queens University, Kingston Gevisser M (2007) Thabo Mbeki: The dream deferred. Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers Gordin J (2008) Zuma: A Biography. Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers Gumede WM (2005) Thabo Mbeki and the battle for the soul of the ANC. Cape Town: Zebra Press Gumede WM (2008) South Africa: Jacob Zuma and the difficulties of consolidating South Africa’s democracy. African Affairs 107(427): 261–271 Hadland A & Rantao J (1999) The life and times of Thabo Mbeki. Cape Town: Zebra Press

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Jacobs S & Calland R (Eds) (2002) Thabo Mbeki’s world: The politics and ideology of the South African president. Durban: University of Natal Press Jordan P (Ed.) (2007) Oliver Tambo remembered. Johannesburg: Macmillan Kadima D (2006) The politics of party coalitions in Africa. Johannesburg: Electoral Institute of Southern Africa Kasrils R (1993) Armed and dangerous: My undercover struggle against apartheid. Oxford: Heinemann Kathrada A (2004) Ahmed Kathrada memoirs. Cape Town: Zebra Press Mali T (1993) Chris Hani: The sun that set before dawn. Johannesburg: Sached Books


Marais H (1998) South Africa – limits to change: The political economy of transformation. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press Mathebe L (2001) Bound by tradition: The world of Thabo Mbeki. Pretoria: Unisa Press Motlanthe K (2007) Organisational report. Johannesburg: Shereno printers Mulemfo M (2005) Thabo Mbeki: An African Renaissance voice. Tshwane: MM Mulemfo Pogrund B (1997) How can man die better: Sobukwe and apartheid. Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers Roberts R (2007) Fit to govern: The native intelligence of Thabo Mbeki. Johannesburg: STE Publishers Sisulu E (2002) Walter and Albertina Sisulu: In our lifetime. Cape Town: David Philip Sparks A (2003) Beyond the miracle: Inside the new South Africa. Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers Tucker R (Ed.) (1972) The Marx–Engels reader. New York: Norton

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2

Modernising the African National Congress: The legacy of President Thabo Mbeki


William M Gumede

Since the African National Congress (ANC) came to power in April 1994, there have been several attempts to transform it from a broad-based liberation movement to an effective governing party. One of the ANC’s seminal organisational design discussion documents explains the challenge as a ‘fundamental change in the ANC’s mission, from an extra-parliamentary movement seeking the forceful overthrow of the apartheid regime to a political party that is part of a normalised political dispensation’ (ANC 2005a: 1). Key party strategists, such as Joel Netshitenzhe, have called the process of ‘remaking’ the ANC into an ‘efficient’ governing party a process of ‘modernisation’ (ANC 2001). Thabo Mbeki, ably assisted by Netshitenzhe, became one of the leading proponents of this project. The transformation of the ANC under Mbeki led to the adoption of new values, goals and strategies. These have serious implications for the way in which the ANC operates, the way in which power and authority vis-à-vis the leadership and the membership are exercised, and the ANC’s relationship with its alliance partners. Ideologically, this has meant moving the ANC firmly to the political centre. Some within the ANC and among its alliance partners have resisted the introduction of these reforms. The opposition has been directed against the way in which the reforms were seen to have been foisted on to the membership, the effect of the reforms on internal democracy in the ANC and the fear that the reforms would alter the character of the ANC. Opponents of the reform have criticised it as being introduced by stealth in a top-down fashion from the centre. Opponents have also claimed that the reforms have often led to conflict between the ANC leadership, grassroots ANC members and ANC tripartite alliance structures (Cosatu 2005; SACP 2006a, 2006b). The ANC’s modernisation project also became entwined with the debate over who should succeed Thabo Mbeki as ANC president. This followed President

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Mbeki sacking Jacob Zuma as the deputy president of South Africa in May 2005 and the subsequent removal of Thabo Mbeki from office.


This chapter assesses Thabo Mbeki’s legacy as ANC leader by reviewing his reforms to modernise the ANC from a liberation movement into a governing political party. It assesses the ANC’s modernisation reforms through three main attempts at internal renewal: • the redesign of the organisational structures of the movement; • the redesign of the policy-making processes of the ANC; and • attempts to redesign the way in which leaders are elected. The chapter concludes by discussing the implications of the ANC’s organisational policy-making processes and of the leadership election redesign on internal democracy within the ANC. The conclusion also includes a discussion of the party’s relationship with its alliance partners – the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) – and a discussion about the leadership succession battle. The chapter divides the ANC’s modernisation reforms into two broad phases. The first phase spans the organisation’s unbanning in 1990 to the critical 1997 conference at which Thabo Mbeki became the president of the ANC. This conference cleared the way for him to be the president of the country in 1999. The second phase spans the period from 1999, when Mbeki became the president of South Africa, to August 2007, the time of writing this chapter. I argue that during the latter period, when Mbeki assumed the presidency of the country, the ANC’s modernisation was accelerated. I argue further that although many of the modernisation proposals could make the ANC more efficient, others take away power from grassroots members and activists. In addition, some of the modernisation measures erode the ANC’s internal democracy. They also increase the distance between the movement’s leaders and the government on the one hand, and its members, supporters and ordinary citizens on the other.

From a liberation movement to a governing party: 1990 to 1997 When the ANC was unbanned in February 1990, it had to forge a united party from groups of activists who had different experiences and political cultures:

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the legacy of P resident T habo M beki

exiles; the military wing; the international lobby; ANC party bureaucrats; those who had served long-term prison sentences, particularly on Robben Island; the domestic ANC, including those in the United Democratic Front (UDF); Cosatu and its affiliates; and the civic organisations linked to the ANC. At the same time, the ANC started operating in new political and economic environments. The new political environment was the new constitutional democracy, the recent origins of which can be traced to the political negotiation processes of the early 1990s. These negotiations led to the first democratic elections in 1994. The fall of Soviet communism also meant that the ANC, which was supported by the Soviet Union and its allies, faced limited economic policy options. Furthermore, in 1994 the ANC inherited a country whose economy was in a poor state and where new investments were not forthcoming, because the predominantly white business community was suspicious that the new black government was made up of closet communists. This limited the party’s ability to implement its core goal of a better life for those who had suffered under apartheid rule. In this new political and economic environment, former president Nelson Mandela and his then deputy Thabo Mbeki attempted to reconcile people across racial and political divides. They formed alliances with groups that were not traditionally close to the ANC. This was an attempt at nation-building, but also a move to reassure communities outside the ANC – including the established white business community – that the ANC would rule in an inclusive manner. Mbeki referred to this exercise as an attempt to create a ‘national consensus’ for South Africa (ANC 2004). His strategy included bringing emerging black business and traditional white business closer to the ANC, ensuring them easy access to ANC policy-making, decisions and even membership (ANC 2004). Mbeki locked the ANC into a co-operation agreement with the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), a relationship that lasted until the IFP severed ties with the ANC in 2006. For most of the period from 1990 to 1997, the ANC concentrated on streamlining the organisation’s operations. This was because after the party’s constituent parts were merged, its running costs soared. As a result, the organisation was rightsized: excess Head Office personnel were culled and its offices moved from Shell House to smaller, cheaper and more professional premises in Sauer Street, Johannesburg. The restructuring process sought to

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cut costs, develop a sustainable financing strategy and establish a structure better suited to a governing party (Carolus 1997). Cyril Ramaphosa, as secretary-general of the ANC at the time, oversaw most of the exercise. These reforms resulted in tensions at ANC headquarters. Those who were given retrenchment packages and could not secure jobs elsewhere in the government were left disgruntled. This state of affairs was confirmed during the ANC National Conference in 1997. The 1997 National Conference is by far the most important conference at which resolutions were adopted that would pave the way for the modernisation of the ANC under the leadership of Thabo Mbeki. One of the proposals that the conference adopted, and which was inspired by Mbeki, was that the ANC’s national conferences be held every five years instead of every three years. This would align national conferences with terms of government. The argument for this was made on the basis of efficiency and practicality. But it is worth noting that lengthening the intervals between conferences, which are the ANC’s most important decision-making forums, removed an important mechanism whereby ordinary ANC members could influence policy decisions. As compensation, the 1997 conference introduced the National General Council (NGC), which would take place between conferences. However, decisions taken at the NGC and policy conferences would not be binding, and could be rejected by the National Executive Committee (NEC) at the following national conference. Another important development arising from the 1997 National Conference was the change to the branch system of the ANC. The conference resolved, again following a proposal approved by Mbeki, that ANC branches be aligned with the new ward system at local government, to be introduced in 2000. This meant that many small branches and village-based branches had to merge, because they were no longer seen as sustainable. This had major implications for the power of ordinary ANC members to influence policies, leader elections and ANC strategy. In fact, it reduced members’ ability to do so (ANC 2005a). During the same conference, Mbeki also pushed for the adoption of a controversial clause that gave the ANC’s NEC the power to dissolve lower constitutional structures. He justified this move as a way of dissolving incompetent ANC structures or structures embroiled in infighting. However, as will become evident, Mbeki has frequently been accused of using

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this mechanism to get rid of ANC structures dominated by individuals who are critical of his policies and decisions. Since coming to power in 1994, the ANC has struggled to find a way to accommodate its parliamentary wing constitutionally. It has tried, with mixed results, to integrate the work of its new army of MPs in Parliament and government with the functions of the party (ANC 2005a). Many ANC MPs saw the period 1994 to 1997 as the golden period of parliamentarianism. They saw their role as holding the executive accountable and fighting on behalf of ordinary citizens and the ANC membership (Cosatu 2000a). The president during this period, Nelson Mandela, allowed MPs considerable freedom to criticise policies and his own actions as president. He also allowed MPs to come up with new policies, saying he did not want ‘lapdogs’ (Gumede 2005). By the 1997 National Conference, ANC MPs had formed a formidable caucus. Not surprisingly, they demanded at the 1997 National Conference that the parliamentary wing of the ANC should be given a formal constitutional role, not unlike those of western European social democratic parties. However, at the time Mbeki strongly opposed this, and the conference itself rebuffed the proposal (ANC 1997a). The 1997 conference bemoaned the fact that government formulated and implemented policy without ordinary ANC members, branches or the ANC itself participating (ANC 1997b). The conference lamented the decline in robust debate and discussions over policy, as a healthy internal democratic tradition demands. Tito Mboweni, then labour minister, said, ‘Our task should be how to drive decision making processes back to the elected structures of the movement: the PECs [Provincial Executive Councils], NEC, NWC [National Working Committee] and the Alliance structures’ (Mboweni 1997b). At the ANC’s 1997 conference, the commission that discussed the ANC policy process noted: There is a myth that argues that the people’s will is expressed in the process of elections and thereafter it should be necessary to let elected representatives and officials do all the deciding. Popular participation has become less of a priority in practice and the absence of capacity at local level has tended to increase a ‘statist’ and centralist approach. (ANC 1997b: 3)

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The National Conference suggested setting up functional units corresponding to the policy subcommittees in the ANC’s NEC and in the provincial executive committees. The idea was that such functional units would consist of senior and ordinary ANC members who would monitor policy to ensure that it was scrutinised by relevant ANC ‘constitutional structures, the Alliance and the Leagues’ (ANC 1997b: 4). This system never came to pass, however. The 1997 conference partly blamed lack of capacity in the ANC for the party’s decline in policy formulation. It resolved to restructure and enhance the ANC’s policy department, and strengthened its interaction with the ‘NEC, NEC subcommittees, and provincial policy processes and structures’ (ANC 1997b: 5). The issue of the tripartite alliance was also debated at the conference. Since 1990, the tripartite alliance had struggled to function at branch level (ANC 1991). This was particularly the case with policy formulation and implementation. The 1994 conference tried to reduce the tension within the alliance by tasking ANC branches to form local Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) councils. These councils would include representatives of the alliance, such as Cosatu, the SACP, Sanco and civil society formations. The idea was that these councils could be turned into Local Development Forums, which would ‘ensure the active involvement of communities in local development’ (Mboweni 1997a: 1). This never came to pass. Acting ANC general secretary Cheryl Carolus reported at the ANC’s 1997 National Conference that this failed in part because of the closure of the RDP and the tensions this caused within the ANC alliance (Carolus 1997). The 1997 National Conference again bemoaned the dysfunctional alliance structure at provincial and branch levels, noting that ‘[t]he functioning of the Alliance at provincial level is uneven’ and that ‘at local level conflicts have arisen’ between ANC branches and their alliance equivalents, Cosatu, SACP and Sanco (Carolus 1997: 17). ANC branch-level relationships with Sanco were particularly bad at this time. Some ANC leaders argued that there was no reason for Sanco to exist at local level, and that Sanco branches should, like the UDF, collapse into ANC branches. Sanco opposed this (Sanco 1999). The 1997 conference resolved to delineate the roles of ANC branches and those of Sanco clearly (Carolus 1997; Gumede 1998; Mayekiso interview 13.03.97). The 1997 conference also resolved that the ANC should re-establish its links ‘with progressive organs of civil society, NGOs and CBOs [community-

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based organisations] that do have policy capacity, in order to assist and enrich general policy processes within the ANC’ (ANC 1997b: 5). This was in response to increasing criticism that not only had the tripartite alliance partners been marginalised in ANC policy-making, but the government had cut off civil society organisations, traditionally aligned with the ANC, from the policy debate and decisions in the ANC.


As the following section will show, Thabo Mbeki used the resolutions of the 1997 conference discussed above as a platform to modernise the ANC.

The Mbeki presidency and the centralisation of power: 1999 to 2005 The centralisation of power in the presidency was one feature of President Mbeki’s tenure. The main justification for this centralisation seems to have been that it would make it possible for the government to formulate and implement policy more efficiently. Indeed, many believed that increasing the powers of the presidency was good for efficiency, and that these powers would improve the government’s capacity to construct, implement and co-ordinate new policies (Netshitenzhe interview 10.02.01; Ngonyama interview 14.08.01; Pahad interview 26.07.01). It could also be argued, however, that the president was opposed to alternative sites of power outside the presidency, the government and the executive – whether inside the party, within civil society or the media. The examples that follow show how, under the Mbeki presidency, power was increasingly centralised in the presidency. It is argued that Mbeki succeeded in centralising power until the time of Jacob Zuma’s expulsion as deputy president. From then onwards, opposition to Mbeki and his style became much more open and vocal. The election of candidates for Parliament and local government has always been a thorny issue in the ANC. The 1997 ANC conference gave the NEC the power to appoint a national list committee that would draw up a candidates’ list for parliamentary and municipal elections, and formulate and adopt ‘guidelines’ for who should be nominated. It also proposed the setting up of national and provincial deployment committees to assign cadres to positions in the party, government, parastatals and, on occasion, the private sector.

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Mbeki used the 1997 ANC National Conference’s decision to give additional powers to the ANC NEC, to propose that the presidency be given the power to appoint premiers, mayors and even directors-general. He appeared to have been motivated in part by the fact that a number of ANC provincial premiers were critical of central government policy, often went against it and frequently built their own power bases and patronage systems. Mbeki supporters argued that Mbeki needed the additional power to push through policies that he and the ANC leadership thought were good for the ANC and the country. When the proposal to appoint premiers and other senior government positions came into effect, Mbeki got rid of a number of premiers that were perceived to be critical of him or were seen as political rivals. These included Mathews Phosa in Mpumalanga and Mathole Motshekga in Gauteng. Very often, the premier that Mbeki appointed was neither the most popular provincial candidate, nor the person whom the local people would have elected. For example, Winkie Direko became the Free State premier when Ace Magashule was the popular candidate; Dipuo Peters became the premier in the Northern Cape when John Block inspired the locals; and in Mpumalanga, Ndaweni Mahlangu became premier when Fish Mahlalela was the popular choice. This meant that the local provincial chairperson of the ANC was frequently a different person to the centrally selected premier. This led to the question, who should have the power? Many provincial ANC chairpersons – who were vastly more popular than the Mbeki-appointed premiers – demanded that they should, as provincial party bosses, have the power to oversee the premier. The issue led to provincial leadership conflicts, which often affected the provinces’ ability to focus on service delivery. At local government level, Mbeki used the powers given to the NEC to appoint mayors personally. These appointments often ran contrary to the views of the local party. For example, Amos Masondo was appointed as mayor of Johannesburg, when other candidates were more popular and better known locally. Again, the perception in the ANC is widespread that the president had more weight in these decisions than the NEC. Many ANC members have complained bitterly that Mbeki and ANC leaders often removed critics from the list or placed them lower on the list to reduce their chances of being elected or appointed (Motlanthe 2002).

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Mbeki also policed ANC MPs firmly to ensure that they supported the executive on major policy decisions. For example, Mbeki appointed a political committee through the NEC in 2001 to manage ANC MPs in Parliament. The deputy president at the time, Jacob Zuma, chaired the committee. Some ANC MPs objected to the committee, but the leadership brushed their objections aside. In the period before the committee was established, ANC back-benchers criticised and voted against directives from the presidency on issues as varied as Zimbabwe, AIDS policy and the budget. Zuma made it clear to ANC MPs: ‘You [MPs] are accountable to the ANC, not the Constitution’ (Makwetla interview 15.10.01; Zuma interview 05.12.03). Barbara Hogan, the head of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Finance, was given such a severe reprimand when she insisted on parliamentary oversight over the Budget – which the Constitution demands – that she resigned (Gumede 2005). She later withdrew her resignation after senior ANC leaders persuaded her to do so. Mbeki’s decision to refocus the ANC’s branches so that they aligned with the new ward system, introduced in 2001 (Motlanthe 2002), was another contentious issue. The decision meant that many branches across the country were closed down and merged with others. Kgalema Motlanthe, then ANC general secretary, said the reorganisation of the branch system helped to bring ‘together communities on a non-racial basis’, rather than having separate branches in African, Indian and coloured townships and formerly white suburbs (Motlanthe 2002: 8). However, the redesign fomented local tensions and sparked local rivalry for the leadership of the new consolidated branches. Many smaller branches, which had become the life of local communities, were now merged into neighbouring branches. The seat of the new, bigger branch was often a considerable distance away, especially in the rural areas. This killed off local ANC branches, which had often been vibrant. After this branch modernisation process, the ANC admitted that ‘we need to confront the reality that our branches as presently established are not adequate to reach all the motive forces of the NDR [National Democratic Revolution] behind the ANC’ (ANC 2005a: 9). The branch remake did not mean that branches necessarily started to reflect different classes or race groups, which was one of the remake’s core objectives. In addition, branches now no longer connected with their equivalents in Cosatu, the SACP and Sanco, as many tripartite alliance summits resolved they should. In fact,

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tensions between ANC and Sanco branches grew. In 1999, the ANC declared that Sanco had failed as an organisation and should merge with the ANC in the form of special branches (Makhura 1999; Ngonyama interview 18.02.00). In 2004, the ANC again proposed ‘special interest’ branches, envisaging Sanco branches as a case in point. Not surprisingly, this idea was not popular within Sanco (Sanco 2006). After assuming the presidency of the ANC in 1997, Mbeki moved the policy unit of the ANC into the office of the ANC presidency to streamline ANC policy-making. Most of the ANC’s subcommittees are headed and dominated by Cabinet ministers or senior public servants. For example at the time of writing, Jeff Radebe, the transport minister, headed the Economic Transformation Committee. Joel Netshitenzhe headed the ANC’s Political Education Committee, but he was also head of the policy unit in the presidency and used to be head of Government Communication and Information Systems. In his report on the ANC’s 2002 conference, then ANC general secretary Kgalema Motlanthe said the NEC subcommittees suffered from ‘poor participation by NEC members, weak links with lower structures of the organisation and other organisations in their sectors’ (Motlanthe interview 05.05.02). In addition, he said the ANC’s policy unit – in spite of being moved into the presidency – was also poorly staffed. The result was that ANC policy was centralised in the poorly staffed presidency, with predictably negative implications for policy formulation, implementation and delivery. The centralisation of ANC policy within the presidency, combined with centralisation of government policy within the presidency, has been named as one of the main reasons for the marginalisation of ordinary ANC members and citizens from policy- and decision-making within the ANC. Since 1999, the restructured presidency took on an increasingly dominant role in the policy-making process in post-apartheid South Africa. Mbeki’s style as president, seen by his strategists and himself as that of a chief executive officer (CEO), had significant implications for policy-making and for opening up policy-making to the democratic process. As CEO, Mbeki tightly controlled policy-making processes in the Cabinet, the government and the ANC. Mbeki specifically transformed the ANC presidency, and the presidency in the Cabinet, into a ‘political centre’ that co-ordinated, steered, implemented and monitored all policy. The SACP calls this the ‘presidentialising’ of the ANC. This is because it replicated the state presidential centre within the ANC and

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reduced the secretary-general’s office and organising work to administrative tasks, while housing politics in a separate, more or less parallel ANC that the president dominated (SACP 2006b). With the start of the Mbeki presidency, new centres of influence on policymaking were established outside the elected representative system (Gumede 2005). Key among these were the presidential working groups, which included big business, black business, trade unions, agriculture, the international investment advisory council, the religious council and the international IT council. Significant policies began or were fleshed out in these presidential groups. These policies were presented to Parliament and the public as faits accomplis. This tendency to centralise policy-making in the presidency was justified by arguing that more centralised policy co-ordination and monitoring would smooth the implementation of policies. This meant that the newly established democratic social dialogue with institutions such as the National Economic Development and Labour Council became increasingly marginalised. The premises of the restructured presidency were closely linked to the modernisation of the ANC as a political party. ANC modernisers saw the new restructured presidency as the political centre that would co-ordinate the formation of a developmental state. Historically, societies that have developed high growth rates and low inequality levels rapidly, such as societies in East Asia, have done so with a co-ordinated and purposeful effort, the necessary political will and leadership often by a political centre (Wade 2003). Thabo Mbeki saw his restructured presidency as the central unit that would co-ordinate and drive South Africa’s effort to create a developmental state. Mbeki also ran the Cabinet policy-making process strictly. Ministers had to submit all new policies to the presidency for scrutiny. This submission occurred through Joel Netshitenzhe, head of the Policy Co-ordination and Advisory Services since late 2001, who was responsible for deciding whether the policies were acceptable. Since 1999, the Cabinet committees have assumed a far greater role in policy than they did under Mandela. In 2000, Mbeki grouped the committees into clusters where functions overlapped. It was argued that this improved co-ordination and implementation (Chikane 2005), but this also made it easier for Mbeki to control individual ministers. Since 1999, directors-general of departments have also been directly accountable to the president, rather than to their line ministers. Since 2000, the ANC’s NEC

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subcommittees and the corresponding provincial executive subcommittees have also been divided into clusters in line with those in the Cabinet. Despite the 1997 conference’s debates and resolutions about the tripartite alliance, the ANC under Mbeki continued to marginalise its alliance partners and civil society from government decision- and policy-making. Tensions and conflicts with Sanco also continued (Hlongwane 2006). One possible explanation for these tensions could be linked to the ANC leadership’s decision to secure new constituencies (ANC 2005b). The ANC leadership, for example, invested huge amounts of energy into bringing the National Party into the ANC. The New National Party formally dissolved in 2001 and some of its members joined the ANC. Furthermore, Mbeki tried to bring the IFP closer to the ANC, in ways that included proposing an alliance and offering the deputy presidency of the country to Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the IFP leader, in 1999. The IFP’s walkout from all partnerships with the ANC in 2006 put paid to that. Mbeki also extended feelers to the black parties to the left of the ANC, such as the Azanian People’s Organisation, and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), by offering senior leaders top jobs in the Cabinet and the government. This resulted in the ANC’s traditional allies being marginalised. Moreover, many of these newly lured organisations steadfastly oppose critical trade unions and civil groups. In 2001, Mbeki embarked on a charm offensive to woo unions outside of the Cosatu fold, such as the Federation of Unions of South Africa and MynwerkersSolidariteit (Mineworkers’ Solidarity), the conservative white union. ANC leaders offered Mynwerkers-Solidariteit a pact according to which the effects of affirmative action on working-class white people would be ameliorated. This pact aimed to bring the union closer to the ANC. Although the pact failed to materialise, Mbeki reached out to Helen Zille, the new leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA). Driving the ANC’s luring of other constituencies was its ambition to form a ‘national consensus’ around its nation-building project or to ‘forge a united front’ behind its ‘transformation agenda’, and to act as the ‘leader of the whole nation’ (ANC 2005b: 3). The architects of this ANC ‘restructuring’ argued that ‘counter-revolutionary forces…sought to block change and retain apartheid privilege under all kinds of guises, through peaceful and constitutional means’. And by forging a ‘united front’ across race, class and ideology, it would ‘dissipat[e] the energies of the forces opposed to change’ (ANC 2005b: 4). This ‘united front’ approach

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meant that the ANC repositioned itself to the political centre, and tried to be a ‘catch-all’ party. The trade union movement and the SACP were now one lobby within this new ‘united’ centrist ‘front’. This meant that the trade union movement’s influence would dissipate among the cacophony of different groups within this new political front. Interestingly enough, Cosatu was not losing members en masse, as has been seen in other countries where centreleft parties rule. But the trade union federation’s power began to be a liability to the ANC’s efforts to be seen by business as being in charge of economic policy development, and not enthralled by its union allies. In his report to the ANC’s 2002 National Conference, Kgalema Motlanthe conceded that the ANC had not prioritised its relationship with the ‘various independent organisations and forces that constitute progressive civil society’. He added that the ANC ‘has also been found wanting in the task of leading these forces through action and engagement to build a partnership between the state and civil society at all levels’ (Motlanthe 2002: Paragraph 161). The relationship between the ANC and civil society groupings traditionally sympathetic to the ANC remained strained. Cosatu (2007) has proposed that representatives of civil society organisations be appointed to the ANC NEC as ex officio members. The biggest disagreement between the ANC and its alliance partners, Cosatu and the SACP, is over who should be in charge of the alliance. Under Mbeki, the ANC asserted itself as the leader of the alliance, and the agent that sets policies and agenda. However, Cosatu and the SACP argue that all partners are equal. The ANC and its alliance partners disagree about what is termed the political centre of the tripartite alliance. This political centre is supposed to co-ordinate policies, set strategy and monitor and oversee government policies and actions, to ensure that the government follows the vision of the alliance. Since 1994, however, the ANC as a party has been in control of the political centre. In addition, it has been in control of the office of the deputy presidency since 1996, and of the presidency since 1999. Cosatu argued for ‘an alliance in-government’, ‘co-determination’ and a ‘political centre’ whereby the alliance would jointly formulate government policies such as the Budget (ANC 2000a, 2000b; Cosatu 2000b, 2001). Kgalema Motlanthe defended the ANC’s approach at the 2002 ANC National Conference, saying ‘the ANC has held that the many common processes that already exist (such as the Alliance Summits, the drafting of election manifestos in 1999 and 2000 and other

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existing forums) are sufficient for arriving at a common alliance programme’ (Motlanthe 2002: Paragraph 158).


In his report to the 2002 conference, Motlanthe argued further that ‘[a]s independent organisations, the National Conferences or Congresses of the ANC, Cosatu and the SACP are the highest decision-making bodies that adopt policies. It is important that within the alliance, we respect the policy-making process of each component’ (Motlanthe 2002: Paragraph 159). The SACP has argued that the ‘modernisation’ of the ANC has ‘involved a deliberate strategy to marginalise the SACP and Cosatu and perhaps (in the pre-2002 years) even to provoke a walk-out from the alliance’ (SACP 2006b: 24). With the policy-making process in government shifting so dramatically towards the presidency, Cosatu’s central executive committee resolved in 2001 to exert pressure on the presidency to change government policy (Madisha interview 17.11.01). Taking issue with the ‘centralisation of power in the Presidency’, Cosatu argued for ‘a proper balance between the President’s executive powers and the role of structures of the movement’ (Cosatu 2007: 5). One of the most important policy proposals debated since the ANC’s 2000 NGC is for the ANC to establish a policy institute where policies can be developed, without the acrimony of the current ideological battles within the ANC and its tripartite alliance. The ANC has already investigated the German Social Democratic Party think-tank, the Frederich Ebert Foundation, as a possible model (Ngonyama interview 18.10.01). Some ANC members fear that such an institute might supplant the role of branches in formulating policies. Cosatu and the SACP want a mechanism to be established that will ensure input by ‘members and alliance partners between the major gatherings such as Congress and the General Council’ (Cosatu 2007: 4). Cosatu has not made a concrete proposal about the form of such a mechanism, and it is likely that this will remain a contested issue. From 2004, Mbeki attempted to pilot a new generation of organisational reforms, aimed at covering areas left out of earlier reform processes, rectifying the weaknesses of previous reforms and consolidating the transformation of the ANC as a ruling party. These organisational reforms were tabled at the ANC’s June 2005 NGC meeting. The document on organisational renewal released to ANC delegates at this meeting captured the spirit behind the modernising

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changes within the ANC. It stated: ‘Without allowing party political life to be subsumed and dictated to by governance (the legislatures and the executive), the party machinery must be designed to sufficiently reflect the awareness that governance in the contemporary period of our existence, is the primary pillar of struggle’ (ANC 2005a: 4). Furthermore, ANC reformers warned that the organisational redesign had to happen with decreasing finances and with rightsizing of the organisational bureaucracy. They proposed that ‘leadership organs which do not correspond to any equivalent government authority will be phased out’ (ANC 2005a: 5). The first set of 2005 organisational redesign proposals were aimed at further streamlining the way in which the ANC functions by aligning all provincial and local branches to the structures at Head Office, following the earlier attempts at efficiency. For example, in the new proposals, all levels of the ANC should have the following departments: legislature and governance, economy, organising, media and communication, international affairs, political education and ideological work. Furthermore, having already rightsized branches in 1999, cutting smaller and unviable ones, and aligning the remaining branches with the new municipal wards that were ushered in during 2000, the ANC’s 2005 NGC proposed another major branch reform. It was proposed that new types of branches be set up, such as workplace-based branches or branches that could cater for specific interest groups, such as legal or IT professionals. New categories of members were also proposed, including a category for businessmen and women who could form their own branches (ANC 2005a). Cosatu opposed this, asking ‘what should a workplace-based ANC branch do that is different from what [trade union] shop stewards are supposed to do?’ (Cosatu 2005: 4). Furthermore, the trade union federation argued that new interest branches would ‘undermine cross-class solidarity and interaction, which are the strengths of the current branches’ (Cosatu 2007: 4). The SACP currently uses industrial units to organise members in specific industries. The SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande put forward the party’s response: ‘[There is] the obvious danger that we would end up with two kinds of branches, those for the poor and those for the relatively better off ’ (Nzimande 2007: 2). The second set of organisational redesign proposals concerned the way in which the ANC functions. This included boosting the power of the ANC’s NWC to make decisions and policies, as well as establishing new kinds of

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branches, to better serve the ANC’s aim to reach out to new constituencies in its endeavour to reach a national consensus across racial and class divides.


Importantly, the June 2005 NGC proposed to resolve the question finally of what to do with the parliamentary wing of the ANC. It proposed one of two options. The first option was a fully fledged new parliamentary wing with constitutional status in the ANC – for which ANC MPs have been lobbying since the ANC’s 1997 conference, but which many ANC leaders outside Parliament, including Mbeki, have rejected. The second option was not to enshrine the parliamentary wing in the ANC’s constitution, but to create a special parliamentary department at the ANC’s Head Office that would specifically service and manage the ANC’s MPs. The June 2005 NGC proposed two ways of dealing with the explosive issue of leadership elections within the ANC. It proposed the setting up of a permanent Electoral Commission, along the lines of the Swedish Social Democratic Party – one that would oversee all internal elections in the party. The members of the Commission would be selected from among party elders and neutrals with an interest in the outcome of internal ANC leadership elections. How the Commission would work is not yet clear. The system of national and provincial deployment committees is now so discredited that a new system clearly needs to be adopted. The 1997 ANC conference set a onethird quota for the representation of women in voting and ANC leadership structures. Perhaps the most dramatic organisational redesign is Mbeki’s proposal, supported by the ANC Women’s League, to have gender parity (50 per cent women) in internal ANC voting and representation. This was adopted at the ANC’s 2007 National Conference, although it is not applicable to the top six leadership positions of the ANC. Grassroots members of the ANC fiercely resisted the introduction of some of the last-generation modernisation proposals. This was arguably the first ANC leadership gathering where open and sustained opposition to Mbeki was expressed. The first two proposals referred to were viewed with suspicion. They were seen as another method of giving powers to a body not elected directly by national conferences, powers that undermined ordinary members and branches (Cosatu 2007; Nzimande 2007). Regarding the parliamentary wing, delegates, except for MPs, were not entirely convinced of the merits of a separate parliamentary wing. Both Cosatu and the SACP also opposed this (Cosatu 2007; Nzimande 2007). The issue is important because South

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Africa’s party list system gives leaders enormous power over MPs, who are accountable not to their constituencies but to party bosses who can ‘redeploy’ them without having to consider their constituencies. The ANC draws up its parliamentary candidates’ list centrally, and those who are nominated often pledge more allegiance to the centre than to the electorate. The issue of electing leaders provoked particular anger among the ANC grassroots at the ANC’s June 2005 NGC, where delegates argued strongly for branches to nominate potential public representatives. Yet, surprisingly, delegates there agreed that there is still a role for the national leadership to ensure that the list represents demography and gender equality, and mixes youth with experience. The ANC’s candidate list for the 2006 local government elections was worked out on this basis. Although some ANC leaders complained that the policy aimed to marginalise those perceived to oppose Mbeki and the national leadership, the proposal got widespread support and was endorsed at the ANC’s June 2007 National Policy Conference. It was again endorsed at the ANC’s December 2007 National Conference.

Opposition to Mbeki and his reforms: the Zuma factor Before the June 2005 NGC, Mbeki quashed most of the opposition to his presidential style and reforms. He did this by marginalising opponents or by dismissing their criticisms as not legitimate: if the opponents were black people, they were, in Mbeki’s view, in the pay of ‘foreign imperialists’, as his criticisms of the Treatment Action Campaign indicated; if the opponents were white people, they were labelled ‘racists’. Close associates of Mbeki who differed politely with the president were also frequently dismissed. By acting in this way, Mbeki laid the foundation for his own dismissal as ANC president at the December 2007 National Conference and for his subsequent removal from office in 2008. The question that needs attention is why Mbeki lost his grip. Mbeki’s expulsion of then Deputy President Jacob Zuma in May 2005 undoubtedly strengthened opposition to Mbeki within the ANC and, indeed, the tripartite alliance. Mbeki’s act was the catalyst for the most explosive grassroots rebellion over some of the already implemented and proposed new modernisation reforms. At the NGC, ANC members voted against Mbeki and the ANC NEC to restore Zuma’s functions as deputy president of the ANC.

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This happened after he was stripped of these functions after being fired as South Africa’s deputy president. The ANC members’ rebellion took place against the backdrop of spontaneous community protests that still continue in urban and rural townships across the country against poor service delivery, public corruption and lack of consultation by elected representatives. These, and the tensions over subsequent policies at the ANC’s June 2007 National Policy Conference, reflected broader tensions within the ANC over two related issues. Firstly, how does the ANC as a movement assert its authority over governance? And secondly, what is the role of the ANC’s rank-and-file membership and organisational structures in determining the policy, direction and strategy of the ANC itself and of the state (ANC 2005a; Cosatu 2005)? What is not in doubt is that many ANC members are suspicious of an overconcentration of power in the presidency. They want the ANC to serve as a system of checks and balances against the government and to give ordinary ANC members and citizens a greater say in policy-making and leadership selection. This was reinforced at the ANC’s December 2007 National Conference. The December conference argued for an increase in the degree to which the ANC as an organisation could moderate the power of the government. The organisation redesign discussion document released at the ANC’s June 2007 National Policy Conference stated that all political departments would now report to the general secretary and his deputy and, in other cases, to the treasurer-general. The president would still be in charge, but would be freed from the day-to-day administration of the ANC to be able to focus on governing. This proposal was accepted by the ANC’s December 2007 National Conference. Mbeki has complained that ANC failures are often blamed on him, instead of on the general secretary. Delegates at the Policy Conference were determined that the president – whether current or future – should not appoint provincial premiers and mayors on his or her own. They wanted ANC provincial executives and local branch leaders to be consulted about who should become premiers and mayors of the large towns. Both of these proposals were accepted at the December 2007 National Conference. Furthermore, ANC delegates wanted the movement’s NEC to be consulted over Cabinet appointments and reshuffles. Perhaps most importantly, ANC

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delegates demanded that the ANC NEC regularly monitor the performance of ministers and other senior politicians such as premiers and mayors. At the time of writing, once an individual was appointed to high political office, it appeared that they could not be dismissed for poor performance. Differing with the president was often a more dismissible offence. In the new grassroots drive to ensure greater involvement in policy-making and leadership elections for ordinary members, many delegates at the ANC’s June 2005 NGC and June 2007 National Policy Conference, as well as at the ANC’s December 2007 National Conference, resolved that the ANC as a party should moderate the power of the executive. As a case in point, it was proposed that the office of the ANC’s general secretary, occupied at the time of writing by Motlanthe, should be expanded, while the office of the presidency reduced. This was an attempt to boost the party’s veto over the presidency, the executive and the government. These proposals, endorsed by the December 2007 conference, will do much to boost internal democracy in the ANC. The weakness of Mbeki’s modernisation proposals derived from the fact that there were no proposals to change South Africa’s electoral system to a more constituency-based one, to bring more accountability to the electoral system. Furthermore, Mbeki’s proposals did not provide for a new system whereby ANC presidential campaigns would be run competitively and transparently, and whereby candidates could campaign openly on the basis of specific manifestos. The modernisation agenda has yet to come up with clear rules to prevent corruption-tainted leaders from running for leadership positions.

Conclusion The modernised or restructured ANC under Mbeki resembled a highly presidentialised party with power concentrated in a chief executive, the President. This system was not unlike the New Labour Party in the UK or the Social Democratic Party in Germany (Jacobs & Chothia 2002). Though the ANC’s leadership frequently uses the rhetoric that it wants to remain a mass party or a liberation movement, under Mbeki the party moved towards being a professional electoral party (Sartori 1976), even though it warned itself at its 1997 National Conference against modernising into a narrow, centre-left electoral party (ANC 1997c). This in many ways was at the heart of ANC members’ internal rebellion at the ANC’s June 2005 NGC, the June 2007 National Policy Conference and, ultimately, at the December 2007 National

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Conference. Striking the balance between an electoral or professional party and a mass party or liberation movement is the great challenge for the ANC. The modernisation of the ANC needs to be done hand in hand with the strengthening of internal democracy. This would make policy formulation, decision-making and leadership election more democratic and inclusive. The South African Constitution commits the country to a representative and participatory democracy on all levels – national, provincial and local. Many new democracies struggle to reconcile effective policy formulation with the democratic norms of political participation. Indeed, the particular patterns of public decision-making that emerge within formal constitutional parameters do not only affect the sustainability of a democracy. They also help define the quality of that democracy (Gutierrez Sarin 2003). This must also be the logic of the ANC’s internal functioning. As president, Thabo Mbeki pushed his reforms by marginalising critics and was often accused of using state resources to do so. Ironically, Zuma’s dismissal and subsequent defiance seems to have opened up the democratic space considerably. It now seems less likely that internal critics will be dismissed as ‘sell-outs’. Sadly, Mbeki’s penchant for suspending democracy to push unpopular reforms through and to isolate critics as enemies helped to foster an undemocratic political culture, both in the ANC and in broader South African society. The idea that one should respond to views that are different to one’s own in a civil way appears to be foreign. The preferred way is to annihilate those who disagree, assassinating their character, reputation and credibility with insinuations that their views are part of a ‘foreign’, ‘racist’ or ‘colonial’ agenda. This undemocratic political culture is not going to be easy to undo, no matter who is elected to high office. Since the ANC is so dominant and the opposition parties are so weak, a lack of democracy within the ANC and weak democratic institutions outside it will put a brake on future economic growth and reduce the quality of South Africa’s democracy. Through his particularly aloof, exclusive style of governance, Mbeki’s tendency to sideline internal and external opponents and critics of his reforms, alienated would-be supporters and opponents alike. Mbeki’s leadership style, his unwillingness to consult widely, to make the government more accountable, to give members a greater say in who their leaders should be (in policy- and decision-making), as well as his sidelining of the ANC as a party, are at the heart of his rejection as party leader and as

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president. Lastly, Mbeki allowed the social distance between his leadership and ordinary members to grow into a gulf that could not be bridged. Mbeki’s ousting reflected a wider dissatisfaction among the ANC’s rank-and-file membership over the ANC’s delivery record, responsiveness and internal democracy. But Polokwane was also an expression of disillusionment over the quality of South Africa’s broader democracy and its intitutions. There is a widespread perception that public officials can get away with corruption if they have good political connections. There is also a deep worry about democratic institutions’ ability to protect the country’s citizens, deliver basic services, share growth equitably and work with accountability and inclusivity. Nevertheless, Mbeki oversaw the most thorough modernisation of the ANC, not only in the history of the movement itself but also of any African liberation organisation. Even as he was unceremoniously outsted from power, his farreaching restructuring of the ANC has left the party irrevocably changed. References ANC (African National Congress) (1991) Final resolutions of the 48th National Conference: Adopted resolutions on building the ANC. Durban (2–6 July) ANC (1997a) Resolutions from the ANC’s 50th National Conference. Mafikeng (16–20 December) ANC (1997b) Discussion document for the commission on the ANC’s policy process. 50th ANC National Conference. Mafikeng (16–20 December) ANC (1997c) The character of the ANC: Discussion document for the ANC’s 50th National Conference. Mafikeng (16–20 December) ANC (2000a) Declaration of the ANC National General Council. (July) ANC (2000b) Draft report of the Commissions on Programme of Action of the ANC National General Council. (July) ANC (2001) People’s movement and agent for change. Discussion paper. (April) ANC (2002) General Secretary’s Report to the 51st National Conference. Stellenbosch (16–20 December) ANC (2004) Strategic and tactical approaches to the opposition: A discussion document for the ANC’s NEC. (September)

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ANC (2005a) The organisational design of the ANC: A case for internal renewal. A discussion document prepared for the ANC’s National General Council. Pretoria (29 June–3 July) ANC (2005b) Strategic and tactical approaches to the opposition: ANC Executive Committee discussion document. Umrabulo 22. Available at http://www.anc.org.za/ show.php?doc=ancdocs/pubs/umrabulo/ Carolus C (1997) Secretary-General’s Report to the 50th National Conference of the ANC. Mafikeng (16–20 December)


Chikane F (2005) An integrated approach to governance for effective service delivery: Directors lecture. Graduate School of Public and Development Management, University of the Witwatersrand (1 December) Cosatu (Congress of South African Trade Unions) (2000a) Advancing social transformation in the era of globalisation. Political discussion paper prepared for the 7th Cosatu Congress. (April) Cosatu (2000b) Resolutions for the 7th National Conference. (18–21 September) Cosatu (2001) Central Executive Committee political discussion document. (July) Cosatu (2005) Central Executive Committee political discussion paper. (September) Cosatu (2007) Central Executive Committee position paper on ANC political strategy and organisational issues. (June) Gumede WM (1998) Implosion in main street. Siyaya, Issue 3. Idasa Gumede WM (2005) Thabo Mbeki and the battle for the soul of the ANC. Cape Town: Zebra Press Gutierrez Sarin F (2003) Involution of democratic institutions. Briefing Paper 5, Crisis States Programme, Development Research Centre, London Hlongwane M (2006) Presidential Report to Sanco’s National Conference. Bloemfontein (December) Jacobs S & Chothia F (2002) Remaking the presidency: The tension between co-ordination and centralisation. In S Jacobs & R Calland (Eds) Thabo Mbeki’s world: The politics and the ideology of the South African president. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press Makhura D (1999) The MDM, civil society and social transformation: The challenges of building a popular movement for transformation. Umrabulo 7. Available at http:// www.anc.org.za/show.php?doc=ancdocs/pubs/umrabulo/umrabulo7.html#4 Mboweni T (1997a) Speaking notes: ANC Policy Department lekgotla. (April)

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Mboweni T (1997b) Report of the ANC’s Policy Department to the 50th National Conference of the ANC. Mafikeng (16–20 December) Motlanthe K (2002) Secretary-General’s report: Organisational report to the ANC’s 51st National Conference. Stellenbosch (16–20 December) Nzimande B (2007) Red alert: ANC National General Council, an important turning point. Umsebenzi 5(38)


SACP (South African Communist Party) (2006a) Class, national and gender struggle in South Africa: The historical relationship between the ANC and the SACP – Central Executive Committee discussion document, Part 1. Bua Komanisi 5(1) Special edition: 3–18 SACP (2006b) Class struggles and the post-1994 state in South Africa: A Central Executive Committee discussion document, Part 2. Bua Komanisi 5(1) Special edition: 18–31 Sanco (South African National Civic Organisation) (1999) The role of Sanco in a democracy: A National Executive Committee discussion document. (December) Sanco (2006) Presidential political report to Sanco’s National Conference. Bloemfontein (December) Sartori G (1976) Parties and party systems: A framework for analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Wade R (2003) Governing the market: Economic theory and the role of government in East Asian industrialisation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press

Interviews Willie Madisha, Cosatu president. Cosatu House, Johannesburg, 17 November 2001 Thabang Makwetla, ANC MP. Telephonic interview, 15 October 2001 Moses Mayekiso, Head: Sanco Investment Holdings. Johannesburg, 13 March 1997 Kgalema Motlanthe, then General Secretary, ANC. Johannesburg, 5 May 2002 Joel Netshitenzhe, Head: Government Communications and Information. Cape Town, 10 February 2001 Smuts Ngonyama, Head: ANC Presidency. Johannesburg, 18 February 2000; 14 August 2001 and 18 October 2001 Essop Pahad, Minister in the presidency. Pretoria, 26 July 2001 Langa Zitha, ANC MP. Johannesburg, 20 July 2005 Jacob Zuma, then Deputy President of South Africa. Pretoria, 5 December 2003

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3

The state of the Pan-Africanist Congress in a democratic South Africa


Thabisi Hoeane

A conspicuous feature of post-1994 South African politics is the weakness of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) – a state that does not reflect the crucial role that the organisation played during the struggle for South Africa’s liberation, particularly during the anti-pass campaigns of the 1960s. Given that the PAC’s political outlook is grounded in African nationalism, an ideology that, theoretically at least, represents the views of the majority of South Africans, it would be logical to expect the PAC to be a significant force in post-apartheid politics. This chapter outlines the background to the party’s formation within the context of pan-Africanism and non-racialism, as espoused by the PAC’s founding president and leading theoretician, Robert Sobukwe.1 It also considers the challenges faced by the movement in exile, during the transition period of the 1990s and under the democratic dispensation after 1994. The chapter ends by providing some insight into the PAC’s prospects for the 2009 national elections.

The establishment of the PAC The PAC was established in April 1959 after tensions arose within the African National Congress (ANC) over the ANC’s decision to embrace a multiracial approach in the struggle against apartheid by co-operating with nonAfrican political organisations.2 It was formed by a group of ANC members who considered themselves Africanists. These individuals saw themselves as epitomising the genuine ideological orientation of the ANC, which, they asserted, was being undermined by multiracialism. This was reflected in a statement released by them in 1958 justifying their position: ‘We are launching out openly, on our own, as the custodians of the A.N.C. policy as it was formulated in 1912 and pursued up to the time of the Congress alliance’ (Carter 1971: 115).

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From the start, the PAC’s growth was impressive, as noted at its annual conference in December 1959, where it announced that it had opened 153 branches and had 31 000 members (Motlhabi 1984). The PAC’s most notable achievement in the early years was its role in the anti-pass campaigns, which elicited a violent response from the state in Sharpeville and Cape Town. This increased international attention on apartheid, the withdrawal of international capital from South Africa and calls from the UN to impose sanctions, although these were vetoed by Britain and the United States (Worden 2000). The PAC was effective in these campaigns despite criticism levelled against it by other liberation organisations, such as the Non-European Unity Movement, which said the PAC had behaved opportunistically and was ill-prepared when launching the protest action (Tabata 1960). The 1960s were a trying period for liberation movements challenging the apartheid state. The PAC was declared illegal, together with the ANC, in April 1960. Many of its leaders were arrested and went underground or into exile to pursue the armed struggle. It has been estimated that 13 000 PAC members were jailed and about 100 executed for activities directed against the state.3 This resulted in a lull in the liberation movements’ efforts to confront the state, as they tried to reorganise themselves in exile. The apartheid state, meanwhile, entrenched its power, assisted by the country’s phenomenal economic growth (Posel 1991; Worden 2000). Economic growth was reputed to be the highest in the world at that time, matched only by that of Japan, and the apartheid state enjoyed strong support from major western powers (Odendaal 2004). This situation started to change at the beginning of the 1970s, when the apartheid state faced an internal economic crisis (Saul & Gelb 1981). This crisis was accompanied by the rise of the Black Consciousness Movement, black tradeunion activism and the Soweto student uprisings of 1976. Guerrilla attacks by the armed wings of the PAC and the ANC – the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (Apla) and Umkhonto we Sizwe respectively – also increased around this time. Externally, the liberation of the states bordering South Africa – starting with Mozambique and Angola, and later Zimbabwe and Namibia – intensified the pressure on the apartheid government. The political and economic crisis reached its peak in the 1980s. Civil disobedience by community and civic organisations, the increasing strength of trade unions, the intensification of international sanctions and an escalating revolt by the armed wings of the liberation movements all played

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a role (Giliomee 1995). Black union membership is said to have grown from 40 000 in 1975 to 1.5 million in 1985 (Odendaal 2004: 178). These factors resulted in internal anti-apartheid organisations and liberation movements being unbanned in 1989. The state of emergency, declared in the mid-1980s to quell the uprising, was lifted, political prisoners were released and the stage was set for the political settlement of the mid-1990s.


The PAC’s internal revival was signalled in 1989 by the formation of the Pan-Africanist Movement under the leadership of Clarence Makwetu. This movement served as the PAC’s internal wing. The party largely boycotted the transition talks that started in 1990, only joining the process in early 1994 after being pressurised to do so by Zimbabwe and Tanzania (Cooper 1994).

Robert Sobukwe’s legacy: non-racialism and pan-Africanism Sobukwe’s primary contribution to South African politics is that he challenged the basis of pursuing the struggle against apartheid through the prism of group thinking – which is the basis of multiracialism – by asserting that nonracialism was the most appropriate ideological position to adopt if apartheid was to be challenged effectively. He questioned the efficacy of multiracialism on the following basis: To us the term ‘multiracialism’ implies that there are such basic insuperable differences between the various national groups that the best course is to keep them permanently distinctive in a kind of democratic apartheid. That to us is racialism multiplied, which is probably what the term truly connotates. (Gerhart 1978: 139) This assertion represented a qualitative break with the views of the Congress Alliance that still operated within racially-based political organisations. The value of explicitly advocating non-racialism distanced the PAC from apartheid ideology and created a basis for articulating the kind of future society South Africa would be. Most significantly, Sobukwe linked non-racialism with the broader objectives of African nationalism: ‘Although Robert Sobukwe… recognised African Nationalism as being the instrument and engine of liberation, he saw Africanism only as a means to an end, for in this thinking, the future liberated South Africa would be a non-racial society’ (Maylam 2001: 172). His commitment to linking the struggles of African people in

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T he state of the PA C in a democratic S outh A frica


South Africa with those on the African continent was indicated in his address to the Johannesburg regional court during his 1960 trial: ‘We regard it as our historic role to contribute towards a United States of Africa from Cape to Cairo, Morocco to Madagascar’ (Benson 1981: 8). The PAC thus became the first South African liberation movement to link local struggles against apartheid firmly with the broader anti-colonial movement on the continent. This position was in line with the wave of decolonisation sweeping through Africa at the time, beginning with Ghana’s independence in 1957. Ghana’s strong assertion of African identity underlined this anti-colonial movement. Two leading pan-Africanists, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Sekou Toure of Guinea, sent a message of solidarity to the PAC’s founding conference (Gerhart 1978). So the PAC’s views, heavily influenced by Sobukwe, placed it in a favourable position in relation to other liberation movements on the continent. The following observation indicates this: ‘In Ghana, a magnet for African revolutionaries in the early 1960s, the A.N.C. encountered skepticism and hostility from Nkrumah’s lieutenants, who inclined towards the rival P.A.C. with its explicit Pan-African ideology’ (Johns 1973: 277). It is Sobukwe’s legacy that he advanced non-racialism as key to the future of South Africa, firmly linking it to the broader struggles of African nationalism on the continent. Against this background, and in the context of the PAC’s ultimate objective of establishing a non-racial South Africa, this chapter moves on to explore why the PAC has been unable to realise its vision. Essentially, I argue that internal and external challenges manifested themselves during the exile period and continue to hamper the health of the organisation to the present day.

Problems in exile Ironically, historical developments with practical implications undercut the PAC’s advancement of African nationalism. While colonial powers relinquished control of most of their colonies in North and Central Africa, the process in southern Africa became protracted as white communities resisted change due to their vested political and economic interests. As Wilson (1994: 179) states, ‘Portugal, Southern Rhodesia and, above all, South Africa, along with their international allies, were altogether more formidable citadels of white resistance than any insurgent nationalism had encountered earlier.’

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Ian Smith’s Rhodesia defied Britain and declared a Unilateral Declaration of Independence. Portugal refused to accord independence to its territories.


Chronic underfunding These circumstances had serious implications for South African liberation movements and called for different strategies. One strategy seen as crucial was the garnering of international support from both the west and the east. International support at that time tended to depend on how the liberation movements addressed the issue of inclusion and exclusion of various groups in the struggle for liberation. This was particularly challenging for the PAC, which emphasised the struggle for the primacy of African nationalism. For example, it was observed that ‘…in its view South Africa is a paradigm case of colonialism’ (Hanf et al. 1981: 248). Thus the PAC’s ‘…goal of Africanist struggle was difficult to maintain outside of the South African context’ (Worden 2000: 131). The PAC’s main challenge was that its Africanist orientation, although explicitly linked to non-racial goals, was misunderstood. This is especially true of its decision to exclude white people and communists from participating in the struggle against apartheid. The west misinterpreted this as representing the converse of the apartheid government’s policies. This stemmed from a misunderstanding of the PAC’s tactical considerations that it was inappropriate to include white people in the struggle against apartheid. Sobukwe explained the basis of this decision as follows: ‘We have admitted that there are European intellectuals [that are] converts to Africa’s cause, but, because they benefit materially from the present set-up, they cannot completely identify themselves with that cause’ (Gerhart 1978: 196). The PAC therefore asserted that it was impossible for white people to oppose apartheid when they were beneficiaries of the system. Critically, the PAC believed that white people ‘tended to weaken the militancy of the movement because whites naturally had a vested interest in the status quo’ (Mothlabi 1984: 77). The effect of this interpretation was that it created image problems for the PAC, making it difficult to convince influential European, North American and Scandinavian states that it was engaged in a genuine liberation struggle. Consequently, the PAC lost critical avenues of support, especially financial support. Although it continued to enjoy political, diplomatic and moral support from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) – which recognised both it and the ANC – African states

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were not able to offer sufficient financial assistance. In fact, Shubin (1999) notes that financial aid from the OAU to South African liberation movements actually decreased towards the end of the 1960s. The PAC’s ideological aversion to communism alienated it from the only other major source of potential support – the Soviet Union. Taylor (2000: 95) states that ‘the PAC was refused assistance from the Soviet Union on the grounds that it was explicitly anti-communist and seen as racist’. The PAC considered communism as a foreign, un-African ideology and indeed ‘rejected forthright any form of co-operation with communism. It was… because of communist presence and influence in the Congress Alliance that the Africanists first broke with the ANC’ (Mothlabi 1984: 90–91). The lack of international support affected the PAC critically. For example, as OAU funding for liberation movements was being reduced in the 1960s, the Soviet Union allocated US$560 000 to the ANC in 1965 (Shubin 1999: 68). Receiving no support from the two main protagonists in the Cold War, the PAC was left with no option but to turn to the only other significant international actor, the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The PRC was a minor player relative to the two major contending powers, and it was also communist. ‘The PAC turned to China for financial support, not because it had changed its anti-communist position but because efforts to raise funds in the West were unsuccessful’ (Leatt et al. 1986: 103). China donated US$10 000 to the PAC in 1964 (Taylor 2000: 94). The direction taken by the South African liberation struggle clashed directly with the PAC’s pure Africanist approach, and this clash negatively affected its international image. This in turn made it difficult for the PAC to raise support from influential allies and ultimately this harmed the ability of the organisation to challenge the apartheid state. It simply lacked the resources to effectively pursue its struggle – whether armed or otherwise.

Leadership conflicts The PAC’s main internal problems in exile involved leadership differences, which created serious instability in the movement. These problems have been extensively documented (see Barrel 1988; Leeman 1985; Lodge 1994) and reached their peak after Sobukwe’s death in 1978, when acting president Potlako Leballo failed to formalise his leadership. The resulting tensions led to

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the murder of the party’s UN representative, David Sibeko, in 1979. Leballo was then expelled.4 Relative stability was achieved when Nyathi Pokela, a former political prisoner on Robben Island, assumed leadership of the party in 1980. He managed to resuscitate the armed struggle, and increase the diplomatic influence of the PAC on the African continent and internationally (Lodge & Nasson 1991). He died in 1985 and was replaced by Johnson Mlambo. The PAC’s leadership problems in exile were not atypical. As Leatt et al. (1986: 101) state, ‘Organisationally, neither the ANC nor the PAC were well prepared for the new conditions of illegality imposed after Sharpeville…Both faced problems of setting up foreign missions, re-establishing internal activity, and holding the exile movements together.’ However, the PAC’s problems seem to have been more severe and seriously destabilised the organisation in the 1960s, just when the liberation movements had to set themelves up in exile. This involved practically rebuilding the organisations from scratch and developing structures that would be capable of confronting the apartheid state. The PAC’s problems included personal feuds, lack of discipline, ideological differences, mutinous revolts, murders, corruption and involvement in the local political problems of various host countries (Leeman 1985; Lodge 1994). For example, one of the earliest problems was the misuse of funds by the PAC’s headquarters in Basutoland (now Lesotho), which led to deep discord between members (Magubane 1963). A key factor that accentuated the PAC’s instability was that it had hardly existed for a year inside South Africa before it was banned and driven into exile. It lacked the organisational experience to deal with the vagaries of exile, such as instilling organisational discipline and control over its leadership. The ANC, on the other hand, had been in existence since 1912. The movement’s decision to set up its exile headquarters in Maseru, the capital of Basutoland, was a serious miscalculation, indicative of deep political inexperience. Basutoland was a British colony at the time, situated in close proximity to South Africa. The PAC tried to launch a guerrilla war from Maseru, but the British had security links with the South African government, and when Leballo publicly announced the impending attacks against South Africa at a press conference (itself an indicator of ill-disciplined leadership), the British arrested PAC activists and sent them back to South Africa. The South African government simultaneously cracked down on PAC and Poqo5

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activists within South Africa, arresting 3 000 people (Gerhart 1978). Leballo and others then fled to Tanzania (Bolnick 1991). Another problem that stemmed from political inexperience was the ideological conflict that permeated the organisation. The leadership conflicts in the mid-1960s stemmed from critical differences over which ideological line to follow. Leballo favoured insurrectionary revolt based on the PRC’s experience while other leaders, who wanted to factor in international support for the anti-apartheid struggle, opposed this (Lodge 1994). ‘A large portion of the conflict revolved around a struggle between Leballo and his supporters who favoured self-reliant, revolutionary tactics, and other members of the PAC who favoured reform by way of external pressure from such powers as the United Nations and other international bodies.’6 Conflicts intensified to the extent that the OAU decided to close its office in Tanzania to quell the unrest between PAC members.7 These problems so troubled the PAC that ‘[i]n mid-1968 the eleven nation members of the Liberation Committee of the OAU, meeting in Algiers, decided to increase aid to the ANC but to suspend aid to the PAC until unity was restored’, although this decision was rescinded the following year (Stanbridge 1980: 81). These ideological differences did not end in the 1960s. They spilled over into the 1970s with, for example, the assassination of David Sibeko, the party’s UN representative, in 1979. Sibeko’s death was blamed on radical and militaristic elements of the movement, who saw him as elitist because he advocated a wider diplomatic approach to confronting apartheid.8 In addition, the absence of a strong leader with Sobukwe’s credentials, who clearly had respect within the organisation and could have instilled discipline to hold the movement together, cannot be ruled out as a reason for these leadership failures. Indeed, Sobukwe’s efforts to leave South Africa on an exile permit, which the government refused in 1971 (Pogrund 1990), may have been directly motivated by his realising that his presence might be needed to manage the PAC leadership-in-exile’s serious disarray. In summary, two factors resulted in the PAC entering the 1990s in a very weakened state. The first was the PAC’s ideological problems. These were induced by the distinctive nature of decolonisation in southern Africa from the 1960s onwards, and led to the alienation of the PAC from potential international backers. The second was the PAC’s lack of organisational experience and cohesive leadership. Johnston summed up these factors as

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follows: ‘Chronic under-funding, undistinguished leadership, internecine feuding and organisational inadequacies all made themselves felt as the PAC attempted to re-establish itself in South Africa after 1990’ (1994: 733).


Marginalisation during the transition to democracy One can argue persuasively that the PAC’s problems in exile are understandable and largely not of its own making. One can appreciate that the PAC had existed for just one year when it was driven into exile; that it had no control over the changing nature of the struggle against colonialism, which led the international community to misinterpret its position; and that its leadership problems arose in the context of these challenges. However, the movement’s behaviour and attitude during South Africa’s recent transition period and into the democratic dispensation weakened it further. One could construe this further weakening as largely self-inflicted. Essentially, the PAC marginalised itself during the transition: it refused to join the process, and distanced itself from making a critical contribution to the process of fashioning a democratic dispensation.

A failure to grasp the realities of a changing environment During South Africa’s transition to democracy, the PAC initially refused to join the negotiation process and boycotted the multiparty negotiations held under the auspices of the Convention for a Democratic South Africa. It joined talks late into the transition process, in early 1994, just months before the country’s first democratic election. The PAC therefore failed to seize the opportunity to present its political vision and to influence the nature of the impending political dispensation. It failed to contribute to critical decisions about, for example, the future Constitution and a new electoral model for the country. The PAC’s main motive for boycotting the process – which the practicalities of the prevailing environment did not support – was that it held on to an inflexible position: that the struggle against apartheid could only be won by totally defeating the apartheid state. Frederik van Zyl Slabbert quotes Barney Desai, the PAC’s internal co-ordinator, as having noted in 1990 that ‘what has not been won on the battlefield will never be won on the negotiating table. Negotiation from a position of weakness opens the way to unacceptable

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compromises’ (Van Zyl Slabbert 1992: 46–7). Johnson Mlambo, a senior PAC official at the time, justified this stance on the basis that ‘imperialist powers’ wanted to undermine the liberation struggle and that the ‘PAC would only enter into talks with the government if it indicated its willingness to transfer power to the oppressed and dispossessed’ (Latakgomo 1990: 13). Nyatsumba adds that this was the general view of black-orientated organisations: ‘the government insisted the PAC and Azapo [Azanian People’s Organisation] were illegitimate and had to hand over power to the oppressed majority’ (1992: 96). One could concede that this was political posturing by a liberation movement trying to stake out a position for itself in an uncertain environment, but in reality this attitude was severely flawed. The rhetorical reference to an alleged plot by ‘imperialist powers’ to sabotage the struggle against apartheid at the time when the Cold War was coming to an end signalled a static mindset that failed to appreciate the changing international environment of the early 1990s. With the imminent collapse of the Soviet Union and the approaching end of the Cold War, the international political environment had changed significantly. These changes left all South Africans – the government as well as liberation movements – with no choice but to negotiate a transition, due to intense pressure from the international community (Giliomee 1995). The communist bloc, especially the Soviet Union, had generally supported liberation movements, but it now faced its own serious political problems. Influential western powers such as the USA and Britain put pressure on the liberation movements and the apartheid government to negotiate, and even other southern African nations favoured a negotiated settlement (Friedman 1993). The view, therefore, that negotiating with the apartheid government was some kind of ‘imperialist’ plot indicated the PAC’s severely limited grasp of the exigencies of the situation. The PAC committed another serious political error in maintaining that the apartheid government was in an untenable position, facing imminent collapse, and thus had to surrender power meekly. Although the apartheid government was under intense pressure to negotiate, its collapse was not looming – a stalemate had been reached between the two sides of the apartheid divide and no single group held the upper hand. As Martin Murray concluded, ‘neither the…ruling National Party nor the liberation movement were sufficiently powerful enough to impose their own singular vision upon the future’

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(1994: 179). The PAC’s position, therefore, that it could only negotiate if the apartheid government was to ‘transfer power’ revealed a serious misreading of the situation. If the apartheid government was only expected to ‘transfer power’, what would have been its incentive to enter into negotiations at all, especially as it was not about to collapse? Thus the PAC reflected a view that was incongruent with the spirit of negotiations.


Armed struggle during the transition It is not helpful to engage in a debate about which liberation movement was more active in the armed struggle against apartheid. Such a determination is difficult to sustain and serves no credible purpose because the armed struggle, critical as it was, was not solely responsible for ending apartheid. It is clear, however, that the PAC’s armed wing experienced critical problems, arising partly from the reasons outlined above. For example, Apla, its armed wing, was formally constituted in 1968 – eight years after the movement was banned. By 1974, Apla was reputed to have only 70 trained guerrillas.9 The challenges of the pre-1990 period aside, what created an abiding credibility problem for the PAC during the transition and into the democratic era was its insistence on pursuing an armed struggle when conditions for doing so were not conducive. The political situation of the 1990s, while still fraught with uncertainty about unfolding developments, was definitely changing. Liberation movements had to adapt their positions accordingly. For example, the ANC did not totally abandon the armed struggle, but agreed to suspend it during the negotiations. As late as 1993, however, when the negotiations were at an advanced stage, albeit developing treacherously, Apla’s commander, Sabelo Phama, threatened that Apla would ‘launch massive attacks’, describing the time as ‘the year of the great storm’ (Maaba 2001: 245). The most disturbing aspect of the subsequent PAC attacks was that they specifically targeted white civilians rather than state institutions. Ironically, these attacks seemed to vindicate its detractors and to confirm that the PAC was an anti-white organisation. Letlapa Mphahlele, Apla’s commander at the time, has defended the attacks by claiming that they were launched ‘as a result of a prevailing political situation. People must remember that the attacks happened at the time of the Boipatong, train and taxi massacres of African people’ (Mail & Guardian 29.09–05.10.06).

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Devastating political violence accompanied the negotiations. The source of the violence was not immediately evident. It affected black townships, especially in the Pretoria, Witwatersrand and Vereeniging areas (Garson 1990; Taylor 1991). As Mphahlele asserted above, the PAC genuinely believed that it was protecting black communities. However, there is evidence that the black community, in whose interests the PAC was acting, did not approve. For example, black residents of Willowdale in the Transkei captured Apla members who had carried out attacks on white residents of the area in April 1994 and handed them over to the police (Stiff 1999). Moreover, the PAC’s claimed defence of black communities did not prevent or alleviate the gravity and intensity of the violence directed against them. The violence only came to an end after the decisive intervention of the apartheid government under intense pressure from the ANC (Taylor & Shaw 1998). The PAC’s insistence on continuing the armed struggle therefore cut it off from the mainstream of South African thinking. In particular, it cut the PAC off from black people who made up its supposed power base. Although uncertainty still prevailed about where the negotiations would lead, and although the negotiations occurred in the midst of political violence, there was broad consensus that efforts should be made to achieve a settlement.10 It has been postulated that this is one of the factors that most severely affected the PAC’s chances of success in the 1994 elections: ‘Given the prevailing national mood of reconciliation and peace in the run up to the elections, Apla’s action did not go down well with the majority of South African voters’ (Van Niekerk & Ludman 1999: 250).

The land issue The challenge of land inequity has primarily defined the PAC’s ideological basis and political programme. Ironically, this issue has also created serious problems for the party. One of the PAC’s main motives for breaking away from the ANC was that one of the Freedom Charter’s clauses proclaimed that ‘South Africa belongs to all those who live in it, black and white’. The PAC believed that this clause betrayed the African nationalist struggle. Thus, in the PAC’s statement of resignation from the ANC, the PAC founders stressed that ‘the land no longer belongs to the African people, but is auctioned for sale to all who live in this country’ (Meer 1990: 25).

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The PAC’s limitation in addressing the land issue is that it continues to adopt the view that the land question is primary, and it does this at the expense of other concerns facing the South African public – particularly its potential support base. In the run-up to the 1994 election, for example, the PAC failed to understand that ‘this election was about ending minority white rule, about bringing peace and creating conditions for national reconciliation. These issues were largely ignored by the PAC…which tended to stand more on principle and socialist rhetoric’ (Cooper 1994: 120). Ten years later, this had not changed. In 2003, the PAC president, Motsoko Pheko, declared that: land is the most defining political and development issue in South Africa today…it is clear that those who own land also own the means of production, rule the economy and influence the politics of our time…unemployment will not be resolved until the ownership of the land is fundamentally redressed. (This Day 27.11.03; emphasis added) Agrarian reform will help to reduce unemployment and alleviate poverty, but whether it is the key to resolving the acute problems that the apartheid legacy poses is highly questionable. It could be argued that this restricted focus on land epitomises the static nature of the PAC’s outlook, given that the agricultural sector has long been surpassed by the manufacturing and industrial sectors and cannot be assumed to be the primary economic sector. By focusing on land, to the near exclusion of numerous other societal concerns, the PAC fails to link its views to those of a diverse electorate that has concerns over and above land. Furthermore, the PAC regards it almost as an unquestionable article of faith that the mere changing of agrarian relations will set off a chain reaction that will take care of South Africa’s broader, more complex problems. This view is captured in Izwe Lethu (The land is ours), one of the PAC’s policy documents, which asserts that ‘we Azanians only need to reclaim and utilise our land in the interests of Azania, the Azanian people and Africa…it will enhance and guarantee human, civil and national sovereignty’.11 Equitable and just agrarian reform will bring about qualitative changes in the lives of many South Africans, restoring their dignity and redressing the human rights violations that occurred under the Land Acts.12 However, the view that resolving the land issue will address the complex societal problems

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that the country faces is an overstatement. South Africa’s problems are extremely complex, and its economic base is now much more industrial and commercial. Criticism levelled at the PAC that it ‘trades on simple-minded slogans about complex issues, such as land distribution’ (Sunday Tribune 06.06.99) is thus not entirely unfair. Tom Lodge captures the PAC’s flaw of centralising the land question at the expense of other critical societal concerns in this observation about the party’s campaign focus in the 1994 elections: ‘All the available evidence suggests that beyond the audience supplied by its own activists, the PAC’s chief slogan, “The Land First: All Shall Follow”, did not encounter an enthusiastic reception. In fact even its own cadres, apparently, ranked land further down on their list of priorities’ (1995: 494). The PAC’s election message was therefore largely confined to its own power base and, most critically, was not universally prioritised by its members.

1994 to the present This section discusses the PAC since 1994 in relation to its performance in the three national elections, the effects of floor-crossing on the party, and the ideological challenge posed by Thabo Mbeki’s African Renaissance. Then it homes in on the party’s future prospects.

The PAC’s electoral performance: 1994, 1999 and 2004 South African electoral politics since 1994 have been characterised by the increasing dominance of the ANC and the consequent weakening of most opposition political parties (Brooks 2004; Esterhuysen 1994; Giliomee et al. 2001). The ANC won 62.65 per cent of the vote in 1994, increasing this to 66.35 per cent in 1999. It achieved a two-thirds majority of 69.69 per cent in the 2004 elections, as outlined in Table 3.1. Consequently, the combined share of represented opposition parties in the National Assembly was 37.35 per cent in 1994. This decreased to 33.65 per cent in 1999 and to 30.31 per cent in 2004. Considered from this perspective, the PAC’s weak electoral performance is not unlike the performance of other opposition parties. However, it is significant to note that the PAC ranks among the weakest parties, with its share of the vote in each of the three national elections not exceeding 2.0 per cent.

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Table 3.1 Major South African political parties represented in the National Assembly after the 1994, 1999 and 2004 elections, by percentage Political party

1994

1999

2004

African National Congress

62.65

66.35

69.69

National Party/New National Party

20.39

6.87

1.65

Inkatha Freedom Party

10.54

8.85

6.97

2.17

0.80

0.89

Democratic Party/Democratic Alliance

1.73

9.56

12.37

Pan-Africanist Congress

1.25

0.71

0.73

African Christian Democratic Party

0.45

1.43

1.60

United Christian Democratic Party

n/a

0.78

0.75

United Democratic Movement

n/a

3.42

2.28

Independent Democrats

n/a

n/a

1.73

a

Freedom Front/Freedom Front Plus

b


c

Source: Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, http://www.eisa.org.za, especially the following: http://www.eisa.org.za/WEP/souresults2004.htm; http://www.eisa.org.za/WEP/sou1999results/.htm; http://www.eisa.org.za/WEP/sou1994results/.htm Notes: a. The National Party (NP) changed its name to the New National Party (NNP) in 1997 in an effort to recast its image in a democratic dispensation. b. The Freedom Front (FF) changed its name to the Freedom Front Plus in the run-up to the 2004 elections when it joined forces with the Conservative Party and the National Action. c. The Democratic Party (DP) and the NNP, together with the Federal Alliance, formed the Democratic Alliance (DA) in mid-2000. The NNP pulled out of the alliance at the end of the same year.

The PAC’s performance in the 1994 election belied its image as a major South African liberation movement. In comparison with its main rival, the ANC, it only managed to win 1.25 per cent of the national vote, which translated into only about 2 per cent of the ANC’s 62.65 per cent. It also fell behind four parties that were associated with the apartheid system: the NP (20.39 per cent), the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) (10.54 per cent), the FF (2.17 per cent) and the DP (1.73 per cent). One would expect that the PAC, given its opposition to apartheid, would have gained more support from the electorate than the parties that had championed apartheid (the NP and the FF), operated within the system (the DP) and operated on the fringes of the system (the IFP). The fact that the PAC was weaker than the FF magnified its loss, as the FF is a right-wing Afrikaner party that was only formed early in 1994. Most significantly, the PAC managed to beat only a relatively new party, the African Christian Democratic Party

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(0.45 per cent), which was established in December 2003. Therefore the PAC’s long existence as an established party on the South African political scene was overshadowed by parties that were barely a year old. This is an indication of its marginal political strength.


The analysis of the reasons underlying the PAC’s poor performance in 1994 shows the distinct trend that emerges from both internal and external critics: the party was affected by its failure to deal with the problems it faced during exile. In the words of a long-serving official and past national secretary, Philip Kgosana, ‘the PAC was not ready in 1994. In fact it was a divided party. So performance was really poor’ (Hoeane 2003: 70). The 1999 election results reflected the further deterioration of the already weak PAC when its support fell to 0.71 per cent. Once again this indicated serious decline. For example, the United Democratic Movement (UDM) eclipsed the PAC by winning 3.42 per cent. The UDM was only formed two years before the election. The PAC also gained less support than the United Christian Democratic Party (UCDP), which won 0.78 per cent of the national vote. The UCDP was a revived party that had been in charge of the former homeland of Bophuthatswana. It had been removed from power in a popular uprising just before the 1994 election. The explanations that the PAC offered for its showing in the 1999 elections were largely based on external factors. The Sunday Independent (06.06.99) reported that ‘in post-election analysis of its failure in 1999, instead of carrying out an honest self-appraisal of its defeat, it claimed in a conspiratorial tone that the media, especially the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) which is state-owned, was biased against the party, its posters were torn down by unknown people, and that a lack of funds hampered its campaign efforts’. Kgosana attributed the party’s poor performance once again to its internal problems, noting that ‘between 1994 and 1999 the PAC was facing a rather bumpy ground, especially on the leadership side. Makwetu [the former party president] on this side, Mogoba [the party president at the time] on that side, and certain key factors such as internal discipline, everybody saying whatever they liked in the press, personal attacks and so on. The internal cohesion was just not there’ (Hoeane 2003: 70).

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Another explanation that the PAC gave for its performance in the 1999 election was that its primary objective was attaining pan-Africanism on the continent, and was not the immediate political imperative of capturing political power under a democratic dispensation. The general secretary at the time, Michael Muendane, asserted that ‘we are not a movement that lives from one election to another. Our mission is clear – to unite the rest of Africa’ (Sunday Independent 06.06.99). However, it appears that the goal of substantially advancing the cause of pan-Africanism cannot be disconnected from the pursuit of political power. That is, in the democratic era, the PAC would be in the best position to achieve its pan-Africanist objectives if it appreciated that contesting and acquiring power is an advantage for reaching this goal. The 2004 election showed the continuing weakness of the PAC. Although it appeared to hold its ground by winning 0.73 per cent of the national vote, its performance was still less than impressive as it showed a gain of just 0.02 per cent. Another new political party overtook the PAC in the 2004 election. This party was the Independent Democrats (ID), which won 1.73 per cent of the national vote. This was more than twice the support of the PAC. The ID was established when former PAC MP Patricia de Lille crossed the floor in 2003 (Hoeane 2005). The PAC continued to pursue continental objectives at the expense of national imperatives. PAC president Motsoko Pheko was questioned about the PAC’s serious weakness in South African politics in a media interview. He responded that ‘your perspective is that democracy simply means that you must be in large numbers in Parliament, regardless of what you are doing. Can’t we look at this whole thing from the perspective of the reality of Africa?’ (Sunday Times 18.01.04).

The effects of floor-crossing In 2002, floor-crossing was legalised by the National Assembly (Masemola 2007). According to this practice, members of South African legislative bodies are allowed to defect from their parties to join other parties or form their own parties without losing their seats. Before this, the 1993 Interim Constitution’s anti-defection clause prohibited floor-crossing on the basis that permitting representatives to change parties would disturb the electoral balance chosen by the electorate (Faull 2004). By the end of the 1990s, the political mood

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had changed within the country, however, and the majority of opposition parties called for floor-crossing legislation to be introduced on the basis that it would provide a way of challenging the ANC’s increasing power (Cape Times 05.02.03). Floor-crossing has not benefited opposition parties, however – in fact, the ANC has benefited the most from the practice to date (Masemola 2007) – and the PAC has been seriously affected by it. In the first national floor-crossing period in 2003, the PAC lost one of its three MPs when Patricia de Lille left to form the ID. This affected the PAC significantly in the 2004 elections (Hoeane 2005). De Lille cited intra-party differences and a constraining political environment as her major reasons for defection: ‘I didn’t have the space in the PAC to perform to my full potential. I always had to look out for people who were stabbing me in the back or criticising me’ (Sunday Times 06.04.03). The PAC did regain some ground when it managed to win another seat and still send three members to Parliament in 2004, but this was not to last. In the 2007 floor-crossing period, the party nearly disappeared from Parliament entirely. Two PAC MPs, Deputy President Themba Godi and Mofihli Likotsi, defected to form the African People’s Convention (Pretoria News 06.09.07). Godi justified his action by stating that ‘the party is politically stagnant. Save for a few brief interludes, we have also faced a number of leadership challenges. Those of us who want to modernise the party meet strong resistance and are called sellouts’ (Financial Mail 07.09.07). In two successive floor-crossing periods at the national level, therefore, the PAC came under serious strain with a significant loss of power in 2003 and 2007. The latter defection was the most serious, as the party lost two-thirds of its representation. The interesting point to note is the common reason that the defectors give: the long-standing problem of disunity among the leadership.

The ideological challenge: the African Renaissance and the PAC The view that Thabo Mbeki, in expounding the African Renaissance, stifled the PAC’s potential development by taking over its ideas gained currency in media and academic discourse after his ‘I am an African’ speech of 1997. It has been argued that ‘the PAC’s political space was usurped by the ANC and its president, Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki has not only given voice to the Pan-Africanist perspective, he has worked doggedly to give it substance’ (Mail & Guardian

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22–28.09.06). For James Hamill, ‘the PAC’s decline is also directly attributable to Mbeki’s almost brazen theft of the PAC’s ideological clothes since 1997’ (2004: 696). Although this argument has credence, the PAC’s problems in the democratic era cannot primarily be linked to Mbeki’s African Renaissance advocacy. The PAC’s electoral weakness since 1994 is not directly related to the ANC’s increasing electoral strength. Even before Mbeki’s speech in 1997, the PAC was weak. It has consistently won less than 2 per cent of the national vote in elections since then. The argument would be sustainable if the PAC’s support had declined since the 1994 elections in direct proportion to the ANC’s increase in electoral strength. This might have suggested a correlation and added substance to the argument. Such a link cannot be established, however, because the PAC’s strength has not declined. Rather, it has remained more or less constant. It is my view that one should consider the substance that Mbeki ‘doggedly’ gave to the African Renaissance concept rather than his supposedly ‘brazen theft’ of the PAC’s ideological position. In other words, the PAC had been unable to occupy this ideological and political space effectively and, as a result, Mbeki’s African Renaissance took advantage of the gap and exploited the space instead. From another perspective, the usurpation argument is limited by its implicit assumption that Mbeki’s advocacy of the African Renaissance deviated from non-racialism, the implication being that non-racialism is inimical to African nationalism. This point cannot be sustained, given that the PAC established this link in the 1960s. Hamill states that Mbeki has repeatedly emphasised his ‘Africanism’, a philosophical package which, in a continent-wide context, embraces a commitment to pan-African unity and to an ‘African Renaissance’ while domestically it is rooted in a commitment to placing the plight of the disadvantaged black majority at the centre of this political agenda. (2004: 697) It is not the case that the ANC was not committed to pan-African unity before Mbeki’s African Renaissance speech. Prioritising the problems of the black majority due to the legacy of apartheid is not a new issue for the party. The ANC’s adoption of non-racialism at the end of the 1960s did not mean that it stopped focusing on the core of the Africanist struggle against apartheid

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(Fatton 1984), a point further made by Ndebele (2001). The ANC did not explicitly advocate pan-Africanism, as the PAC did in exile, and only did so from 1997 through Mbeki. But this does not mean that the ANC rejected the principle that black people were the most severely disadvantaged by apartheid, and that efforts to address the legacy of apartheid should be focused on them.


The difference between the ANC and the PAC’s views on African nationalism were tactical. Each group used the principle, either to accommodate or exclude other racial groups in the struggle against apartheid, rather than expounding on the issue because of its intrinsic value. Indeed, PAC president Letlapa Mphahlele has noted, for example, that the two parties’ views on the land issue are not fundamentally different – they both want to change how land is allocated. The parties only differ in the methods they choose to resolve the land issue practically: ‘we and the ANC agree on the return of the land. When they say “mayibuye” [let it return] we say “izwe lethu” [the land is ours]. The only difference is the willing seller, willing buyer principle. It is a non-starter [for the PAC]’ (Mail & Guardian 29.09–05.10.06).

The PAC’s future prospects Leading up to the 2009 election, the PAC’s prospects for increasing its support base and making a serious bid for power do not look good. This is despite the glimmer of hope that the ANC’s own internal leadership tensions presented. These tensions gained momentum in 2005, when President Mbeki dismissed Deputy President Jacob Zuma, and culminated in Zuma defeating Mbeki for the party presidency in December 2007 and Mbeki’s subsequent ‘recall’ from the presidency. The after-effects of the 2007 floor-crossing period are the most immediate cause of the PAC’s problems in the race to the 2009 elections. In addition to the problems that have historically attended the party in exile, during the transition period and into the second decade of democracy, the PAC seems once again to be on a serious downward spiral of internal conflict. The PAC’s image has continued to be damaged by the lack of internal democracy. This problem peaked in November 2007 when PAC president Letlapa Mphahlele suspended the party’s constitution and dissolved its National

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Executive Committee and National Working Committee. This allowed him to rule the party by decree, and to suspend the party’s Provincial Executive Committees in the Western Cape, Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga (City Press 30.09.07). In justifying the action, Mphahlele argued that ‘there is nothing untoward in what has happened. Past presidents have invoked this clause. The public knows that any political organisation that loses half its public representatives won’t claim to be in good balance’ (Daily Dispatch 12.11.07). He was clearly alluding to the effects of floor-crossing, but it is not clear how suspending the internal operational structures of the party will solve this problem. This gives substance to the view that although the move was constitutional, it was a manifestation of the PAC’s long-standing leadership problems. For example, City Press (30.09.07), although noting that Mphahlele said he took the action to stabilise the party, also argued that he was motivated by the need to stifle potential challenges to his leadership. The PAC therefore appears to be caught up in severe internal problems in the run-up to the 2009 elections. It is still grappling with the process of re-engineering itself into a stable party that can function effectively and grow a power base. Barring a dramatic change and a resolution of the problems that confront the PAC, at best the party will maintain the levels of support it has had since 1994 in the 2009 election, and at worst it will disappear from the national scene.

Conclusion The PAC’s inability to sustain Sobukwe’s legacy of African nationalism and non-racialism is due to several factors. In exile, it had to contend with a serious image problem that was created by the misinterpretation of its Africanist orientation. This was seen as reverse racism and led to a lack of support by western powers. The PAC could not get help from the communist states either, because of ideological differences. Its intractable leadership problems can be blamed on its inexperience. As a young organisation, it existed legally for only a year before it was banned. This led to serious organisational and discipline problems, which severely hampered the PAC’s ability to confront the apartheid state. Discounting the exile challenges, however, the PAC is, arguably, largely to blame for the problems that have dogged it into the democratic era. It marginalised

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itself from the political mainstream by boycotting the transition talks and continuing the armed struggle during the negotiation period. Disunity among its leadership has been a major contributor to its poor showing in the 1994, 1999 and 2004 elections. The introduction of floor-crossing legislation has also negatively affected the PAC, leading it to lose critical support and leadership skills when strong leaders, such as Patricia de Lille, deserted the party. The other factor that has limited the PACs ability to be an influential political player in contemporary South Africa is the ANC’s adoption of a more pronounced Africanist orientation under Thabo Mbeki. This closed off the space that the PAC wanted to occupy to increase its support base. The party’s current status has therefore arisen from the internal and external challenges it faced in exile, during the transition period and during the democratic dispensation. Its future prospects depend on its ability to overcome the hurdle of translating its ideas into practical reality and to give itself a chance to reclaim its stature in South African politics. The chances of this happening, however, appear to be remote, as evidenced by the drastic action taken in November 2007 by the PAC president to suspend the PAC’s constitution and bestow upon himself the power to rule by decree. Notes 1

Sobukwe was arrested in 1960 during the anti-pass campaigns and sentenced to three years in jail. When he was due to be released in 1963, the government introduced a special clause, Section 4, to the General Laws Amendment Act – later commonly known as the ‘Sobukwe Clause’. This clause gave the government the right to extend convicted people’s sentences annually if they were still deemed to be a security risk. This clause was invoked annually against Sobukwe until its suspension in 1969. He was released and served with a banning order to Kimberley, where he died in 1978.

2

These organisations included the Indian Congresses (Transvaal and Natal), the South African Congress of Democrats and the South African Communist Party.

3

See http://www.mltranslations.org/SouthAfricapamphl.htm.

4

See http://www.si.umich.edu/fort-hare/pac_hist.htm.

5

Poqo has often been mistaken for the PAC’s armed wing. But ‘as an organisation Poqo was a spontaneous movement, located in the Western Cape and Transkei,

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comprising groups who had only tenuous links with one another and with the leaders of the PAC in South Africa and Maseru’ (Leatt et al. 1986: 100). 6


7


8


9


10 The protracted and highly contested nature of the negotiations led them to collapse in July 1992, merely six months after they had started, due to the escalating political violence. However, they were stalled only until September that year and were resumed with all major and minor players involved. The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) refused to rejoin the talks, while the Afrikaner right wing, which had boycotted them from the start, like the PAC, joined. 11 See http://www.paca.org.za/bottom. 12 The Land Act (No. 27 of 1913) and the Trust and Land Act (No. 18 of 1936) reserved 87 per cent of South Africa for whites, coloureds and Indians, but mostly for whites. Black South Africans, approximately 80 per cent of the population, could legally own or occupy only 13 per cent of the land, most of which was rural. These Acts created one of the largest ratios of discriminatory land holding in the world.

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Esterhuysen P (1994) Comment: Towards one-party dominance in South Africa? Africa Insight 24(2): 82–84 Fatton R Jr (1984) The African National Congress of South Africa: The limitations of a revolutionary strategy. Canadian Journal for African Studies 18(3): 593–608 Faull J (2004) Floor-crossing briefing: Legislative and political background, and the procedural framework. Cape Town: Idasa Friedman S (Ed.) (1993) The long journey: South Africa’s quest for a negotiated settlement. Johannesburg: Ravan Press Garson P (1990) The killing fields. Africa Report 23(5): 47–49


Gerhart GM (1978) Black power in South Africa: The evolution of an ideology. Los Angeles: University of California Press Giliomee H (1995) Democratization in South Africa. Political Science Quarterly 110(1): 83–104 Giliomee H, Myburgh H & Schlemmer L (2001) Dominant party rule, opposition parties and minorities in South Africa. Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Seminar Report No. 2. Johannesburg: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Hamill J (2004) The elephant and the mice: Election 2004 South Africa and the future of opposition politics in South Africa. The Round Table 93(377): 691–708 Hanf T, Weiland H & Vierdgad G (1981) South Africa: The prospects of peaceful change. Cape Town: David Philip Hoeane T (2003) A re-interpretation of South African electoral studies: Race, ethnicity and democracy in the 1994 and 1999 elections. PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Hoeane T (2005) Struggling to represent the left: The Pan-Africanist Congress, the Azanian People’s Organisation, and the Independent Democrats. In J Piombo & L Nizjink (Eds) Electoral politics in South Africa: Assessing the first democratic decade. New York: Macmillan Johns S (1973) Obstacles to guerrilla warfare. Journal of Modern African Studies 2(2): 267–303 Johnston A (1994) South Africa: The election and the emerging party system. International Affairs 70(4): 721–736 Latakgomo J (1990) Black politics in South Africa today. Issue: A Journal of Opinion 18(2): 11–13 Leatt J, Kneifel T & Nurnberger K (Eds) (1986) Contending ideologies in South Africa. Cape Town: David Philip

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Leeman B (1985) Lesotho and the struggle for Azania: Africanist political movements in Lesotho and Azania. The origins and history of the Basutoland Congress Party and the Pan Africanist Congress. London: University of Azania Press Lodge T (1994) The Pan-Africanist Congress, 1959–1990. In I Liebenberg, B Nel, F Lortan & G van der Westhuizen (Eds) The long march: The story of the struggle for liberation in South Africa. Pretoria: Haum Lodge T (1995) The South African general election, April 1994: Results, analysis and implications. African Affairs 94(377): 471–500


Lodge T & Nasson B (1991) All here and now: Black politics in South Africa in the 1980s. Washington, DC: Ford Foundation Maaba BM (2001) The archives of the Pan Africanist Congress and the Black Consciousness oriented movements. History in Africa 28: 417–438 Magubane JK (1963) An African explains apartheid. London: Pall Mall Maseko S (1999) The PAC, Azapo and the UDM. In A Reynolds (Ed.) Election ’99 South Africa: From Mandela to Mbeki. Cape Town: David Philip Masemola NKN (2007) Floor-crossing and its political consequences in South Africa. EISA Occasional Paper. Johannesburg: EISA Maylam P (2001) The politics of adaptation and equivocation: Race, class and opposition in 20th-century South Africa. In R Southall (Ed.) Opposition in South Africa’s new democracy. Seminar Report No. 2. Johannesburg: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Meer F (1990) Higher than hope: The biography of Nelson Mandela. Durban: Madiba Publishers Motlhabi M (1984) The theory and practice of black resistance to apartheid: A socio-ethical analysis. Johannesburg: Skotaville Murray M (1994) The revolution deferred: The painful birth of post-apartheid South Africa. London: Verso Ndebele N (2001) The African National Congress and the policy of non-racialism: A study of the membership issue. Politikon 15(2): 133–146 Nyatsumba KM (1992) Azapo and the PAC: Revolutionary watchdogs? In G Moss & I Obery (Eds) South African Review 6: From ‘Red Friday’ to Codesa. Johannesburg: Ravan Press Odendaal A (2004) The liberation struggle in South Africa, 1948–1994. In YN Seleti (Ed.) Africa since 1990. Cape Town: New Africa Books Pogrund B (1990) Sobukwe and apartheid. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball

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Tabata IB (1960) Pan African Congress venture in retrospect. Non-European Unity Movement pamphlet, September Taylor I (2000) The ambiguous commitment: The People’s Republic of China and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. Journal of Contemporary African Studies 18(1): 91–106 Taylor R (1991) The myth of ethnic division: Township conflict violence on the Reef. Race and Class 33(2): 1–14 Taylor R & Shaw M (1998) The dying days of apartheid. In D Howarth & A Norval (Eds) South Africa in transition: New theoretical perspectives. London: Macmillan Van Niekerk P & Ludman B (Eds) (1999) Mail & Guardian A–Z of South African politics 1999: The essential handbook. London: Penguin Van Zyl Slabbert F (1992) The quest for democracy: South Africa in transition. London: Penguin Wilson HS (1994) African decolonisation. London: Edward Arnold Worden N (2000) The making of modern South Africa (3rd edition). Oxford: Blackwell

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4

Black Consciousness in contemporary South African politics


Thiven Reddy

An ironic feature of contemporary South African politics is that while the organisations representing Black Consciousness (BC) ideas remain weak and fragmented, a revival in BC ideas, values and practices in official and civil society discourses seems evident. BC organisations dominated anti-apartheid politics in the 1970s, but their startling decline, particularly their weakened state under post-1994 democracy, calls out for analytical attention. In the 1999 and 2004 elections, the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) was the leading BC organisation. Together with the smaller Socialist Party of Azania (Sopa), Azapo received dismal support. Moreover, Azapo has split into three smaller organisations. Efforts to merge the three have so far faltered. One cannot conclude, however, that the obvious failure of BC political parties to challenge the ANC and the historically white political parties at the polls means that we should dismiss these organisations’ ideologies as ineffective and lacking in influence. The resurgence of BC ideas at the level of civil society, at a time when we might expect BC to be anachronistic, is intriguing. It is also the subject of this chapter. The chapter is divided into three parts. The first part discusses the BC movement and the legacy of Steve Biko. This discussion focuses on the establishment of Azapo and how, by the mid-1990s, it had weakened as an organisation. The second part of the chapter links the decline of Azapo’s fortunes to the specific ideological choices made by its leadership in the late 1980s, and to Azapo’s failure to make the transition to the terrain of democratic electoral politics. The third part of the chapter shows how significant sections of post-apartheid society have accepted and/or appropriated BC ideas, despite its organisational collapse. Examples include some of Thabo Mbeki’s speeches and the proliferation of BC ideas in political and civil society among the black middle class and youth. I will attempt to spell out why this resurgence in BC ideas is taking place. I argue that the collapse of the BC movement is a result

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of its rejection of the negotiations process and its marginalisation during the formative period of democratic society. The argument for the resurgence of ideas associated with BC is premised on the ongoing conflicts over the distribution of power and resources that remained unresolved with the political settlement in 1994. The inadequacies of a ‘non-racial liberalism’, embraced in official and dominant discourses after 1994, do not resonate with the vast majority of South Africans, who experience, in the words of Biko, visibility but not ‘real participation’. The ever-faithful contradiction between the material conditions of life and the dominant ideology goes some way towards explaining the continuing search for alternative ways of addressing this problem. In this case, the alternative happens to be BC. The chapter concludes by reflecting on why BC remains relevant in contemporary South African life.

Biko’s legacy in contemporary black politics The contemporary relevance and spread of BC ideas 30 years after Biko’s death calls us to reflect historically on the developments in struggle politics from the perspective of BC and its emergence. As a point of departure, we could divide the struggle in South Africa into the following periods: • firstly, when BC emerged in 1967 up to the Soweto uprisings in 1976 and the banning of organisations in 1977; • secondly, the re-emergence of the ANC as the dominant political force in the anti-apartheid struggle from the mid-1980s to the first democratic election; and • thirdly, the period after 1994, with the ANC dominating the political system. In the mid-1970s a loose mosaic of civil society organisations – of women, workers, students and youth – oriented around community projects and political campaigns at local, regional and national levels. They were linked in various ways to one another, and they contributed to a renaissance in black civic and political culture. A culture of resistance began to take root. These new organisations, and some older established community organisations, embraced BC ideology. The surprising proliferation of BC ideas in township communities, and the consequent resurgence of black political consciousness, encouraged the South African Students’ Organisation (Saso), the founding

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BC organisation, to initiate a political organisation called the Black People’s Convention (BPC). The aim of this organisation was to give direction to, and consolidate the various strands of, these civil society organisations into a political movement. Despite the repressive political environment, the BPC challenged the structures of power in society in its preamble and attacked the apartheid system. It aimed to unite all oppressed people into a political movement to liberate black people from psychological and physical oppression. The BPC saw itself as a movement of black people, rejecting any form of tribal affiliation and ethnic mobilisation and identifying with a global anti-racist struggle. When the students of Soweto revolted against the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in schools, they demonstrated a new assertiveness that came with the cultural context of protest among black communities. In the immediate aftermath of the Soweto uprisings, BC activists who were not banned, detained or in exile formed Azapo. We can divide BC as it relates to Azapo into the following five phases: • the period of the ‘united front’ when ANC and Africanist groups worked within Azapo, from 1978 to 1980; • the period from 1981 to 1983, with its emphasis on the socialist characteristics of BC and the outcome of ideological debate on the relationship between the national and social questions; • the period from 1984 to 1985, when Azapo and the United Democratic Front (UDF) engaged in opposition campaigns against the Botha reforms; • the period from 1986 to 1988, when Azapo adopted a rigid ‘scientific socialist’ approach, viewing itself as a vanguard party of the black working class; and • the period from 1990 to the present, characterised by internal fragmentation, uncertainty and poor voter support in democratic elections. The recurring theme of BC’s relevance came up as expected at the inaugural congress of Azapo. The delegates addressed the question of BC’s relevance in the period after the Soweto revolt. The congress celebrated the enormous impact of the Soweto revolt on resistance politics, maintaining that BC inspired the initial political awareness that led to Soweto but that it had to adapt to the changing socio-political conditions. These changing conditions

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B lack consciousness in contemporary S outh A frican politics


were the anticipated ‘reforms’ called for by key members of the political and economic elite. They emphasised that BC was a dynamic ideology of the oppressed, able to respond creatively to changing contexts. Responding to the mass fear and inactivity of the 1970s, BC stressed ‘psychological emancipation’ as a condition for mass mobilisation. In the aftermath of the 1976 revolt, BC had to challenge the entire socio-economic system (read racial capitalism) supporting white supremacy, especially when the system planned to move away from the more overt forms of racism. Azapo affirmed that it would concentrate on black workers and that the trade unions would be the organisational link to the black working class. During the township revolts from 1983 onwards and the state of emergency that followed, Azapo moved closer to an uncomplicated Marxist position embracing ‘scientific socialism’ and committing itself to ‘the leadership of the black working class’. The National Forum Summit in 1984 and the Azapo Council in Houtbosdorp in May 1985 extensively discussed the theory behind scientific socialism and how it related to the formative ideas of BC. In keeping with the radicalised political context sweeping through the urban townships, some delegates proposed workers’ councils as alternatives to state structures, similar to the dual power system of pre-revolutionary Russia. The model of revolutionary insurrection of the masses and the successful seizure of state power in some kind of frontal assault dominated the imagery permeating party discourse. There are two main views about the relationship between the periods before and after the Soweto uprisings. The first view is held by those who see themselves as upholding the authentic, unbroken tradition of BC. This view is critical of non-BC formations, especially of the ANC. Those who hold this view argue for an independent, dominant BC tradition embracing the best of previous resistance traditions and formations in the history of the struggle. This view pinned itself on what it considered to be the unique analysis of apartheid racism, the different strategy and the vision of a South African society after apartheid that BC and Biko represented. The second view, popular among many activists who joined the ANC, argues that BC played an important but limited role within the broader struggle led by the ANC. Once the ANC again assumed prominence from the 1980s, BC ought to have subordinated itself to the leadership of the ANC and embraced its tradition of non-racialism and the mobilisation of people around community issues

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and the Freedom Charter. According to this view, non-racialism and mass mobilisation amounted to an advance on BC ideology and those who refused to make this important change and adapt to the new and different conditions displayed an unrealistic, hardline position that was difficult to justify. The weakened state of BC organisations proves that BC is a spent force and the correctness of ANC analysis. After the post-Soweto state clampdown BC continued to be openly criticised, mainly from ANC quarters, for its emphasis on black power as opposed to the non-racial emphasis of the Freedom Charter. The ANC accused it of reverse racism and narrow nationalism, arguing that the fight against apartheid should in its practice resemble the society to be and that a progressive nationalism did not define participation on the basis of racial identities. Further, BC ideology inadequately theorised class exploitation and did not draw on class analysis. It reflected the interests and frustrations of the educated black elite who did not want to overthrow apartheid radically and build a society that addressed the interests of the working class (Hirson 1979; Lodge 1983). The ANC, by contrast, in its alliance with the South African Communist Party (SACP), saw itself as representing this more radical critique. It is common sense to associate the period in which BC emerged with the figure of Steven Bantu Biko. Biko’s unique role as the leader of the liberation struggle of the 1970s is generally acknowledged. The importance of this period in producing the turning point in the anti-apartheid struggle – the mass youth uprisings of Soweto – is also widely recognised. Biko occupies a special place among South African struggle heroes. He was a founding member of the BC movement. He was brutally killed by the security police and the international outcry that followed placed South Africa’s apartheid policies firmly on the international agenda. The range, style and analytical power of his writings reflected, at the height of apartheid, the anger, frustrations and aspirations of a generation of young black people. In contemporary politics, and in the broader context of the transformative agenda of a democratic political system, debate surrounds the place of Biko and BC after Biko’s death (Badat 1999; Halisi 1999; Lodge 1983). Directly related to the post-1979 divisions is the more emotive dispute concerning where Biko would have situated himself politically in contemporary South African politics. Would he have abandoned old-style BC and joined the ANC as other key leaders of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) did?

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Would he have distanced himself from the ANC? Or, given his enormous organising capacities and intellectual analysis, would he have led the BCM to greater heights, where it would not have been a mere shadow of the ANC? Unsurprisingly, those aligned with Azapo and Sopa believe that Biko would not have abandoned BC to join the ANC (Nkadimeng cited in The Star 12.09.05). Some say this question is irrelevant and raises another red herring by those who left BC for the ANC. To them, it is impossible to know where Biko would have stood, because BC was always about more than the views of a few individuals and leaders, including Biko. The key question of a truly revolutionary project is the ideology, strategy and tactics that realise the aspirations of the vast majority in the society. The elements for a revolutionary project can only come from within the BC tradition. The core of this dispute lies in how we interpret Biko’s texts in relation to the BC organisations established before and after his death (Gerhart 1978; Gibson 1988). The main criticisms of BC fail to appreciate the context in which BC emerged and operated, and largely ignore what was needed to create a culture of resistance in the 1970s. At the first ‘formation school’, held at the Natal University Medical School in December 1969, Biko talked about the significance, role and future of Saso (Stubbs 1978). Biko relates Saso’s establishment to the post-Sharpeville failures of black resistance: the pervasiveness of ethnic and tribal disunity, the consequent need for a cementing ideology, and the need to respond to the problem of weak black leadership in the face of a dominant white liberalism. The National Union of South African Students was structurally unable to facilitate black interests. The situation in which black students found themselves made it necessary to form an organisation representing their own interests without depending on whitedominated organisations. Establishing an independent black organisation did not translate into support for the government’s racial policy; rather, in the context of the period, it was a realistic response to fight the system: ‘what SASO has done is simply to take stock of the present scene in the country and to realise that not unless the non-white students decide to lift themselves from the doldrums will they ever hope to get out of them. What we want is not black visibility but real black participation’ (Stubbs 1978: 5; emphasis added). The initial task that BC adherents aimed at was the creation of a politically conscious subject of change after a decade of fear and apathy. They sought also to avoid the constant infighting that had characterised the activities

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of the student bodies, the African Students’ Association and the African Students’ Union of South Africa, in the early 1960s. The immediate situation Saso experienced sparked the practical activities it chose, and inevitably these activities encouraged black self-assertiveness. This produced a political subject willing to engage in collective action. This was the aim of black students. They came from communities experiencing the brunt of apartheid racism. They were driven by the state into new higher education institutions, the so-called bush colleges. These were oppressive institutions consciously designed to produce passive elites willing to administer the bantustan project and buy into possible grand-apartheid ‘reforms’. This student generation faced, in the postSharpeville period, a lull in black resistance politics – the exiled organisations were barely visible due to effective state repression of overt resistance activity. In addition, having established bases a great distance from South Africa’s borders, the exiled organisations found themselves without easy access to a mass base inside South Africa. The influence of white liberal politics and bantustan political elites took centre stage in claiming to lead the resistance to apartheid (Mzamane et al. 2006). The emphasis on culture and ideology that is meaningful to participants fighting systematic white racism and a white power structure is the BC’s significant contribution to South African political discourse. The key BC elements of the pre-1979 period are succinctly summarised by Fatton. The students formed an ‘ethico-political ideology capable of liberating blacks from their own mental submissiveness to white cultural hegemony’ (Fatton 1986: 69). Part of BC’s innovative character under South African conditions was that it set out to provide ‘a radical critique of the pretensions and aims of white liberalism’ (Fatton 1986: 70). While elements of white liberalism (as opposed to the overt racism reflected in apartheid) had always caught the critical attention of individual black leaders, it had not been systematically critiqued as a particular mode of politics in South Africa, nor put under the spotlight of a full-frontal assault. Finally, the emphasis was on the solidarity of the oppressed people as a means to end racism and its legacies (Fatton 1986). The definition of ‘black’ as a socially exploited group introduced a new political and constructivist dimension to identity politics, explicitly not grounded in an essentialist primordial understanding (Moodley 1982). In fact, the latter was vehemently opposed. The radical change of material conditions, as argued

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in Biko’s ‘Quest for a True Humanity’ article, would undermine dominant notions of both white and black identities. That BC lacked a comprehensive class analysis is unconvincing criticism and more accurately reflects the cut and thrust of political competition between rival ideologies in the anti-apartheid struggle. Fatton (1986) dismisses this criticism, arguing that any viewpoint that sets out to transform society radically can only offer a vague description of the future revolutionised society. BC was no exception, vaguely describing the future society as majoritarian and socialist. Fatton goes on to say that ‘Black Consciousness was not a theory of the future. Its task was not to describe the classless society of tomorrow, but to ruthlessly criticize the existing white racist order in all its institutional manifestations with the hope of contributing to the rise of black hegemony, and black dignity’ (1986: 78). The formidable attack from the left that Azapo faced from elements in the SACP, the ANC and the Unity Movement in the early 1980s, and the postSoweto intellectual influences among activists inside and outside the country, influenced Azapo to frame BC increasingly within the lens of a particular kind of Marxism–Leninism, narrowing its identity to the fight for a socialist Azania (Murray 1987). The Leninist turn represents too sharp a diversion from the pre-1977 BC. The formative ideology, according to Gibson, was strongly influenced by Fanon’s existentialism and Marx’s humanism: By the end of 1987 it seemed that Black Consciousness as seen through AZAPO is something radically different from its origins. As an idea originally situated in the subjectivity of the oppressed, which refused to comply with narrow ‘Marxist’ applications, it is now merely the projection of another Marxist-Leninist tendency. Black is the substance rather than the subject of revolution, the ‘phenomena’ of material conditions. (Gibson 1988: 19) Two essential elements of Biko’s BC were the way he theorised the concepts of leadership and the power of ideas (consciousness of the masses). The notion of the single party adopted by Azapo flies in the face of Fanon: ‘The single party is the modern form of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, unmasked, unpainted, unscrupulous and cynical…The party leaders behave like common sergeant-majors, frequently reminding the people of the need for “silence in the ranks” ’ (Gibson 1988: 22).

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The rich political–cultural critique produced by Biko of the many manifestations of white supremacy (in both its conservative Afrikaner nationalist and white liberal frames), and its devastating psychological effects in the daily lives of black people, was somehow mechanistically absorbed and assumed in the scientific socialism of Azapo and its emphasis on class and capitalism. Undoubtedly, these structural notions had a basis in the earlier framework. However, they were not presented as the exclusive concerns to which everything else could be reduced. The ideological choices made in the 1980s have had consequences for the approach adopted towards the democratic transition. The key ideas of cultural expression, black solidarity and psychological liberation – all things necessary (political, economic, social–psychological) to create a fighting political subject, to reflect ‘a way of life; an attitude of mind’ and to ‘infuse the black man with pride and dignity’ – are absent from Azapo’s discourse of BC (Pityana et al. 1991: 1–12). It is the earlier values demanding ‘real black participation’ rather than mere ‘visibility’ that have resonated most with the expanding black middle class, as this middle class interacts in institutions and spaces dominated by white society in pre-1994 South Africa. Whether Biko would have followed his closest comrades along the path of Azapo is an open question. Presumably, even Azapo would have been a different organisation, to the extent that some of the debates of today may simply have fallen away.

Azapo and the transition to multiparty democracy During the late 1980s, the apartheid system experienced a crisis of social control. This took the form of growing resistance, a general breakdown in social order, lower productivity and profit rates, and increased unemployment, which the existing political–economic order was unable to resolve (Price 1990). The National Party (NP), under pressure from the broader Afrikaner and capitalist elite, proposed negotiations with its longstanding enemies. The ANC became the government’s main negotiating partner, whereas Azapo immediately refused to participate in the various stages of the negotiations process. The Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) later refused to participate as well. The negotiations process included the ‘talks about talks’, Codesa I and II and, finally, the multiparty negotiating forums

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(Friedman & Atkinson 1994; Waldmier 1997). Inspired by the Zimbabwean model, Azapo and the PAC wanted the ANC to join them in a Patriotic Front. This would increase the liberation forces’ bargaining power, allowing them to demand from the government a set of minimum conditions. Azapo consistently demanded international mediation and a constituent assembly of democratically elected representatives of the people. The idea of a national convention such as Codesa (Convention for a Democratic South Africa) was rejected during the 1982 Azapo congress. Such a convention would include discredited ethnic and bantustan organisations that had collaborated with the apartheid regime, and was viewed as a sell-out to goals of radical transformation. The ANC initially considered the Patriotic Front idea. It eventually rejected the conditions, however, and the approach to negotiations expected of it by much weaker organisations. It decided instead to proceed without the support of Azapo and the PAC. As a result of the sufficient consensus mechanism, whereby agreement between the ANC and the NP constituted approval, a series of compromising agreements produced a negotiated settlement. After many unpredictable setbacks and general uncertainty, a democratic Constitution was agreed to in early 1994. The negotiated outcome incorporated black voting rights in exchange for a complex system of checks and balances, the protection of private property rights, the cultural recognition of minorities, as well as promises by the ANC to form a coalition government for the first five years and not to replace the white civil service after the first election (Sisk 1995). The PAC and Azapo failed to influence the main actors – the ANC and the NP – during the negotiations process. They quickly condemned the ANC for the compromised outcomes. Consequently, they could not lay claim to any of the successes or the global acceptance and legitimacy of the final Constitution. In the elections that followed, both the PAC and Azapo performed dreadfully, with results that were far below expectations. Azapo boycotted the first elections in 1994. This placed its supporters in the unenviable position of almost withdrawing from the political arena just as the country was experiencing its most historic moment. Azapo’s stance meant that it was going against the mass of citizens, including the black working class that the organisation claimed to represent. Azapo participated in the 1999 and 2004 national elections and the 2000 local government elections. In 1999, Azapo received 0.17 per cent of the vote, or 27 257 votes. In 2004, it

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received 0.25 per cent, or 39 116 votes, a slight increase. The breakaway Sopa received just 0.1 per cent of the national vote, or 14 853 votes. By contrast, in 1994, 1999 and 2004 the ANC won resounding victories with around 10 million voters, stampeding over its opposition. Fewer eligible voters went to the polls in each consecutive election, however. In 1994, the ANC won 62.6 per cent of the vote, ranking a full 42.0 per cent ahead of its nearest rivals. In 1999, it increased this to 66.5 per cent, winning another 14 seats to control 266 seats. In 2004, it won a further 4 seats, bringing the number of seats in its control to 279 of the 400-seat National Assembly legislature. A further disappointment for BC supporters was the increasing fragmentation of Azapo. Two breakaway groups resulted, splitting the BC vote and creating an impression of disarray and organisational weakness. Sopa was formed in 1998 and the Black Consciousness Forum (BCF) was established in 2002. The latter was led by Nkosi Molala. Disputes over participation in the ANC government, relations with other political parties, and personality and factional differences are the most common reasons cited for the fragmentation of Azapo. Numerous attempts have been made to unite Azapo, the Sopa, the BCF and the PAC to create a radical black party to the left of the ANC, but these have proven fruitless so far. Recurring internal conflicts, factional disputes and splits are manifestations of a weak institution. The inability to accommodate factional differences and to prevent personality differences from manifesting as splits in the organisation are key indicators suggesting a deeper malaise in the BC movement. The different political terrain of multiparty competition seems to highlight Azapo’s institutional weaknesses even further. Azapo lacks the characteristics of adaptability, coherence, complexity and autonomy that are essential to effectively making the transition from liberation movement to political party in a democracy. Aside from the ANC, the parties involved in the liberation struggle were unable to adapt to the new political terrain and to maintain their original coherence. Even the ANC appears to be faced with leadership selection crises and difficulties with reproducing the high moral values associated with the struggle among its members. Several additional and interacting factors from the mid-1980s onwards account for the decline of BC organisations and their influence in the broader society. In retrospect, an important factor is Azapo’s emphasis on mass mobilisation based on ideology from the anti-apartheid struggle, instead

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of focusing on community issues as the UDF did in the 1980s. The latter approach proved so much more successful in mobilising large numbers of people. Azapo wanted to strike an appropriate balance between aspects of community life that people wanted to fight against and change, and BC ideas. However, in its ideological disputes with the ANC/UDF, it was compelled to emphasise ideological issues. Azapo often had to defend BC against attacks of irrelevance, of lacking a class analysis, of charges of ‘reverse racism’ and of merely representing elitist interests by demonstrating the unique capacity of BC to critique and radically change established social relations. When FW de Klerk started negotiations to change the terrain of conflict, Azapo was unable to develop a strategy that kept it in touch with the vast majority of citizens. Through rejecting negotiations on principle in its internal debates, its position came across as ambivalent, or as unrealistic and hardline. The refusal to engage in key forums during the negotiations process was quite understandable in the revolutionary context of the 1980s. When the ANC decided to enter into negotiations with the government, the situation had changed so dramatically that any anti-negotiations position merely marginalised Azapo from the historic, far-reaching changes in the political terrain. The strategy advocating the seizure of state power, appealing as this was during the heady days of mass struggle and independent community organisation, was unachievable once the negotiations process began. The ANC mobilised its support base in relation to the logic of the negotiations process. Azapo simply did not anticipate that the mass of South Africans considered the negotiations legitimate. This was partly due to its conception of revolution in absolute terms. To Azapo, total victory needed to occur without negotiations. Any mention of the latter conjured up ideas of compromise and defeat. The overwhelming electoral support for the ANC goes some way towards explaining Azapo’s inability to adapt to multiparty democracy, both in the activity of elections and in the cut and thrust of arguing for and making policy. In a typically cyclical fashion, this continued lack of support and internal rejuvenation produced increasing ideological rigidity, perceived irresolvable conflicts among the organisation’s leadership and eventual fragmentation. Finally, the electoral campaigns, uncharismatic leadership and insufficient funding have not helped to reverse the dismal tide. Many left-wing socialist parties participate in South African elections, but Azapo presents no distinctive identity, aside from a historical one for older voters who may

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vote for it out of nostalgia. To focus exclusively on the socialist project is too narrow a focus compared with the broad BC viewpoint to articulate ‘the way of life, and attitude of mind’ of the rich and multifaceted experience of historically oppressed subjects. New and innovative ways have to be fashioned to intervene creatively in contemporary democratic politics and to produce, from the disoriented subalterns, agents of radical change.


The resurgence of BC ideas in state, political and civil society after 1994 A distinctive characteristic of BC arising from its origins in the late 1960s is that many diverse organisations represented an eclectic range of BC ideas. The impotence of Azapo or Sopa cannot be translated into the death of the BC ideology. This is abundantly evident in its increasing recognition in the contemporary discourse of politics and change. The figure and memory of Biko is ever more popular and his ideas have found resonance in contemporary South African society, especially among the black middle class and youth. In the post-1994 democratic period we witness, as expected, a significant change in political culture. Where unrealised expectations of black empowerment are evident, we see black frustrations rise. We witness strident responses from many sources, but those from within the white liberal paradigm appear to be the most significant, criticising the ANC and the government for failing in the areas of policy implementation and state efficiency. Despite its electoral popularity, the ANC, in this context, has failed to present an alternative discourse of rule and change to a dominant nonracial liberalism. This has resulted in disaffected elements of civil society. For example, the black middle class is frustrated with the continuing dominance of white culture and the black working class is unhappy with service delivery. These groups are discovering in BC ideas the seeds of a more effective and satisfying response. While at the organisational level support for BC could not possibly get any lower, at the general societal level there has been a resurgence of BC ideas. Some could be considered conservative, whereas others are progressive and radical. Faced with an onslaught of media criticism for his leadership style as president of South Africa, even Thabo Mbeki chose to draw on ideas that can be traced to the Biko era to respond to what he viewed as a media controlled

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by white liberals and conservative Afrikaner elements. He incorporated a range of BC and Africanist ideas into his eclectic range of political speeches and writings. He also spearheaded an African Renaissance, calling for the rapid and immediate economic development of the continent, albeit largely within existing global relationship patterns of exchange. Aspects of this programme resonate with ideas associated with BC and Africanism – such as the long-standing pan-Africanist campaign for continental unity, a respect for and resurgence of African history, cultural values and practices, and ways of critically challenging the history of Africa’s marginalisation. Moreover, in introducing particular policies that directly attack legacies of apartheid, the Mbeki government justified these policies in terms that BC supporters found familiar, even though the terms may have lacked Biko’s complex and subtle arguments. In doing this, Mbeki aimed to narrow or overcome the gap between ‘two nations’. Given Mbeki’s determined critiques of BC during his years in exile, his ‘I am an African’ speech at the opening of Parliament in 1996, and his ‘Two Nations’ address to the same institution in 1998, demonstrate striking and unexpected overtones of BC. Mbeki adopted an interesting position on the politics of identity in his ‘I am an African’ speech (cited in Mbeki 1998). He emphasised, in his typically poetic way, that his definition of ‘African’ consisted of all the various cultures and significant experiences and events that divide South African society historically. To be African means to be made from multiple cultures and pasts. He proposed Africanness as a unifying identity, the composition of which involves the contributions of all who make up South African society, but which, importantly, sees the history of injustice and the struggle for liberation as essential to its meaning. For Mbeki (1998: 32), ‘being part of all of these people’ constitutes an African identity. He concluded that because of these experiences, a South African, African nation already exists, if it will only recognise that of which it already consists. This strange combination of multicultural and post-structural elements in the African nation contributes to our understanding, but also introduces tensions. Mbeki’s general notion of a renaissance in Africa involving development on all fronts – cultural, economic and political – lends itself, as argued by Chipkin (2007), to a reading of the concept of African in biologically essentialist ways.

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Two years after this speech, frustrated and disappointed with the pace of change and the reluctance of privileged white sectors to embrace ANC initiatives, Mbeki focused on the continuing inequalities between white and black people. He criticised white society for failing to appreciate the legacy and role of apartheid policies in contributing to their material privilege. While reiterating sentiments contained in the concept of ‘colonialism of a special type’, he seemed also to draw on common-sense sentiments associated with BC ideas as framed by Biko. He pointed to the limitations of bourgeois democracy under South Africa’s racially divided social structure: We therefore make bold to say that South Africa is a country of two nations. One of these nations is white, relatively prosperous, regardless of gender or geographic dispersal. It has ready access to a developed economic, physical, educational, communication and other infrastructure. This enables it to argue that, except for the persistence of gender discrimination against women, all members of this nation have the possibility to exercise their right to equal opportunity, the development opportunities to which the Constitution of ’93 committed our country. The second and larger nation of South Africa is black and poor, with the worst affected being women in the rural areas, the black rural population in general and the disabled. This nation lives under conditions of a grossly underdeveloped economic, physical, educational, communication and other infrastructure. It has virtually no possibility to exercise what in reality amounts to a theoretical right to equal opportunity, with that right being equal within this black nation only to the extent that it is equally incapable of realisation. This reality of two nations, underwritten by the perpetuation of the racial, gender and spatial disparities born of a very long period of colonial and apartheid white minority domination, constitutes the material base which reinforces the notion that, indeed, we are not one nation, but two nations. And neither are we becoming one nation. Consequently, also, the objective of national reconciliation is not being realised. (Mbeki 1998: 72) Mbeki’s language won him sympathetic support from some in Azapo, changing dramatically the adversarial relationship between Azapo and the ANC. In 2005, the publicity secretary of Azapo, Don Nkadimeng, wrote that ‘when President

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Thabo Mbeki speaks of two nations in one country, he is speaking of Black Consciousness, and, therefore of Steve Biko’ (The Star 12.09.05). The Mbeki government, on the practical political front, incorporated Azapo into the ruling Cabinet coalition. The leader of Azapo, Mosibudi Mangena, was appointed a deputy minister in 1999 and a full minister in 2004. Other key Azapo members, such as Mojanku Gumbi and Itumeleng Mosala, served in crucial and senior posts in the Mbeki government. This indicates a significant break from the hostile relations between Azapo and the ANC that prevailed just a decade ago. At the national level, this co-operation is purely academic. The ANC’s unassailable electoral support and dominance of the political system does not require it to seek the support of any other party to govern. However, at local and regional levels of government, the trend towards party coalitions seems likely to continue. At these levels of government, the ANC will benefit from co-operative relations with parties it views as like-minded. Parties with similar struggle histories might work together in forming governing coalitions. It is equally salient that in existing governing coalitions – such as the ones governing the City of Cape Town or Beaufort West – party ideologies and histories count for very little. The almost unbelievable coalition formed around the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the City of Cape Town includes six parties from diverse and antagonistic historical and ideological backgrounds. Who could have predicted a coalition government of the DA and the PAC? Does this suggest that history and ideology may not be important determinants of party choices in the future? Will parties act purely out of instrumental interests? We will have to wait for a situation involving Azapo to arise to see whether this softening of past ideology prevails to the extent that it would join DA-headed coalitions. The more interesting and direct influence of BC expresses itself in civil society. This is important because it is at odds with party affiliation, electoral behaviour and dominant discourse. It is common to see young people wearing Steve Biko t-shirts. This would have been quite unthinkable in the 1980s, unless one was a card-carrying member of Azapo, so entrenched was individual identity in political party affiliation. The intense intolerance between parties in that period made it thoroughly insecure for a party member to be found in the wrong place at the wrong time (Murray 1987). Nowadays, no one assumes that by wearing a Biko t-shirt a person is declaring himself or herself an Azapo supporter, or even that the person has any knowledge of BC. At the

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very minimum, it would indicate a superficial identification with a broad conception of BC. Granted, these expressions do not indicate the degree (if at all) to which people embrace BC ideas or the extent of their awareness of BC ideology. They do, nevertheless, suggest some kind of identification. In early 2002, two of the leading popular and competing radio stations in Johannesburg, Radio Metro and YFM, released advertising campaigns to woo listeners. Both stations serve largely black youth constituencies. The station manager of Radio Metro indicated that the ads were part of the ‘What makes you black’ campaign – a familiar theme of the BC movement in the early 1970s. The prominence of the Steve Biko Lecture and other forums that take place throughout the country to commemorate Biko is a new and surprising development. Since its formation, Azapo has commemorated Biko Week, but the events during this week were ignored by the UDF and ANC supporters during the 1980s. Media coverage was also often poor and disappointing. This has changed – now, many organisations not directly associated with Azapo or Sopa remember Biko in a variety of ways. The Steve Biko Lecture, hosted by the University of Cape Town and the Steve Biko Foundation, is now in its sixth year. Organisers of the lecture have invited political heavyweights such as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu as keynote speakers. In addition, internationally recognised African writers such as Ngugi wa Thiongo and Chinua Achebe spoke at this event, which is attended by large audiences and receives extensive national TV coverage. In each of the six years, speakers have reiterated the relevance of BC in contemporary South Africa. Even Mandela, initially a harsh critic of BC during Robben Island debates in the 1970s and while leader of the ANC during the height of violent clashes in the early 1980s between the two traditions, now points out the importance of an ideology of black pride, assertiveness and self-reliance. What accounts for this resurgence of BC ideas? In South Africa, where negotiations produced a constitutional political settlement that left the broader socio-economic capitalist and cultural context relatively intact, unresolved issues play themselves out in a kind of trench warfare. This battle is fought in varied and multiple conflicts on a daily basis. Many of these conflicts take complex class–race expressions, especially where the class–race overlap has not been significantly dented. These conflicts take multiple forms, such as

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challenges to different government policies, selection of sports team members, different interpretations of public practices, and ongoing debates about where responsibility lies for the unaddressed and ongoing patterns that apartheid has left behind. Many more examples can be cited, drawing on a general glance at letters to daily newspapers or from radio discussions on national and local stations in which citizens articulate their views.


These engagements by ordinary citizens resemble what Scott (1985: 1) refers to as ‘small arms fire’ in an ongoing battle for hegemony between dominant and subaltern discourses. Differences between white and black perceptions abound, although a small number who refuse to sit comfortably in either of these groups also exists, and will perhaps grow with time. An integral part of these disputes involves the continuing dominance of Eurocentric values in post-apartheid South Africa, where the majority believes that, in the democratic political system, its will ought to hold. Arguably, this applies to the political world, but relations of domination have not been settled in any other important sphere of the social formation. The dominant culture – in the media, advertising, economics, art – tends to reflect the relations of dominance inherited under apartheid, with white society still controlling the various levers of economic power. More controversially, white liberal discourses have been successful in drawing on and surreptitiously claiming to be custodians of the west, where the latter notion has been used as the standard against which all things in Africa and South Africa under a black government are judged. The non-racial liberalism of the ANC, which the DA and the dominant English-speaking establishment tend to appropriate, makes the ANC increasingly insensitive to having continuously to prove its liberal democratic credentials to quarters whose commitment to a democratic majoritarian South Africa it considers questionable. The growth in social inequality, especially the marginalisation of the poor, and the strengthened discourses embracing liberal individualism, market mechanisms and capitalism, have all increased the relevance of Biko’s ideas. At times, therefore, ANC leaders and the emerging black middle class find drawing on BC and Africanist ideas appealing, as well as historically valid.

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Conclusion


To determine why BC resonates in the democratic period, recall Bishop Tutu’s (2006) words: ‘I have often said that Black Consciousness did not finish the work it had set out to do.’ The significance of BC ideas and practices remains valid in South African society, not least of all because the quest for self-worth and dignity is directly related to the unequal material conditions of life – conditions that specifically made notions of whiteness and blackness seem like common sense. As long as the conditions that produced racial identities in South Africa prevail, the ideas of black assertiveness, black pride and the quest for dignity remain relevant. Biko contended that BC was not a one-off, tap-like mechanism, but a continuous process of contestation and assertiveness and that this process, both internal and external to the individual, would eventually make itself unnecessary. It will simply lose its relevance and fall away. The grinding poverty that Biko wrote about, and its devastating effects on black life and culture, has worsened, or is perceived to have worsened. This accounts for the increase in violence within black communities and makes BC increasingly necessary if the true humanity of apartheid’s victims is to be realised. References Badat MS (1999) Black student politics: Higher education and apartheid from SASO to SANSCO 1968–1990. Pretoria: HSRC Chipkin I (2007) Do South Africans exist? Nationalism, democracy and the identity of ‘The People’. Johannesburg: Wits University Press Fatton R Jnr (1986) Black Consciousness in South Africa: The dialectic of ideological resistance to white supremacy. New York: State University of New York Press Friedman S & Atkinson D (Eds) (1994) The small miracle: South Africa’s negotiated settlement. Johannesburg: Ravan Press Gerhart G (1978) Black power in South Africa: The evolution of an ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press Gibson N (1988) Black Consciousness 1977–1987: The dialectics of liberation in South Africa. Africa Today 35(1): 5–26 Halisi CRD (1999) Black political thought in the making of South African democracy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press

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Hirson B (1979) Year of fire, year of ash. London: Zed Books Lodge T (1983) Black politics in South Africa since 1945. New York: Longman Mbeki T (1998) Africa: The time has come: Selected speeches. Cape Town: Mafube Moodley S (1982) What is Black Consciousness? AZAPO Heroes Day Meeting: workshop handout. Durban, 21 March Murray M (1987) South Africa: Time of agony, time of destiny – the upsurge of popular protest. London: Verso


Mzamane MV, Maaba B & Biko N (2006) The Black Consciousness Movement. In B Ngubane (Ed) The road to democracy in South Africa (1970–1980, Vol. 2). Pretoria: Unisa Press Pityana B, Ramphele M, Mpumlwana M & Wilson L (Eds) (1991) Bounds of possibility: The legacy of Steve Biko and Black Consciousness. Cape Town: David Philip Price R (1990) The apartheid state in crisis. Berkeley: University of California Press Scott JC (1985) Weapons of the weak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press Sisk T (1995) Democratization in South Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Stubbs A (Ed.) (1978) Steve Biko: I write what I like. New York: Harper and Row Tutu D (2006) Sixth Steve Biko Memorial Lecture, 12 September, University of Cape Town Waldmier P (1997) Anatomy of a miracle: The end of apartheid and the birth of the new South Africa. London: Viking

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Part II: Economics


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5

The developmental state in South Africa: The difficult road ahead

Sampie Terreblanche


The new power constellation and growing inequality What the ANC-led government has accomplished over the past 14 years is quite remarkable – especially from a narrow economic growth perspective. The South African economy was in particularly bad shape when the ANC became the dominant party in 1994. The economy had experienced two decades of stagflation, sanctions and disinvestment. The public debt increased from R37 billion in 1985 to R230 billion in 1994. After decades of exploitation and repression, and after two decades of creeping poverty and rising unemployment, the poorer segment of the population (almost exclusively black) was living in abject poverty and destitution. It was indeed going to be an enormous task to get the South African economy going again, to restore its international standing and to reconcile the distributional conflicts that the transformation from the apartheid regime towards a democratic dispensation unleashed. The South African economy was not only in a state of depression, but – as correctly identified by the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) – it was in a ‘deep-seated structural crisis’ after decades of segregation and apartheid. According to the RDP, it was therefore necessary to bring about a ‘fundamental restructuring’ of the economy to eliminate its conspicuous pro-white and pro-rich orientation, and to restructure it in such a way that its orientation could become pro-black and pro-poor. The argument in the RDP was that if the economy that the country inherited from the apartheid period was to remain ‘fundamentally unrestructured’, the ugly socio-economic remnants of apartheid would not be addressed, but would be perpetuated and even augmented (ANC 1994: Paragraph 4.1.1).

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Two versions of restructuring can be identified. The first version is the restructuring brought about by the government’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy. This policy was instrumental in creating a black elite and a black middle class. It is, however, very much a top-down policy that co-opted privileged and well-connected black people into the economic circles of the white elite and white middle class. The BEE strategy has changed the orientation of the economy from being pro-white to becoming somewhat more colour-blind, but it definitely did not change its pro-rich orientation into a pro-poor orientation. More resources and opportunities were, in all probability, transferred from white people to the top 20 per cent of the black population over the past 14 years through BEE and affirmative action than were transferred to the poor segment of the population through social spending and poverty alleviation – especially if we take into account the corruption into which many BEE programmes degenerated. As previous years’ editions of State of the Nation have shown, BEE undoubtedly made a huge contribution to increasing inequality and augmenting poverty. A second restructuring that took place since 1994 has been that the trend towards modernisation and ‘capitalist enclavity’ that started in the 1970s was strongly stimulated by the government’s policy of neo-liberalism, market fundamentalism and globalisation. On the one hand, this trend shifted the dividing line between the rich and the poor to include about 6 million black people in the ranks of the middle class. On the other hand, this trend not only deepened the chasm between the poor and the rich, but also strengthened the pro-rich and pro-global orientation of the modern sector of the economy. This version of restructuring was – from the perspective of the impoverished section of the population – very much the wrong kind of restructuring. It intensified the systemic exclusion of the poor and brought about a much more unequal distribution of income. For all practical purposes, 45 to 50 per cent of the population is presently living in poverty, while the other half is living comfortably, is rich or even very rich, something that led former President Thabo Mbeki to conclude that South Africa has two economies: the first economy and the second economy. It is important, however, to emphasise that South Africa does not have two economies, but rather a single integrated economy. It is only the inhabitants who are living as if in two worlds – the poor in a highly underdeveloped and stagnant environment, and the rich in a highly developed and prosperous

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T he developmental state in S A : T he difficult road ahead


environment. The so-called second economy is nothing but an ugly remnant of the underdevelopment that was created on the periphery of the capitalist core during the twentieth century, when the core prospered by exploiting the people and the resources on the periphery. The ‘development of underdevelopment’ that occurred on the colonial periphery of many empires in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries also occurred in South Africa (Bush 2006; Howe 2002; Munck 2005). According to the South Africa Human Development Report of the United Nations, the percentage of the population that is living below the poverty line decreased from 51.1 per cent in 1995 to 48.5 per cent in 2002. However, given that the population grew during the same period, the total number of poor increased from 20.2 million in 1995 to 21.9 million in 2002 (UNDP 2003: Table 2.20). According to the same report, poverty became more severe. The Gini coefficient for South Africa increased from 0.665 in 1994 to 0.685 in 2006, suggesting that income inequality is becoming worse (The Presidency 2007: 22). Alarmingly, the poorest 20 per cent of the population, which is approximately 10 million people, received only 1.7 per cent of total income in 2006, while the richest 20.0 per cent of the population, which is also approximately 10 million people, received 72.5 per cent of total income (The Presidency 2007: 21).1 Viewed against this background, the new ANC-dominated government has, as some analysts have suggested, hardly made an attempt to bring about a fundamental restructuring of the apartheid–colonial accumulation path as demanded by the RDP. Jeremy Cronin, the deputy secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), has correctly alleged that ‘for big business, moving beyond apartheid has not meant the abolition of the apartheid-colonial accumulation path, but rather its perpetuation in the [new] political conditions’ (Mail & Guardian 01–07.06.07). This chapter considers the above issues against the backdrop of recent announcements by the ANC and its alliance partners, the SACP and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, that South Africa is becoming a developmental state, while at the same time saying little about fundamental policy changes. I will show in this chapter that the South African version of free-market capitalism has not only become much stronger, but also more fully integrated into the US-controlled system of neo-liberal global capitalism. The only deviations from a free-market approach are the BEE and affirmative action policies, but they are neither comprehensive enough to address the

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problems of poverty and inequality, nor designed to restructure the economy fundamentally. In the final two sections of this chapter, I will demonstrate just how difficult it will be to restructure the South African system into a truly developmental state. The chapter will focus on three major shifts that have taken place in the ANC’s general economic approach over the past 14 years: • the shift from promising a people-centred society towards complacency, denialism and boundless optimism; • the shift from a vibrant civil society during the struggle period towards the restructuring of a (new) state–society relationship and towards democratic centralism; and • most importantly, the shift away from a fundamental restructuring of the South African economy (as was envisaged in the RDP) to address the ‘deep-seated structural crisis’ towards a strengthening of neo-liberal capitalism, which makes it extremely difficult to institutionalise the envisaged developmental state.

From promising a people-centred society towards denialism and boundless optimism On 24 May 1994, during his ‘State of the Nation’ address in Parliament, the then president Nelson Mandela declared that the restoration of the poor and the destitute would be the centrepiece of the new government’s social policy. He said, inter alia, that his ‘government’s commitment to create a peoplecentred society of liberty binds us to the pursuit of the goals of freedom from want, freedom from hunger, freedom from deprivation, freedom from ignorance, freedom from suppression and freedom from fear’ (Mandela 1994: 5). These words of Mandela were beautiful and encouraging, and inspired us with optimism about the future of the new South Africa. In his ‘State of the Nation’ address on 6 February 2004, before the 2004 election, Thabo Mbeki committed his government unconditionally to the same ‘vision of creating a people-centred society’ as Mandela had announced 10 years earlier (Mbeki 2004: 3). He did it, however, in completely different circumstances. It was then already clear that very little headway had been made in the previous 10 years towards creating a people-centred society. For the poorer half of the population, these lofty commitments of 1994 and 2004 proved by 2008 to be nothing but empty promises. After 14 years of

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democracy, South Africa is anything but a people-centred society, the frontiers of human fulfilment and freedom have not been expanded for the poor and the government institutions that were created do not serve the impoverished. But in spite of this, Mbeki claimed in his 2004 ‘State of the Nation’ address that ‘we already have the policies and programmes that will enable us to translate all the strategic objectives…into a material factor in achieving the goals of the expansion of the frontiers of human fulfilment, and the continuous extension of the frontiers of the freedom, of which Nelson Mandela spoke a decade ago’ (Mbeki 2004: 9). The argument that it is unrealistic to expect the government to solve the social problem bequeathed to the ANC government in 1994 after hundreds of years of segregation and apartheid in just 14 years has some merit. But the poorer half of the population are living in deteriorating socioeconomic conditions because existing poverty alleviation measures are not forceful or comprehensive enough to stop the relentless pauperisation process in its tracks. The deterioration in the socio-economic position of the poorest half of the population is, however, not only the consequence of wrong policy choices – that is, giving too high a priority to BEE and affirmative action – but mainly the result of wrong systemic choices – that is, the ANC’s choices to perpetuate neo-liberal capitalism, to give the corporate sector more leeway, and to integrate South Africa into the structures of global capitalism with undue haste. When we compare socio-economic realities in South Africa 14 years after the ANC came into power with Mbeki’s hyperbolic promises of 2004, together with his complacent attitude that all the institutions and policies necessary to attain these promises are already in place, then we, as concerned observers, have every reason to feel despondent. It is illuminating to compare the content of the ANC’s National Democratic Revolution (NDR) with the ANC policy approach over the past 14 years. In the ANC’s 1997 Strategy and Tactics document, the strategic objective of the NDR is described as follows: The strategic object of the NDR is the creation of a united, nonracial, non-sexist and democratic society…April 1994 constitutes a platform from which to launch this programme of social transformation. What this revolution still has to accomplish, is to overcome the legacy of a social system that was based on the oppression of the black majority. Political freedom constitutes an important part of this mandate. However, without social justice,

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such freedom will remain hollow, the pastime of those who can make ends meet. (ANC 1997: 10)


Since April 1994, the ANC has had at its disposal a political platform from which to launch its programme of social transformation to address the legacy of apartheid and to restore social justice. But the truth of the matter is that, although political and administrative transformation has been brought about, the ANC has not used state power over the past 14 years to bring about the necessary economic restructuring and social transformation to restore social justice. The ANC is not prepared to acknowledge the deteriorating socio-economic position of the poorer half of the population. This kind of denialism is inexcusable.2 The ANC does, however, often concede that poverty, unemployment and inequality remain very serious socio-economic problems and emphasises its determination to find solutions for these problems (ANC 2007). At the same time, the ANC remains naïvely optimistic that it can solve these problems in the foreseeable future. It has regularly promised that it will halve levels of poverty and unemployment by 2014 – something that seems highly unlikely. If the ANC policy approach and the economic system remain more or less unchanged for, say, the next 20 years, the levels of poverty and unemployment in 2028 will (in percentage terms), in all probability, still not be half of what they are in 2008. In spite of the apparent insolubility of the problems of poverty, unemployment and inequality, the ANC remains quite convinced that the macroeconomic and other economic and social policies are the correct ones and that no new policy initiatives are necessary. In the final paragraphs of his ‘State of the Nation’ address in Parliament on 11 February 2005, Mbeki expressed almost boundless optimism about the government’s policy programmes and about the future of South Africa. According to him: Our country, as a united nation, has never in its entire history enjoyed such a confluence of encouraging possibilities. On behalf of our government, we commend our programme to the country, confident that its implementation will help to place us on the high road towards ensuring that we become a winning nation and that we play our role towards the renewal of Africa and the creation of a better world. Acting together, we do have the capacity to realise

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these objectives. And sparing neither effort nor strength, we can and shall build a South Africa that truly belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity! (Mbeki 2005) This kind of optimism was and is not justifiable. It can be regarded as a pretext for the postponement and even the abandonment of the social question.


From vibrant civil society to a strictly structured state–society relationship Historians regard the 1990s as an important formative period in South Africa’s history. During this decade, the ANC leadership was pressurised from two sides. On the one hand, local and foreign business pressurised it to liberalise the economy and to re-engage it as quickly as possible into global capitalism. On the other hand, the broad-based social movement pressurised it to implement an agenda favouring economic democratisation, socioeconomic development and poverty alleviation. Given the balance of forces in South Africa and in the world – after the implosion of the Soviet Union and the consolidation of global capitalism – the leadership core of the ANC reached a compromise or a social contract with local and foreign business in the early 1990s. This contract determined the rules according to which the economic game was going to be played in the new South Africa. According to these rules, corporatism – both local and global – was put in a dominant position and the new government in a subservient position (Gumede 2005; Johnson 2004; Terreblanche 2002). South Africa became fully integrated into the power and ideology of global capitalism (that is, South Africa became the newest outpost of the American empire) at a time when the Americans were in an exuberant mood of triumphalism about the alleged virtues (and the inevitability) of neo-liberal capitalism, globalism and market fundamentalism (Colás & Saull 2006). The most remarkable characteristic of the transition period was that the leadership core of the ANC was prepared to swallow unceremoniously the power of global corporatism and the ideologies of neo-liberalism and market fundamentalism (Terreblanche 2002).3 As soon as corporate dominance and US-controlled globalism were institutionalised in the politico-economic system of the new South Africa,

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the manoeuvring space of the new government was closed to such an extent that it could no longer maintain its decades-long social contract with the social movements (Colás & Saull 2006; Gallagher 2005). It became imperative, therefore, for the new government to establish new rules to regulate state– society relations. The institutionalisation of these rules happened in different stages. In the first stage – mainly during the first half of the 1990s – civil society was demobilised and deprived of the highly politicised role it had played during the struggle period. In the second stage – mainly during the second half of the 1990s – large parts of civil society (mainly the larger NGOs) were co-opted as social partners in the delivery of services and the consolidation of state power (Johnson 2002). Several events during the first half of the 1990s made it easier for the leadership core of the ANC to demobilise civil society. We can identify at least three factors that had a paralysing effect on civil society. Firstly, foreign donor funds were either completely suspended or redirected by the ANC. This created a survival crisis for many NGOs that made it relatively easy for the new government to co-opt these organisations into its own organisational structures. Secondly, a significant number of senior civil society leaders during the struggle period migrated upwards to occupy senior political, bureaucratic or private sector positions (Kotzé 2004). Thirdly, after the defeat of apartheid, many civil society organisations slumped into an existential crisis, doubting their own purpose and direction. The struggle against the apartheid regime was clear and it co-ordinated a plethora of community-based organisations (CBOs) to form a well-disciplined army – literally and figuratively. After 1994 the new enemy adopted many faces: poverty, unemployment, landlessness, crime, violence, HIV/AIDS, and so on. To effectively mobilise the people against an enemy with so many faces proved to be an almost impossible task (Barchiesi 2004). As the government remains a captive of corporate dominance and globalism – and as the larger NGOs become increasingly involved in service delivery – signs emerge of a civil society revival in the ranks of smaller CBOs. These organisations are responding to the basic needs grievances of the poor in a situation of worsening poverty. The ANC would make a serious mistake to underestimate the hostility that lurks in the ranks of the large number of new CBOs (Greenstein 2004; Kotzé 2004).

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The restructuring of state–society relations by the ANC has not only redefined the rules regulating those relations, but also has decisive implications for participatory democracy and people-driven development. The rhetoric of the ANC, before and after 1994, is explicit about its commitment to participatory, people-driven democracy. In ‘The State and Social Transformation’, an ANC discussion document inspired by Thabo Mbeki, popular participation in governance is promised in the following terms: The empowerment of the people to participate in the process of governance, expressed in the concept of a people-centred society and people-driven processes of transformation, indicates the centrality of the concept of popular and participatory democracy to the democratic movement’s understanding of the function of a democratic state. It shows the commitment of this movement to the proclamation in the Freedom Charter that ‘The People Shall Govern!’ It is the process of the people becoming their own governors. (ANC 1996: Paragraph 4.11.1.1) It suits the ANC to create the impression (or illusion) among the members of its support base that political and decision-making power is vested in their hands, and also to believe that these members are prepared – or have been until now – to swallow the propaganda about their alleged power and influence. Democracy, however, is not only about voting in elections that are held every five years. It is, to an important degree, also about a vibrant and independent civil society that is organised in such a manner that it can hold the government accountable in an orderly way for its decision-making and policy initiatives. It is widely accepted that under Thabo Mbeki in particular, the governance style of the ANC has indeed become much more centralised, technocratic and intolerant. Decision-making is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the president and in the bureaucratic office of the presidency. The president has extraordinary power over the appointment of people to strategic positions. Members of Parliament are elected on a proportional basis. This practice places huge party political power in the hands of the National Executive Committee (NEC). The claim of the people becoming their own masters is indeed far-fetched.

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Conditions for institutionalising a developmental state


As indicated in the introduction to this chapter, the ANC-led government has not been unmindful of the prevalence of poverty in South Africa. In his ‘State of the Nation’ address in 2004, Mbeki declared that the government’s struggle against poverty and underdevelopment rests on three pillars (Mbeki 2004): • encouraging the growth and development of the first economy, so increasing its ability to create jobs; • implementing the government’s programme to address the challenges of the second economy; and • building a social security net to meet the objectives of poverty alleviation. The government has attained reasonable, albeit rather skewed, results with two of its three policy pillars. Its intervention in the first economy played a constructive role in creating macroeconomic conditions conducive to attaining an annual growth rate of almost 4 per cent over the past 14 years. However, the government’s assumption that a high growth rate in the first economy (or in the capitalist enclave) will have a sufficient trickle-down effect has proved to be unjustified. It is rather naïve to think that the perpetuation of the apartheid–colonial accumulation path will be to the advantage of the impoverished half of the population. The government’s policy initiative to build a social security net to meet the objectives of poverty alleviation has been less successful. Between 2003 and 2007, social assistance support grants increased from R37 billion to R62 billion, or from 2.9 per cent of the GDP to 3.2 per cent (The Presidency 2007: 25). This in itself is no mean accomplishment. Unfortunately, the social grants system does not constitute an effective poverty net. Millions of people with very little (if any) income – who ought to receive social grants – do not receive them. This is the case with approximately 10 million able-bodied men and women between 14 and 65 years of age who are unemployed, inadequately employed or unemployable. The real problem with the ANC’s three-pillar policy approach is that its initiatives to address the daunting challenges of the second economy have failed dismally, with the result that the social question has become much more severe. In its Development Report of 2005, the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) concludes that although the ‘government has taken concrete steps to launch a number of [developmental] interventions [in the

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second economy]…a sober examination of government’s efforts leads to the conclusion that, despite some successes and useful experiences, it has merely dabbled thus far, especially if the increased number of the poor is considered’ (DBSA 2005: 98).4 The conclusion of the DBSA’s Development Report of 2005 is valuable, but it clearly does not penetrate to the real reasons why the government intervention in the so-called second economy has been unsuccessful. The real reason is locked up in the government’s structural inability to institutionalise a developmental state in the economy at large. I argue that to overcome the two-economy divide with a developmental approach – as was again envisaged at the policy conference of the ANC in June 2007 – the government will have to surmount at least four stumbling blocks, which, given the ANC’s present economic policy and the nature of the post-apartheid power constellation, are clearly insurmountable. The first stumbling block is the lack of capacity in the public sector. An efficient and well-disciplined public sector is a sine qua non for a developmental approach. We need public servants dedicated to their public task and with the ability to think strategically. Unfortunately, the public sector in South Africa cannot live up to the developmental challenge. Several factors can be blamed for this sorry state of affairs. When the corporate sector convinced the ANC in the early 1990s to accept neo-liberal capitalism and market fundamentalism, the slogan of the day was that the private sector would deliver and that the bureaucratic state was in any event being rolled back worldwide. To make matters worse, the public sector was ‘Africanised’ too quickly over the past 14 years as part and parcel of the government’s affirmative action and BEE policies. Because of a lack of adequate education and experience in black circles – as part of the ugly legacy of apartheid – the public sector is presently not only highly inefficient, but also ineffective. Instead of displaying a culture of service, the public sector has become renowned for careerism, nepotism and even corruption, while many of its senior officials are guilty of doubtful moral behaviour. Education should have been prioritised to a much larger degree since 1994 (Naidoo 2005; Sole 2005). The second stumbling block is the business culture of materialism, individualism and the obsession with the bottom line that was cultivated in South Africa during the periods of racial capitalism and globalisation. In his first speech in Parliament on 24 May 1994, President Mandela declared

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that the ANC was committed to creating a people-centred society in South Africa to restore the dignity of each and every individual. It is regrettable that very little of this society or of a people-centred morality has been created in leadership circles in either the public or the private sector over the past 14 years. The final section of this chapter covers this issue in more detail.5 The third stumbling block is the huge bargaining power that organised businesspeople living in the modern sector of the economy wield, compared to the extreme powerlessness of the rather disorganised population living in poverty. The huge bargaining power of organised business is based on the elite pact that was negotiated between the leadership core of the ANC and local and global corporatism. Over the past 14 years, this elite pact was strengthened through strategic concessions to the corporate sector. It was also assiduously maintained and, with it, the policy approach of neo-liberalism, market fundamentalism and globalisation. The terms of this elite pact restrict the ANC government’s sovereignty to act effectively on behalf of the poor, as is also the case with other governments in the global South. As indicated, the powerlessness of the impoverished part of the population is the result of the new state–society relations structured by the ANC since the early 1990s. As long as the skewed power relations remain intact – that is, as long as the present rules regulating state–society and state–economy relations remain institutionalised – it will be almost impossible for the ANC government to shift its policy approach to prioritising the poor instead of the rich. When Thabo Mbeki talked about the three pillars on which the fight against poverty and underdevelopment rests, he created the impression that interventions in the so-called first and second economy can be independent from each other. This is a serious misconception. To think that it is possible to intervene successfully in the so-called second economy, while neo-liberal capitalism and globalism remain intact in the first economy, is unrealistic, because South Africa has only one interwoven economy. If the ANC government wants to introduce a developmental approach that will be successful in the fight against unemployment and poverty, the two economies will have to be fundamentally restructured. Put differently, the project to introduce a successful developmental approach cannot only be a governmental or public sector project. It has to be a project of the public and the private sectors at the same time. The powerful corporations in the private sector

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(and especially monopoly capitalism) will have to give their full co-operation in turning around the strong – far too strong – tendency towards capitalist enclavity, growing capital intensity, and greater engagement of the modern sector in the system of neo-liberal global capitalism. To restructure the South African economy into an economy that will serve the population at large – that is, all 48 million people and not only the wealthier sections of the population – the government will have to concentrate mainly on remoulding the institutional structures and the business culture of the corporate sector in the modern part of the economy. The Strategy and Tactics (ANC 2007) document that was drafted for the policy conference of the ANC in June 2007 indicates that the ANC – not to mention the corporate sector – does not have the slightest idea of how fundamental and wide-ranging an intervention in the modern sector would have to be ‘to ensure that private corporations conduct themselves in a socially beneficial manner so that the benefits of growth are shared by all’ (Netshitenzhe 2007). It seems that the ANC’s knowledge and understanding of the corporate sector’s power, its ideological mentality and its hostility towards people-centred state intervention is dangerously restricted (see ANC 2007). The corporate sector’s experience during the apartheid–colonial accumulation path in the twentieth century has spoiled it into thinking that the only real state intervention that is permissible is for the state to do some heavy lifting for the corporate sector to enhance and promote its profitability. On the road towards a developmental state, it will be necessary for the government to introduce comprehensive additional measures to redistribute income as well as property, and to install new networks of rewards and penalties to induce the private sector to act in socially beneficial ways or in ways that will benefit the poor. The government is faced with the enormous challenges of designing and implementing a developmental state model that will be neither an emulation of the Asian development strategy (because it thrived on inequality), nor an emulation of the (too expensive) Scandinavian economic model. To be effective in South African circumstances, the chosen model will have to be ‘cleaned’ from many of the characteristics of the prevailing Anglo-American economic model. It is highly unlikely that the corporate sector will co-operate in this endeavour. The corporate sector is unfortunately too powerful, too

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spoiled and too selfish to support the ANC in any meaningful way in the search for an appropriate developmental model. The fourth – and perhaps the most stubbornly insurmountable – stumbling block on the path to a developmental state is South Africa’s extensive involvement in the American empire and the consequent stranglehold of global institutions on the government’s policy-making process. The key global institutions, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization, the Washington Consensus, international monetary institutions and credit rating agencies, as well as the transnational corporations do not promote development in the global South as they claim to. Instead, they seek to incorporate only the propertied classes and the privileged groups in developing countries into the global economy game. This is because it is not advantageous for the wealthy North to incorporate the less productive factors (Munck 2005; Saul 2006; Scholte 1997).6 In the 35 years before the neo-liberal counter-revolution (the 35 years after the Second World War) the state, in all industrialised countries, was authorised to maintain full employment and to promote greater social justice through the expansion of the welfare state. During the post-war Golden Age, developed countries were also involved in stimulating meaningful development in developing countries. After the Reagan ‘turn’ of the early 1980s, full employment was replaced with the idea that the productivity of the employed workers must be as high as possible to ensure competitiveness in global markets. This led to unemployment rates of more than 10 per cent in European countries, and of more than 30 per cent in many developing countries in the global South. The welfare state was retrenched in many countries, and the promotion of social justice was replaced by anti-statism, by deregulation of the corporate sector, by the liberation of trade and by the slogan ‘rolling back the state’. The developmental approach of rich countries in the developing world was replaced by the structural adjustment programmes implemented by the Bretton Woods Institutions. These programmes were responsible for a sharp decline in the GDP per capita of Africa and Latin America vis-à-vis the GDP per capita of the North.7 Although the neo-liberal counter-revolution may have promoted growth in some countries (and enriched the USA compared to other countries in the North), it weakened the bargaining power of labour dramatically and caused a sharp global decline in

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the share of GDP allocated in wages to labour (Arrighi 2004; Held & KoenigArchiburgi 2003).8 The American empire is, like its British predecessor, an exploitative empire. But in sharp contrast with the British Empire, the American empire (and its partners in the North) does not exploit through politically controlled colonies. The American empire is a post-colonial empire. It acknowledges the independence of all of the approximately 180 countries in it, with the exception of the few rogue states. From the American point of view, the frontiers of almost all countries are closed, but the condition on which the independence of these countries is acknowledged is that they should practise good governance and keep their markets open for the infiltration of transnational corporations and for financial speculation by large international financial institutions. Therefore, the US and its allies in the North exert their imperialistic exploitation, through closed frontiers and open markets. The rules according to which the global economic game is played in this system are continually rewritten by the US to serve its interests better. According to these rules, a comprehensive system of rewards and penalties has been introduced to regulate the global economy to the advantage of the US, the other countries in the wealthy North and the privileged groups in the global South, mostly to the detriment of the majority in the global South (Colás & Saull 2006; Evans 2005).9 Mbeki aptly described the unequal power relations between the rich North and the poor South as a system of global apartheid. As long as this system remains in place, it is almost inevitable that the poorer half of the South African population will remain systemically excluded from meaningful development, as is the case with the poorer half of the population in most of the countries in the poor South, especially in Africa. The propagandists of free-market or neo-liberal capitalism claim that the advantages of economic growth will, in due course, spread to every corner of the globe. According to them, the collective wisdom of the global market mechanism ensures that market prices reflect the true value of all goods, and that neo-liberal global capitalism will spontaneously promote the global social value (or the global general interest). This is not only a fallacious claim by the free marketeers, but also a very dangerous one. In addition, it is based on very poor economics. It is simply not true that market prices reflect the true value of goods – not within countries, and even less between countries on global markets. According to

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Amartya Sen, there is no such thing as the market outcome (or the correct market price), because the prices determined by markets depend on what the enabling conditions are and on how equal (or unequal) the distribution of property, power and information is. Those with marketable property (both physical and human property), and those with economic power and access to information, are constantly twisting market prices in their favour. Those without marketable property, such as labour without adequate education or skills, and those without bargaining power are systemically excluded from the market. These people are declared valueless in global markets (Sen 2006).10 A free-market or neo-liberal global capitalist system has always been – and will remain – a fundamentally immoral phenomenon. On the one hand, it enriches and empowers the privileged and the propertied classes, the majority of which live in the North. A minority live in the global South. This minority is co-opted on lucrative terms as collaborators by the American empire. On the other hand, neo-liberal global capitalism is impoverishing and disempowering the small underclass in the North and the poor majority in the South that are without bargaining power, without property and without skills. According to the logic of market fundamentalism, the poor – both in the North and the South – are systemically excluded because these global markets regard them as worthless and not productive enough to be integrated into the global economic game (Held & Koenig-Archiburgi 2003; Munck 2005).11 On the one hand, the unequal distribution of power, property and income in South Africa is deeply embedded in South Africa’s century-long history of colonialism of a special type. On the other, it is systemically linked to the growing inequalities in the distribution of power, property and income between the rich North and the poor South over the past 25 years. It is unfortunate – and perhaps even tragic – that the strong trends towards growing inequality in accordance with the logic of neo-liberal global capitalism were – so to speak – superimposed in 1994 on the huge inequalities that the apartheid–colonial accumulation path produced.

Conclusion: the difficult road ahead To explain the relative economic powerlessness of the ANC government within the system of US-controlled neo-liberal global capitalism, it is illuminating

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to present the (new) power constellation, which was institutionalised as a result of the elite pact of the early 1990s, as a ‘power bloc’ composed of four elements. It is this power constellation that poses serious challenges to the institutionalisation of a developmental state in South Africa. Each element is represented by an important city: • Johannesburg represents the local corporate sector, with economic power and property concentrated mainly in the hands of white people. • New York represents the transnational corporations and the system of neoliberal global capitalism, and also the power and property concentrated in the hands of 2 billion rich and privileged people in the world. • Pretoria represents the political power of the ANC government. This power is concentrated, within the system of proportional representation, in the hands of the NEC and (to an even larger extent) in the hands of the presidency. • Washington represents the ideologies of neo-liberalism, market fundamentalism and growthmanship (or the trickle-down myth), and also the military and imperial power of the US (that is, the American empire). The South African system of neo-liberal capitalism, and the power constellation (J–NY–P–W) on which it is based, does have its advantages. It created conditions conducive to the annual growth rate of almost 4 per cent that was attained over the past 14 years. It allows those with accumulated economic power and property to accumulate much more economic power and property. This economic system and the power constellation operate, however, in an unfriendly way towards the poorer half of the population. Consequently, the new power constellation and the new economic system are dysfunctional, as was the case with the economic system during the apartheid period, because they do not serve the population at large. If you were to ask me which one of the four ‘links’ in the South African ‘power chain’ is the weakest, the answer is rather obvious – it is Pretoria. If you were to ask me which one is the strongest, then it is rather difficult to answer because the other three ‘links’ are – at least from an ideological perspective – so much in cahoots with one another that they often operate as a single or united power bloc. Within the South African power constellation, the ANC government does not have enough sovereignty, and also not enough power, authority or capacity,

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to do what it ought to do to address the ugly socio-economic legacy of 100 years of the apartheid–colonial accumulation path. The ANC government is, therefore, a weak government. To compensate for its relative powerlessness, more and more political power is concentrated in the hands of the presidency and the NEC. This cannot solve the problem, however, of its powerlessness vis-à-vis the Johannesburg–New York–Washington ‘power chain’. As long as the ANC government remains a ‘captive’ of this ‘power chain’, it will remain too powerless to address the social questions inherited from the apartheid regime in a proper manner. It would, however, be wrong to allege that the worsening of South Africa’s social problems over the past 14 years should be blamed exclusively on global corporatism and global capitalism. Although the government’s sovereignty is restricted – as is also the case with other developing countries in the global South – the government does have sovereignty and manoeuvring space, even though these are restricted. The government has not used its restricted sovereignty and restricted manoeuvring space within the global power structure judiciously. Its BEE and affirmative action policies were driven too hard. Consequently, the ANC’s policy approach was too elitist. Instead of using its restricted sovereignty on behalf of the poor, the ANC government used it mainly to promote the interests of the emerging black middle class. An intriguing question is whether the conditionalities of the Washington Consensus would have allowed the ANC government to use its restricted sovereignty for a pro-poor instead of a pro-rich policy approach (Terreblanche 2002). It is important for us to have a clear understanding of the role played by economic power and property in the power constellation of the South African neo-liberal capitalist system. In accordance with the principle of market fundamentalism, those with economic (or corporate) power and property (both personal and physical) have become richer over the past 14 years, while those without economic power and property have become poorer. For a century, from approximately 1890 to 1990, white people enjoyed power and privileges that enabled them to accumulate more economic power and property in an unjust politico-economic system that enriched white people (partially) undeservedly and impoverished black people (partially) undeservedly. With the transition, white people were granted the privilege to ‘carry over’ their economic power and property almost intact into the new

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South Africa. If white people had been given this privilege to carry over their economic power and property into an economic system that operates in an indisputably pro-poor manner, then, I suppose, it would have been in order. Then, I suppose, there would have been method in the madness. But this is not what happened. White people were given the privilege to carry over their economic power and property (also the part accumulated undeservedly) into a neo-liberal and globally orientated economic system that operates strongly in favour of the rich, that is, in favour of the old white owners of wealth and in favour of the new black owners of wealth. We can therefore regard this decision as a double madness. We should not be surprised that approximately 70 per cent of white people are today much better off than they were 14 years ago and that the new (largely artificially created) black middle class also benefits quite handsomely from the system that operates strongly in favour of the rich.12 The additional economic power and property accumulated since 1994 by the (old) white economic elite and by the (new) black economic elite within the J–NY–P–W power constellation – given its strong pro-rich inclination – creates serious problems. The arrogance and smugness to which many wealthy people – both white and black – are inclined is to be deplored. These people are apparently of the opinion that their wealth and status are the singular result of their own worthiness and that they (or their parents or grandparents) are not the beneficiaries of politico-economic systems (or power constellations) that operated in their favour and enriched them out of proportion to their own merit. At the same time they display an unsympathetic and indifferent attitude towards the sorry plight of the poor. We are confronted with the rather cruel reality that the majority of white people who were already wealthy in 1994 – partially due to the apartheid– colonial accumulation path – are now much wealthier as a result of the pro-rich economic system that was re-institutionalised in 1994, while the majority of black people who were already poor in 1994 – as a consequence of apartheid – are now even poorer as a result of the fact that the new economic system operates to their detriment! The condition according to which the transition from the apartheid power constellation to the new J–NY–P–W power constellation took place was of such a nature that apartheid is, at least from a socio-economic point of view, not dead, and that the poverty of apartheid is being perpetuated and augmented by a formidable power

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constellation that is legitimised worldwide by the (doubtful) ideology of market fundamentalism. To address the contradictory and immoral situation in place in South Africa since 1994, we have no choice but to replace the US-controlled system of neoliberal global capitalism with an appropriate developmental state system. But the successful introduction of such a developmental state would necessitate a new power constellation and a new ideological orientation that would truly be sensitive to the developmental needs of the poor and that would take seriously the NDR strategic objectives of social transformation and the restoration of social justice. But if the successful introduction of a developmental state necessitates a new power constellation – a new state–society relationship, new state–economy rules and a new ideological orientation – how will this be attained? The answer to this critical question is fairly obvious: the ANC will not only have to revise its strictly structured state–society relations, but it will also have to renegotiate the terms of the elite pact (the state–economy rules) to regain its original commitment to state sovereignty, participatory democracy and a people-centred society. But are these power shifts at all possible? Probably not. I have, therefore, reason to fear that the social question will remain unresolved and that the poor will remain trapped for the foreseeable future in poverty and destitution. This is South Africa’s ultimate conundrum. Notes 1

South Africa’s per capita GDP, corrected for purchasing power parity, was US$11 200 per annum in 2004, making it the 55th wealthiest country in the world. However, the strikingly poor social indicators in South Africa resulted in a Human Development Index (HDI) ranking of 121 (out of 177 countries) in 2004 (UNDP 2006: 283–287). South Africa is one of a few countries with such skewed – and increasingly more skewed – relations between per capita income and the HDI ranking. In 2004 the difference of 66 between the GDP per capita ranking (55 out of 177 countries) and its HDI ranking (121 out of 177 countries) was the third largest in the world after Equatorial Guinea (with a difference of 90) and Botswana (with a difference of 73). South Africa’s HDI ranking declined from 85 in 1990 to 121 in 2004 (UNDP 2003: 44; UNDP 2006: 283). This downward trend reflects the serious deterioration of the socio-economic condition of the inhabitants of the so-called second economy.

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2

When President Mbeki was asked in Parliament on 18 May 2006 about the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) statistics on South Africa’s Human Development ranking, his reply was that ‘the UNDP statistics are wrong, definitely wrong’ (Hansard 18 May 2006).

3

The implications of the elite compromise were perhaps as far-reaching and as important in determining South Africa’s destiny in the twenty-first century as was the incorporation of South Africa as an outpost of the British Empire in the 20 years after gold was discovered in 1886. Until 1994, South Africa was aptly described as the last outpost of the already defunct British Empire. The power constellation that was institutionalised by Britain early in the twentieth century in South Africa was perpetuated by the two white immigrant groups until 1994. We have reason to be concerned about how long South Africa – as the newest outpost of the American empire – will retain this status in the twenty-first century.

4

The Report blames this failure on ‘the apparent absence of a coherent, scaleappropriate strategy for the second economy, [while] a fundamental shortcoming of current efforts is a tendency to design assistance in a way that does not suit the ordinary poor person’ (DBSA 2005: 98–99).

5

What is really disconcerting, however, is the sharp contrast between the reductionist individualism and the blatant materialism of a large part of the wealthy white and black elite, on the one side, and the need for a people-centred morality on behalf of the people living in poverty, on the other. It will be very difficult to cultivate an attitude of empathy and compassion towards the poor by the rich segment of people among whose ranks a relentless capitalist mentality reigns supreme.

6

The liberation of trade and the emphasis put by the US on the productivity of employed labour (instead of on attaining full employment) and on global competitiveness has been very advantageous for the US. In contrast with Europe, the US has abolished almost all elements of the social democratic model (such as unemployment insurance and minimum wages) to create a flexible labour market. By importing huge volumes of cheap consumer goods mainly from China, the US can maintain relatively low wage levels and perpetuate its strong position in global markets. Scholte describes labour’s loss of bargaining power as follows: ‘Faced with (the) transworld reach and mobility of capital, labour – for which border controls remain very real indeed – has seen its bargaining position vis-à-vis management substantially weakened in the late twentieth century…Considerable evidence can be marshalled to link contemporary globalisation to global income inequalities, greater job insecurity, and so on’ (Scholte 1997: 6).

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7

The GDP per capita of Africa south of the Sahara (South Africa included) and Latin America declined as a percentage of the North’s GDP per capita from 3.6 per cent and 17.6 per cent respectively in 1980 to 2.0 per cent and 12.3 per cent respectively in 2000 (Arrighi 2004: 4).

8

Jan Nederveen Pieterse comes to the firm conclusion that ‘neoliberal policies are largely responsible for rapidly growing inequality in the past [three] decades’. The income gap between the 20 per cent of the world’s people living in the richest countries and the 20 per cent in the poorest countries was 11 to 1 in 1914, 30 to 1 in 1960, 60 to 1 in 1990, 74 to 1 in 1997 and is now approaching 80 to 1 (Pieterse 2004: 63, 76).

9

According to Evans, the IMF and more or less 200 international financial institutions are in a strategic position to compel the South to act in ways that increase these countries’ vulnerability: ‘[These] powerful global financial actors are systematically biased in a way that stifles developmental initiatives in the global South…[They] foster a level of volatility and systemic risk that limits capital flows and increases the vulnerability of the global South to destructive financial risk. The South suffers from both national-level constraints and global fragility’ (Evans 2005: 196–197).

10 Presently 1 billion members of a potential global labour force of 3 billion are unemployed, while 3 billion people are living on less than $2 a day. The global markets accord no ‘value’ to these potential labourers and to these poor consumers. In accordance with the ‘collective wisdom’ of global markets, these labourers and consumers are worthless and they will remain worthless as long as the US-controlled system of neo-liberal global capitalism remains in place. 11 John Sitton is correct when he alleges the following: ‘For all its bravado contemporary [neo-liberal global] capitalism is at an impasse. It continues to form powerful forces of production yet is apparently incapable of applying these forces so as to satisfy the basic needs of the world’s population. There is economic growth, but also mass poverty and environmental destruction’ (Sitton 2003: 1). 12 From April 1994 until October 2007, house prices have increased in real terms by an index of 100 to 270 and the JSE All-Share Index by 100 to 240. From a narrow economic point of view, white people have never had it as good as over the past 14 years (Absa house price index).

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References ANC (African National Congress) (1994) Reconstruction and Development Programme: A policy framework. Johannesburg: ANC ANC (1996) The state and social transformation: Discussion document. November ANC (1997) ANC strategy and tactics: The character of the national democratic revolution. ANC National Conference, December ANC (2007) ANC National Policy Conference, 27–30 June. Draft report on economic transformation


Arrighi G (2004) Globalisation and uneven development. Paper read at the Development Bank of South Africa, 28–29 October Barchiesi F (2004) Class, multitudes and the politics of community movements in post-apartheid South Africa. Centre for Civil Society Research Report No. 20, Durban Bush B (2006) Imperialism and post-colonialism. London: Longman Colás A & Saull R (Eds) (2006) The war on terror and the American ‘Empire’ after the Cold War. New York: Routledge DBSA (Development Bank of Southern Africa) (2005) Development report. Development Bank of Southern Africa, July Evans P (2005) Neo-liberalism as a political opportunity. In KP Gallagher (Ed.) Putting development first. London: Zed Books Gallagher KP (2005) Putting development first. London: Zed Books Greenberg S (2004) Post-apartheid development, landlessness and the reproduction of exclusion in South Africa. Centre for Civil Society Research Report No. 17, Durban Greenstein R (2004) Social movements and civil society in post-apartheid South Africa. Critical Dialogue 1(1): 27–33 Gumede WM (2005) Thabo Mbeki and the battle for the soul of the ANC. Cape Town: Zebra Press Held D & Koenig-Archiburgi M (Eds) (2003) Taming globalization: Frontiers of governance. Cambridge: Polity Howe S (2002) Empire: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press Johnson K (2002) State and civil society in contemporary South Africa: Redefining the rules of the game. In S Jacobs & R Calland (Eds) Thabo Mbeki’s world: The politics and ideology of the South African president. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press Johnson K (2004) The sorrows of empire: Militarism, secrecy and the end of the Republic. New York: Verso

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Kotzé H (2004) Responding to the growing socio-economic crisis? A review of the civil society in South Africa during 2001 and 2002. Centre for Civil Society Research Report No. 19, Durban Mandela N (1994) ‘State of the Nation’ address. Parliament, 24 May. Available at http:// www.info.gov.za/speeches/son/index.html. Accessed February 2008 Mbeki T (2004) ‘State of the Nation’ address. Parliament, 6 February and 21 May. Available at http://www.info.gov.za/speeches/son/index.html. Accessed February 2008


Mbeki T (2005) ‘State of the Nation’ address. Parliament, 11 February. Available at http:// www.info.gov.za/speeches/son/index.html. Accessed February 2008 Munck R (2005) Globalization and social exclusion: A transformational perspective. Bloemfield: Kumarian Press Naidoo V (2005) The state of the public service. In S Buhlungu, J Daniel, R Southall & J Lutchman (Eds) State of the nation: South Africa 2005–2006. Cape Town: HSRC Press Netshitenzhe J (2007) Draft Commission Reports. Quoted by South African Press Association. ANC National Policy Conference, June Pieterse JN (2004) Globalization and Empire? New York: Routledge Saul JS (2006) Development after globalization. London: Zed Books Scholte JA (1997) Global capitalism and the state. International Affairs 73(3): 427–452 Sen A (2006) Identity and violence: The illusion of destiny. London: Allen Lane Sitton J (2003) Habermas and contemporary society. New York: Palgrave Sole S (2005) The state of corruption and accountability. In S Buhlungu, J Daniel, R Southall & J Lutchman (Eds) State of the nation: South Africa 2005–2006. Cape Town: HSRC Press Terreblanche S (2002) A history of inequality in South Africa, 1652–2002. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press The Presidency (South Africa) (2007) Development indicators mid-term review. Pretoria UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) (2003) South Africa Human Development Report. Cape Town: Oxford University Press UNDP (2006) Human Development Report. New York: Oxford University Press Wade RH (2003) The disturbing rise in poverty and inequality: Is it all a ‘big lie’? In D Held & M Koenig-Archiburgi (Eds) Taming globalization: Frontiers of governance. Cambridge: Polity

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6

Globalisation and transformation of the South African merchant navy: A case of flag of (in)convenience shipping?


Shaun Ruggunan

The aim of this chapter is to assess the current state of the South African merchant navy through a review and analysis of the changes in the South African commercial shipping sector and the consequences of these changes for the training and employment of South African seafaring labour.1 I argue that due to a range of transformations in the global shipping industry since 1970, South Africa finds itself with a severely reduced merchant fleet and a substantial loss of South African seafaring jobs. I contend that inasmuch as the decimation of the South African merchant shipping industry and its attendant labour market for South African seafarers is a victim of global changes in the operation of shipping capital since 1970, the industry has also suffered under myopic national shipping policies. The chapter closes by discussing current attempts by both the South African state and shipping companies to grapple with these issues. These attempts are cause for cautious optimism in resurrecting a South African-owned and -registered merchant fleet and reconstituting a significant South African seafaring labour market.

The new geo-economics of flag of convenience shipping To understand the current state of the South African commercial shipping industry and its attendant labour markets, one has to understand the global factors that contributed to changes to this industry. Merchant shipping, more so than most national industries, is susceptible to global influences. This section demonstrates how the practices of flag of convenience (FoC) shipping evolved as a means for shipping companies to escape the national fiscal regulations of their governments. FoC shipping refers to the practice of shipowners registering their vessels in countries other than those in which they are owned. This practice exists primarily because the fiscal benefits in these

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registries (outside countries of ownership) are usually more advantageous financially for shipowners, in that they pay less tax. FoC registration also allows for shipowners to circumvent prohibitive labour legislation and unionisation of seafaring labour in countries in which their ships are owned, thus employing more flexible labour from a global labour market. The practice of FoC shipping facilitates shipping companies’ strategies to reduce overall operating costs by sourcing and hiring cheap, unregulated and nonunionised labour, mainly from ‘developing’ countries. A consequence of FoC shipping is the production of a truly global seafaring labour market. While shipping has historically been a multinational affair and a global industry, the scale and pace at which it globalised from the 1970s is unparalleled. According to Article 5 of the 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas, it is necessary for vessels to be registered on either national or FoC shipping registers. While the 1958 legislation allowed for FoC shipping, it was not until 1970 that the practice of FoC shipping increased and expanded significantly. Labour historian Rowan Cahill argues that shipping capital has always been driven to reduce labour and taxation costs (Guardian 15.10.99). For example, as far back as 1939, shipping capital sought to circumvent organised maritime labour by registering under FoC. The extent of FoC shipping during this period was negligible when compared to present-day use of offshore registries. Thus in 1948, the Liberian ship registry only had two ships registered. By 1980, however, over half the world’s fleet was registered to Liberia (Barton 1999; Belcher et al. 2003). By registering a ship to another country’s flag, shipping companies circumvent the labour and maritime laws of the country where the ship is owned. The owners of most ships are based in the traditional maritime nations of Europe, North America and, to a lesser extent, Asia (Wu 2006). Due to high shipregistration costs, regulatory labour laws and the high cost of seafaring labour in the traditional maritime nations, shipowners register their ships offshore, mostly in smaller countries of the South. Ships registered in these countries then fly the flags of these offshore registry nations. These states are paid a registration fee. As such, FoC registration provides a means for these countries to earn foreign income (Brennan 2001; Northrup & Rowan 1983; Ruggunan 2005; Wu & Sampson 2005). In most cases, shipowners can register their vessels to another country without even leaving the country of ownership. For example, Liberia has

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a case of flag of ( in ) convenience shipping ?


FoC ship registration offices in the United States. Panama has an internet site that shipowners can use to register their vessels (Barton 1999; Marlow 2002). Hence, there is no link between the state where the ship is owned and the state where the ship is registered. The flag of the state under FoC shipping no longer serves as a symbol of nation-state authority, but instead assumes what Barton (1999) refers to as geo-economic and geopolitical significance. By taking advantage of the less regulated economies of the South, shipping companies have shifted the economic landscape of ship registration to reduce operating costs. FoC registration allows for the following (ILO 2001): • The criteria for open registry are easily obtainable. This means that the standards of operating vessels are lower or non-existent. Further, the country of registration allows ownership/control of its merchant vessels by non-citizens. • The country of registry is a small power that allows the staffing of ships by non-nationals. • The country of registry has neither the power nor the administrative machinery to impose any government or international regulation, nor has the country any wish or the power to control the shipping companies themselves. • Taxation on shipping companies’ profits is low or non-existent. The country of registry obtains a registry fee and an annual fee based on tonnage of vessels registered. The International Labour Organization (ILO) lists Liberia, Panama, Cyprus, the Bahamas and Malta as the five main FoC registries (Belcher et al. 2003). A comprehensive update of these registries occurred in 2007, although initial indications are that there is not much of a shift in the nationality of effective ownership of the five major FoC registries (Bimco/ISF 2005). Koch-Baumgarten (2000) contends that shipping was an intensely national affair until the 1970s. Merchant ships and their seafarers were viewed as extensions of their nation states. There was thus a firm link between the flag state and the ships of its merchant fleet. From the 1970s, he argues, this link began to diminish rapidly. Such an attempt to neatly periodise the advent of FoC shipping inadvertently implied that the economic events of the 1970s provided a rapid, almost overnight disjuncture in the way shipping capital operated. While it is true that the pace and scale of FoC shipping accelerated

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after 1970, FoC shipping as a mechanism to reduce labour costs existed prior to 1970 on a significantly smaller scale (Northrup & Rowan 1983; Wu 2006). Analysis of the flagging practices of Unicorn Shipping, a South African-owned merchant shipping company, explicitly demonstrates the multinational strategies employed by shipping companies to remain competitive in this industry.2 Table 6.1 demonstrates the global reach and scope of Unicorn’s merchant ships in terms of flagging, management and ownership.


Table 6.1 Unicorn’s ships and flagging practices Name of vessel

Type of ship

Flag state

Technical manager

Owner

MT Stolt Ntombi

Chemical tanker

Panama

Stolt Nielsen Transportation Group, Netherlands

Southern Chemical Tankers, Norway

MT Rainbow

Chemical tanker

Panama



Southern Unity

Oil/chemical tanker

UK



IVS Victory

Bulk carrier

Nassau

Dockendale Shipping Company Limited, Nassau, Bahamas

Southern Cross Shipping, South Africa

IVS Valiant

Bulk carrier

Nassau

Dockendale Shipping Company Limited, Bahamas

North Star Navigation Ltd, UK

MT Helix

Oil/chemical tanker

Australia


Phinda (Pty) Ltd, Australia

MT Stolt Ntaba

Chemical tanker

Panama



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Name of vessel

Type of ship

Flag state

Technical manager

Owner

MT Hambisa

Oil/chemical tanker

Majuro

Columbia Ship Management, Cyprus

MS Cape George Tankschiffahrts GmbH & Co., Netherlands

MT Oranjemund

Oil tanker

Panama

Unicorn Shipping

New Boundary Shipping Company, Panama

Nyathi

Oil/chemical tanker

London

Unicorn Shipping

Unicorn Tankerships Ltd, South Africa

Oliphant

Oil/chemical tanker

London

Unicorn Shipping

Unicorn Tankerships Ltd, South Africa

New Buildings

Oil/chemical tanker

London



Team Anja

Oil/chemical tanker

Majuro

Catalina Navigation Ltd, Monrovia

Blystad Ship Management Ltd, Netherlands

None of the vessels operated by this South African shipping giant is flagged on the South African ships register. There is further division between the company and country that operates the ships and the company and country that effectively owns the ships. In this case there is a preference for the traditional flag states such as Liberia, Panama and Cyprus, but even the ship registers of Australia and the United Kingdom are seen as fiscally preferable to the South African one. In my attempt to compile this list from data obtained from Unicorn, it became increasingly clear that the ownership and operating structures of ships in the Unicorn fleet (and shipping fleets in general) are multilayered and transnational. Deciphering ownership, operating and management structures is a complex process indeed.

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This brief section has demonstrated the new economic logic that shapes the world’s commercial shipping industry. It is a logic that is informed by a shift to cut operating costs of vessels by employing cheaper, more flexible labour, and a move to escape perceived high fiscal costs imposed by national governments on shipowners. However, to achieve these benefits, shipowners have had to separate the country in which ships are owned and to which economic benefits accrue, from countries in which they register their ships. So there is no longer a link between the national flag a ship flies and the nationality of its ownership. The severance of this link has made possible the dwindling of national fleets and their subsequent shifts to FoC registers, as these registers prove to be more financially lucrative to shipowners. FoC shipping is, in many respects, the epitome of the economic logic of transnational neo-liberal capitalism. The reach and power of the nation state to control shipping capital is severely diminished by this sort of business practice. Not only does FoC shipping see shipping capitalists circumventing national fiscal laws of countries in which they are resident, but their practices also allow them to circumvent the hiring of national crews from these countries. In doing so, shipping capital has restructured to facilitate and increase the profitability of its operations. In this way, shipping capital has altered profoundly the nature of national shipping industries and their attendant labour markets. The next section deals with the ways in which the nature of the South African merchant navy and its attendant labour market has changed as a consequence of the global practice of FoC shipping.

Flag of convenience shipping and the lack of ship ownership in South Africa The aim of this section is to show how maritime capitalist restructuring practices on a global scale influence the restructuring of national merchant navy fleets. I use the case of South Africa as an example of this. The case of South Africa allows us to see how the practice of FoC shipping can decimate a country’s national shipping fleet and its attendant labour markets. To use a somewhat clichéd phrase, I also attempt to demonstrate the ways in which global processes interact with and influence local practices. Until the mid-1970s, both global and South African merchant shipping had been expanding. In 1971, for example, there were 52 merchant marine ships

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on the South African ships register, with a total dead-weight tonnage of approximately 3 million. Thirty-five years later, there is only one deep-sea ship on the South African register, the SA Oranje (Samsa 2006–2007). The oil crisis of 1974–75 impeded the boom in South African merchant shipping. As a result, there was a 40 per cent reduction in seafaring jobs. Jobs lost were in both the officer and rating categories (Kujawa 1996). This was compounded by the implementation of international sanctions against apartheid South Africa. South African ships were boycotted when they docked in foreign ports, and experienced significant delays in the loading and offloading of cargo due to protest action, dockworkers and the anti-apartheid movement. The employment of South African seafarers – especially officers, who are mainly white – by non-South African shipowners was reduced substantially during the late 1970s and the 1980s (Chasomeris 2005; Ruggunan 2001). The period between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s saw a steady erosion of South Africa’s national fleet as a direct consequence of FoC shipping. For shipping companies to compete effectively with each other and to generate more profit, it was very much an issue of ‘adapt or die’. At the time of writing this chapter in July 2007, there existed only two significant commercial merchant shipping companies in South Africa, both of which have a diverse global spread of ownership and operational structures. The first of these is Safmarine, now owned by the AP Moller/Maersk group. Danish multinational AP Moller/Maersk is one of the largest shipping companies in the world. Prior to the 1999 acquisition of Safmarine by AP Moller/Maersk, Safmarine was one of the two authentic South African shipping companies. Since 1996, AP Moller/Maersk has retained the trading name of Safmarine but for all commercial intents and purposes it is no longer a South African-owned and -operated shipping company. The second company is Unicorn Shipping. Of the two, Unicorn Shipping, owned and operated by the Grindrod group, remains the most authentically South African. Most of Unicorn’s operations involve coastal trade along the African (particularly southern African) coast. For their deep ocean-going services, they have chartered ships out to their subsidiaries, which are under no obligation to hire South African crews. None of Unicorn’s chartered deep ocean-going ships fly the South African flag. Unicorn operated 9 vessels in 2005 and 13 in 2006, and is projected to operate 20 vessels by 2008 (Mercury

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16.04.05). The majority are chartered in. Refer to Table 6.1 to view the flagging, management and ownership arrangements of these vessels. The point of referring to the existence of these two companies is to show how the global developments in the shipping industry have seen South Africa also follow the trend of electing to flag its ships elsewhere due to perceived fiscal and labour cost benefits. Just as countries of western Europe and North America found it more profitable to pay less tax on their operations and profits by registering their ships in FoC registries, in addition to hiring cheaper crew from developing countries, so too did shipping companies in South Africa such as Unicorn and Safmarine see their future secured in engaging in these practices. Not to do so would be corporate and capitalist suicide. Both Unicorn and Safmarine changed their ownership and operational structures, which resulted not only in the loss of over 50 ships from South Africa’s national shipping registry (not to mention Treasury), but it also meant the loss of thousands of South African seafaring jobs. As of July 2007, it became clear that if the South African government is serious about reversing the decline in foreign registration of South African merchant navy vessels and adding to the South African Treasury, it needs to make concerted changes to the national legislation that governs ship registration and taxation. A shift to a more ‘shipowner-friendly’ policy may result in Safmarine and Unicorn shifting some, if not all, of their vessels back to the South African registry. This will not only ensure greater revenues for the government, but may possibly ensure a resurgence of jobs for South African seafarers in the merchant navy.

South Africa’s maritime fiscal policy To understand better the reasons why South African maritime legislation discourages shipowners from registering their vessels in South Africa requires a brief review of South Africa’s maritime fiscal policy.3 The Ship Registration Act (No. 58 of 1998), which was promulgated in 2003, does not allow for the fiscal benefit enjoyed by FoC registries. The five-year gap between the drawing up and the promulgation of the Act reflects the lack of co-ordination among various stakeholders in the industry to agree on the most appropriate form of ship registration for the country. A country’s maritime taxation policy is an important factor when shipowners decide where to register their vessels. It is strongly felt that if more South

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African ships were registered in South Africa, more South African nationals would be employed as ratings on South African ships (Bonnin et al. 2004; Chasomeris 2005; Financial Mail 1997; Lloyds List Africa Weekly 12.03.99; Ruggunan 2005). However, South Africa’s maritime fiscal policy has proved prohibitive to South African shipowners wanting to register their vessels in the country. Shipowners argue that the income tax they pay prohibits them from registering ships in South Africa. Most shipowners under FoC registries get taxed a flat tonnage rate on the ship, regardless of whether they make a profit. Therefore, tax is charged on the weight of the ship, not on the profit it makes. Every year a rate is set per ton. For Keyser and Bowens (2006), a South African tonnage tax would be based on the following four principles: • Firstly, the government must fix a notional income per day, per net registered tons of the ship. • Secondly, the notional income per day is multiplied by the number of days for which the ship was operational. • Thirdly, the shipowner’s taxable income is then deemed to be the aggregate notional income from all of its qualifying ships. • Fourthly, the deemed taxable income is then multiplied by the prevailing income tax rate for companies. For example, if the rate is R1 000 per ton, and the ship weighs in at five tons, the tax for the year is R5 000, regardless of the profit made by the activities of the ship. The above is a simplistic example of the tonnage tax calculation, but does encapsulate its core premise. Currently in South Africa, however, taxation is paid on both tonnage and profits made by the ship. The South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) views the issue of moving to an exclusively tonnage tax system as part of a broader strategy that addresses both ship ownership and registration in South Africa, but would also simultaneously address equity and job creation for seafarers. According to Samsa, equity and job creation cannot be divorced from larger economic and business issues in the maritime industry. The logic employed by Samsa is that if more ships are attracted from foreign registries to the South African registry, there may be a shift back to hiring and/or training South African seafarers on these vessels, if such a clause was written into the Act as is the case in the United Kingdom. A further consequence of having a fiscally attractive registry is that it would allow for black-owned shipping companies to compete on the same

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playing field as international shipowners that benefit from FoC registries. The suggestion is not that South Africa becomes a FoC registry, but rather that it becomes a more attractive registry by taxing tonnage as opposed to taxing both tonnage and profits. It was with this in mind that the national Treasury in 2004 appointed a working committee in conjunction with the departments of labour, justice and transport; Samsa; the Transport Education and Training Authority (TETA); the Maritime Law Association; and the Association of Ships Agents and Brokers of Southern Africa to make recommendations about a new fiscal regime for South Africa’s shipping industry. The TETA task team that comprised this working group considered larger issues of employment and equity for South African seafarers as informing the final shipping fiscal policies of the national Treasury. The TETA report, released in 2004, recommended a shift to a beneficial ship registration regime that operated on tonnage tax principles (as opposed to the incumbent taxation system that taxed both tonnage and profits). The TETA report contended that if such a tax was promulgated, there could be benefits for the employment of South African seafarers by developing a compulsory training link into the new registration Act (TETA 2004). The flagging and tonnage tax issues are central concerns for South Africa’s main seafaring trade union, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu). These concerns were echoed in the TETA report. Satawu’s view is that substantial employment of ratings will occur if ships are flagged in South Africa. The union argues that South African shipping companies employ South African seafarers by ‘force not by their wish’ (Satawu maritime official interview 2005). The union sees an overhaul of the South African Maritime Safety Authority Levies Act (No. 6 of 1998) as imperative as a jobcreation strategy for seafarers. However, while a revision of the 1998 Merchant Shipping Act may be fiscally more rewarding to South African shipping companies, it is unclear how many ships will be returned to the South African ships register. At the time of writing this chapter in July 2007, no firm commitments had been made by any of the shipping companies. While Satawu would favour more ships being registered in South Africa so that more jobs could be created, shipping companies would still be reluctant to pay the relatively high wages mandated by Satawu and the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) when non-unionised seafarers can be cheaper to

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hire from other developing countries. Thus, a change in fiscal shipping policy does not engage with the issues of costs of labour. Further, any fiscal policy that introduces a favourable shipping register should be designed to attract foreign tonnage and not just to be a measure to ‘retain or restore the current national fleet’ (TETA 2004: 9). In March 2005, the national Treasury heralded the introduction of a tonnage tax scheme for the 2006 fiscal year.


In March 2006, Southern Africa Shipping News (7) reported that: A draft document on the tonnage tax is still work in progress but a working committee on the tax and other issues affecting the development of a South African ships register is making progress in identifying the relevant issues, among them the mortgage ranking of lending institutions, work permits for foreign crews and exchange controls. A year later, in May 2007, Southern Africa Shipping News (11) reported that the draft tonnage tax manual was still with the departments of finance and transport and no firm date had been set for its release or implementation. The national Treasury commented that the delay was due to the complexities of the maritime industry and that more time would be needed, although the Treasury remains committed to the tonnage tax regime. This section attempted to provide a brief overview of the development of South Africa’s fiscal maritime policy. It argued that the traditional taxation system applied to merchant shipowners in the country is prohibitive in the sense that both the companies’ profits and the tonnage of the ships operated by the shipping company are taxed. Further, this form of double taxation is not in keeping with the more progressive registries of major ship-owning countries, such as the United Kingdom. These progressive registries tax shipowners only on the tonnage of their ships, thus luring shipowners away from national registries that engage in double taxation, as is the case in South Africa. The evidence of this is indicated by the shift of over 52 ships from South Africa’s registry to more ‘tax-friendly’ registers. The lack of agreement and co-ordination among key stakeholders in the maritime industry in South Africa on how to attract ships back to a national South African register resulted in at least three decades of not changing the legislation to bring South African ships back. Since the late 1990s, there has been a concerted effort by those in

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the industry and the government to recognise the crisis and to implement changes to reverse the lack of ship registration and ownership in South Africa. An initiative by the TETA in 2004 spearheaded the process for a shift to an exclusively tonnage tax regime. The Treasury took the TETA and Samsa’s recommendations seriously, and the government has since, in principle, agreed on an exclusive tonnage tax scheme, although its implementation has not yet occurred. Apart from the tonnage tax scheme having a fiscal benefit for shipowners, the TETA feels that by making the national ships register more attractive, and thereby attracting more shipowners to it, there may be the opportunity for increased employment of South African seafarers on these ships. The TETA points out that when South African-owned ships began leaving the national register, South African seafarers were displaced from working on these ships, and there were staggering seafaring job losses as a result. The next section deals with the possibility for job creation for South African seafarers if there is a shift back to registering ships on the South African national register.

South African seafarers in the global labour market This section aims to show the employment possibilities for South African seafarers that may occur as a result of the implementation of the new tonnage tax legislation. One of the envisioned consequences of the tonnage tax system is that it will, in principle, mean that owners of ships that are on the register have to employ a quota of South African crews or have a compulsory training link built in for South African crews. The global shipping industries’ (including South Africa’s) rush to FoC registries from the 1970s signalled profound changes in the hiring practices of seafaring crews by shipping companies. South Africa changed its hiring practices in some significant ways. Until the early 1970s, the South African shipping industry employed, on a casual and permanent basis, up to 6 000 mainly black4 seafarers of varying skill levels (Kujawa 1996: 36b). The labour market for seafarers is not an occupationally homogeneous one. It is twotiered. The first tier consists of officers and the second tier of ratings. Officers are the senior, tertiary-educated crew members, with the most senior being the captain or the master of the ship. Ratings, on the other hand, are the ‘working class of the seas’, firmly situated at the lower end of the crewing hierarchy and

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labour market. This occupational differentiation of seafarers contributes to new patterns of inequality in the global and local labour markets for seafarers with regard to their recruitment, wages and working conditions. In the South African case, all officers were white, while all ratings were black. Safmarine was the largest employer of seafarers during this period (Safmarine crewing and training manager interview, 2005). As trading conditions became increasingly tumultuous for the international shipping industry due to a host of fiscal, financial and technological reasons, from the early to mid-1970s Safmarine and other major South African shipping companies were forced to increase their competitiveness with international shipping companies by reducing one of their chief costs, namely labour. Interviews conducted with the crewing and training managers of key South African shipping companies, Samsa and Kujawa’s 1996 work on the maritime industry all indicate that expensive South African ratings were steadily replaced by south-east Asian crew, particularly Filipinos. By 1980, all South African-owned merchant navy ships had a majority nonSouth African crewing component and Kujawa (1996) estimates that at least 4 000 South African ratings were displaced by foreign, mainly south-east Asian, crew. This re-crewing is strongly related to the sale of Safmarine to the Maersk shipping group in 1999 and Maersk’s subsequent FoC and crewing policies. Today, there are only 835 employed South African ratings and 385 officers, according to the Bimco/ISF Manpower Update (2005: 51). Satawu, however, disputes this figure, saying there are 1 600 employed South African ratings.5 The union also states that there are approximately 1 000 qualified South African ratings that remain unemployed, and there is an expectation that the shift to a new shipping fiscal regime will reduce the number of unemployed ratings as South African ships shift back to the South African register. This section showed how the number of South African seafarers employed in the merchant navy declined since the inception of FoC shipping in the 1970s. We see how the global pressure for shipping companies to increase their profit margins by moving to FoC shipping directly affected the number of South African seafarers who lost their jobs.6 As the ships moved from South Africa’s national register, so too did the seafaring jobs move to other nations. As argued in previous sections, the South African maritime industry and the South African government have both marshalled for a redress of this situation. Industry has campaigned for a shift to more fiscally beneficial

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legislation, while state institutions such as the TETA believe that a tonnage tax scheme would not only be fiscally beneficial to state coffers, but may also hold some job-creation prospects for South African seafarers. This may result in a reversal of unemployment for seafarers. The next section explores the theme of job creation for seafarers in more detail.


The lack of training berths as an impediment to achieving equity, employment and skills development This section attempts to answer the question of whether attracting more ships to a South African register will necessarily create more seafaring jobs for South Africans. In most cases, countries with significant national merchant navies, such as the United Kingdom, the Philippines and China, also have significant numbers of seafaring jobs for their nationals (ILO 2001). It becomes clear that if South Africa is to create a significant number of seafaring jobs at both officer and ratings levels, a return to form of the national merchant navy is a necessary prerequisite. One way in which this will be achieved is the greater opportunities that an increased national fleet will provide for the training of South African seafarers, particularly ratings. Key to the training and equity of South African ratings and officers is the issue of seatime or training berths. For a rating or an officer to qualify as such, he or she needs to serve 12 months of compulsory seatime on a vessel appropriate to his or her qualification level. For ratings, seatime can be fewer than 12 months, depending on the qualification required, but a compulsory seatime period is required. Failure to achieve seatime means that a candidate who is fully qualified academically cannot qualify as an officer or a rating unless his or her seatime is served. In South Africa, there is a severe lack of appropriate vessels that can offer these training berths, given that all but one ship sail under foreign flags. Unicorn Shipping makes available some training berths for officer training (these can range from 19 to 52 training berths, but the company is already stretched to its training limits). Unicorn Shipping, however, is constrained by its fleet size. In addition, the physical structure of its ships can only accommodate a fixed number of cadets at any one time. The thinking behind the new tonnage tax Act is that by wooing more ships to the South African register, more training berths may become available for training seafarers, thus reversing the decline of seafaring jobs. Both the TETA

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and Satawu frame their responses to the lack of training berths within the larger shift towards a tonnage tax scheme (TETA official interview 2005). The 2004 TETA report states: A company registering for tonnage tax should be committed to training and to filling a certain number of training berths on board their vessels (based on the principles of the SMarT system in the United Kingdom). The scheme would be funded from the income from the skills levies (as promulgated in the Skills Levies Act of 1998) and to be administered by TETA in line with the existing funding regulations and disbursement practices. In the case of supernumerary cadets, funding could be accessed from the National Skills Fund, depending on the needs as determined by the minimum training requirements for ships under the tonnage tax scheme. This would link with the National Skills Authority’s vision in pursuance of job creation. Specific guidelines would need to be developed for these bursaries…and these guidelines should be developed to prioritise previously disadvantaged individuals in pursuance of the goals of the broader socio-economic environment. (TETA 2004: 16) At the time of writing this chapter, the new Ship Registration Act had not been implemented and the contents of the Act were not fully disclosed, so it is difficult to ascertain whether a compulsory training link is built into the Act as suggested by the TETA and Satawu. However, it is my opinion that the Act will only be successful in creating jobs for South African seafarers if there is a compulsory training link as suggested above. This will mean that, to enjoy the benefits of the new taxation system, shipowners need to make a commitment to provide a prescribed number of training berths for South Africans. Shipowners may argue that training and qualifying as seafarers does not automatically guarantee employment. The highest operating cost to any shipowner, apart from the actual capital cost of the ship and fuel costs, is its crewing cost (Belcher et al. 2003). It is too expensive for companies to run training or experiential vessels. The Skills Development Fund is viewed by the industry as inadequate to run experiential training vessels (Bonnin et al. 2004; Ruggunan 2001). The industry estimates the training costs of a deck cadet at R55 000 a year and R60 000 a year for an engine cadet. These costs would run for three

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years. One of the key problems identified by the Training Berth Task Team’s 2004 report is that once the candidates are trained, there is no guarantee that they will remain with the company that has trained them. Due to the current global shortage of officers and ratings in the labour market, these newly qualified seafarers will be extremely marketable (Bimco/ISF 2005). Once South African seafarers qualify with their 12-month seatime, they can be marketed to global shipping companies. Evidence of foreign shipowners’ willingness to employ South Africans can be found in the operation of Marine Crew Services (MCS). In recognition of this opportunity to crew ships with South African-trained crew, MCS was established in 2003 as a crewing agent that supplies trained seafarers to the global shipping industry. In 2004, MCS placed its first batch of South African crew to the Holy House Shipping Line of Sweden. One of the key elements and obstacles to training seafarers at both officer and rating levels is the berthing issue. MCS has addressed this problem by forming relationships with shipping companies outside the Unicorn and Safmarine duo. They formed a productive relationship with Sanko Steamship company of Japan in 2005. Sanko is one of Japan’s oldest shipping companies. As part of a black economic empowerment deal, Sanko has invested financially in black-owned MCS and Marine Bulk Carriers (Stanford 2005). According to MCS managing director Lance Manala, ‘the partnership with Sanko will facilitate skills transfer, create jobs and increase South Africa’s involvement in the raw material and crude oil trade’ (Stanford 2005). Sanko operates a fleet of 100 bulk carriers, tankers and liquefied petroleum gas carriers. It is expected to increase its fleet to 150 by 2008. The large number of ships operated by Sanko provides the ideal opportunity for high numbers of training berths for South African crew. According to the agreement reached between Sanko and MCS (South Africa Shipping News July 2005), 50 to 60 cadet training berths will be provided at a ratio of two to five cadets per ship. These South African cadets will work primarily with the Filipino crews that work on Sanko’s ships (South Africa Shipping News July 2005). MCS had already negotiated wage rates with the ITF and Satawu in November 2004. MCS asserts that once their mandatory seatime is complete, seafarers will be placed primarily on Sanko’s ships, although the ageing demographics of South African seafarers means that new and younger seafarers will have to be recruited and trained if MCS is to provide ‘fresh’ and sustainable crews. MCS’s

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key goal, therefore, remains to position South Africa to become a sustainable source for international crewing.


Conclusion Changes in the ways in which global commercial shipping operates have resulted in the current anaemic state of the South African merchant navy and its seafaring labour market. This chapter identified FoC shipping and the subsequent shift to the hiring of cheaper labour in the developing world outside South Africa as key global changes that shifted the profile of the South African merchant navy. These processes, following global shipping trends, resulted in the selling of Safmarine to shipping giant AP Moller/Maersk in 1999. This resulted in the decimation of South Africa’s registered fleet from 52 ocean-going vessels in 1996 to one vessel on the South African register in 2007. Accompanying the loss of vessels from the South African ship’s register was the loss of South African seafaring jobs. The decimation of the national ships register and the decline of seafaring jobs can be attributed to the government’s double taxation policy, which taxed shipowners on both the weight of their vessels and the profits made by their vessels. Shipowners removed their ships from South African jurisdiction in droves to national registries that only taxed them on tonnage and not on profit. The government, in the form of the national Treasury, the Department of Transport and the Department of Labour, together with organised labour and South African shipping companies, has since resolved to address the crises of seafaring job losses and ships lost to ship registers outside South Africa. Far from being an agentless victim of global processes, the South African state, in partnership with key maritime stakeholders, campaigned for changes in the taxation laws that apply to the merchant navy. It is hoped that a change of these laws will revive the national ships register of South Africa and, in so doing, make more training opportunities available to potential seafarers. In short, it is hoped that these new fiscal strategies provide reasons for optimism both for the future state of the South African merchant navy and for the future employment of South African seafarers, both locally and globally.

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Notes


1

Research for this chapter and for my doctoral research into the South African merchant navy was made possible by a generous grant from the Thuthuka Programme of the National Research Foundation of South Africa. Parts of this chapter appeared in 2005 in Transformation and are reproduced here with permission. The chapter focuses exclusively on merchant navy shipping and not the fishing industry. The South African fishing industry is informed by its own set of national and global dynamics that are largely independent of merchant marine shipping.

2 Unicorn is one of two shipping companies that operate out of South Africa, although it remains the only one whose ownership structures can still be traced back to South Africa. Most of Unicorn’s operations involve coastal trade along the African, particularly southern African, coast. 3 It is beyond the scope of this chapter to explore fully the intricacies of maritime fiscal policies and legislation. The reader is referred to Floor (1993) and Chasomeris (2005). 4 I use the term ‘black’ to refer to African, Indian and coloured seafarers. My research does not further disaggregate the category of black seafarers. However, my interviews and anecdotal evidence from the Western Cape suggest that coloured seafarers may have been disproportionately affected by the massive job losses in the industry. 5

Satawu counts ratings employed on coastal shipping routes as part of its seafaring membership. However, these seafarers do not work on FoC deep-water vessels. The Bimco/ISF report only counts seafarers working on FoC vessels.

6

The ‘worker-friendly’ Labour Relations Act of 1995 has sometimes been blamed as a contributing factor to the unemployment woes of South African seafarers. However, my research suggests quite strongly that the Act affects only marginally, if at all, the more global pressures and preferences on shipping companies’ hiring policies.

References Barton JR (1999) Flags of convenience: Geoeconomics and regulatory mimimization. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 90(2): 142–155 Belcher P, Sampson H, Thomas M, Veiga J & Zhao M (2003) Women seafarers: Global employment policies and practices. Geneva: International Labour Organization Bimco/ISF (2005) Manpower update: The worldwide demand for and supply of seafarers. Warwick: University of Warwick Institute for Employment Research

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Bonnin D, Lane T, Ruggunan S & Wood G (2004) Training and development in the maritime industry: The case of South Africa. Human Resource Development International 7(1): 7–22 Bonnin D, Wood G & Ruggunan S (2002) Investigating a maritime industrial policy for the South African developmental community. Durban: University of Natal Bonnin D, Wood G & Ruggunan S (2003) Training berth availability for South African ratings. Durban: University of KwaZulu-Natal


Brennan R (2001) Economics: Funny flags and Australian shipping. News Weekly. Available at http://www.newsweekly.com.au/articles/2000jul1-ships.html. Accessed: November 2000 Chasomeris M (2005) South Africa’s maritime policy and transformation of the shipping industry. School of Maritime Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban Department of Transport (South Africa) (1996) White Paper on National Transport Policy. Pretoria: Department of Transport Floor BC (1993) Report of the Committee of Inquiry into a National Maritime Policy for the Republic of South Africa. Stellenbosch Grutter W (1973) A name among seafaring men: A history of the training ship General Botha. Cape Town: TBF Davis Memorial Sailing Trust ILO (International Labour Organization) (2001) The impact on seafarers’ living and working conditions of changes in the structure of the shipping industry. Report for discussion at the 29th Session of the Joint Maritime Commission. Geneva: International Labour Organization Keyser N & Bowens W (2006) South Africa’s tonnage tax gains momentum. Managing Partner Magazine 8(9). Available at http://www.mpmagazine.com/display. asp?articleid=8CF680DF-FE8F-483C-820F-865C748A16C5&eTitle=South_Africa_ country_report_South_Africas_tonnage_tax_gains_momentum. Accessed on 23 April 2007 Koch-Baumgarten S (2000) Globalisation and international industrial relations in maritime transport: The multinational-collective bargaining system in FoC shipping. Changing patterns of employee and union participation. Paper presented at the 12th World Congress of the International Industrial Relations Association. Germany, Free University of Berlin Kujawa B (1996) The role of the maritime industry training board in coordinating maritime training and development in South Africa. Master’s dissertation, Rand Afrikaans University

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Marlow P (2002) Ships, flags and taxes. In CTH Grammenos (Ed.) The handbook of maritime economics and business. London: LLP Northrup H & Rowan R (1983) The International Transport Workers Federation and flag of convenience shipping. Philadelphia: Industrial Research Unit Ruggunan S (2001) Articulating agency: A case study of the strategies of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union in servicing South African seafarers. Durban: University of Natal Ruggunan S (2005) Rough seas for South African seafarers in the merchant navy: The global is the local. Transformation 66: 56–80


Samsa (South African Maritime Safety Authority) (2006–2007) South African Ships Register. Cape Town: George Warman Publishing Stanford J (2005) Japanese group buys into local maritime firms. Engineering Weekly. 25 May TETA (Transport Education and Training Authority) (2004) Progress with the TETA initiative on the SA shipping environment. Cape Town: TETA. Available at http://www. teta.org.za/documents/Documents/2005Aug10_7/ANNEX%20E.pdf. Accessed April 2007 Wu B (2006) Transformation from traditional to global seafarers: An assessment of Chinese seafarers in the global labour market. Shenzhen: Shenzhen International Maritime Forum Wu B & Sampson H (2005) Reconsidering the seafarer labour market: A 21st-century profile of global seafarers. In A Chircop & ML McConnell (Eds) Ocean Yearbook Vol. 19. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Interviews Safmarine Crewing and Training Manager, Cape Town, June 2005 Satawu Maritime Official, Durban, June 2005 Satawu Official, Johannesburg, May 2006 South African ITF Inspector, Durban, June 2005 TETA Official, Cape Town, July 2005 Unicorn Shipping Training Manager, Durban, June 2005

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7

Service delivery as a measure of change: State capacity and development


David Hemson, Jonathan Carter and Geci Karuri-Sebina

We need massively to improve the management, organisational, technical and other capacities of government so that it meets its objectives. (Thabo Mbeki, ‘State of the Nation’ address, 11 February 2005) Politics, not finance, technology and economics, still holds the key to progress. (UNDP Human Development Report, 2006) The overarching achievements of post-apartheid transformation in South Africa rest on the state’s ability to deliver basic functions and extend effective systems and social programmes in response to people’s needs. There is growing recognition that South Africa faces grave challenges regarding capacity within the state in relation to skills, numbers of professionals, the competence to manage complex systems and, ultimately, the ability to deliver on its mandate. These points are summed up in Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (Asgisa) documentation as follows: ‘Certain weaknesses in the way government is organised, in the capacity of key institutions, including some of those providing economic services, and insufficiently decisive leadership in policy development and implementation all constrain the country’s growth potential.’1 Along with other such statements, this statement indicates a keen and growing debate about the capacity of the state to manage existing competencies and to take on the increasing number of tasks that are assigned by policy and legislation. There are indications that all is not well. New planning, monitoring and record systems are not working as intended. Basic functions such as the documentation of citizens by home affairs are a continuing problem, and the relevance of the provincial sphere of government is debated. Most importantly, civil unrest in many municipalities points to problems of

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responsiveness at that level. State capacity has been stretched by the tasks of transformation (that is, achieving equity, mainly in terms of race and then gender) and the race to modernise in a global community.


Central to the current discourse on the prospects for change and human development is the issue of the developmental state. Although this is not fully developed here, it is the starting point for a discussion on the notion of state capacity. The developmental state, argues Evans (1995), is a state that successfully uses ‘embedded autonomy’ (a somewhat elusive concept involving the combination of close links to society with a coherent internal organisation) to relate realistically to the global economy within an understanding of its own limits. There are two key aspects to a developmental state. The first is that it arises from the development of state capacity to realise its mandate, to recognise its limits but to use its strengths to act independently. The second is that it does not arise from being self-proclaimed or demanded, but from achieving economic growth and transforming society. In some important aspects, the ideas and strategies bound up with the concept of a developmental state stand distinct from the neo-liberal emphasis on a smaller state marked by restrictive state expenditure, less state intervention, and the view that the business sector is more efficient than the state.2 The ability of a state to negotiate within and beyond its boundaries to turn its ‘embedded autonomy’ to its advantage depends, in turn, on state capacity. This, it is argued, is not solely bound up with human resources, but with wider questions of public service morale, the success of planning frameworks and the effective use of resources. Capacity is bound up with the coherence and utility of organising systems and, in a democratic state, the responsiveness of the state to social mobilisation. A key measure of capacity is not so much the recognition of unfilled vacancies and surveys of human resources, important as these are, but rather the outcomes that are visible in terms of improved service delivery and greater state responsiveness to basic needs. Service delivery, including the delivery, maintenance and continued smooth operation of supporting infrastructure, is the most useful final measure of capacity. This chapter considers state capacity in a number of dimensions, analyses the constraints and limits to capacity, explores the relationship between policy and capacity, and examines the future prospects for a resolution of the issues currently hampering state capacity.

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S tate capacity and development

In an international study of a number of countries, eight characteristics of state capacity were developed.3 This chapter picks up on the following three aspects: • Human capital, which is the technical and managerial skill level of individuals within the state and its component parts. • Coherence, which is the degree to which the state’s components agree and act on shared ideological bases, objectives and methods. It is also the ability of these components to communicate and constructively debate ideas, information and policies, despite human capital limitations. • Reach and responsiveness, which is the degree to which the state is successful in extending its ideology, socio-political structures and administrative apparatus throughout society, both geographically and into the socio-economic structures of civil society. It is also the responsiveness of these structures and apparatuses to the local needs of the society. These three concepts are considered the most appropriate indicators underlying state capacity for delivery. The rapid transition following the end of apartheid marked deterioration in the capacity of the state to perform adequately. Massive transformation is regarded as having had ‘a devastating impact on the ability of the South African public sector to implement economic and social policies in the postapartheid era’ (Dollery & Snowball 2003: 329). In a fairly radical way, all three aspects of human capital, coherence, and reach and responsiveness have been affected negatively in the ongoing transition. Evidence of severely restricted civil service expertise is used to reach the conclusion that the state should be limited to doing ‘the absolute minimum’ (Dollery & Snowball 2003: 330). This perspective suggests that the state continues to take on a vastly increased range of tasks while simultaneously struggling to recruit, appoint and retain skilful and experienced civil servants, and it therefore proposes the pruning away of state intervention. It does not, however, consider the necessary process of deconstructing the various apartheid structures and the reconsolidation of a new bureaucracy. Historically, there has been a link between the recognition of weaknesses in state capacity and the adoption of fiscally conservative policies. Government’s adoption of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy (GEAR)

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was clearly linked to the idea of state incapacity; the document outlining the strategy reflects that the ‘experience of the past two years casts doubt on the capacity of the public sector to absorb significant additional resources’ (DoF 1996). GEAR’s authors argued that fiscal expansion would ‘exacerbate the unacceptable level of wastage in the public sector inherited from the past’ (DoF 1996: Appendix 3). Concern that there was not sufficient capacity to spend productively thus appears as one of the strongest arguments for fiscal conservatism. Subsequent formulations stress the need to build capacity, thereby increasing the state’s ability to intervene. An alternative perspective is that of the developmental state, which sees the state as the leading sector in society for bringing about lasting social change through capable and well-managed interventions. The ruling party advances the view that such a developmental state should ‘lead in the definition of a common national agenda, mobilising society to take part in its implementation and directing society’s resources towards this common programme’ and that the ‘organisational and technical capacity of the state to implement its programmes therefore needs to be developed’ (ANC 2007). In the mid-1990s, the incoming government, based on the support of an impoverished and deprived majority, had to undertake fundamental reforms. This was inevitable and one of the top priorities of government. Even though deep inequalities persist, this extension of the state has effectively brought an 80/20 society to an end – one in which 20 per cent of the population previously had access to 80 per cent of state provision. The achievement of ‘wall-towall’ municipalities across the range of the country in the place of apartheid structures, even with all their inequalities and differences in capacity, has required significant reorganisation and has been a considerable achievement. The setting of targets for universal service delivery to meet basic needs also marks a historic change between the old and the new emerging society. The distance between the delivery mandate and capacity realities, however, still remains, and threatens to cut across a number of advances.

Key determinants of change This section argues that four key issues affect the state’s ability to transform and respond to its post-apartheid mandate. First, the expectation of a

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developmental state places burdens on the state that might not have been created under a less ambitious agenda, and therefore magnifies weaknesses. Second, using service delivery as an indicator of state capacity allows us to measure, almost quantitatively, where change is required. Third, corruption seems to be a cancer that undermines many developmental efforts and rots away at the organisational fabric of the state. Fourth, the key outlier is the political and managerial will to lead the state in transformation.


Delivery and the developmental state The tasks required to end apartheid inequality and achieve growth and rounded social development invited the conception of an active, or strong, developmental state. This notion is variously described to capture the essence of states which have passed from semi-colonial dependence to development through rapid rates of economic growth. In South Africa, the language of the developmental state has passed into that of the Treasury as well as of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), a sign of its many and various interpretations. In its 2007 review, the Public Service Commission (PSC) regards the developmental state as necessary, as it ‘captures the collective will and determination of…people to create a better life for themselves’ (PSC 2007: 9). A different emphasis comes from the labour movement, which argues that ‘the concept of the developmental state points to weaknesses in the state as critical to shortcomings in the economy’ (Cosatu Central Committee 2005: 1). The failure to ensure broad-based benefits such as growth in jobs and increased incomes has brought the concept to the fore. The notion of a developmental state has been put forward to capture the idea of a dynamic state determined to advance economic growth and modernisation while addressing the issues of poverty and inequality. Such views rely on a competent, well-coordinated and somewhat insulated bureaucracy with a sense of its mission to ensure the best use of resources available, placing the capacity for resolute implementation at the centre of an active and strong state. The post-apartheid transition has been marked by the simultaneous processes of a drive to accelerate service delivery and the haemorrhaging of experienced civil servants. Those who advocate a strong and active developmental state start with the view that the state has the prime responsibility for ending poverty and sharply reducing inequality. The often-asked question is whether 155


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state intervention has been largely over the subordinate layers of government and in favour of the consolidation of an economic elite, rather than direct improvement in the life of the people. Despite this, the public expectation is that a government elected by the people should provide a better life for all, and the government persists in the view that the developmental state will eventually lead to the realisation of substantial social advancement.


Service delivery: the measure of capacity Service delivery – the end product of a chain of plans and actions involving municipal and provincial plans and national budgets, a range of institutions, and local consultation – is arguably a primary measure of the effective realisation of state capacity. In a society in which improved water services, housing, education and so on were denied to the majority, service delivery is an indication of the extent to which transformation has been realised in the lives of ordinary people. As blackouts, current at the time of writing, occasioned by poor maintenance and indecisive strategy in power generation indicate, delivery also depends on clear national planning and the maintenance of planning, managerial and technical capacity. Capacity has to be maintained and extended. The extended reach of the state is illustrated by the additional people brought in as taxpayers and as beneficiaries of services such as water, sanitation and electricity. There has also been an extended reach in social grants through the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), overseen by the Department of Social Development. The number of beneficiaries rose when the government extended the child support grant to children from 7 to 14 years of age, with a baseline target of 3.2 million expanding to reach more than 7.6 million at the end of October 2006 (Skweyiya 2006). There are also impressive gains in the delivery of piped water to rural communities, with some 12 million people having benefited from improved access in the post-apartheid era. All this has depended on increased tax revenue: the number of taxpayers rose from 2.4 million to 6.3 million from 1995 to 2005, an increase of 158 per cent. This occurred with a much smaller relative increase in revenue service personnel over the same period. Where there is a will and a sense of responsibility, there are real achievements.

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A number of sectors of the public service have seen sustained growth in capacity, some sectors a modest extension, and other sectors a series of crises. In the justice department, which is often at the centre of public concern about crime, there is evidence of high levels of underspending. From this department, the government is faced with an embarrassing combination of under-delivery, significant underspending and fiscal dumping (Business Day 08.03.07 and 13.07.07).4 There is increasing evidence that, despite the advances in the extension of administrative capacity to provide social grants throughout the country, some of the most important targets in the provision of basic household services will not be reached. A growing number of targets agreed to by the Cabinet and set out in ‘State of the Nation’ addresses for the water sector, for instance, are unlikely to be met. The original target for the ending of the bucket system was 2006 but this has been further extended. About 2 000 schools remain without adequate toilets, while the target for delivery was meant to be met in 2004. There are numerous other examples that could be quoted: the targets of ‘water and sanitation for all’ looks set to be reached six years later than scheduled. There are deep problems in commitment, coherence and capacity; significantly, the critically important delivery of housing has declined in recent years while expenditure has increased (DWAF 2006; National Treasury 2006).5 The challenges for improving the rate of delivery in key sectors help to explain why targets are not being met; these issues should stimulate discussion around the alignment of planning, targets, budgets with the capacity to implement – all of which have to be carefully and strategically linked to achieve the desired results. The lack of capacity to ensure good financial management impedes service delivery and broad development goals in the departments of housing, water affairs, transport, and trade and industry. There seems to be a lack of adequate planning and project management skills across the board. The PSC mentions the need for capacity to rise ‘to new delivery challenges’ to redress the legacy of apartheid and consolidate democracy (PSC 2007: 21). The social redress promised in national commitments and speeches requires the problem of the capacity to deliver to be addressed.

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Corruption


Corruption is perceived to be widespread and entrenched, especially within senior levels of government (PSC 2007). It operates in a number of ways, but whether it takes the form of paying for favours or single small transactions (Mabasa 2005),6 fraudulently securing housing loans, seemingly insignificant nepotistic favours for small supply-chain services or even multi-billion rand deals,7 the effect this has on organisational culture throughout the state is much the same. Corruption is a malaise that rots the core of any organisational value system and erodes the platforms required for accountability. If political and managerial leaders are engaged in or tolerate corrupt behaviour, it makes holding someone accountable for poor performance very difficult. Unfortunately there is no deliberate oversight of corruption, and key departments do not register the relationship between its reported incidence and prosecutions.8 However, corruption is not only manifest in the favouring of bidders, preferential appointments or being paid off. It is also evident in the tolerance of poor, or complete lack of, performance in government departments and on contracts. The inefficient and ineffective use of resources caused by tolerating poor performance is obvious and significant, but there are also the indirect effects on the morale of the organisation and communities receiving services of a sub-standard quality. These have long-term consequences that entrench themselves in the soft dimensions of organisations and fuel a lack of credibility and poor management, which are impossible to measure and even more difficult to manage in the absence of good leadership. A culture of nonperformance is created, to which the poor respond mainly through contested service payments and protests, which sometimes turn violent. It is important to note that it is the will of political and managerial leadership, rather than the extent of decentralisation or the mere existence of policies and frameworks, that determines how effective such frameworks, controls and fraud-prevention mechanisms will be. As discussed above, however, too few organs of state understand the current frameworks for them to be widely effective. The few that have the knowledge can use these frameworks to their advantage, provided the political will to do so is also present.

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Political will and accountability


One of the key findings of the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report of 2006 is that politics matters in service delivery. Political will translates into national targets, the allocation of the necessary resources, the drive to ensure implementation and, broadly, the acceptance of accountability at all these levels to political representatives and directly to the people. The exodus of seemingly competent ministers at the end of the 1999–2004 term and the uninterrupted tenure of ministers in chronically troubled departments during the 2004–09 term suggests there is a lack of political will to take the unpopular steps required to rid the government of poor performers, and ultimately to improve the efficacy of the state. NGOs that work closely with Parliament are able to share stories of proactive and vocal parliamentary committee members from the ruling party being removed from influential committees, effectively to silence them (personal communication). In addition, ministers are generally not challenged at hearings by their political colleagues. These are just some examples that suggest that there is no political will to ensure that our institutions of democracy and oversight have effective mechanisms of accountability. Political capacity to maintain and extend accountability at a number of levels appears to be weakened. The thrust for greater accountability and for open examination of service standards is undermined when the state does not rigorously apply existing regulatory frameworks which could improve services – extending telecommunications or improving the quality of water, for example. A lack of any depth to accountability weakens the drive to improve on reporting; if the figures and narratives are not drawn on and assessed, there is little incentive to improve reporting in the future. Critics of the government point to the ruling party’s intolerance of opposition, having created a culture in which constructive engagement is absent and co-operative engagement that leads to mutually satisfactory solutions is in abeyance.9 In the end, it is the poorest people who suffer the most. Rooting out problems of poor performance and corruption depends on the political will of the state. The institutions of democracy, such as Parliament and its oversight committees, are hamstrung by a culture of non-enforcement and do not, therefore, have the power they should have as envisaged by the Constitution.

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The drivers of change required for real transformation The previous section identified the key issues affecting the ability to transform a nation in waiting. However, these can be broken down into specific but interdependent drivers of change: • the political will at the highest levels to foster a meritocratic and accountable public service across the board; • the mismatch between elaborate policy planning and financial frameworks and the capacity required to implement these policies and frameworks effectively in real contexts; and • the continuation of a top-down, reactive policy-making mode in the government, rather than a recognition of the imperative of taking responsibility for implementing effective capacity-building interventions. Appropriate responses to the above drivers would contribute significantly towards ensuring favourable outcomes in critical areas such as the ability to develop, recruit and retain senior public officials with the necessary morals, experience and skills; capacity to compete with the private and nongovernmental sectors for scarce human resources; difficulties in achieving intergovernmental and interdepartmental co-ordination; and social unrest as evidenced in the service-delivery protests and demarcation disputes. Satisfactory responses in these areas will, in turn, indirectly encourage optimism among the people that a strong developmental state will deliver on its commitments, and foster a mode of economic growth that consolidates confidence and assertiveness among the black middle and working class who will, in turn, exert pressure for improved services. Failure, on the other hand, will increase the spread and intensity of protest action. The following section elaborates on the above argument following the themes of human capacity, operational capability, planning systems and practices, and municipal capacity.

Human capacity A key aspect of the capacity of a state lies in its ability to build and maintain a cadre of professional, capable and motivated civil servants. Although there is a lack of a thorough review and reliable systems to record relevant human resource information, widespread shortages of skills are reported throughout

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the government. The lack of the necessary reliable systems and information is evidence itself of these problems. In the public sector review of 2006, the strengthening of human resources is regarded as the ‘key among the capacity challenges’ that requires ‘dedicated leadership from the executive and senior management levels’ (PSC 2006: 2, 10). Vacancy levels as high as 33 per cent in senior officials’ posts have been reported in, for example, the departments of transport and trade and industry (Auditor-General 2006). The most striking characteristic of staffing levels, however, is the unevenness of the problem, ranging from adequate staffing in some places to chronic shortages of staff at the senior level in some sectors and provinces. Unfilled positions, in turn, tend to overburden good performers by passing on additional work to them. The lack of appropriate skills and high staff turnover lead to the failure to diagnose problems and provide feasible solutions. Lack of appropriate skills also leads to ineffective and wasteful expenditure, as repeatedly identified by the Auditor-General (2006). This, in turn, has the additional knock-on effect of low morale and motivational problems, both fuelled by poor leadership and under-resourced environments. Industry-specific skills are in short supply, creating a shortfall in the capacity required to achieve developmental outcomes. This problem involves a lack of skills, as well as an insufficient number of people with these skills. As a result, overloaded social workers, for example, may misdiagnose a problem that then recurs, or a shortage of housing inspectors may mean constructors can get away with poor-quality houses and shoddy workmanship. The severity of these problems is uneven, but even the better performing provinces and sectors will admit that their services are not of the desired quality because of human resource constraints. The soft skills required to perform many government duties that may make the difference between a happy or a disgruntled customer are not being developed by the existing education and training systems (Pauw et al. 2006). Officials also don’t seem to engage and communicate with beneficiaries effectively and constructively during consultative processes.10 Various izimbizos (community meetings), surveys and complaints systems have worked as a corrective measure by creating awareness of communities’ needs, which is a positive outcome of the processes required by the new legislative framework; the challenge has been to translate this awareness into improved delivery.

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The public sector is marked by high mobility of skilled employees. This has two major implications for service delivery. Firstly, the knowledge and experience required to develop and implement operational strategies appropriate to policy are not developed. Secondly, systems, such as information systems, and frameworks required by the legislation are not implemented properly or in a way that complements service delivery. The dedicated leadership mentioned by the PSC earlier in this chapter would be the most likely and the quickest solution, and would improve the morale and commitment in departments, but is not found in evidence.11 Clearly the concept of a cadre dedicated to public service has yet to cohere. The general acceptance that a revolving door between the public and private sectors is appropriate has limited the number of career civil servants and the length of their tenures in government. Most importantly, it has created a limited understanding of the complexities of the environment. A public service cadre should carry the institutional memory required to operate systems and processes that are instrumental for effective delivery. It should also draw on a different set of reward systems to the public sector. Many of the interventions that have been introduced to address human capacity issues have been elaborate, complicated and cumbersome, and have had little effect as yet. Government departments have favoured the use of Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) and the mechanism of the National Qualifications Framework to build skills. On paper this is logical, as there are sound financial and quality arguments, but the lack of capacity at the SETAs, coupled with burdensome procedures, means only a limited number of service providers required to provide the massive volumes of training have entered the market. Related to this are initiatives to build new training facilities and institutes, whereas capacity could be grown much more quickly, efficiently and effectively if the strength of existing training institutions was harnessed and capitalised upon. The net effect is that even though the resources and facilities are available to build skills rapidly, training does not happen at the scale and pace so desperately required.12

Indicators of operational capability A study of value for money across the provinces commissioned by the PSC and conducted in 2007 concluded that the capacity to implement the

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systems required by budget reforms and financial management frameworks does not exist. These conclusions are supported by remarks made by the Auditor-General. Although uneven across provinces and, to a lesser extent, across sectors, instead of yielding the desired effects, these frameworks create inefficiencies and strain capacity. Reporting requirements are onerous and may unnecessarily divert focus from service delivery. Assessments of financial management capability suggest that in many instances, the government does not yet have the basic systems in place that are needed to implement existing financial management legislation and regulations, despite their promulgation in the late 1990s. Cited in a daily newspaper, the Auditor-General concludes that in an alarming number of departments, systems and processes are not in place and frameworks and policies have not been developed or communicated properly for financial management (Business Day 13.07.07). Two questions arise in relation to the financial framework. The first is whether management frameworks developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and other developed nations are appropriate to organisational cultures and human capacity in this country (Aucoin 1990; Guthrie et al. 1999).13 The second is whether there is evidence that these frameworks improve the quality of services in developed countries. These bureaucratic complexities and skills shortages mean the existing planning and budget cycle is, in effect, administered through a rigid set of norms, standards and long-term plans that do not afford the departments the flexibility they actually need to achieve developmental outcomes. However, they look set to stay, perhaps as a direct result of the national Treasury’s bargaining power. At the moment, the emphasis is on compliance with reporting requirements rather than on performance, as it is the reporting that is more fruitfully rewarded. From a critic’s perspective, a neo-liberal logic to achieving developmental outcomes (consistent with the Washington Consensus, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) prevails at the national Treasury and carries through to the provincial treasuries. Subsequent to the introduction of GEAR, an institutional vocabulary of saving and efficiency has been entrenched. Many officials feel that this style of thinking dominates the evaluation of proposals, so conditions of expenditure are interpreted very narrowly. Departments therefore have to implement projects by following rigid criteria,

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whereas a more holistic interpretation of the possibilities would give the flexibility that would actually ensure that the projects are developmental and improve the lives of citizens. Many projects with significant social impact may be marginally financially unsustainable, and therefore require a high level of motivation – which is not within the ability of service departments to communicate properly. In addition, the lack of capacity to interpret the conditions holistically may cause wasteful expenditure. This occurs when officials use funds to buy equipment that complies with certain expenditure classifications to avoid money being sent back, when more flexible planning frameworks may have resulted in public funds being used more effectively (Quaglia 2005). Despite this negative picture, marked by unevenness across the provinces, the state, through the efforts and dogged determination of the national and provincial treasuries, has established a foundation on which improved reporting systems can be built. It has, however, come at some cost.

Planning systems and practices Efficient and effective service delivery is underpinned by the correct identification, definition and delimitation of objectives (Rowland 1987). However, there are poor, fragmented and uncoordinated planning practices and systems in the government. Efforts to establish and co-ordinate effective planning and information systems to support public sector delivery have not yielded adequate results to date. Extravagant and uncoordinated expenditure on systems and consultants, across sectors and spheres, has continued for a number of years now, mainly achieving a landscape of complex systems modelled on other contexts that do not respond to South Africa’s priorities and inadequate capacity levels to manage the systems effectively. The Department of Education presents a useful example. Despite having conducted nationwide school audits in 1996, 2000 and 2006 (the School Register of Needs Audits) as a means of establishing a base of information for school infrastructure planning, the department has still to establish a reliable information base for planning. There are no national planning guidelines, and provinces are at varying levels of having any coherent policies in place. Provinces such as the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape have run ahead with their own costly systems and processes to support planning, with varying

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levels of success. In other provinces the provincial treasuries make regular attempts (or threats) to deliver direct assistance to departments to develop proper and defensible plans. In the meantime, it is still virtually impossible to get coherent information about the approaches and plans for strategic and operational school infrastructure planning in the provinces. A key issue underlying the challenges in the sector departments is their failure to determine the staff complement and skills profile necessary to undertake effective planning (Karuri & Sithole 2004). The vast majority of school planners are, in fact, former educators with no background at all in infrastructure or school planning. In addition to this, there are associated challenges of poor role definition, inadequate support and poor co-ordination. These are textbook indicators of poor management and leadership. Another contemporary challenge is that of the co-ordination across sectors in planning for infrastructure delivery. Poorly developed planning systems mean that integrated delivery cannot be achieved. The introduction of Integrated Development Plan and intergovernmental forums attempted, in part, to address this challenge. The reality is, however, that to date the planning priorities within sectors are largely still defined within provincial line departments, for example of education or health. Stable and co-ordinated planning systems and the human capacity to plan effectively and transparently are both key for the state to deliver on its mandate. Signs are that there is a growing realisation of the extent of the shortfall.

Municipal capacity As in other spheres of government, there is great unevenness in the capacity and quality of service delivery that municipalities provide. The transformation and amalgamation of municipalities, coupled with legislative reforms, has affected some municipalities more negatively than others. Many municipalities struggle to comply with the most basic of legislative frameworks, while others are able to achieve considerable progress. This sphere of government is not served by contestations between the two key oversight bodies that impose unnecessarily complex reporting and planning requirements on municipalities, so distracting them from their focus of serving their communities.

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South Africa’s Constitution places the responsibility of social and economic development on municipal government, which is required to be financially sustainable and responsive to the needs of its communities. However, the adherence of municipalities to the principle of an ‘efficient, frontline development agency’, as promised in the Preamble to the Local Government Municipal Systems Act (No. 32 of 2000), is increasingly under criticism from experts in the field and from those suffering the low levels of service delivery. The period of transition from social exclusion to delivery has, in some cases, dramatically increased the demand on the capacity of municipalities. As the longer-established officials of larger municipalities often explain, they dealt in the past with a fraction of the population and over the past period, have had to extend their reach to the limits of their boundaries and to classes previously excluded. In addition to now serving larger constituencies, they have had to deal with the institutional challenges of amalgamating financial and other management systems while trying to comply with new reporting norms. This has happened spatially, by bringing in adjoining semi-urban areas, and in depth, by providing higher levels of service. Reviews of human resources in municipalities find that many senior officials have minimal or inappropriate skills, and that a significant proportion lack experience in their position (Municipal Demarcation Board 2007). Fairly high proportions of officials – 30 to 60 per cent according to category – do not have qualifications higher than a matriculation certificate or a diploma, and do not have qualifications for their functions. Officials tend to change after elections (Municipal Demarcation Board 2007) and experience is often lost. Even if the party does not change, management tends to change with new political incumbents. This could account for the fairly high proportion – from 42 to 61 per cent – of municipal managers, chief financial officers, managers in corporate and technical services and in Integrated Development Planning with fewer than two years of experience. This is a critical loss of human resources. The lack of human capacity at this level is evident in the poor management of financial resources. However, studies have shown that poor political and managerial leadership are the key problems. Municipalities where protests persist are found to spend disproportionately on salaries compared to capital projects.14 Much-celebrated legislated requirements, such as Integrated

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Development Plans (IDPs) and community participation, are the product of consultancies and not of the people in these municipalities.


Responsiveness is an important aspect of capacity. At the municipal level in particular, it is argued, responsiveness is augmented by public participation to ensure benchmarking and assessment of service levels. This is set out in robust municipal legislation that provides for consultation in planning and for assessment of performance by the people as well as by officials. However, the cart has been put before the horse, and effective consultation beyond the formal institutions of government is one of the weaknesses of local government. This is reflected in poor responsiveness to widespread social unrest over service delivery.

The evolution of future trends The analysis of current directions raises the question of future trends, the interaction between rising social pressures for change and possibilities for capacity to evolve through contradictory currents. The public service strike of 2007 raised considerable debate about dissatisfaction with government service. The service delivery protests raised debate about dissatisfaction with service provision. This section outlines the likely future trends based on the arguments that the chapter has put forward thus far.

Human capital A number of possibilities about human capital emerge. One of these is that, with increasing professionalism and more attractive staff conditions for senior officials, the turnover of staff slowly declines and more effective performance contracts are enforced at senior levels. However, at the organisational level, the enforcement of performance contracts may be resisted through noncooperation and union-led resistance. Performance management systems do not, therefore, necessarily bring about the desired change. No notion of a professional civil service cadre has been developed, so existing administrative inefficiencies will persist, for the short term at least. Where there are long-standing problems, the state reverts to extended consultancies to help direct and plan, although these are very expensive. This gradually results in rising institutional effectiveness, but is associated with

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the cost of some perverse effects on the civil service establishment, such as inflated costs of service delivery and a lack of skills transfer. Rising economic growth makes the private sector increasingly able to attract key personnel from the public sector. The growing realisation of the lack of human capital encourages the state to prioritise training. But due to the politicisation of the issue and complexities in the system, there are delays and opportunities for the connected to exploit gaps. At best the results are mixed, but training programmes generally cannot bridge the gap between the needs of the system and the poor outcomes of the education system.


Reach The state’s reach has extended considerably in some sectors, such as the South African Revenue Service (Sars) and the Department of Social Development. This contrasts with limited reach in other sectors. Some sectors are in semicrisis mode, such as justice and home affairs. Unbalanced reach creates both vicious and virtuous cycles. There is evidence of increasing awareness within departments of citizens’ needs, but a lack of responsiveness persists. The rate of service delivery is not rising in many sectors and provinces, and targets are not being met. A lack of accountability for underperformance remains. In this context, tensions are evident between those wanting to implement state-centric approaches and those who want a decentralised approach. Under pressure, the government is likely to adopt the consultancy approach selectively, because the private sector offers extended consultancies and secondments to manage crisis areas. Major infrastructure projects are likely to be contracted to private sector consortia as the best way of improving infrastructure such as ports, roads and railways. Despite this, the private sector does not provide the capital for these infrastructure projects, so the state accepts most of the risk. Slipping service delivery targets and continuing service delivery protests raise the prospect of the government reviewing planning, budgeting and implementation thoroughly, and assessing chronic problems in service delivery. Two perspectives emerge. The first is that of further adjusting dates and targets to make the problems vague and to extend timelines into the future. The second is a view that budgetary allocations and implementation systems need reappraisal and change. The first view is the compromise strategy, and is most likely to be adopted. It leads to a series of indirect interventions

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to identify poor performers and corruption and results in the guilty being charged in courts, rather than being dismissed through established chains of accountability. For some time the results are uneven, but eventually the effect is positive. In the long term, as a product of continued economic growth, a growing and better-educated middle class demands better services and improved governance from municipalities. Social movements increase their co-ordination nationally, and challenge municipalities in housing and service delivery. Although responsiveness remains an ongoing problem, municipal political executives are forced to respond with improved services, greater transparency and better governance. Public exposure and continuing protests encourage the political will to foster greater accountability.

Coherence The problems in delivery point to the inconsistency between growing fiscal resources and declining coherence in key sectors. This leads to interventions that aim to address identified challenges. Examples of these interventions are the government-wide monitoring and evaluation framework, the IDP Nerve Centre and Project Consolidate, which addresses municipal capacity. Further initiatives are being explored by the government, such as the cluster approach.15 These initiatives have mixed success because some serve to blur accountability relationships, while others yield very good results. Unevenness is marked between provinces. Some are progressing, others are beginning to improve while still others continue to do extremely poorly. This leads to a continuing, sometimes growing, divergence between provinces, which is reflected in ongoing civil unrest around problems in the delivery of education, water and electricity services, for example. Migration to the betterperforming provinces means that these provinces’ backlogs grow, despite their considerable service delivery output. The interdepartmental and intergovernmental turf wars, contestations and lack of sharing intensify for a period and obstruct clear lines of responsibility. This leads to the eventual easing of turf wars between oversight departments as: • functional authority is slowly taken away from certain oversight bodies to the point that they become powerless; and

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• a round of departmental restructuring, informed by a thorough review, leads to them being dismantled. This could allow for clearer lines of responsibility and improved co-ordination, to pave the way for greater coherence and improved delivery where the capacity and leadership exists.


Planning and reporting An awareness of performance reporting has been developed, but data are often unreliable and the assessment of impacts is uncertain. Although uneven, the gap between the organisational capacity required to implement new policies and frameworks and the capacity that exists is likely to grow. Over time, financial management frameworks and reporting are revised to reach a series of thresholds. This occurs to meet varying levels of competence that are manageable and reviewed over time, and that are eventually stepped up. By 2019, most municipalities and other government departments are likely to reach the level required by today’s standards. The outliers are given the support required to ensure that their under-capacity is not problematic.

The trend away from the provinces Real political power and influence on policy is gradually moving away from the provinces. In its place, there are two movements. The first is a movement towards centralised decision-making and policy formulation. The second is a movement towards decentralised service delivery and an emphasis on local government. In the short term, increasingly complex and interventionist solutions are sought, instead of addressing problems at the root cause. Rather than strengthening intergovernmental co-ordination, there is a tendency to resort to solving problems through centralising power. National government continues to take selective responsibilities away from the provinces where there are obvious service delivery failings, and to give these to national agencies or municipalities. National government favours the latter. Intergovernmental communication remains poor as national departments continue to restrict the role of provincial departments to implement policy. Consistent with a state-centric drive, provinces are increasingly required to implement policy according to strict norms and standards. This fuels an

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intergovernmental system that ensures that ‘success breeds success’. In the process, the weak provinces get weaker and become more poorly resourced, while better-performing provinces, in co-operation with local government, become better resourced and get stronger. Over time, the functions of provincial departments are increasingly undertaken by municipalities. Provincial departments gradually lose their rationale through the reallocation of powers and functions, and the natural churn of staff. Eventually, the consolidation of provinces is a likely prospect.


Looking forward As this chapter has argued, the capacity of the state to deliver quality services to its citizens depends on: • enough personnel who have the appropriate skills and well-grounded training and commitment; • effective systems and the extent to which they become embedded in organisational processes; • an intergovernmental relations system grounded on a co-operative spirit; • explicit and respected lines of accountability; and • professional responsiveness to demands. In contrast, a lack of capacity can be measured by: • the number of vacancies and high staff turnover rates; • the inability to reach modest targets; • dominance by the private sector; and • evidence of citizens’ dissatisfaction. To achieve the objectives of a developmental state, the political leadership will have to address human capital issues and effectiveness urgently. This section concludes the chapter and suggests the likely implications for the future. Government in South Africa is characterised by marked contrasts and unevenness in all aspects, something that is likely to persist for another generation. Sars and the SASSA are two agents of the state that are capacitated, efficient and responsive, and will probably remain so due to political leverage and their importance. Sars’s efficiency is likely to ensure that the finances required for delivery are sustained and the waste associated with cumbersome frameworks can be tolerated. The disbursement of grants from SASSA will, to

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some extent, ease the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and contain social unrest, giving new meaning to social security. The exercise of decisive political will to ensure greater accountability for efficient and quality service delivery is needed. This is clearly the wild card in the pack and will remain so in the future. As long as leadership and power relations in the governing alliance are contested, legitimacy will continue to be sought through policy development rather than policy implementation. The most cost-effective way to improve service delivery is to develop a culture of performance, accountability and responsibility. This requires political will and skilled leadership. If it is recognised, it could be the quickest way to reduce current levels of staff turnover, which is key to developing the organisational capacity to deliver. The tendency for power to be centralised has its critics who are making attempts to stop it in its tracks. Future developments in this regard are uncertain and are likely to be debated for some time. The impact on intergovernmental co-ordination is likely to remain significant, with serious implications for state capacity. Unsettled labour relations in the public sector, in the aftermath of the civil service strike of May and June 2007, could mean that the solutions to improving the quality of service delivery are blurred by dissatisfaction among public officials who feel they are insufficiently rewarded. The growing tension between economic growth, the rising wealth of the elite and the pressures from the poor for redistribution will continue to place demands on the state to deliver. A capitalist system managed by self-serving politicians will continue to ensure a growing gap between developed and developing regions. Without the political will and solutions to intergovernmental conflict, state capacity and responsiveness to public demand will stay uneven across provinces and departments. It is likely that the record of achievement of the developmental state on its mandate will be increasingly contested by the poor as pressure on the public service continues to increase. If history repeats itself, the state will probably intervene to attempt to resolve tensions through judicious means. This will create expectations that it will become more active in ameliorating rising inequality. This will come with newly worded promises of improved service delivery and additional allocations. These allocations, however, may well be nothing more than the funds that were already allocated, relabelled and marketed under a

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new name. Due to its political value, housing will most likely have the highest profile. Instead of reappraising delivery and bringing it in line with the state’s capacity to deliver, the state will continue to extend targets forward to new deadlines, arguing that there is a problem of incapacity that needs more time to resolve. There will be a growing trend that if service delivery problems widen and deepen, social movements will recruit the middle class to their ranks and invite a period of chronic crisis control. Therefore, in an attempt to restrain the development of social movements, public debate about the number of targets not met will be restrained and a period of public disenchantment with the poor performance of the state will result in increasing protests that extend beyond the poor to other sections of society. This will bring about a period of chronic crisis control as senior politicians will be compelled to intervene in local disputes, and special teams of technocrats will manage apparently insoluble departmental problems. Facing pressures of public criticism of performance, and a growing gap between public- and private-sector salaries, a continuing ebb of talent from the public sector is likely. At some point, this may become an exodus as professional civil servants feel their abilities are not being recognised or that they are being overburdened. During this period, business, particularly black economic empowerment business, will poach professionals increasingly from the upper levels of the civil service. In response, the government will hopefully emphasise a civil service cadre that is able to work in a more responsive manner to meet people’s needs. This is a shift from current misguided discussions about creating a revolving door between the public and private sectors. However, the gap between capacitated and under-capacitated departments and provinces is likely to grow. This will be marked by contrasts. In the green pastures of good performance, departments and municipalities will strive to improve financial and information management systems. A culture of information will flourish and continued increases in performance will become the most marked results, along with the ability to perform impact evaluations and the rapid identification of solutions to problems. Elsewhere, as the service delivery protests indicate, progress will be slow and gaps in service delivery will widen according to geographical location. The provincial differences are likely to lead to migration towards betterserviced areas with some redress through fiscal measures to gain a more

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sustainable equilibrium. In some provinces, attempts by oversight bodies to implement successfully proven solutions will probably be unsuccessful, as the political and managerial will and capacity required to implement them continues to be absent. The developmental state is proposed as a concept to unify its proponents in the task of continuing and rising economic growth, as the basis for improved service delivery and greater social equality. One of the factors in the redress of the inequalities of the past is that of the capacity of the state in its various dimensions. The realisation of a state that is successful in the coherence of its planning and resolution in the execution of policies does not arise from the prescription of the idea of the developmental state. The elements of what is publicly understood to be a developmental state are confirmed in the effective mobilisation of the state mechanism to deliver the basic services necessary for human development. As argued above, delivery requires a considerably extended reach of the state into new domains. This certainly accentuates the problem of capacity, in particular in responsiveness to new pressures, such as those of community protests and increasing dissatisfaction among established society. Notes 1

See http://www.info.gov.za/asgisa/asgisa.htm.

2

A neat definition of neo-liberal philosophy and practice is difficult to arrive at. These points are partially derived from a useful summary of policy packages in Pollin (2003).

3

The Project on Environmental Scarcities, State Capacity and Civil Violence identified the following indicators: human capital, instrumental rationality, coherence, resilience, autonomy, fiscal resources, reach and responsiveness, and legitimacy. See http://www.library.utoronto.ca/pcs/state/keyfind.htm.

4

See ‘Justice slated again for underspending’ and ‘Auditor-General warns on public funds jumble’ for comments made by the Auditor-General.

5

See Table 5.1 in National Treasury (2006).

6

According to an investigation by the Auditor-General, at least 53 426 out of 1.4 million subsidies were irregularly or fraudulently granted between 1994 and 2004. See http://www.internafrica.org/2006/03/housing-majors-to-be-grilled-by.html.

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7

Wyndham Hartley and Mathabo le Roux: ‘Still no date in sight for Lotto’s return’. See http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/article.aspx?ID=BD4A452755.

8

In a programme on SAFM Radio in June 2007, officials of the Department of Local and Provincial Government stated it was not their task to report on the number of prosecutions and their outcomes as this responsibility fell between a number of departments and the Department of Justice.

9

See Marian Tupy: ‘ANC policy is threat to freedom’, 26.04.07; Karima Brown: ‘Mbeki to battle stormy weather at June conference’, 24.04.07; Xolela Mangcu: ‘Crime and the alienating effects of technocracy on SA’s leaders’, 15.02.07; ‘No need to qualify dissent in a democracy at peace with itself ’, 08.02.07; and Dave Marrs: ‘Praise the few who are prepared to rock the boat’, 16.04.07.

10 This is a perception voiced among civil servants during a study of the Batho Pele principle of value for money in the public sector. The study was commissioned by the PSC and conducted across the provinces by the HSRC in 2007. 11 For a similar discussion on this in the context of education, see Sipho Seepe: ‘Culture of mediocrity creeping from the top down’, Business Day, 02.02.07. Also see the articles by Ann Bernstein and Sandy Johnston: http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=2637676 http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A399367. 12 See Philip Lloyd: ‘If SETAs are to help in the long haul’, Business Day 24.05.07. See also http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A471243 for a similar discussion. 13 For comments on skills retention, see J Robertson: ‘A private lesson for SA’s public service’, Business Day 20.03.07. 14 See Kevin Allan and Karen Heese: ‘Fertile ground for civil unrest’, Business Day 04.10.05, http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A98441. 15 As part of a strategy to promote co-ordination and coherence, government has grouped departments with service-delivery interdependencies into so-called ‘clusters’ to deal with issues of common interest. So, for example, there is a governance cluster, a social cluster, an economic cluster, etc.

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References ANC (African National Congress) (2007) Policy discussion documents I: Economic transformation for a national democratic society. ANC Today 7(13). Available at http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/. Accessed on 10 January 2008 Aucoin P (1990) Administrative reform in public management: Paradigms, principles, paradoxes and pendulums. Governance 3(2): 115–137 Auditor-General (2006) General report of the Auditor-General on audit outcomes for the financial year 2005–06. Pretoria: Office of the Auditor-General


Cosatu Central Committee (2005) A developmental state for South Africa? Discussion paper. Available at http://www.cosatu.org.za/cc2005/Developmental.pdf. Accessed on 10 January 2008 DoF (Department of Finance, South Africa) (1996) Growth, employment and redistribution: A macroeconomic strategy. Available at http://www.info.gov.za/ otherdocs/1996/gear.pdf. Accessed on 10 January 2008 Dollery B & Snowball J (2003) Government failure and state incapacity: The South African public sector in the 1990s. South African Journal of Economic History 18: 310–331 DoSD (Department of Social Development, South Africa) (n.d.) Pocket guide on social assistance. Available at http://www.gcis.gov.za/docs/publications/pocketguide/022_ social.pdf. Accessed April 2007 DWAF (Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, South Africa) (2006) Capacity of local government to meet government targets. Paper presented to the National Water Summit, 4–5 May, Midrand Evans P (1995) Embedded autonomy: States and industrial transformation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Guthrie J, Olson O & Humphrey C (1999) Debating developments in new public financial management: The limits of global theorising and some new ways forward. Financial Accountability and Management 15(3–4): 209–228 Karuri G & Sithole B (2004) Planning support tools: A survey of capacity building requirements of physical resource planners in provincial departments of education. Unpublished report. Pretoria: Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Mabasa L (2005) State targets social grant fraud. Available at http://www.southafrica.info/ public_services/citizens/services_gov/socialgrants-290305.htm. Accessed April 2007 Municipal Demarcation Board (2007) National report on local government capacity. Pretoria: MDB

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National Treasury (South Africa) (2006) Provincial budgets and expenditure review: 2002/03–2008/09. Pretoria: National Treasury Pauw K, Oosthuizen M & Van der Westhuizen C (2006) Graduate unemployment in the face of skills shortages: A labour market paradox. Cape Town: Development Policy Research Unit, University of Cape Town Pollin R (2003) Contours of descent: U.S. economic fractures and the landscape of global austerity. New York: Verso


PSC (Public Service Commission, South Africa) (2006) State of the public service report 2006: Assessing the capacity of the state to deliver. Pretoria: Public Service Commission PSC (2007a) State of the public service report 2007: Promoting growth and development through an effective public service. Pretoria: Public Service Commission PSC (2007b) Report on the evaluation of the Batho Pele principle of value for money in the public service. A study conducted by the HSRC for the Public Service Commission. Available at http://www.info.gov.za/view/ DownloadFileAction?id=79277. Accessed April 2008 Quaglia L (2005) Civil servants, economic ideas and economic policies: Lessons from Italy. Governance 18(4): 545–566 Rowland RW (1987) Efficiency and effectiveness of public institutions. In SX Hanekom, RW Rowland & EG Bain (Eds) Key aspects of public administration. Johannesburg: Southern Book Publishers Simkins C (1996) The new South Africa: Problems of reconstruction. Journal of Democracy 7(1): 82–95 Skweyiya Z (2006) Speech given by the Minister of Social Development at the Union Buildings, Pretoria, 20 November UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) (2005) Human development report. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press

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8

The state of our environment: Safeguarding the foundation for development


Donald Gibson, Amina Ismail, Darryll Kilian and Maia Matshikiza

Thabo Mbeki’s 2007 ‘State of the Nation’ address made direct reference to the environment. Upfront, it associated poverty with an environment of ‘squalor…stench…decaying rot…carelessly abandoned refuse’ and prosperity with ‘tidy streets…wooded lanes…flowers’ blossoms offsetting the green and singing grass’ (Mbeki 2007). These images may restrict the environment to a symptom of a healthy economy; however, concurrent initiatives within the government recognised a sound environment as the basis for a thriving economy and fundamental for alleviating poverty. The government’s draft National Framework for Sustainable Development (NFSD), released for public comment in December 2006 (DEAT 2006a), and its South Africa Environment Outlook (DEAT 2006b), launched in July 2007, demonstrated that South Africa’s development path depends, in fact, on the integrity of its natural resource base. It was not until the late twentieth century that the environment began to feature as a key strategic intervention for economic growth and poverty alleviation. Environmental management, characterised by a technocratic scientism (Orr 1992), remained separate from economic and political discourse until the 1980s (Redclift 1984). It was also ‘curious’, as Redclift observes, that both capitalists and Marxists, who highlight the dependency of production on the natural environment, showed little concern for resource depletion. Interdependency between development and natural resources received widespread acceptance for the first time with the release in 1987 of the highly influential Brundtland Report (WCED 1987). Although its concept of sustainable development1 received overwhelming political support, putting it into operation has proved to be difficult. Sustainable development calls for the revision of dominant current economic theory, the redefinition of social norms and the redirecting of environmental management towards meeting development needs.

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At the outset, therefore, sustainable development must be understood within the context of South Africa’s socio-economic goals and the natural resource requisites for meeting these objectives. This chapter firstly examines sustainable development within the South African and southern African regional context, giving particular attention to ecosystem services and human vulnerability. Using the drivers-pressures-state-impacts-responses (DPSIR)2 approach commonly used for state of the environment reporting (EEA 2001; OECD 2003; UNEP 2002), the chapter then features the key drivers of environmental change as well as the main trends in the state of the country’s water, air, biodiversity, land resources and climate. Against the background of these data, costs of declining resource quality for economic and social development are presented. The chapter concludes by focusing on South Africa’s NFSD as an important strategic lever for recognising, utilising and conserving the environment for future development. The authors of this chapter believe that the success of the NFSD will depend mainly on it being driven and implemented by a high-level political champion.

Sustainable development in context Democracy in South Africa brought far-reaching political, economic and social changes. These changes have been accompanied by an increasing acknowledgement of the need for more sustainable development, mirroring growing international concerns about the state of the natural resources on which economic growth and social development depend. As in the rest of the world, South African policy-makers have continued to refine the concept of sustainable development, and feature its ecological imperatives. Figure 8.1 illustrates how the stronger model of sustainable development embeds socio-political systems and the economy within ecosystem services, with the relationships between these components, and the integrity of these relationships, regulated by good governance. Section 24 of the South African Constitution3 obliges South Africans to ‘secure ecologically sustainable development’. This obligation set in motion a lawreform process aimed at improving access to, and the management of, South Africa’s natural resource base. The National Environmental Management Act (No. 107 of 1998) lies at the centre of the country’s environmental legislative framework.4 It defines sustainable development as ‘the integration of social,

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S TAT E O F T H E N AT I O N 2 0 0 8

Figure 8.1 Conceptual models of development S o c ie t y

stem servi ce osy Ec olitical sy p s o-

Economy

s

So

ci

s tem

onomy Ec Economy Society

Environment

Interlocking circles model

Environment

Concentric circles model

Governance

Sustainable development model


Source: DEAT (2006b)

economic and environmental factors into planning, implementation and decision-making so as to ensure that development serves present and future generations’. It has since been given flesh by the promulgation of a myriad of sophisticated laws dealing with, among other issues, air, biodiversity and coastal and marine areas to address the effects of mounting consumption of natural resources.5 Prompted by an international commitment contained in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation,6 the South African Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism recently gazetted the NFSD (DEAT 2006a). The NFSD represents a major shift in approach to sustainable development: it acknowledges the urgent need to reduce our ecological footprint7 caused by overly wasteful patterns of production and consumption without inappropriately restricting growth opportunities. A critical aspect of ecologically sustainable development is ecosystem services.8 Ecosystem services describes the range of provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting ecosystem functions that benefit people, as shown in Figure 8.2. ‘All people, everywhere,’ state Biggs et al. (2004: iv), ‘are absolutely dependent on ecosystem services, although well-being is also affected by many other factors. People who live a modern lifestyle in a city often forget that their food, water and air mostly come from ecosystems elsewhere.’ The Integrated Report of the Southern African Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (SAfMA), the source of the above quote, is one of 30 sub-global assessments conducted as part of the global Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA

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safeguarding the foundation for development


2005). Undertaken against the background of mounting concern about the state of the world’s ecosystems, the SAfMA assessed the services provided by ecosystems in southern Africa and their impacts on the lives of the region’s people. It argues that people are an integral part of the ecosystem, whether relatively undisturbed or intensively managed and modified. As Figure 8.2 illustrates, sustaining ecosystem functioning and services is essential to placing economic and human development on a sustainable path. This is made that much more pressing in light of South Africa’s growing ecological footprint9 (WWF 2004) and lower rating on the Environmental Sustainability Index10 (Esty et al. 2005). Both these measures indicate higher natural resource consumption, growing pressure on environmental systems and weaknesses in dealing with these pressures. This, in turn, has significant implications for South African national programmes aimed at Figure 8.2 Ecosystem services and their relationship to human well-being Constituents of well-being Ecosystem services

Security • Personal safety • Secure resource access • Security from disasters

Provisioning • Food • Fresh water • Wood and fibre • Fuel

Supporting • Nutrient cycling • Soil formation • Primary production

Basic material for good life

Regulating • Climate regulation • Flood regulation • Disease regulation • Water purification

Health • Strength • Feeling well • Access to clean air and water

Cultural • Aesthetic • Spiritual • Educational • Recreational

Freedom of choice and action Opportunity to be able to achieve what an individual values doing and being

Good social relations • Social cohesion • Mutual respect • Ability to help others

Life on earth – Biodiversity

Arrow colour Potential for mediation by socio-economic factors

• Adequate livelihoods • Sufficient nutritious food • Shelter • Access to goods

Arrow weight Intensity of linkages between ecosystem services and human well-being

Low

Weak

Medium

Medium

High

Strong

Source: MEA (2005)

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reducing poverty. People living in poverty tend to be the most vulnerable to environmental disturbance, because they have fewer resources to help them to cope with disaster. Lower incomes and restricted choices regarding location and employment mean that poor South Africans are less able to afford food or to save and accumulate assets, and are often powerless. Providing greater access to environmental services is key to reducing human vulnerability.11


Drivers of environmental change Current socio-economic patterns place significant pressure on the availability and quality of environmental resources. Population dynamics, prevailing economic growth patterns and capacity for effective environmental governance constitute some of the factors driving environmental change in South Africa. In so doing, drivers maintain, improve or depreciate the quality of resources such as land, air, water, biodiversity and climate, and represent critical intervention points for securing the country’s natural capital base. In South Africa, as in other developing countries, population change is a major agent of environmental modification. A review of the country’s main demographic statistics explains this. South Africa’s population presently stands at approximately 47.9 million and is growing at a rate of around 1 per cent per annum12 (Stats SA 2007a). Over 58 per cent of the population lives in urban centres13 and 32 per cent are under the age of 15, contributing to high levels of dependency (Stats SA 2004). This highly urbanised, growing and youthful population exerts increasing pressure on the country’s natural resources, a trend amplified by high levels of poverty and economic inequity. Using a poverty line of R322 per month (at 2000 prices), about 58 per cent of the population lived in poverty in 1995 (Hoogeven & Ozler 2004), with the majority (62 per cent) living in rural areas (Government of South Africa 2005). Although this figure has declined since 2000, it still remains high. In addition, South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world in terms of the gap between rich and poor. Poverty and inequity are social problems with complex environmental impacts. In South Africa, environmental impacts result from large numbers of the poorest people having access to and consuming relatively few resources, and fewer, more affluent people consuming large amounts of resources. Using the ecological footprint as a measure of the resources consumed by an individual, Swilling

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(2006) calculated that households in a Cape Town suburb categorised as middle to higher income require between 4.5 to 14 planets at their current consumption levels. This estimate decreases to between 1 and 4 planets with the introduction of some eco-efficiency measures. The primary economic sector, including mining, agriculture and fishing activities, has traditionally been the foundation of South Africa’s wealth. By driving the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, however, the sector contributes significantly to environmental degradation. Recent data are difficult to access, but 1997 figures show that mining is responsible for 87.7 per cent of the total waste generated nationally (DWAF 1998). Gold, accounting for one-third of foreign currency earnings, was responsible for half of this proportion. Agriculture is resource-intensive, with 80 per cent of South Africa’s land being used for grazing and cultivation, and irrigation agriculture consuming 62 per cent of national water resources. Although the economy has undergone a transition from a primary economy based on resource extraction to a tertiary one focused on manufacturing and financial services (Reserve Bank 2005), the primary sector continues to grow in absolute terms and is placing increasing pressure on supportive natural systems. South Africa’s economy is also energy-intensive, using relatively high energy inputs for every rand of economic output (Hughes et al. 2002). Most of South Africa’s electricity is generated from coal, with the greatest energy demand being from the industrial sector. Although the use of local coal makes South Africa’s electricity costs among the lowest in the world, it renders the economy carbon-intensive. The global average of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per capita, a Millennium Development Indicator, was 4 metric tons per annum for 2001; for South Africa, this figure is 8.7 metric tons, similar to some developed countries such as Spain and the United Kingdom (UN Statistics Division 2008). In 1994, the energy sector was responsible for 91.1 per cent of total CO2 emissions, largely due to the fact that 91.9 per cent of electricity was derived from coal. Environmental governance requires adequate capacity as well as co-ordinated efforts from the government, the private sector and civil society for developing and implementing environmental management policies, laws and institutions.14 Although the government in South Africa is well placed to

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co-ordinate environmental management, business and civil society are key partners in translating policy into practice. The post-apartheid government has undertaken an extensive review of environmental legislation to align it with development objectives. Initiatives within national departments such as environmental affairs and tourism, water affairs and forestry, housing, and finance bear testimony to growing environmental awareness within the government. Moreover, the business sector has introduced such noteworthy initiatives as the JSE’s Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Index.15 The Sustainable Futures Unit in the National Business Initiative also demonstrates a growing recognition of environmental considerations in business. Business can assist in sharing skills and information and developing technology in support of sustainable development. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) continue to play an important role in encouraging public participation in policy development as well as extending the reach and influence of programmes aimed at changing behaviour that affects the environment.16 The ultimate success of these initiatives will, however, depend on every South African making more informed choices when using resources such as water and electricity and when purchasing consumer products. In spite of the positive strides made in environmental governance, initiatives aimed at reducing the degradation of South Africa’s natural resource base remain largely uncoordinated, ad hoc and sectorally focused. Apart from undermining efforts to ensure more efficient resource use, uncoordinated environmental governance means that the level of awareness about the links between the environment and development among decision-makers remains low, and high-level champions are rare. As Underdal (2006) points out, the areas of influence for the environment lie largely outside the environmental domain. Institutions driving production and consumption, technological change, and beliefs, attitudes and subjective norms are key determinants of environmental change. It is the contention of this chapter, therefore, that while action is required on a number of different fronts to address these constraints and promote more sustainable development that also reduces poverty and inequality, this absence of strategic promoters in economic and social sectors is a key leverage point not currently being optimised.

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The current state of the environment The South Africa Environment Outlook for 2006 presents the findings of a two-year analysis of the past, current and future trends in the condition of the country’s environment, and how these relate to people and the economy (DEAT 2006b). Against the background of the drivers of environmental change, this section features some of the results of the state of South Africa’s land, water, air and ecological resources.

Land has enormous economic, spiritual, cultural and environmental value in South Africa and it is the subject of considerable political attention. Regrettably, land degradation, which is the loss of biological or economic productivity of agricultural lands, woodlands and forests resulting from human activities, is one of South Africa’s most pressing and neglected environmental issues. It is intimately linked to food security, poverty, urbanisation, climate change and biodiversity (Gibson 2006; Gibson et al. 2005; Hoffman & Ashwell 2001) Figure 8.3 Levels of soil, vegetation and overall degradation in South Africa, c. 1998 Soil degradation

Overall degradation

Vegetation degradation

500

400 Degradation index value


Land degradation

300

200

te

Co mm dis una tric l ts Co mm dis ercia tric l ts

Sta Fre e

Ga ute ng

ga

Ca pe We ste rn

lan ma Mp u

Ca pe ern No rth

We st No rth

Ca pe

l

ter n Eas

Zu luNa ta Kw a

Lim

0

po po

100

Source: Compiled from data in Hoffman et al. (1999)

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and is regarded as one of the largest threats to terrestrial biodiversity in the country (DEAT 2006b; Scholes & Biggs 2004). Areas of severe degradation – that is, where there is degradation of both soil and vegetation – and desertification in South Africa are perceived to correspond closely with the distribution of communal rangelands. These occur specifically in the steeply sloping environments adjacent to the escarpment in Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape (Hoffman & Ashwell 2001), as Figure 8.3 shows. Many communal areas in the Limpopo, North West, Northern Cape and Mpumalanga provinces are also severely degraded. Commercial farming areas with the most severe degradation are located in the Western and Northern Cape provinces. The lack of an up-todate national data set on degradation and desertification, however, makes it difficult to determine quantitatively whether the situation has worsened over the last decade (Gibson & Henderson 2005).

Water availability and quality The post-apartheid transformation taking place in the country has led to improved standards of living for many South Africans, resulting in increased demand for water. The National Water Resources Strategy (DWAF 2004) indicates that agricultural irrigation uses about 62 per cent of South Africa’s total water resources, urban activities about 25 per cent and remaining sectors (rural, mining and bulk industrial, power generation and afforestation) use 15 per cent. Together, these activities are anticipated to require 12 871 million m3/annum of the country’s estimated total available supply of 12 227 million m3/annum. Urbanisation, coupled with economic growth in urban areas, is expected to contribute to increases in water demand and consumption. Of concern is the Strategy’s prediction of a water deficit by 2025 (DWAF 2004), with the upper scenario being based on a 4 per cent GDP growth rate per annum. With South Africa’s GDP growth rate currently standing at 5.6 per cent (Stats SA 2007b), there is a clear need to factor in possible unexpected water shortages to avoid potential socio-economic and environmental impacts. There is already evidence of a negative water balance in 9 of the 19 Water Management Areas in South Africa.

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Aside from the increase in water usage, growing levels of pollution of water resources affect the functioning of aquatic ecosystems in estuaries and coastal waters. In 2002, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry published the National Water Resource Quality Status Report using data collected between 1996 and 2000 at over 150 representative sites to determine the suitability (from a physico-chemical perspective) of surface water resources for domestic, irrigation and recreational uses (DWAF 2002). The study shows that pollution of water resources can result in reduced fitness for use, and necessitate expensive and time-consuming treatment of water. Salinity levels, for instance, show a deteriorating trend in 46 per cent of sites.

Air quality Air quality in South Africa is decreasing at a rapid rate as a result of increasing atmospheric emissions. Sources of pollution predominantly include industrial activities, electricity generation, waste treatment and disposal, transport, and domestic fossil-fuel burning. Ambient air17 quality is a major environmental and health concern in areas surrounding industrial and mining activities and busy traffic routes; indoor air pollutant concentrations are of special concern in households burning fossil fuels such as coal, wood or paraffin. Concentrations of indoor air pollutants are higher than recommended health limits, and the effects are amplified in poorly ventilated low-income households. Overall, there has been a 20 per cent increase in health problems for the South African population as a result of increasing air pollution (Scorgie & Annegarn 2002). It has been estimated that domestic fuel-burning is the highest noncarcinogenic health risk, accounting for about 70 per cent of all respiratory hospital admissions in 2002 (Scorgie et al. 2004).

Biodiversity As mentioned earlier in the chapter, ecosystems provide a host of services on which humans depend for their survival, including nutrition, shelter, medicines, recreation and spiritual well-being. Better functioning ecosystems that have a greater variety of intact species are able to provide a greater range of services. There are a number of troubling statistics, however, concerning South Africa’s ecological status. Thirty-four per cent of terrestrial ecosystems fall within the vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered categories,

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as Figure 8.4 shows. These generally occur in areas of the country with high biodiversity and with globally significant biomes, such as the Western Cape fynbos biome (Rouget et al. 2004). An integrity assessment of major rivers reveals that 26 per cent of rivers are largely to critically modified and only 26 per cent are intact (Nel et al. 2004). Sixty-five per cent of South Africa’s marine biozones are threatened; only 10 per cent of wetlands are fully protected; and 28 per cent of estuaries (Turpie 2004) are deemed to be in excellent condition.


Figure 8.4 Status of terrestrial ecosystems, South Africa, 2004

LIMPOPO

MPUMALANGA NORTH WEST

GAUTENG

FREE STATE

SWAZILAND

KWAZULU-NATAL

LESOTHO NORTHERN CAPE

EASTERN CAPE

WESTERN CAPE

Ecosystem status Critically endangered Endangered Vulnerable Least threatened

Source: Rouget et al. (2004: 40)

Climate change Continued dependence on coal-driven energy has seen South Africa’s carbonequivalent emissions increase steadily since 1990 (DEAT 2006b). Relative to its population and economy size, South Africa emits more greenhouse gases

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than the world average for non-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries and countries in the Southern African Development Community. The fact that South Africa falls within one of the world’s most vulnerable areas to climate variability and change compounds matters. Climate models developed by Hewitson and Crane (2005) have shown that with a doubling of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, South Africa may experience significant climate changes, including a drying of the western parts of the country, with higher rainfall in the eastern parts, a shorter rainfall season in the Western Cape, a rise in temperature of 3–4ºC in the interior and an increase in the frequency and extent of droughts and floods. These key trends alert us to the deterioration of South Africa’s environmental status. But what they do not warn us about are the potential adverse consequences for the country’s society and economy: the costs for growth and development. This is an important issue that needs ongoing high-level advocacy to alert decision-makers across all sectors about the urgent need for action to safeguard livelihoods and the economy.

Implications for growth and development Analyses of economic trends predict that the South African economy will continue to grow through investments in infrastructure, human capacity development and social development, peaking in 2010 with an average annual growth rate of 6 per cent. However, given its resource-intensive nature, the economy is likely to face increasing constraints to material growth as natural capital diminishes and inefficient production processes lead to the accumulation of inordinate amounts of waste. Degrading ecosystems could, in turn, undermine poverty-reduction measures by reducing the capacity of natural capital to render economic services. Costs associated with pollution pose serious financial challenges for the country. Where production systems are energy-intensive and waste recycling is largely non-existent, as in the case of South Africa, inefficient household consumption links with rising resource consumption and waste. This avoidable correlation is ecologically unsustainable and financially wasteful (DEAT 2006a). The resultant risks are evident when reviewing statistics

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relating to the economic costs of environmental damage, including water and air quality, land degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change. The declining quality of available water supplies is expected to be costly if infrastructure design and expenditure do not take into account the need to mitigate pollution impacts on natural and human systems. Increasing salinity, caused by mining waste, industrial and sewage effluent and irrigation return flows, is considered to be one of the most important pollutant categories in semi-arid countries such as South Africa. In 2001, the direct cost of salinity was estimated at R507 million per year (DWAF 2001). Further, higher levels of nutrients in water bodies caused by the discharge of domestic waste impair the self-purification function of aquatic ecosystems, thereby increasing the risk of disease to humans. In addition to the loss of productivity caused by water-borne disease, costly investments to improve poor water quality could result in valuable financial resources being directed away from other social development programmes. Expensive treatment of water may also push the affordability of water beyond the levels of poor households. It is estimated that over 24 million people in South Africa live in areas where levels of air pollution can be classified as unsafe (Terblanche & Sithole 1996). Poor air quality has been linked to the prevalence of respiratory problems such as asthma and bronchitis. The implication is that the health of a significant portion of the population, especially poor communities, may be compromised. This, in turn, has negative effects on productivity and the medical costs of treatment and, consequently, results in a reduction in income leading to deepening poverty and vulnerability. Research estimated the direct health costs related to fuel-burning emissions (including traffic) in major South African towns to be around R3.5 billion in 2002 (Scorgie et al. 2004). The costs of indoor pollution arising from the combustion of coal for heating and cooking purposes in the Vaal Triangle are estimated to be between R202 million and R813 million (Scorgie & Annegarn 2002). Land degradation weakens the productive potential of land and water resources, undermining the services derived from these ecosystems. As a result, there are many direct and indirect costs associated with land degradation. Soil erosion alone costs South Africa an estimated R2 billion annually (Hoffman & Ashwell 2001), with the loss of nutrients costing approximately R1.5 billion per year. In addition, commercial farmers spend in excess of R2 billion a year on fertilisers to supplement this nutrient loss. Land degradation also

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results in a loss of fuel wood and non-timber products, undermining the basis for livelihoods and subsistence of many poor households in rural areas. The spread of alien invasive species affects water yields in catchment areas. A decline of 1 per cent in access to water represents a total loss of about R150 million per year. Biodiversity loss is the principal outcome of the conversion of ecosystems to other uses. The loss of biodiversity can bring significant opportunity costs to social and economic systems through damage to the health, functions and services that ecosystems provide. In spite of the impact of pollution on biodiversity, the cost of pollution is presently underestimated because it does not take into account the loss of biodiversity. In the case of water pollution, for example, biodiversity loss in aquatic ecosystems and riparian habitats has yet to be accounted for in the downstream cost (Grosskopf 2004). Attempts have been made to ascertain what climate change will cost the South African economy in terms of lost biodiversity. A number of the costs identified by Turpie et al. (2004) are presented below: • A loss of 28 per cent of savannah and forest ecosystems that supply fuel wood, construction materials, medicines and foods to many South Africans equates to a potential cost of between R2 673 and R3 633 million (in 1998 prices). • Reduced freshwater inflow into estuaries would affect functioning and, therefore, contributions to fisheries, valued at R441 million per annum. • Nature-based tourism is the primary reason for over one-third of South Africa’s tourist visits. With tourism contributing over 5 per cent directly to the GDP, the country stands to lose as much as R26.2 billion (in 2000 prices), or 3.6 per cent of GDP. Of all the environmental issues facing humanity in the twenty-first century, climate change is the most daunting. The likely impacts on South Africa are spatially and temporally wide-ranging, including threats to water supplies, climate, human health, biodiversity, agricultural production and livelihoods. The costs associated with these impacts are huge and will increasingly be felt over the next 50 years. As temperatures rise and rainfall in the eastern parts of the country increases, the health risks from malaria are expected to grow. This impact will be exacerbated by other factors such as increasing drug resistance (Spalding-Fecher & Moodley 2004). Projections indicate that the population at high risk to malaria will quadruple to 36 million in 2010, and

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will include people living in many parts of Gauteng (Craig & Sharp 2000). By 2010, it is estimated that the costs of treatment plus loss of productivity due to malaria will reach R277 million to R466 million, leading to a loss of 1.4 to 2.0 per cent of GDP, if factoring in mortality (Grosskopf 2004). A study on the unmitigated damage costs of climate change in South Africa indicates that its impacts could cost the country between 2.4 per cent and 6.0 per cent of GDP (Turpie et al. 2004). The estimates above present a sobering glimpse into a number of more obvious direct and indirect economic and social costs of impacts on the natural environment. It should, however, be kept in mind that there are many more insidious impacts. For instance, poverty reduction efforts could be undermined if South Africa ends up redirecting scarce resources into subsidising inefficient and unsustainable resource use and offsetting the deepening poverty and vulnerability of poor rural and urban communities caused by declining ecosystem services.

The NFSD: a strategic lever for change Natural environments perform functions that cannot be substituted by other forms of capital. The overall goal of the NFSD is to shift our framework for thinking about development to one that maintains, enhances and, in some cases, recovers natural capital. In concluding this chapter, we focus on the NFSD as a strategic lever for safeguarding our natural resource base for development purposes. Work is required to ‘mainstream’ the environment into all areas of human endeavour. The NFSD, not yet adopted and well over two years behind the United Nations’ target implementation date, is South Africa’s most serious attempt at mainstreaming to date. It makes a convincing case for de-linking economic growth from unsustainable natural resource exploitation. The NFSD builds on South Africa’s existing policy framework and aims, among other things, to engender a culture of longer-term planning and systems thinking, enhance the decision-making capacity for integrated spatial development, improve interactions between the government and its social partners, and consolidate fragmented monitoring and evaluation systems. While the NFSD has a solid conceptual and theoretical foundation, and has received support from a range of key social actors, serious challenges remain

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for its successful implementation (Gibson et al. 2006). These include securing and maintaining high-level support for its rollout, participation from all sectors of society to influence progress, ensuring the allocation of sufficient resources and finances, and consolidating South Africa’s monitoring and evaluation framework. The NFSD highlights a number of policy conflicts for the environment and development in South Africa, notably regarding the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (Asgisa),18 where there is little or no consideration of the natural resource constraints to 6 per cent growth. Moreover, the stakeholder engagement process for the development of the NFSD reveals a persistent dichotomy in South Africa, in that sustainable development policy is still largely regarded as an environmental issue and continues to be supported and informed in the main by the environmental community. It does not help that the responsibility for the NFSD is relegated to the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT), giving a ‘green agenda’ impression of sustainable development. In other countries such as the United Kingdom and Brazil, national sustainable development strategies are driven by the prime minister’s office and the presidency respectively, providing them with a high-level political champion. In South Africa, there is no such champion. This can be attributed to low levels of awareness and understanding about the links between the environment and development and the lack of broad-based support for a national vision for sustainable development. It can also be attributed to barriers in co-operative governance, such as institutional turf-protecting and vested interests within the government. The example of interest here is the current turf war between the Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) and the DEAT over the environmental regulation of mining activities. The current situation is one in which the wolf is also the watchdog: the DME, which functions to promote and develop the minerals and petroleum sector, one of the highest polluting sectors, is also required to control and monitor its impacts on the environment. Some would argue that this represents a positive attempt at industry self-regulation, but given the deterioration in environmental conditions around mining areas in particular, this is questionable. Recent efforts to deal with this turf war have required the intervention of a high-level mediator, the deputy president, to mediate between the DME and DEAT ministers. Further, a serious implementation effort would inconvenience the priorities and business plans of the government and business in a country with a growth agenda, high energy use and cheap, dirty power.

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Environmental concerns, particularly those related to energy and climate change, currently pervade international media and political discourse. Although there is an increasing media focus on these concerns in South Africa, the challenge of integrating the environment and development makes it difficult to galvanise action. The NFSD lays the foundation for such action by encouraging the implementation of a set of strategic actions by all sectors of society. However, the ultimate success of the NFSD will lie in its ability to broaden its support within South African society and assist in strengthening the co-ordination of initiatives aimed at sustainable development: While other ingredients for success are evident, it is our contention that a key starting point is to identify champions to mobilise partnerships within government, as well as between government and other actors around a broad-based sustainable development vision. The NFSD sums it up as follows: ‘Implementation of a national strategy requires buy-in and support of politicians and champions of civil society and the business and industry sector; and the coordinated participation and involvement of multiple stakeholders. Implementation is not the responsibility of Government alone, or a single agent within Government’. (DEAT 2006a: 82) As this chapter has indicated, recent state initiatives such as the draft NFSD recognise that a sound environment is the basis for a thriving economy and fundamental for alleviating poverty. What is needed now is the emergence of high-level champions in a range of sectors, to accelerate implementation of the country’s positive policy framework. It is unclear which vehicle or institutional structure should be responsible for this. Options include a Sustainable Development Cluster or Portfolio Committee at parliamentary level, and a multi-stakeholder national commission as exists in other countries. A further consideration could be to use formal structures like these in addition to ‘figureheads’ – respected leaders in different sectors who become associated with a coherent message about sustainable development.19 This is urgently needed, given that South Africa’s development path depends on the integrity of its natural resource base.

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Notes 1

Sustainable development as a conceptual framework for development recognises the strong relationship between economic growth, social equity and ecological integrity. It was first introduced in the 1980s in response to mounting opposition from developing nations to western attempts to limit growth and protect the environment. As such, it symbolises a new way of thinking about how to balance the apparently polar objectives of development and environmental protection.

2

DPSIR is a reporting framework for state of the environment reporting established by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development in 1995.

3

The South African Constitution (Act 108 of 1996) makes it clear that all of South Africa’s citizens not only have the right to a healthy and well-conserved environment, but also have the right to benefit from natural resources for economic and social development.

4

The National Environmental Management Act (No. 107 of 1998) is the framework statute on environmental management and as such embraces issues relating to resource conservation and exploitation, pollution control and waste management, and land use planning and development. It lays down the institutional structures and legal mechanisms to champion the environmental cause.

5

Recent environmental legislation includes the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act (No. 57 of 2003); the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act (No. 10 of 2004); and the National Environmental Management: Air Quality Act (No. 39 of 2004).

6

The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation emerged from the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development and established 37 negotiated targets, including Paragraph 162 that directs ‘[s]tates [to] take immediate steps to make progress in the formulation and elaboration of national strategies for sustainable development and begin their implementation by 2005’.

7

Ecological footprint is a measure of the ‘load’ imposed by a given population or person on nature. The bigger the footprint, the bigger the impact that it represents.

8

Ecosystem services are the beneficial goods and functions provided by ecosystems, such as medicine, fuel wood, food, building materials, water quality regulation, nutrient cycling, soil fertility maintenance, regulation of the concentration of atmospheric gases, and cultural and recreational opportunities.

9

The ecological footprint for South Africa is 2.8 global hectares (gha) per person, compared to the world average of 2.2 gha per person and the average for Africa of 1.2 gha per person (WWF 2004).

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10 In 2005, South Africa’s Environmental Sustainability Index (or ESI) rating was 46.2, ranking 93rd out of 146 countries. Using 76 data sets, the ESI quantifies the likelihood that a country will be able to preserve valuable environmental resources effectively over a period of several decades. 11 Human vulnerability is the ‘interface between exposure to physical threats to human well-being and the capacity of people and communities to cope with those threats’ (UNEP 2002:302).


12 Most projections for the South African population suggest a declining growth rate due to HIV/AIDS and lower fertility rates (DEAT 2006b). The 2007 Mid-year Population Estimate by Stats SA (2007a) notes a decline in the population growth rate between 2006 and 2007. 13 Urbanisation is the main process driving the creation and ongoing remaking of cities and towns. An area is deemed urban if it has a population of more than 20 000 people. The term is often used with reference to the movement of people from rural to urban areas. 14 The United Nations Development Programme defines governance as ‘the system of values, policies and institutions by which a society manages its economic, political and social affairs through interactions within and among the state, civil society and private sector’ (Orlandini 2005:9). 15 The JSE has developed criteria to measure the ‘triple bottom line’ performance of companies in the FTSE/JSE All Share Index. In May 2004, it launched the first SRI Index, which is built on the four pillars of sustainability, namely corporate governance, the economy, the environment and society. A total of 56 companies were listed on the SRI Index in April 2007. 16 Civil society in South Africa continues to play a significant rights-based advocacy role in driving positive change through monitoring, increasing public awareness and supporting poor communities adversely affected by environmental degradation. From government’s perspective, increased public participation in governance is one of four 10-year framework priorities for achieving sustainable development in South Africa. South Africa has several established environmental NGOs dealing with the effects of environmental degradation on communities, including GroundWork, Earthlife Africa, the Wildlife and Environmental Society of South Africa, the Environmental Monitoring Group, the Group for Environmental Monitoring, the Community Environmental Network and the Environmental Justice Networking Forum, and Sustainable Energy Africa. 17 Ambient air refers to all air outside buildings, stacks and exterior ducts.

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18 Officially launched in 2006, Asgisa proposes key economic interventions to unlock resources, mobilise robust public and private infrastructure investments and develop certain economic sectors, to create a conducive economic environment for meeting the country’s development goals. Its ultimate aim is to halve unemployment by 2014. 19 Personal communication with P Urquhart, author, independent researcher and policy analyst on sustainable development (18.10.07).


References Biggs R, Bohensky E, Desanker PV, Fabricius C, Lynam T, Misselhorn AA, Musvoto C, Mutale M, Reyers B, Scholes RJ, Shikongo S & Van Jaarsveld AS (2004) Nature supporting people: The southern African millennium ecosystem assessment (Integrated report). Pretoria: Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Craig MH & Sharp BL (2000) South African country study on climate change vulnerability and adaptation assessment: Health Section, Part I, Malaria. Pretoria: DEAT DEAT (Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, South Africa) (2006a) People–planet–prosperity: A strategic framework for sustainable development in South Africa: Draft discussion document for public comment. Government Gazette No. 29293, 29 September. Pretoria DEAT (2006b) South Africa environment outlook: A report on the state of the environment. Pretoria: DEAT DWAF (Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, South Africa) (1998) Waste generation in South Africa: Baseline studies (Waste Management Series). Pretoria: DWAF DWAF (2001) WDCS economic impact assessment. Pretoria: DWAF DWAF (2002) National water resource quality: Status report. Pretoria: DWAF DWAF (2004) National water resources strategy. Pretoria: DWAF EEA (European Environment Agency) (2001) European international water assessment. Copenhagen: EEA Esty DC, Levy MA, Srebotnjak T & De Sherbinin A (2005) 2005 Environmental Sustainability Index: Benchmarking national environmental stewardship. New Haven, CT: Yale Centre for Environmental Law and Policy Gibson DJD (2006) Land degradation in the Limpopo province, South Africa. MSc dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand Gibson DJD & Henderson C (2005) State of environment reporting and sustainable development in South Africa: Experiences from local, provincial and national level reporting. IAIAsa 2005 Conference paper. Conference proceedings IAIAsa

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Gibson DJD, Kilian DA & Urquhart P (2006) South Africa’s National Strategy for Sustainable Development: Is it the holy grail for achieving sustainable development? IAIAsa 2006 Conference paper. Conference proceedings IAIAsa Gibson DJD, Paterson G, Newby T, Hoffman T & Laker M (2005) The state of land. Research paper prepared for the South Africa Environment Outlook Report on behalf of the DEAT Government of South Africa (2005) South African Millennium Development Goals country report 2005. Unpublished report approved by Cabinet


Grosskopf M (2004) Towards internalising the cost of water. In J Blignaut & M de Wit (Eds) Sustainable options: Development lessons from applied environmental economics. Cape Town: UCT Press Hewitson BC & Crane RG (2005) Consensus between GCM climate change projections with empirical downscaling. Unpublished paper Hoffman MT & Ashwell A (2001) Nature divided: Land degradation in South Africa. Cape Town: UCT Press Hoffman MT, Todd S, Ntshona Z & Turner S (1999) Land degradation in South Africa. Cape Town: National Botanical Institute Hoogeven J & Ozler B (2004) Not separate, not equal: Poverty and inequality in postapartheid South Africa. Washington, DC: World Bank Hughes A, Howells M & Kerry A (2002) Baseline study: Energy efficiency. Cape Town: Energy Research Institute, University of Cape Town MEA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment) (2005) Ecosystems and human well-being: Biodiversity synthesis. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute Nel J, Maree G, Roux D, Moolman J, Kleynhans N, Siberbauer M & Driver A (2004) South African national spatial biodiversity assessment 2004: Technical report (Vol. 2): River component. Stellenbosch: Council for Scientific and Industrial Research OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) (2003) OECD environmental indicators. Development, measurement and use: Reference document. Paris: OECD Environmental Directorate Orlandini B (2005) Kingdom of Cambodia: United Nations Development Assistance Framework 2006–2010. Available at http://www.undp.org/rbap/Country_Office/ UNDAF/UNDAF-Cambodia_2006_2010.pdf. Accessed on 26 May 2008 Orr DW (1992) Ecological literacy: Education and the transition to a postmodern world. Albany: State University of New York Press

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Redclift M (1984) Development and the environmental crisis: Red or green alternatives. London: Routledge Reserve Bank (2005) Economic and financial data for South Africa. Time series KBP6630Y, KBP6633Y, KBP6637Y. Available at http://www.reservebank.co.za Rouget M, Reyers B, Jonas Z, Desmet P, Driver A, Maze K, Egoh B & Cowling RM (2004) South African national spatial biodiversity assessment 2004: Technical report (Vol. 1): Terrestrial component. Pretoria: South African National Biodiversity Institute


Scholes RJ & Biggs R (2004) Ecosystem services in southern Africa: A regional assessment. Pretoria: Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Scorgie Y & Annegarn H (2002) The impacts of coal on people. Paper presented at the Coal and Sustainable Development Conference, WSSD, Johannesburg, 8–12 September Scorgie Y, Burger LW & Annegarn HJ (2004) Socio-economic impact of air pollution reduction measures: Establishment of source inventories (Task 2) and identification and prioritisation of technology options (Task 3). Report compiled for Nedlac, 25 June 2003 Spalding-Fecher R & Moodley S (2004) The cost of climate change: The case of malaria in South Africa. In J Blignaut & M de Wit (Eds) Sustainable options development: Lessons from applied environmental economics. Cape Town: UCT Press Stats SA (Statistics South Africa) (2004) Mid-year population estimates South Africa 2004 (Statistical release P0302). Pretoria: Stats SA Stats SA (2007a) Mid-year population estimates: South Africa 2007 (Statistical release P0302). Pretoria: Stats SA Stats SA (2007b) Gross domestic product (Statistical release P0441). Pretoria: Stats SA Swilling M (2006) Sustainability and infrastructure planning in South Africa: A Cape Town case study. Environment and Urbanisation 18(1): 23–50 Terblanche APS & Sithole JS (1996) The impacts on human health. In G Held, BJ Gore, AD Surridge, GR Tosen, CR Turner & RD Walmesley (Eds) Air pollution and its impacts on the South African highveld. Cleveland: Environmental Scientific Association Turpie JK (2004) South African national spatial biodiversity assessment 2004: Technical report (Vol. 3): Estuary component. Pretoria: South African National Biodiversity Institute Turpie JK, Winkler H & Midgley G (2004) Economic impacts of climate change in South Africa: A preliminary assessment of unmitigated damage costs. In J Blignaut &

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M de Wit (Eds) Sustainable options development: Lessons from applied environmental economics. Cape Town: UCT Press Underdal A (2006) Determining the causal significance of institutions: Accomplishments and challenges. Unpublished paper prepared for the IDGEC Synthesis Conference, Bali, 6–9 December. Available at http://ww2.bren.ucsb.edu/~idgec/responses/ Arild%20Underdal%20-%20Cawality.doc. Accessed on 8 April 2008


UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) (2002) Global environmental outlook 3: Past, present and future perspectives. London: UNEP Earthscan UN Statistics Division (2008) Data obtained from the US Department of Energy’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) for the United Nations Statistics Division. Available at http://millenniumindicators.un.org. Accessed on 8 April 2008 WCED (World Commission on Environment and Development) (1987) Our common future. Oxford: Oxford University Press WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) (2004) Living planet report 2004. Gland: WWF

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Part III: Society


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9

Beyond yard socialism: Landlords, tenants and social power in the backyards of a South African city


Leslie Bank

…the ‘yard’: a square space holding one major house, occupied in the old days by the owner of the stand, and several smaller, often one-roomed dwellings – some of them joined together to make a ‘bond’. Far more than one family shared each yard…In many cases nearly all the rooms in the main house and the adjacent ‘bonds’ would be extensively sublet, so that every room was occupied, often by an entire family. Each yard became so oversubscribed that it almost became a community on its own. (Bozzoli 2004: 23) Real estate markets…have returned to the slums with a vengeance, and despite the enduring mythology of heroic squatters and free land, the urban poor are increasingly the vassals of landlords and developers. (Davis 2006: 83) In his recent book Planet of Slums, Davis (2006) argues that in the current global context of rampant neo-liberalism, slum landlordism has re-emerged. He suggests that the urban poor in developing countries generally benefited in the 1970s and early 1980s from access to free or cheap state land on the fringes of cities. Today, Davis argues, urban shack dwellers are being propelled back into a situation very similar to that which existed in late nineteenth-century Europe, where slumlords have once again secured control of urban land and poor residential areas, and are, in his words, everywhere ‘monsterising their equity’ (Davis 2006: 86) by extracting usurious rents. Davis notes that in the past, popular and scholarly literature on informal housing tended to ‘romanticize squatters while ignoring renters’ (2006: 154). He suggests that landlordism is, in fact, a fundamental and divisive social relation in slum life worldwide, which requires much more serious attention in our contemporary analyses of the urban poor. The aim of this chapter is to heed Davis’s call by

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focusing attention on renters and on the nature of landlordism in a single South African city. In the case of South Africa, the growth and expansion of an informal rental market among the urban poor has been a significant, but largely unrecognised, development on the post-apartheid urban landscape. With so much emphasis being placed on the rollout of new low-cost housing estates in cities and on the titling of poor urban households, few have noticed the ongoing densification of existing townships through backyard construction and rental. On the basis of existing research, it appears that approximately 30 per cent of all township residents still live in backyard shacks, where the majority of these households pay rent to the landlord. It has also recently been noted that there is a clear trend towards the ‘re-informalisation’ of new low-cost housing estates through backyard shack erection and rental, especially in poorer areas where new home-owners are struggling to manage the cost of rates and service charges (Ndlovu 2007; Robins 2002). In an attempt to manage this situation, the national Department of Housing recently announced that it would provide funds to municipalities to assist township home-owners to transform backyard shacks into properly serviced, formal rental units. The new approach, reflected in the department’s 2004 Breaking New Ground policy framework,1 represents a dramatic shift away from its earlier position, which stressed the need for municipalities to relocate backyard shack dwellers to new Greenfield housing developments.2 The dominant view in the first decade of democracy was that backyard shack dwellers should be seen as being in a transitional position, and that their need would be addressed through the construction of new houses outside the townships. Municipalities across the country have generally endorsed this approach by limiting the extension of services and infrastructure to backyard shacks (Mabin 1999; Parnell 1997). The new emphasis within the department on Brownfield developments3 and on in situ shack upgrading as a key strategy for housing provision therefore represents a significant shift in urban development thinking in South Africa, which has historically been built on the assumption that shack areas represent ‘slums’ that need to be cleared for modern urban development to occur. This was, of course, the basic approach of the apartheid urban planning regime, which used slum clearance and forced removals in the 1950s and 1960s to lay the foundation for the modernisation of African townships. This thinking also underpinned the recent urban removal programme in Zimbabwe,

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L andlords , tenants and social power


Operation Murambatsvina or ‘Restore Order’, which specifically targeted backyard dwellers living in informal, rentable extensions to existing houses in towns and cities for removal. Between May and July 2005, over 700 000 people reportedly lost their urban homes or livelihoods as a result of the programme, while many more were indirectly affected by the removals (UN 2005). While there was extensive international outrage at the actions of the Mugabe government, the South African government remained curiously silent on the topic, especially given the striking similarities between the methods of Operation Murambatsvina, which set out to drive the urban poor back into the countryside, and the apartheid-era forced removals programmes of the 1960s and 1970s. However, while the Department of Housing must be commended for its ability to move beyond older paradigms and approaches, it remains unclear exactly how backyard upgrading will be implemented in practice across the country, especially given the diverse social and political conditions that prevail in the yards. In fact, on reflection, it is surprising how little we know about the yards as social spaces in our cities and, more particularly, about the landlord– tenant relationship within these areas. The primary aim of this chapter is to deepen our understanding of backyard shack life through an analysis of the changing social dynamics of social relations, especially those between tenants and landlords, in the yards of the historic Duncan Village township in the coastal city of East London. In presenting an account of yard life in this township, I want to begin by taking the reader back to the 1950s, when the kind of exploitative landlordism to which Davis refers in his writing was rife within South African townships. It is common these days to want to romanticise the 1950s as a period of unity and struggle in the townships, as a time of African urban cultural renaissance, and to forget the internal stratifications and divisions that existed within the townships themselves. I want to suggest that this early period was characterised by exploitative landlordism, or ‘yard capitalism’, which set the scene for the rise of the counter-ideologies of ‘yard socialism’ in the townships during the 1980s. In exploring these complex changes, I will try to demonstrate how the yards have shifted from earlier male-centred notions of ‘yard socialism’ or communalism, expressed first in the form of amakhaya migrant groups in the 1950s and then through the creation of yards as communes in Duncan Village

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in the 1980s, to the increasingly feminised versions of yard-level co-operation and sharing that emerged in the 1990s and 2000s. Using De Certeau’s (1986) writings on space and power, I explore how women have tried to use the yards as sites from which they can convert defensive ‘tactical’ manoeuvres into empowering ‘strategies’. To highlight this process I explore the everyday ‘rhythms of the yards’, the practices and routines of social reproduction, as well as the ideologies that have underpinned women’s agency in the post-apartheid period. To illuminate my arguments around changing forms of power and authority in the yards, I analyse the social circuitry and networks associated with two of Duncan Village’s most deeply social commodities, namely paraffin and alcohol. Both commodities saturate the yards and act as critical social ciphers in marking out the social dynamics of the yards. I argue that, while the former has come to symbolise and consolidate relations of sisterhood and has been used to enhance female co-operation, the latter often catalyses violence and conflict and highlights the hidden terrains of struggle for power and resources. In conclusion, I return to the policy arena and to current debate about the potential for yard upgrading to reflect on what the finding of my analysis might mean for post-apartheid housing policy.

From slumlords to yard socialists In the 1980s, the Alexandra civic activist Moses Mayekiso famously argued that it was not only black people’s places of employment that were sites of suffering and hardship, but their places of residence too. He stated: ‘The battle against apartheid cannot be won on the shop floor. If the community is not organised properly, we could lose. That is why the civic helps community organisation’ (Mayekiso 1996: 56). He went on to state that ‘because we live so close next to each other, we become very close to each other and know each other’s problems…our viewpoint starts right from the yards where you live as neighbours’ (1996: 58). It was on the basis of this understanding that Mayekiso and his associates in Alexandra created the spatial architecture for civic organisations, where ‘the yard’ emerged as the foundational building block on which township organisation was built. The creation of yard committees as the bottom rung of a spatial hierarchy of organisation, which included street committees, area committees, branch committees and ultimately a central

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committee, proved to be a crucial organisational innovation in the struggle politics of the 1980s. The type of spatial configuration set up in Alexandra was replicated in many townships across the country. However, while most of these communities actively recognised the importance of yards as sites of struggle, few followed Alexandra in implementing yard-level political structures. One of the reasons for this might have been that young male comrades were more reluctant than Moses Mayekiso and his associates in Alexandra to share power with older-generation landlords and municipal tenants. This was certainly the case in Duncan Village, where a powerful and well-organised residents’ association emerged in the early 1980s. Like Alexandra in Johannesburg, Duncan Village in East London was a historic township with a long history of yard occupancy and rental. From the 1930s, when the municipality placed a cap on township expansion, the yards filled up with new immigrants to East London who flooded into the city in search of the jobs and opportunities that came with secondary industrialisation. The scale of residential extension was reflected in the fact that the population of the old East Bank location (later renamed Duncan Village) doubled from 25 000 to 50 000 between 1930 and 1950. In this period, only 630 new municipal houses were built in the area. Desmond Reader (1960), who conducted research in the location in the mid1950s, found that the majority of people lived in ‘a chaos of wood-and-iron structures jostling at irregular intervals and angles’: In the shanty [wood-and-iron] area generally, the original demarcation of plots – there are no fences – have been obscured by the proliferation of shacks, sheds and outbuildings behind and between the main buildings. Most of the buildings are shabby and many are decrepit. The wood-and-iron construction is cheap and easy, and…there is nothing to conceal its ugliness. (Reader 1960: 55) Shack-renting proved to be a highly lucrative source of income for site-holders in the old location, where landlords and landladies came to exert enormous social power. These owners generally displayed very little concern for the actual living conditions in the yards. They focused instead on cramming as many people into the yards as possible to maximise the equity on their assets. Some of these owners controlled multiple dwellings and employed ‘substitute

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owners’ (Reader 1960: 154) to look after their second and third properties. The conditions in the yards encouraged the emergence of migrant subcultures. By the 1960s, the old location landlords and landladies of East Bank had driven up the population densities to such an extent that forced removals became inevitable. The apartheid state capitalised on the deteriorating conditions in the location by instituting a massive forced removals programme in East London. Over the next two decades, 8 000 families were moved away from the city to rural villages and townships in the Ciskei and Transkei bantustans. The aim of the exercise was to destroy completely the old wood-and-iron sections of the old locations, including East Bank, and replace them with new brick-and-mortar municipal bungalows for the permanently urbanised African working class. The process of removal and reconstruction occurred continuously during the 1960s and 1970s, after which new housing delivery in the city ground to a halt. By 1980 the new Duncan Village township, built on the ruins of the old East Bank location, was again in a state of political and social turmoil. The Duncan Village Residents’ Association (DVRA) had seized power and had torched the houses of government-appointed local black town councillors, and set up their own structures for the management and control of the township. They also set their own rules for the allocation of houses and sites in the township. One of the first decisions that the DVRA made was to declare the township open for new immigrants to settle. To accommodate the new arrivals, the DVRA declared that township residents should open their yards to those who had the means and desire to build shacks there. The DVRA announcement engendered a process very similar to that which had created the slums of the 1950s. By the 1980s, virtually every yard in the township again sported backyard shack structures. In December 1984, Duncan Village was said officially to house a population of just over 17 000 people: 11 161 adults and 6 279 children (Daily Dispatch 09.04.86). By the end of 1986, unofficial estimates placed the population at 50 000, and by mid-1990 it was confirmed that the population was over 70 000 in the township. In other words, the population of the township quadrupled in 15 years. By 1994 there were over 5 000 backyard shacks in Duncan Village, which only had 3 000 formal houses. This meant that there were almost two shacks per yard. The distribution of backyard shacks was uneven, with the majority being concentrated in the older historical part of the township known as Duncan Village Proper. The composition of the new yard populations also in many

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ways reflected that of the 1950s. Between one-third and a half of those in the yards were members of the family of the landlord or landlady. They had moved into the yards because there was no more space for them in the main house. The remainder of the yard population was made up of other township residents, migrants and immigrants, the majority of whom were women (Bank 2002). This gender shift in the backyard population was a product of a change in the gender composition of migrant streams into the city in the 1980s – two women were moving to East London from the surrounding rural areas at this time for every one man. It was also a product of the perception among women that they would be safer in the yards than in the new free-standing shack areas (Bank 1997, 1998). In the 1980s, male migrants also continued to move into the yards to protect themselves from the urban youths that dominated the free-standing shack areas, but they were far less of a force in the yards than they were in the 1950s. Aside from the demographic shifts in yard populations, the most profound difference between the new yards of the 1980s and those of the 1950s was the change in the relationship between tenants and landlords. In the 1950s, landlords and landladies ruled the roost. The demand for accommodation was so great at this time and housing so scarce that those with accommodation to rent could, to use Reader’s words, acquire the power of ‘demi-gods’ (Reader 1960: 56). In other words, they could rule their yards with an iron fist and evict those they did not like. Reader explained that ‘the resulting situation is in the best traditions of boarding house life in, say, wartime Europe’, where ‘tenants must not do anything to upset their landlords’. He concluded that ‘the overbearing attitude of the landlord leads to…bullying, insulting, and humiliating those tenants who through inability to find other accommodation cannot fight back’ (Reader 1960: 133). In the 1980s, yard relations were constituted in a fundamentally different way as the new street committees took control of the allocation of yard space. They argued that, since there was now a rent boycott in place in the township, landlords (who were now mostly municipal tenants) were no longer entitled to charge their tenants rent. They also insisted that it was the right of the street committee to decide on the allocation of sites in the yards. The street committees saw it as part of their job to settle households in the yards and to promote peace and discipline there. Like its Alexandra counterpart, the DVRA strongly propagated an ideology of ‘yard socialism’. It stood against the divisive

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and exploitative nature of landlord–tenant relations that had been such a prominent feature of yard relationships in the past. The civic organisation insisted that, through the street committees, landlords and tenants should operate on an equal footing and should build their yard communities together as coherent social and political units. They also stressed the importance of ubuntu in yard relations and the need for equity in the yards. The oral evidence collected on yard relations in the 1980s suggests that there were often large gaps between ideology and practice. In reality, there was considerable tension throughout this period between the male youth activists in the street committees and the landlords. Many of the official tenants (or owners) of township houses were older-generation men who did not like being pushed around by the youth. Yet, they were also quick to realise that the comrades (amaqabane) held sway in the community and that if they bucked the system they could easily end up having to explain themselves at a local people’s court. Thus, while landlords remained reluctant to accept the recommendations of the street committees, they were generally forced to comply if they wanted to avoid disciplinary action in the people’s courts. Tenants, on the other hand, welcomed the expanded access that they were given to the yards and the restructuring of power relations in the yards. They liked the idea that they could complain to the street committee if they felt unfairly treated in the yards and action could (and often was) taken against the landlord. The net result was that tenants emerged as relatively powerful members of yard communities in the 1980s. Many were also youths, who were actively protected by the civic structures. In some ways, the 1980s saw an inversion of older landlord–tenant relations, with the tenants now often dictating the terms of the relationship through the civic. What was also significant about the new backyard shack dwellers of the 1980s was that the physical structures or extensions in the yards were built and paid for by tenants themselves. This gave them a much stronger sense of entitlement in the yards and made it very difficult for landlords to evict them, especially while the civic remained strong and influential. This is a critical point which has direct bearing on the current sense of disaffection that yard residents feel towards any scheme which seeks to upgrade the yards without their consent. The version of yard socialism that was imposed in Duncan Village in the 1980s was shot through with tensions between aggrieved landlords (some of whom did not even want tenants in the yards) and the street committees. There was

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also another line of cleavage that had an important impact on the nature of social relationships there. It is clear from the accounts collected of the functioning of street committees and people’s courts in the township that the version of socialism that the comrades had in mind was a strongly patriarchal one. Thus, while the young male comrades questioned the old hierarchies of property ownership, their version of yard socialism did not extend to the equalisation of relations between men and women. One of the areas where women commonly clashed with the street committees was around the sale of liquor and other commodities. In the 1980s, the comrades in Duncan Village, as was the case in a number of other townships, banned the use and sale of alcohol. Women who did not have secure access to employment and had relied on selling liquor and soft goods to support their families objected to the measures, saying that the street committees were denying them a livelihood. In Duncan Village, struggles ensued over the control of alcohol. Women also recalled that they received very little protection from the street committees when they reported cases of domestic violence that men perpetrated against women and children. In many cases, women were simply told to obey the men in the yards and not to trouble the committees with unnecessary issues. In one yard on Ndende Street, a woman was actually beaten by the street committee for being rude and insubordinate to men in the yards.

Reconstituting the yards Against the backdrop of this history of yard relations, I re-entered the yards of Duncan Village in 2005 to find out what had changed and what had happened to the yard socialism of the 1980s. The first observation that I made was that landlordism was once again on the rise. I found that access to the yards was no longer governed by the decisions of street committees. Landlords said that, when a shack fell vacant, they now relied on word of mouth and township networks to identify potential new tenants. Mkhuseli, a landlord on Ndende Street, reported: ‘I do not advertise when I have a space for rental, I always see people coming to ask for a place to rent.’ Sicelo, another landlord from the same area, said he found his own replacements when people left the yards, which wasn’t very often. Asanda Klaas, a landlord with a vacant room, said: ‘Nobody has come to us to ask for a space to rent and we are still waiting. We do not build the shacks for the tenants – the tenants come with the material and build the shacks.’ Social connections often played a key role in the

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selection of tenants. Edwin, a landlord on Florence Street, described how he entered the backyard shack enterprise: In 1997, I decided to give a friend a place to stay. I allowed him to build his shack at the back of my house. We worked together and I also knew him from the rural Transkei. At the same time I was thinking of getting extra cash. I charged him R30 per month and in those days R30 was reasonable money, unlike today.


Since his friend has returned to the Transkei, the shack is now occupied by the son of another friend who pays a monthly rental of R50. Khunjulwa, a tenant, told us that her father had found their shack by speaking to the landlady at church. Closer scrutiny of the selection practices of landlords revealed that a primary consideration was whether or not the tenants could pay. One landlord said that he ‘did not really care what happened in the yards’ as long as he received his rent. But it was unusual for landlords simply to accept people off the street. Access to the yard normally depended on some form of introduction by a second party. This happened in a number of ways. A common process involved the introduction of a potential tenant to the owner by a person known to the landlord from within the neighbourhood: ‘So-and-so is a good friend of my family and she is in need of accommodation.’ In these cases, the landlord based the selection on two factors: firstly, the reputation and trustworthiness of the person who gave the reference, and secondly, the ability to establish the social origin of the tenant(s). Landlords said they liked to know where tenants come from and how to contact them if they happened to disappear without paying rent. In terms of the actual rental charged, I found that yard rent remained very low and ranged between R50 and R100 a month. However, given that the local municipality was opposed to extending new services to yard households, I did note that landlords and landladies had found additional informal ways of increasing their cash return from tenants. More specifically, it was discovered that new service charges had been introduced to cover the cost of electrical extensions and other services to yard residents, which were charged out at a much higher rate than the landlords paid for services. While there seemed to be some difficulty in increasing rents, especially since landlords did not own the actual structures that tenants lived in, they were seeking new ways of increasing their returns from yard residents.

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Probably the most striking change in the social composition of yard populations in Duncan Village since the 1980s has been the increasing feminisation of these spaces. There was already some early evidence of this in the 1980s, but the civic was careful to ensure that everyone got a fair chance to access the yards. This meant that a mix of different types of households was settled there. The trend since then has seen increasing numbers of women, especially single mothers, entering the yards. In 1995, a survey conducted of 150 households in the backyards in Duncan Village Proper found that about 40 per cent of the households in the yards were female-headed, representing a massive change from the 1950s, when most of those in the yards were men, mainly male migrants. In 1995 the households in the backyards were divided as follows: 25 per cent were male-headed nuclear households, 21 per cent were living-together households (half of these households were female-headed), 22 per cent were single-parent female-headed households, 16 per cent were singles (about half of them women, probably the daughters from the main house), 9 per cent were sibling units (again with the majority of units femaleheaded), and 7 per cent were extended families. This situation had changed further by March 2005.4 The new survey found that 28 per cent of the households (compared to 25 per cent in 1995) were nuclear families, while only 10 per cent (compared to 21 per cent in 1995) stayed in living-together households. The number of single-parent femaleheaded households had increased from 22 per cent to 29 per cent of the total, while the number of single migrants in the yards remained constant at 15 per cent (compared with 16 per cent in 1995). The results show that the major change in the yards since the mid-1990s was the increasing number of female-headed households located in these areas, which now accounted for more than 50 per cent of the total. The results suggest that landlords preferred female-headed households and that the women heading them were increasingly seeking out the yards as more desirable places of residence for themselves and their children. One of the possible reasons for the increase in female-headed households in the yards was the fact that between 1995 and 2005, there was an increase in the number of landladies rather than landlords in the formal houses to which the shacks were attached. Other evidence shows, as will be seen below, that landladies often found it very difficult to control younger men in their yards, and it is possible that this demographic shift helped facilitate improved access for single women and their children.

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The 2005 survey also confirmed that the density of backyard shacks remained high, with informal structures covering, on average, more than half the size of the yards. The average age of landlord households was 33.7 years old, compared with the 24.8 years of tenant households, where 64 per cent of the latter’s population was under 30 years old. The gender balance among the landlord households was found to be even, but females comprised a higher percentage (59 per cent) of tenant households. Monthly individual income figures presented an alarming picture of poverty, with more than 50 per cent of the individuals reporting that they earned no income. Only 24 per cent of tenant and 16 per cent of landlord households were employed either full-time or part-time in the formal market, while 40 per cent of tenant and 23 per cent of landlord households were made up of students, scholars or children. The average household size for landlords was 3.8 people, and 3.2 people for tenants. In terms of the social relations in the yards, two-thirds of respondents said they socialised with other households in the yards, borrowing money and exchanging food and childcare services. Almost 70 per cent of households reported no conflict between landlords and tenants, with noise, rental and household services each accounting for 8 per cent of conflicts. Overall, 77 per cent of both landlords and tenants rated their relationships with one another as either good or very good. Only 15 per cent of landlords and 30 per cent of tenants claimed that they had access to houses elsewhere, which suggests that the vast majority of the yard population does not have other residential options.

The feminisation of the yards One of the most significant changes in the social workings of the yard was that the collapse of the street committees had allowed women to exert more social power in the yards. In a sense, each yard has its own rhythm, its own particular social dynamic. However, there are also common patterns that allow us to construct a more general picture of yard life, based on observations and interviews in the field. It is towards this general account of social rules and patterns that we now turn our attention. The structure of yard life is shaped by daily routines which are common to the township as a whole, but take on particular forms in the yards and are shaped

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by the everyday cleaning, socialising, caring and provisioning. The main meal in most yard households is the evening meal, and this is the time of the day when all yard residents are around. The meal, which usually consists of samp, beans and a relish, is prepared by women, either for their own children or for their male partners. It is very unusual for men to do any cooking or cleaning in the yards unless they live alone (and even here it is not uncommon for a woman to come in the evenings and cook for them). The main meal is consumed inside the shack and represents a private time where household members eat together or in sequence in the privacy of their own space. The general pattern during the week is for the women to announce that food is ready and for household members to come to collect their plates when they are ready. They might come all at one time or in dribs and drabs and then find a seat on the bed, a chair or the floor to eat. The main meal is not exactly a ‘family meal’ in the sense that everyone sits around a table to eat, but it does constitute a time when most of the household members are together in the shack. The main meal is usually ready in the early evening when it is still light and can be followed by social activity where people sit around and talk in the yard. In cases where people have access to television, they often watch TV for a couple of hours before going to bed. Most people go to sleep between eight and nine at night. In the morning, children are prepared for school and men and women also get ready to go out to work. Men who are not employed are also usually out of the yards by 8 a.m. looking for work, or finding other men with whom they socialise. With the men and children out of the house, women start preparing to clean the shack and do the laundry. At this point the social dynamics of the yard begin to change. Women speak to one another about the order in which they are going to use the outside sink and communal tap during the morning. The other issue that requires negotiation is the use of the washing facilities in the yard. For this reason, a schedule needs to be set up so that everyone is not doing the same thing at the same time. In the process of going about their morning activities, the women in the yard often eat the leftovers – embeko – which they share among themselves. The communal ethos and solidarity among women in the yard at this time of the day is represented by this sharing of food. It is often extended when women in the yard ‘add something to the pot’ in preparation of a midday meal for children and unemployed men, who filter into the yard at this time.

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In 2005, we found that the yards were still saturated with paraffin, largely because the municipality refused to extend legal electrical connections into the yards and also because landlords and landladies were charging exorbitant amounts for illegal connections to backyard dwellings. The social networks associated with paraffin use thus continued to shape everyday social life in the yards. Paraffin, as I have argued elsewhere (Bank 2002), was a highly feminised commodity in Duncan Village. In the yards, paraffin proved to be a commodity that defined specific circuits of socialised exchange and established its own gendered regimes of value. Unlike other gendered commodities such as Lux soap, body creams and skin lighteners, which celebrated women’s femininity and beauty, there was nothing particularly glamorous about paraffin. In fact, many women spoke disparagingly of it as a ‘dirty fuel’ that ‘ate up’ their time and limited their ability to run a ‘proper home’. But, despite its drawbacks, paraffin emerged as a medium through which women could construct feminised networks. In a township where formal political power lay in the hands of men, women nurtured their social networks, using the circuitry of paraffin to establish a sense of belonging, connectivity and power. The yards emerged as critical sites within which the social economy of paraffin was constructed and where particular ‘regimes of value’ were consolidated. Because men in Duncan Village generally rejected any direct association with paraffin, it was seen specifically as women’s fuel and, by extension, the activities associated with paraffin were viewed as women’s business, including the sale of paraffin. By using paraffin, women were able to maintain their pressure on men to supply them with money to maintain the household. Since men did not want to use paraffin, women would argue that it was better for them to do all the shopping and cooking and for men simply to provide them with a household allowance. With paraffin, the women in the yards also honed discourses of thrift and household management. Inside the yards in 2005, I encountered an ongoing tension between young and older women around saving and thrift. Older women were constantly instructing their daughters or grandchildren not to waste scarce household resources, especially paraffin. They spoke of the skill of managing leftovers and of coming out on a very tight budget. Nomonde, a 50-year-old mother in one of the yards in Sandile Street, for instance, frequently scolded her two daughters for wasting food and paraffin. She said that one of the reasons for this was that her daughters did not know how to use fuel for more than one thing at a time. They did

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not think to leave the dishes to be washed with the hot water left over after making tea, or care if they used a whole litre of paraffin to make a pot of samp. Women like Nomonde often complained that their wasteful daughters did not fully appreciate the need for thrift when using paraffin. But it was not only in the circuits of domestic exchange that women socialised paraffin as a commodity. By embedding themselves in the paraffin-driven domestic economy, women also connected themselves to the myriad spaza shops that cluttered every block in the township. There, women would interact with others who would sell paraffin to them on credit or for cash. But the networks women created through paraffin were not only structured around spaza shops. Paraffin, food and other items exchanged between women in the yards (or in the names of women) would usually not have to be repaid immediately. Only in a few cases did we find that women who borrowed paraffin within the neighbourhood or yard would be asked to pay it back within a specified time. This only happened when the household from which the paraffin was borrowed did not have enough for themselves. It was also clear that paraffin was not given a specific status within these exchange networks. If paraffin was borrowed, there were no social rules specifying that the paraffin had to be returned. As a commodity it was lumped together with other basic-needs items such as maize meal, soap, sugar and salt, and was subject to the same rules of exchange as all these items. In this respect, the feminisation of neighbourhood networks was far more encompassing than the spaza social networks. One way in which women in the yards consolidated these relationships was through the communal cooking of imifino, a traditional women’s dish of vegetables and maize meal. The vegetables and herbs for the dish would be gathered by older women in the open veld and wooded areas outside the township. These herbs and vegetables would then be cooked on a paraffin stove in the shack areas or yard and shared among women. Making imifino was a thoroughly communal exercise for women that involved sharing various items such as food, fat, paraffin, appliances and labour. The women would say that umfino is a dish for women and children. Men were never present at imifino gatherings. They claimed that imifino was women’s food and that, if consumed by men, it made them ‘lazy’ and ‘weak’, that it sapped their strength and masculinity. Men contrasted imifino to their preferred diet of samp and meat. It was, however, occasionally revealed that some men ate imifino that

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their wives brought home after these gatherings, but they would never admit to doing so. The association of paraffin with imifino reinforced the gendered construction of this fuel and implicated it in the closed and secretive social world of women’s neighbourhood networks. But imifino cooking did more than reinforce existing patterns of social interaction; it created new opportunities for women to expand their social and economic horizons. Through their involvement in the social networks associated with paraffin, urban mothers integrated themselves into their neighbourhoods in new ways. The idea of urban-born women participating in and even organising imifino cook-ups, which were understood to be a rural tradition, would have been unthinkable a decade earlier, when these women were more closely focused on their own households and reluctant to bond with rural women in the city. By allowing these events to take place in their yards, they created scope for new relationships with women of their age groups who came from a wide variety of places. This process of extending women’s social networks beyond the household and the yard also took the form of savings and grocery clubs, which were often discussed at imifino cook-ups. These clubs, better known as umgalelo, consisted of groups of women who decided among themselves to save a certain amount of money every week or fortnight or month. In Duncan Village these clubs were dominated by women and usually geographically bound in the sense that the members came from a particular neighbourhood or area. Club meetings frequently occurred in the yards, where women either sat in the open in the yards or in one of the member’s houses. Men were often anxious and suspicious about their wives’ club activities. They were concerned that large numbers of single women belonged to these clubs and that their wives or lovers were engaged in these clubs to make money that they could use to buy luxuries for themselves or to finance purchases of new furniture or electrical appliances as some club members did. To offset these criticisms, women in male-headed households constantly tried to assure men that they were participating in the clubs for the benefit of the household as a whole. In sum, women used paraffin, spaza shops, extra-household exchange, imifino cooking, and savings and grocery clubs to delimit spaces of ‘their own’, loci of power within which they could devise more calculated and strategic interventions to undermine the dominant power relations at the neighbourhood level.

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Alcohol, landlords and recalcitrant tenants If paraffin was a medium through which women tried to consolidate and extend their power and influence within and beyond the yards, alcohol, which was equally ubiquitous in these spaces and saturated social relations in the yards and the township as a whole, did much to unravel the coherence of yard relations. This is not to suggest that alcohol was somehow a male commodity while paraffin was a female one. Quite the contrary, women were as much involved in the consumption and sale of alcohol in the yards as men were. Indeed, it was noted that beer and liquor often entered the yards with paraffin as part of imifino cook-ups or club meetings. Alcohol was also a primary commodity around which men and women interacted in the yards, especially on weekends when wages were spent on liquor and the intensity of gender interaction in the yards increased. My mapping of social relations in the yards revealed that it was particularly on occasions when alcohol was being consumed that some of the underlying tensions in yard relations – tensions between landlords and tenants, between men and women and between young and older households – came to the fore. It was also at these times that the new feminised version of ‘yard socialism’, which had been consolidated since the 1990s, began to unravel and some of the realities of unequal relations of power and difference created fissures and cracks in the co-operative circuitry of yard life. More specifically, alcohol was virtually always present in the social dramas of violence in the yards, where men were involved in reasserting their power over women, whether in their roles as landlords, as male tenants trying to intimidate landladies, or simply as men calling their wives and lovers to order. In the stories collected, I found that alcohol was extremely prevalent in the yards and was virtually always implicated in conflict, violence and antisocial behaviour. Excessive alcohol use fuelled interpersonal violence, which was usually directed against women. I found that it was a generally accepted rule in the yards that men did not interfere in other men’s domestic disputes. This sort of male solidarity is reminiscent of the earlier period when street committees, which were dominated by young men, virtually always ruled in favour of the male partners in yard disputes. Women would sometimes take cases to the street committees complaining of male abuse and violence.

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In 2005, one of the most serious problems in the yards was the inability of older women to discipline young men. This was particularly expressed in the case of ageing landladies, who had become tired of the disruptive and antisocial influence of disaffected young men in their yards and were keen to get rid of them. The young men were seldom prepared to take orders from the landladies. This was the case with Pruna on Florence Street, where we see the common refusal of men to accept the authority of a landlady. But the case also shows how notions of entitlement, generated through long-term residence in the yards, affected the way in which tenants viewed residents in the yards. Pruna’s parents were originally from Mngqibisa Location in Chalumna. They moved to Duncan Village in 1959, where she was born in 1960. Both her parents have since died, her father in 1979 and her mother in 2002. Pruna inherited the house on her mother’s death. At the time of writing, she was unemployed and lived on the site with her two sons and various tenants in the yard. When Pruna took over the house in 1982, she inherited Zakhele and his sons. He had been living as a tenant on the property since 1979 and is the oldest tenant. Apparently Pruna’s father had met Zakhele in a neighbourhood tavern and, discovering that Zakhele was from Mngqibisa in Chalumna (his home village), had invited him to build a shack in the yard. In 2005, Pruna said she was sick and tired of Zakhele and his sons and wanted to evict him. On the morning of our interview, she said that she had summoned one of his sons to her house to discuss the possibility of them leaving the house. She said that she felt that Zakhele and his sons were disrespectful towards her, that they were heavy drinkers, and that she could not understand why they refused to leave their key with her when they were out of the yard. She explained that Zakhele’s sons also refused to pay her more than R40 rent a month. She said that ‘when they get drunk they threaten me and say that they will never leave this yard’. She went on: ‘They say that their father made a deal with my father and that it is not up to me to change that, it was an agreement amongst men.’ In an even more extreme case, it was reported in the press that Nomvula Kalipa, ‘an impoverished and wheelchair-bound Duncan Village woman, is locked in a battle with unwelcome tenants who she alleges have beaten her, slapped her mentally disabled daughter and refused to pay rent for over a year’ (Daily Dispatch 23.3.05). The newspaper report stated that the woman,

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a resident in a one-roomed municipal house, probably in Florence Street, went into hospital in 2003 to have her leg amputated. While she was away for 11 months, her mentally disabled daughter allowed two men into the yard to erect shacks. They agreed to pay R40 rent a month. When Nomvula returned from hospital she was shocked to find out what her daughter had done and asked the men to leave. They refused and did not pay any rent either. It was also discovered that one of the tenants had beaten Nomvula because she had ‘rudely’ asked him to leave. Nomvula contacted her ward councillor several times about the incident and asked him to assist her with the eviction of the tenants. He did not respond, although he did admit to the press that he was aware of the case. Fearing for her life, Nomvula paid R600 of her disability grant to a lawyer to take action against her unwanted tenants. By March 2005, the lawyer had issued two eviction orders to the tenants, both of which they ignored. When Nomvula spoke to the press, she said that if they ignored the latest letter she would pay for a bulldozer to come onto her site to flatten their dwellings.

Conclusion Let us now return to Davis’s (2006) concern about exploitative landlordism and the potential social and political dynamics of yard upgrading in places like Duncan Village in South African cities. The first point I made in the chapter is that the yards have a much longer history in South African cities than we might imagine. This history pre-dates the implementation of apartheid policies and contains evidence of exploitative landlordism, which has not been adequately recognised in the often romanticised accounts of African urban life in places like Sophiatown or Alexandra in the 1950s. I also argued that it is difficult to understand the emergence of ‘yard socialism’ in the 1980s without acknowledging this earlier history of ‘yard capitalism’. One of the reasons why township civics were so determined to restructure yard relations in the 1980s was precisely because they had been so exploitative and socially divisive in the past. It seemed almost inconceivable to those in the civic movement that townships could unite against apartheid as long as the legacy of exploitative relations in the yards was not addressed. Similarly, I would go on to argue that it is also difficult to understand the current dynamics of yard relations and what ‘yard upgrading’, as expressed in the Breaking New Ground urban housing policy, might mean for places like Duncan Village

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without recognising the legacy of the era of yard socialism. More specifically, I tried to show that one of the consequences of the yard socialism era, and the particular form it took in cities such as East London, is that many tenants still feel a strong sense of entitlement to their spaces of residence in the yards and believe any decision about the future of these spaces should involve them directly. This is not, however, how the current policy framework for yard upgrading imagines the process unfolding. The focus in the policy guidelines is on the empowerment of landlords and landladies through the provision of additional government subsidies to upgrade residential structures and services in the yards, according to minimum standards provided by the government. The process anticipates a partnership between the government and home-owners (landlords), but has little to say about the protection of the rights of tenants. This is particularly problematic in view of the history of the yards outlined above, where some tenant households have now lived in their own dwellings in the yards since the 1980s. Take the case of Zakhele in Pruna’s yard, referred to above. Zakhele moved into this yard in 1979 and has passed it on to his sons, who are proving to be problematic tenants for Pruna because they refuse to accept her authority and claim that they feel entitled to stay in the yard, despite her objections. They also refuse to allow her access to their shack, which they believe is theirs. Although one is sympathetic to Pruna’s concerns about their antisocial behaviour, there can be no doubt that Zakhele and his children should be presented with viable, alternative housing options if they are going to be forced to leave the yards. Another legacy of yard socialism in Duncan Village is the difficulties landlords and landladies experience when raising yard rents. Tenants argue that because they own their own structures in the yards and because most home-owners do not have bonds or even rates to pay, there can be little justification for increasing rents. It seems inevitable, though, that as the yards are upgraded and better infrastructure is provided for those who live there, rents will increase quite dramatically. This process will almost certainly displace many of those who are currently living in the yards, especially single mothers who have come to rely on the yards as relatively safe places to raise their children. In fact, I have argued that since the 1990s the yards have become critical sites for single mothers to eke out a living. I have documented in some detail how women moved into the yards after 1994 and, once there, consolidated their

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own feminised version of ‘yard socialism’ through relations of co-operation and support. In these spaces, I suggest, some women have increasingly transformed reactive ‘tactics’ for survival into new ‘strategies’, which embody a challenge to the current regimes of male power in the township. The danger of the current policy proposals about upgrading the yards is that they open new opportunities for the re-emergence of exploitative forms of landlordism in the township. It is my assessment that while the commitment of the state to upgrade conditions in the yard is potentially an extremely progressive move, it is important that measures are taken to ensure that the interests and rights of all those involved in these urban spaces are adequately protected. Notes 1

See http://www.housing.gov.za.

2

‘Greenfield developments’ refers to new housing developments on open land on the fringes of a city.

3

‘Brownfield developments’ refers to new housing developments within existing residential or industrial areas of a city.

4

I wish to acknowledge the fieldwork assistance of Ayanda Tyali and Nosiphiwe Jekwa during the 2005 backyard survey in Duncan Village.

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10

Internationalisation and competitiveness in South African urban governance: On the contradictions of aspirationist urban policy-making


Scarlett Cornelissen

A city region that can effectively compete in the global economy is the key to South Africa’s growth and development, and our ability to address poverty, unemployment, and under-development. After 120 years sub-Saharan Africa’s most important city Johannesburg and its sister Gauteng cities must play an even greater role in the economic future of South Africa and the continent. (Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa, at the launch of the Gauteng Global City-Region, 29 August 2006) In the recent past, scholarship has burgeoned on the post-apartheid South African city, and rightly so. In much the same way as urban areas constituted the main socio-spatial and economic frame for colonial and apartheid-era rule, cities play an important part in not only providing the material and other resources for South Africa’s projected socio-economic transformation, but they also most plainly reflect the consequences and limitations of this transformation. Much of the contemporary literature on South African cities therefore addresses the changed nature of industrialisation and economic patterns in these cities (for example Freund & Padayachee 2002; Pillay et al. 2006; Rogerson 1999; Rogerson & Rogerson 1997), the impacts of migration and increased urbanisation (for example Kok et al. 2006), the nature and impacts of policies towards regeneration (Bremner 2000; Maharaj & Rambali 1998; Nel 2001; Tomlinson et al. 2003), or the societal and cultural effects of class polarisation or increased private securitisation within cities (for example Beall et al. 2002; Bond 2000; Christopher 2001; Mbembe & Nuttall 2004; Turok 2000).

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In all of this, there has been limited focus on an aspect of urban planning and governance that has gained greater importance in the goal-setting of urban authorities: that of extending the international reach and integration of cities with the world economy to advance urban growth. This objective towards internationalisation is present to varying extents in most of the larger cities in the country. It stems in part from the explicit external orientation to macroeconomic policy-making by South Africa’s national government, and in part relates to a distinct movement in the wider international environment that sees the articulation of goals of urban policy-making strongly defined by a discourse of ‘competitiveness’. Prompted partially by broader structural economic changes, and driven by an ideological convergence on the primacy of the pursuit of certain economic policies, there is a seeming consensus that cities should be a catalyst and vehicle of growth in national economies (Jessop 2002; Savitch & Kantor 2002; Scott 2001). Within the context of the post-industrial hollowing out of many cities in the North, this consensus finds reflection in the similarities in urban policy-making across many countries. Emphasis is placed on the promotion of particular industries, specific economic activities, and a particular spatial approach in the development of industrial and other urban policies. The adoption of mega-projects – whether infrastructural or social in nature – is another key feature of this stress on urban competitiveness, which has varyingly been termed entrepreneurialist (after Harvey 1989) or internationalist. This chapter examines the context, legislative foundations and the nature and implications of internationalisation and competitiveness in urban policymaking in the post-apartheid era, cast against the larger position of cities in South Africa’s changing political economy, and the socio-cultural shapes cities have taken on over the past number of years. Three main themes arise from this analysis. The first is that, in broad terms, urban areas may be said to be very salient to national policy goals. Relative to rural areas, national policy has tended to privilege cities as important spatial units of governing (evident, for instance, in a protracted process of the redrafting of governance boundaries, and of the respatialisation of the national economy overall) and as key vehicles for growth and broader transformation. Urban bias at the national level has partly provided the conditions at city level for the adoption of policies and strategies significantly neo-liberalist in slant. Like national policy, however, there is not a complete eclipse of neo-liberalism in urban

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policy. Rather, such policy involves an at times uneasy attempt to balance objectives towards growth with the socio-developmental exigencies of the urban populace. The second theme, therefore, relates to the contradictions that arise as urban authorities seek to perform conventional and statutorily defined tasks of services management (or delivery) and pursue policies of internationalisation. The third theme follows from the latter, and concerns both the statutory and political constraints to internationalisation at the urban level, derived from aspects such as limited fiscal manoeuvrability or autonomy for urban authorities vis-à-vis the Treasury, and the impacts of political factors at the local level.1 The analysis is structured in the following way. The first part of the chapter reviews the main forces, from a theoretical perspective, that have provided impetus for internationalisation as an objective of urban policy-making internationally. The second part examines the shifting orientations to urban policy in the post-apartheid era, reviewing the spatial and legislative evolution of urban governance, and the internal and international factors that have influenced it. The third part discusses the contours of internationalisation and competitiveness in South Africa’s three largest metropolises – Johannesburg, Cape Town and eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality (or Durban) – as they emerge from the policy goals, visions and strategies set by the respective metropolitan governments, and the flagship or mega-projects adopted by these authorities. The fourth part highlights some emergent features of urban internationalisation from the case of the three metropolises. A concluding section discusses some of the major implications for broader urban governance.

Impulses to urban internationalisation: theoretical perspectives The idea of competitive or internationalised cities has prevailed in international urban scholarship for close to two decades. Harvey’s (1989) seminal writing on the emergence of entrepreneurialism as a form of urban governance, by which urban authorities define their primary goal as capturing external capital and new direct investments, usually through the establishment of partnerships with local or international firms, laid the path for a great body of work on the changed nature of urban governance in late capitalism (for example Kearns & Paddison 2000; Zukin 1995). The factors that are identified as underpinning

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on the contradictions of aspirationist urban policy- making

this transformation are generally seen to be structural in nature – changes in the geography of capitalism; the increased mobility (and precariousness) of international capital; the reduction in the ability of national governments to regulate such capital; and changes in the types of economic produce, goods or sectors that are accorded value within international capitalism. The major cities of North America were the first to bear the pressures of declining industrial bases and the shift to services-driven economies. As such, many of these cities initiated activities towards internationalisation, that is, the promotion of certain locales for investment or development, the founding of public–private partnerships and the advancement of specific economic sectors (Savitch & Kantor 2002). While goals towards internationalisation are a feature of many large western European cities, urban governance in those cities is shaped to varying degrees by corporatist or statist forms of political exchange (Brenner 2004), which tend to moderate the autonomy of urban authorities. The literature on urban internationalisation is broad in spectrum, ranging, for instance, from the internal conditions and sectoral specificities related to urban competition (Begg 2002; Lever & Turok 1999) to the effects of the more punitive aspects of this governance, which could include increased surveillance and the reining in of mobility (MacLeod 2002; Smith 1996). A body of scholarship which provides a more or less cohesive set of arguments on the processes and institutional arrangements related to internationalist urban governance is that which derives from the work of Logan and Molotch (1987) on ‘urban growth machines’. Focusing on the political economy of urban governance, this work emphasises the ways in which a multitude of stakeholders – public officials, civic organisations and private capital – interrelate and often compete to produce urban outcomes. Logan and Molotch’s concept initially focused on the manner in which an overarching ethic of growth is adopted by or infiltrates diverse groups within cities, and how this directs the mobilisation and alterations of particular sectors of urban economies and land in the pursuit of profit. This has become extended in subsequent application by others to review the various partnerships established between the public and private sectors towards the attainment of growth objectives; the dynamics of urban growth coalitions; and the wider political manifestations – in the form of regimes – such coalitions are part of (DiGaetano & Klemanski 1999; Lauria 1997). Central to this scholarship is the

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idea that governance structures in cities are best conceptualised as consisting of a network of alliances among elected officials and local firms, among whom consensus exists about particular goals for urban growth and development, and civic groups that lobby for their interest with varying degrees of effect and success. While there has generally been a critical component in the urban growth machine scholarship, the comment by Kipfer and Keil (2002) about an overemphasis on the participatory and open nature of urban politics in this scholarship, along with an underemphasis on the effects of the wider national regulatory contexts and conditions, draws attention to some of the major limitations of this scholarship. Less salient as a theoretical explanation for urban internationalisation, but highly influential in shaping policy goals, is the world/global city discourse, a wide-ranging body of theoretical analyses and claims about the existence of a few dominant cities – large economic and politico-administrative units in themselves – that exercise a major influence on the world economy. Since the early works of Friedman and Wolff (1982) and Sassen (1991; 1994), the world/global city discourse has advanced to incorporate analyses of a growing number of cities across the world. Remaining central to this discourse, however, is the idea that cities constitute primary nodes of production, consumption and regulation in the international economy, and the notion that there is an international urban hierarchy, where a few global cities have assumed a commanding position. Global cities are those that have an inordinately large impact on international economic exchanges, both in a physical sense (in that they hold a large proportion of the world’s corporate headquarters, and their stock exchanges tend to be among the largest in the world) and in the way that they channel and regulate economic engagement. While having attracted valid criticism for methodological inconsistencies, empirical ambiguity and the lack of consensus on key indicators (Markusen 1999; Massey 1999), the world/global city discourse has become very influential. It is significant that the discourse has been enthusiastically taken up by policy-makers in many urban settings and finds reflection in policy documents. There, the discourse is stripped of much of its complex analytical vocabulary, but the goals of competition, prominence and rank are valorised. It is in this context that Jessop (1997) and Paul (2004) have remarked on the aspirationist character of the discourse, where in the hands of urban

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authorities and local private capital, the steering of city programmes to attain distinction as a ‘global city’ has become widespread.


What is common to all theoretical arguments on the attempts by cities to internationalise is a tacit consensus that the current phase of capitalism, shaped by an overriding ideology of neo-liberalism, places a premium on the prioritisation of certain macroeconomic goals above others, tied to the adoption of certain institutional vehicles and the use of certain forms of regulation (Jessop 1997). Neo-liberalism – generally equated with liberalisation, deregulation and a minimalised presence for the state in the economy – has become not only a predominant idea, but also an ideal of governing that finds reflection in most parts of the world. The active adoption and adaptation of neo-liberalism in many older industrialised states has inter alia found its way in the accentuation of locality and the concentration of policies and development goals on specific places or regions (Brenner & Theodore 2002). Cities have therefore become an arena where neo-liberalism as a form of governance uses, but also shapes, conditions and characteristics of place. This includes the customisation of economic sectors, financial markets, and terrain or properties in urban areas towards the needs of external capital, or the creation of such sectors where they do not exist for outside capital. The patterns in recent decades have seen the development predominantly of tertiary economic activities (popularly information and communications technology [ICT, including call centres] and tourism), the stimulation of consumer markets through ‘cultural industries’, and the channelling of resources through flagship or mega-projects aimed to profile cities. Institutionally, neo-liberal urban governance is affected by the greater influence of market forces on the making of government policy, and the creation of partnerships between governments and businesses in the pursuit of enterprise. In a compelling analysis, Jessop (2002), however, contends that rather than a complete form of neo-liberalism, most urban governments, even those most vigorous in outward promotion, display in their institutional make-up and in the mix of policy and economic programmes adopted, varying degrees of neo-corporatism, neo-statism or neo-commUnitarianism. In a neocorporatist system, economic goals are set as consensus through the parleying among government, businesses and actors such as trade unions or industry or sector players, where innovation and competitiveness constitute common

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objectives. Neo-statism sees a state-defined and -driven agenda for growth and competitiveness at the national level, to which urban goals (and governments) are subjected, and by which intervention or guidance of market forces by the national state occurs. Neo-commUnitarianism is evident in the way in which efforts to address social exclusion and to advance community development have been part of most contemporary initiatives of urban regeneration. According to Jessop (2002: 463), the neo-commUnitarian strategy ‘focuses on less competitive economic spaces (such as inner cities, de-industrializing cities, or cities at the bottom of urban hierarchies) with the greatest risk of losing from the zero-sum competition for external resources’. Thus, even though neo-liberalism may be strongly voiced at a national level, at the urban level neo-liberalism may be mediated by the different degrees to which community goals are pursued relative to competitiveness or internationalisation, or the extent to which corporatist pacts mould economic or industrial targets. As in other states of the South, the advance of neo-liberalism within South Africa has largely been one conditioned by processes stemming from the external environment, and has been tailored by internal political and economic factors. Yet it has been a continuous process, to the degree that macroeconomic policy is now firmly encased within the objectives – even if only partially applied – of liberalisation and deregulation. An interesting balance arises between national and urban authorities in the extent to which, at each level, neo-liberalism percolates policy. Policy-making at the national level constitutes a stark form of neo-statism, where goals of competitiveness are framed as conditions to overarching objectives of development and poverty alleviation. Urban policy descends from national policy and political goals, and reflects both neo-liberal and commUnitarian inputs. However, in the marrying of these goals, and in the conciliation of powers between the national and urban governments, contradictions often emerge.

The context and contours of neo-liberalism and internationalisation in South African urban governance Cities have historically played a distinctive role in South Africa’s modern political economy, constituting main collection points for capital built predominantly through mining in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, housing and co-ordinating the rationalist planning and industrialisation

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characteristic of the apartheid era, and reflecting the spatial and racial contours of the policies of division of this era. It is for this reason that cities have become a central element, even if implicitly so, in the attempts by the post-apartheid government to ameliorate the spatial, economic and societal effects of apartheid. At a national level, there has been a strong, overarching process of respatialising the imprints of apartheid through a series of cumulative legislative measures. Initial goals emanate from the 1994 Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) which, among other goals, emphasised changing the balance of development.2 Tendencies towards an unvoiced but intended reshaping of the geography of South Africa’s economy found further reflection in other major policy documents, such as the 1996 Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) programme and even in the 1996 Constitution (Act 108 of 1996), which, through the allocation of specific competencies to the three distinct spheres of government, provided the statutory foundation for the development goals contained in macroeconomic policies such as GEAR. But it was in three particular pieces of legislation – the Municipal Demarcation Act (No. 27 of 1998), the Municipal Structures Act (No. 117 of 1998) and the Municipal Systems Act (No. 32 of 2000) – that the attainment of macroeconomic objectives through the zoning and use of territory in a certain way most concretely gained definition. The latter two, specifically, articulated a rationale for the spatial and functional demarcation between the country’s rural and urban areas, pronounced the powers of governance for rural and urban authorities, and set out the specific roles of each. One of the important facets of the Municipal Structures Act was its provision for the creation of a model of governance in certain urban areas based on the centring of powers of fiscal, management and service provision in an overarching executive council, a model known colloquially as mega-cities or ‘unicities’. These various processes have yielded a particular prominence for cities in South Africa’s wider political economy, not only because of the size and administrative influence that unicities wield, but also because it has enabled a territorial reshaping and enlargement of urban regions, often through the physical swallowing up of rural areas into cities’ administrative boundaries. There has been a second consequence to the legislative processes, which is the advancement of an urban hierarchy, with certain large cities dominating the national landscape. Feeding off particular emphases in national policies

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of industrialisation, geographical factors and demographic histories, cities such as Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban constitute a primary tier or order of urban regions, housing large stocks of the national capital and parts of the population. Second- and third-tier cities provide a functional and augmentative support to the first tier, but are essentially reliant on the economic foundations that the first tier sets. Such a hierarchisation was most concretely expressed in another key document, the 2003 National Spatial Development Perspective (NSDP). This document emanated from the presidency and promoted a vision for the rationalisation of resources for development on certain existing spatial features of the economy. Specifically, the NSDP provides a ranking of economically well-performing regions in South Africa, which, it is argued, should sustain the less-well-performing areas. On the assumption that certain areas would never have the ability to develop, the NSDP argues for focusing the bulk of fixed investments of government on those areas with the potential for sustainable economic development…(where) the Government’s objectives of both promoting economic growth and alleviating poverty will best be achieved. In areas of limited potential, it is recommended that beyond a level of basic services to which all citizens are entitled, government should concentrate primarily on social investment such as human resource development, labour market intelligence and social transfers, so as to give people in these areas better information to gravitate towards areas with greater economic potential. (Office of the President 2003: 4–5) While not a policy as such, the NSDP provides several points of departure for macroeconomic and other policies, including most recent policies such as the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa, announced in 2006, which seeks to bolster national growth trajectories through a targeted, sectoral approach. Taken to its furthest extent, the NSDP has significant implications for the manner in which state and public resources are deployed towards the goal of economic development, and the geographical consequences thereof. Typically, it is urban, not rural, regions that are to be advanced. The limitations of such an approach concern factors such as the over-concentration of resources on metropolises, the creation of economic and geographical imbalances and distortions between rural and urban areas, and an arrestment, rather than

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promotion, of hinterland cities or towns not able to gain from the shadow cast by major metropolises (for examples and discussions of the heretofore limited empirical application of the NSDP, see Centre for Geographical Analysis 2004; Marais 2006). Given such features, it may be said that the overall national policy has been one where the urban environment is the preferred spatial form for growth, with assumed trickle-through effects to rural areas. Statutorily, cities enjoy some degree of autonomy from the central and provincial governments, but only as far as is circumscribed by the division of powers in the Constitution. Also, patterns of centralising power in key sites of national administration by the African National Congress-led government means that despite having shifted to an overall neo-liberal macroeconomic stance since 1994 (most visible through the adoption of the GEAR policy), at central government level South Africa is exhibiting a guided or managed form of neo-liberalism, which could be framed as primarily neo-statist, even though there are remnants of the corporatist underpinnings of the early post-apartheid political context (see, for instance, Butler 2003 and Southall 2004). Within cities, however, patterns of policy-making, institutional configurations and strategising suggest that neo-liberalism finds reflection in more varied forms.

The case of the three largest metropolises Policies, visions and strategies The primary functions of metropolitan governments are defined in the 1996 Constitution and the Municipal Systems Act. In the Constitution, metropolitan authorities, as an instance of local government, are accorded a key role in the promotion of economic and social development in the metropolitan area. The Municipal Systems Act tasks these authorities to formulate development objectives and programmes through the regular drafting and review of Integrated Development Plans (IDPs). While subsequent pieces of legislation or regulations have spelt out further specifications for the process and budgeting aspects related to local government planning, it is their IDPs that constitute the principal framework for development targeting, services delivery and management.

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The drafting of IDPs has been an onerous process for many metropolitan governments, hampered by drawn-out parallel processes of the administrative restructuring of municipalities, or the inability of available municipal staff to fulfil the generally technically advanced requirements of IDP completion (see, for example, Harrison 2006). As such, the publication of IDPs has been delayed in many of the smaller municipalities and metropolitan regions. These factors also may account for the content of the IDPs of many South African cities, which are focused on providing assessments and descriptions of the developmental context of their cities, without providing many clear articulations of planning, strategies or budgets. There are, for instance, significant differences in the level of specificity and detail of planning between the most recent IDPs of large metropolises such as Johannesburg and Cape Town, and those of cities such as Bloemfontein, Polokwane and Kimberley. Historical patterns of development and industrialisation, greater geographical and demographic sizes and better economic scope all provide a rationale for the three largest metropolises to adopt more explicit goals of internationalisation relative to smaller metropolitan areas. As such, policy statements towards internationalisation are most present in the IDPs of Johannesburg, Cape Town and, to a lesser extent, Durban. The City of Johannesburg’s most recent IDP, covering the period 2006–11, for instance, formulates the intent to develop the city into a region which has international prominence and success, through which other internal socioeconomic goals could be attained. It envisions: In the future, Johannesburg will continue to lead as South Africa’s primary business city, a dynamic centre of production, innovation, trade, finance and services. This will be a city of opportunity, where the benefits of balanced economic growth will be shared in a way that enables all residents to gain access to the ladder of prosperity, and where the poor, vulnerable and excluded will be supported out of poverty to realise upward social mobility. The result will be a more equitable and spatially integrated city, very different from the divided city of the past. In this World-Class African City for all, everyone will be able to enjoy decent accommodation, excellent services, the highest standards of health and safety, and quality community life in sustainable neighbourhoods and vibrant urban spaces. (COJ 2006: 20)

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This has been adapted from the city’s earlier development vision, encapsulated and marketed as ‘Joburg 2030’, which aimed at fostering,


a world class city with service deliverables and efficiencies which meet world best practice. Its economy and labour force will specialise in the service sector and will be strongly outward oriented such that the City operates on a global scale. The strong economic growth resultant from this competitive economic behaviour will drive up City tax revenues, private sector profits and individual disposable income levels such that the standard of living and quality of life of all the city’s inhabitants will increase in a sustainable manner. (COJ 2006: 20) While Joburg 2030 is still the ‘corporate’ name of Johannesburg’s development strategy, the redefinition of the development vision aims at a more integrative and inclusive city vision (COJ 2006). The international vision is also explicit in the city’s participation in a programme with the Gauteng provincial government to develop a global cityregion, an ‘integrated and globally competitive region where the economic activities of different parts of the province complement each other in consolidating Gauteng as the economic hub of Africa and as an internationally recognised global city-region’ (COJ 2006: 29). Part of the purpose is to meld administrative units within the province, including rural and urban municipalities, into one body of governance. Progress on the establishment of the Gauteng global city-region has thus far been slow, but such a region will have significant economic and administrative impacts. The City of Cape Town is for its part envisioned as: • a sustainable city that offers a future to our children and their children; • a dignified city that is tolerant, non-racist and non-sexist; • an accessible city that extends the benefits of urban society to all and builds the capacity of its people; • a credible city that is well governed and trusted by its people; • a competent city with skills, capabilities and a competitive edge; • a safe and caring city that cares for its citizens and values the safety and security of all who live, work and play in it; • a prosperous city known for its ability to compete globally in the 21st century and its commitment to tackling the challenges facing South

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Africa, the Southern African Development Community and the African continent; • a city known for its leadership in Africa and the developing world (City of Cape Town 2006). In each IDP, there is the identification of specific strategies or sectors that should be focused on to attain the stated visions. The City of Johannesburg details 12 sectoral focus areas, including spatial development, the environment, housing, transport, safety, finance and corporate governance, for which particular sets of plans and targets are drawn up. The City of Cape Town has five such ‘strategic objectives’,3 while eThekwini municipality details eight.4 Goals around economic development are central in each IDP. Table 10.1 (on p. 239) shows the content of the economic focus areas or objectives of the IDPs of each city. What is common to each IDP is firstly a strong focus on the promotion of exports and inward investments, and secondly, the development of specific industries or economic activities, generally those regarded with greater potential for outward or international reach. This is clearest in the IDPs of Cape Town and eThekwini metropolitan municipality, where the growth of sectors such as ICT, tourism or call centres, or the advancement of the export foundations of existing important sectors such as clothing and textile and maritime, are aimed at. Fostering greater external economic linkages, therefore, is a key objective of all three cities. As discussed below, the manner in which it is aimed to give force to this objective, and the way in which externalisation goals relate to internal socio-economic goals, vary within the cities.

Institutional vehicles, growth partnerships and flagship projects A range of institutional vehicles, with the purpose of advancing growth targets, exists in the cities. First, in each of the three cities, a number of major or flagship projects, meant to provide momentum to local economic development and intended to draw large proportions of public and private investments, have been adopted by the respective municipalities. Second, statutory bodies, development agencies and public–private partnerships have been established with the intention of steering flagship and other development projects.

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Table 10.1 Economic development goals in South Africa’s three largest metropolises, 2006–2111 City

Long-term goals

City of Johannesburg (IDP 2006–2011)

Diversify and broaden Support targeted sectors with greatest potential for growth and labour absorption the local economy

Examples of long-term strategic outcomes/projects

Develop strong links Promote inward investment and export penetration to national, regional and global economies


Develop a robust and Help promote the quality and marketability of locally produced goods growing domestic market for locally produced goods Ensure equitable sharing of the value gains from growth, and the geographic spread of economic activities

Encourage wider opportunities for empowerment firms

Reduce the cost of doing business by addressing regulatory Enhance the burdens competitiveness of city firms, ensuring continuous improvement in the business environment City of Cape Town (IDP 2006–2007)

Increase the number of economic opportunities to reach an annual growth rate of 6%

Promote the Western Cape as Africa’s destination of choice Recruit 7 000 agents into call centres by 2008 Establish Cape Town as Africa’s oil and gas hub Enhance the international competitiveness of Cape Town’s ICT sector Increase the international competitiveness of the city’s textile, clothing and boat-building sectors Make Cape Town the most competitive business destination in the world through trade and investment

eThekwini (IDP 2006–2011)

Support and grow new and existing businesses Provide secondary support to business enterprises

Stimulate key sectors, including automotive; ICT, creative industries; maritime; clothing and textiles Support and grow tourism-related industries, particularly sports tourism and business and event tourism Facilitate investment and promotion Drive the 2010 World Cup for eThekwini

Sources: COJ (2006); City of Cape Town (2006); eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality (2006)

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Flagship projects adopted by the city council in Cape Town (a total of 13) are a mixture of infrastructural, housing, social (e.g. gender equity and youth advancement) and economic projects. Major thrust is, however, given to four specific projects: those related to the preparations for the hosting of the 2010 Fifa World Cup, and specifically the construction of Green Point Stadium as a venue for some key matches; the construction of lower-income housing units at a core site (the N2 Gateway project, which has since been taken over by the Western Cape provincial government); the development of a major transport corridor, the Klipfontein corridor, linking poorer and more affluent parts of the city; and urban renewal programmes in two of the most populous and poorest residential areas of the city (Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha) (City of Cape Town 2006). In addition, the Western Cape Trade and Investment Promotion Agency, or Wesgro, is the body with the explicit task of procuring foreign direct investments and new export markets for the city. One of the main activities of this body is thus the dispatch of local business and government trade missions to international destinations or the hosting of foreign business delegations. Two other statutory bodies have been established by the Western Cape provincial and metropolitan governments to help build out sectors identified to have growth and export potential. Two key sectors in this regard are tourism – which contributes 14 per cent to the Gross Geographic Product – and the film industry, the size of the latter estimated to value R2 billion per year. The Cape Town municipality partially funds the destination promotion body Cape Town Routes Unlimited (CTRU), established in 2004 to market the city and the wider province as a tourist destination. The growing use of Cape Town by international advertising and film corporations as a location for filming saw the establishment of the Cape Town Film Commission, whose task it is to promote the city to corporations and to regulate filming activities. Together, it is intended that these bodies steer the city’s development through what have been identified as some of its most externally competitive sectors. Institutional problems – both internal and between the various government partner components – and the wider political complexity colouring urban politics in Cape Town have, however, proven to be important encumbrances. For example, in the three years of its existence CTRU has been affected by the fragmentary nature of the relationship between the provincial and metropolitan governments on the one hand, and tourism businesses on

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the other. Competing agendas, conflicts over the manner in which tourism marketing and development priorities should be set, and a persistent racial undertone to broader urban and provincial politics, set against the intense challenges between rival political parties, have for instance translated into bickering on the management board of CTRU over how this body’s budget should be apportioned, and the rapid changeover of senior staff members.5 In structure, a greater degree of political consistency marks the metropolitan governments of Johannesburg and Durban, which provides a different context for growth partnership bodies in these cities. Contrasting growth agendas among public and private sector components, however, do prevail, often centring on the balance aimed for between creating the conditions for enterprise, and providing for the socio-economic needs of local residents. The stand-offs that can arise from this were demonstrated in Johannesburg during the early part of 2007, when a court ruling prevented the city authorities from evicting the occupiers of derelict buildings within the inner city as part of revitalisation plans (see, for example, Business Day 12.03.07). The Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) has been set up by the city council to support the attainment of the Joburg 2030 goals. This agency functions mainly to identify and advance area-based development initiatives. Inner-city regeneration programmes focused on the redevelopment of the Central Business District (CBD), largely through the stimulation of retail, commercial and tourism-related developments within the inner city, are among the primary focuses of the JDA, as shown in Table 10.2 (on p. 242). The redevelopment of areas contiguous to the CBD, such as Jeppestown, and the expansion nodes of development along refurbished transport nodes, are additional focuses of the agency. The projects managed by the JDA are very large in scope. Two specific flagship projects, driven in part by the JDA but also by other role-players such as the Gauteng provincial government, have, however, come to overshadow many of the development initiatives adopted by the City of Johannesburg. Both relate to the city’s preparations for the 2010 World Cup. The first, Gautrain, focuses on the construction of a public transport node between the international airport at Johannesburg, the Johannesburg city centre and Pretoria. Through this, major economic sub-nodes such as Sandton and less-resourced areas will be connected. Although this infrastructure

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Table 10.2 Johannesburg Development Agency’s main partnerships and development projects Project

Description

Newtown

Tourism focus, inner-city regeneration, construction of Nelson Mandela Bridge, construction of five housing developments

Estimated value R200 million

Constitution Hill Accommodation, commercial, retail and hospitality

Not available

Braamfontein

Revitalisation of precincts

R660 million

Jeppestown Precinct

Revitalisation of railway station and surrounding areas to stimulate economic activity

R8 million

Faraday Station Precinct

Revitalisation of railway station and surrounding market area to stimulate economic activities

Not available

Fashion district

Development of a fashion district in eastern inner city

R50 million

Kliptown

Revitalisation of Kliptown area

R436 million

Source: www.jda.org.za (Accessed 23.03.2007)

development project has been steered by the Gauteng provincial government for the past half-decade – subject to much controversy for the growing costs related to it (at more recent estimates in excess of R20 billion) – the awarding of the rights to host the Fifa World Cup in 2010 has both intensified the authorities’ desire to speed up the construction of the railway line and given prominence in the process to the City of Johannesburg. The second major project stimulated by planning around the 2010 World Cup is the Nasrec Urban Development Framework. Situated to the south of Johannesburg, the Nasrec precinct will be developed into a multimodal site with a large exhibition centre, tourism facilities and attractions, and a prestigious golf course. The major development in the precinct focused on the 2010 World Cup is the refurbishment and extension of the existing FNB football stadium to a carrying capacity of 110 000 spectators. Together, Gautrain and Nasrec are the core infrastructural developments undertaken in preparation for Johannesburg’s hosting of the Fifa finals. The progress and impacts of these two projects will, however, also have significant influences on other developments in the city. The Durban Investment Promotion Agency, set up as a partnership between the eThekwini metropolitan council and local businesses in the city, also

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follows an area-based regeneration and nodal development model, as shown in Table 10.3 (on p. 243). Table 10.3 Durban Investment Promotion Agency’s main partnerships and development projects Project

Description

Estimated value


Town centre developments Revitalisation of areas such as KwaMashu, Umlazi, Not available Isipingo, Pinetown, Tongaat People-mover

Strengthening of public transport between beach Not available areas, the International Convention Centre (ICC) and the CBD

Durban Point Waterfront

Redevelopment and revitalisation of beachfront area and theme park

R1 billion

Africa Square

Extensions to the ICC and developments around the ICC precinct aimed at revitalisation

R450 million

Dube TradePort/King Shaka Airport at La Mercy

Development of new airport; establishment of a free-trade zone

R1.8 billion

Kings Park Sports Precinct Construction of new stadium as venue for the 2010 World Cup and other sports events

R1.6 billion

Source: www.dipa.co.za (accessed on 23.03.07)

Several large development projects are under way or planned in Durban. These include the general upgrading of the beachfront and the development of a film production studio, the expansion of the ICC and the upgrade of Durban International Airport. Two of the largest projects, however, include (at a value of R1.8 billion) the development of a so-called tradeport to the north of Durban, which will incorporate the construction of a new airport, the King Shaka International Airport, and the development of that site into a free-trade zone. Second, at an estimated cost of R1.6 billion, the Kings Park Sports Precinct development is aimed at the 2010 World Cup. This development includes the construction of a new 70 000-person capacity stadium at the site of a former existing stadium.

Some features and implications of urban internationalisation Clearly, planning towards the 2010 World Cup is a major component of investments and commitments undertaken by all three metropolitan governments. Importantly, the 2010 developments constitute the main

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thrust of urban planning, redevelopment and infrastructural respatialisation, around which many future developments in the cities will have to take shape. Yet these are also projects of prestige, intended to raise not only the national but also the international visibility of the cities. As is customary today, with the rising economic significance of tourism, events and sport internationally, the developments around the stadiums are aimed at catalysing the growth of sport tourism and event economies (see Gratton & Henry 2001; Hinch & Higham 2003). As such, the 2010 projects constitute central elements of the cities’ growth strategies, but are also primary to attempts – as far as these are consciously made – to internationalise the economies of the cities. In all three of the cities, the 2010 projects have evoked much public criticism for having been undertaken without due popular input, for their absorption of great portions of the fiscus and, given their scale, the likelihood that they will set the course for future urban programmes (see Cape Argus 01.03.07; Daily News 13.07.06). These projects are emblematic of the enduring difficulty within urban planning to balance growth objectives with those aimed at providing for the socio-economic needs of the urban populace, and of the paradoxes of South African urban policy-making overall. As an undertone to urban policy, neo-liberalism serves to sharpen this contradiction. For instance, the mediation of the conditions and characteristics of place towards the pursuit of capital requires that urban authorities make selections with respect to where resources are spent and for what purposes. The trend arising from the three largest metropolises suggests a centring on large-scale infrastructural developments intended to both stimulate the emergence of major economic nodes and to link such nodes into a dense network, around which employment opportunities could expand. Flagship projects are intended to be such impulses, but they are also aimed at providing the capital to sustain or bolster programmes of socio-economic development. Three factors tend to negate this. First, a large majority of urban megaprojects, while developmental in aim, are in conception often detached from other existing processes of economic or infrastructural development, leading to urban programmes being ad hoc in nature rather than cumulative and catalytic. Second, many projects are often procedurally hampered, characterised by sluggish progress and the unforeseen escalation of costs due to factors such as the poor awarding of tenders, inadequate consultation with relevant stakeholders, or problems in the procurement of materials. Third,

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flagship projects, particularly if ill-conceived, do little to offset the effects of a long-standing deficit in local government service delivery, where it is the poor management of financial and other resources that leads to the inability of many municipalities to address housing and social service backlogs (Dek et al. 2004). The objective of the three metropolitan governments, therefore, to channel capital generated from mega-projects to provide for urban socioeconomic programmes has its limitations. At a broader level, attempts towards internationalisation by South African urban authorities also have to be understood within the context of their statutory role and liberties. While metropolitan governments are constitutionally obligated to pursue programmes that would enhance growth and social advancement in their cities, and should also muster their own resources towards this objective, they are confined in the fiscal autonomy they have and the extent to which they can manage fiscal bases. As defined by the Constitution, metropolitan governments are able to impose and collect property taxes and surcharges on fees for services delivered, and other taxes or levies approved by national legislation, but may not impose taxes on income or customs or value-added or general sales taxes. Until 2006, a Regional Services Council (RSC) levy existed under which metropolitan and other municipal governments were authorised to increase their revenue bases through the collection of taxes from businesses and employers operating in their region. The RSC has since been abolished by the national government, which viewed this levy as a potential source of corruption and mismanagement. At the time, the ending of the RSC was regarded as the elimination of an important source of revenue for metropolitan governments. The RSC was estimated, for instance, to have contributed 9 per cent to local government revenue. In early 2007, the national government introduced draft legislation, the Municipal Fiscal Powers and Functions Bill, by which all municipal taxes, levies or surcharges would have to be authorised by the Treasury. Negative reactions by metropolitan governments to the Bill have focused on the procedural extensions and delays that compliance to the legislation would bring and that their constitutional obligations to deliver social development would be impeded, while organised businesses have been concerned that the new legislation would lead to an increase in the tax burdens for the corporate sector (Business Day 10.05.07). Within this legislative context, the ability of metropolitan governments to imitate the policy behaviour of urban authorities in the United States or Europe,

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where strategies towards competitiveness and internationalisation are usually coupled with the use of tax incentive schemes or the deployment of various other fiscal mechanisms, is restricted. Thus, while the internationalisation of urban economies may be pursued in various policy forms, authorities in South Africa are constricted in the extent to which they may give real force to it.


Conclusion Goals towards internationalisation and competitiveness have become more tangible in the policies and strategies taken on by urban authorities in South Africa over the past decade or so. In the main, these policies follow trends in the wider international arena where discourses of internationalisation have become a set feature of most instances of urban governance, and where such discourses are underpinned by a conviction in the enhanced unpredictability of the global economy and, within this environment, the need for cities to be more proactive in the luring of international capital. The character of internationalisation in urban policy and governance in South Africa, however, differs in three significant ways from the predominant pattern in cities of the North. First, to a substantial degree the striving towards urban competitiveness derives from cue-setting in macroeconomic policy at the national level, where particularly the major metropolitan regions are viewed as important implementers of the macroeconomic vision. Despite objectives of co-operative governance voiced in the Constitution, through various legislative and more informal forms, the national government maintains a significant presence and, to some extent, control in urban agendasetting, and urban authorities have to negotiate several institutional and legal constrictions on aspects such as fiscal manoeuvrability. This tempers the degree to which neo-liberalism, so characteristic of internationalist urban governance, finds intonation in South African urban policy-making. Secondly, stemming from this, institutional vehicles of internationalist urban governance, such as urban growth machines or coalitions, are present in soft form in most of the major metropolitan regions of South Africa. It is local governments, however, that are providing the central thrust towards urban internationalisation, often with a limited purview and often with the adoption of programmes or projects that potentially pose greater costs than gains for

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cities. Thirdly, the pursuit of internationalisation has to be moderated by the sets of conditions and contexts within which urban policy-making takes place, and in this, conflicts between objectives of externally led growth and socioeconomic equity assume an abiding character. The latter is part of a prevailing challenge for policy-making in South Africa overall. Attention would have to be given in urban policy, however, that objectives of internationalisation do not become strategically or rhetorically deployed, or override an elemental focus on providing for the primary developmental needs of urban residents.


Notes 1

This chapter stems from a wider project on urban internationalisation and entrepreneurialism funded by the National Research Foundation of South Africa and the Swedish International Development Agency. The support of these agencies is herewith gratefully acknowledged.

2

Although, as noted by Atkinson and Marais (2006), neither the RDP nor many of the government’s earlier urban planning policies focused extensively on urbanisation, an aspect of social spatialisation which has gained growing importance in the postapartheid era.

3

These are: economic development and job creation; meeting integrated access and mobility challenges; building integrated human settlements; building strong communities; and the provision of equitable and effective service delivery (see City of Cape Town 2006).

4

These are defined as key plans and include, among others, sustaining the natural and built environment; economic development and job creation; the development and maintenance of quality living environments; good governance; and maintaining financial viability and sustainability (eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality 2006).

5

A recent media article in which the destination marketing body was characterised as ‘floundering’ and ‘paralysed by provincial and local government’ (Cape Times 09.03.07) is emblematic of the ignominy which surrounded the body for a great part of its existence.

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Part IV: S outh Africa, Africa and the globe


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11

South Africa and the Great Lakes: A complex diplomacy


Che Ajulu

South Africa’s post-apartheid foreign policy, though aspiring to a role on the world stage, will be judged on its ability to manage conflict and promote development in Africa. In this sense, the outbreak of conflict in Southern Africa and the Great Lakes poses the great challenge for South Africa’s foreign policy makers. (Alden & Le Pere 2003: 24) Emerging from apartheid, South Africa was faced with the daunting challenge of transforming itself from a pariah state to a bastion of democracy within the sub-region, the continent and the world at large. From the outset it was obvious to the new occupants of the Union Buildings that South Africa could not be an island of prosperity in a sea of poverty, social disintegration and civil war. Against this backdrop, South Africa’s policy-makers had to contend with a number of foreign policy challenges relating especially to the country’s future role on the continent and its place in a changed, post-Cold War international environment. One of the tenets of the African National Congress (ANC)-led government’s foreign policy was the centrality of Africa in its foreign policy actions. It was, therefore, clear that South Africa would be fully involved in African affairs, especially in peace-building and peacekeeping on the one hand and in the economic revival of the continent on the other. As such, South African peace diplomacy has been largely shaped by the ideals of ‘liberal peace’. Duffield notes that liberal peace is a ‘political humanitarianism that lays emphasis on conflict resolution and prevention, reconstruction of social networks, strengthening civil society and representative institutions, promoting the rule of law and society sector reform in the context of a functioning market economy, (2000: 23). According to Duffield, there is a link between development and security in the context of liberal peace. A closer assessment of South Africa’s peace diplomacy exposes some of the above-mentioned characteristics. In supporting peace and democracy on the 253


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continent, South Africa seeks to advance development and economic growth across Africa, based on the understanding that this cannot happen in the absence of peace and security. To this end, its foreign policy makes an explicit link between development, governance, peace and security and growth. Under Thabo Mbeki’s leadership, some of these ideals found expression in the concept of an African Renaissance. The Renaissance vision expresses the desire to maintain systems of good governance and to promote negotiated transitions to democracy and rule of law. As president, Mbeki’s approach was geared towards a foreign policy that would conform to the requirements of a developing nation in an impoverished region. Most importantly, under Mbeki, foreign policy was articulated within his vision of an African Renaissance. This was anchored on three main pillars, namely: • promoting security and wealth; • championing the cause of developing nations by adopting a leadership role in various multilateral institutions; and • making a strong commitment to the economic and political revival of the continent. Moreover, the Renaissance was envisaged within the framework of institutional accountability and democratic governance. Thus the broad redirection of foreign policy under Mbeki was not inward-looking. It projected a clear vision for the continent and the global South based on the priority areas as identified in Table 11.1.

Peace diplomacy and its discontents Characterised by its own experience of a negotiated transition, South Africa’s strategy has largely been characterised by mediation between all belligerent factions. Devon notes that the goal is to get everyone around the table to compromise and agree on inclusive transitional political arrangements as part of a peace agreement (Devon 2007). Usually, the agreements consist of establishing a broad-based government of national unity including all warring parties, drafting a new Constitution, reforming the security sector and holding democratic elections (Devon 2007). This is broadly based on the understanding that non-violent forms of conflict resolution are the most appropriate methods of achieving long-term peace. However, the application

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S outh A frica and the G reat L akes : A complex diplomacy


Table 11.1 South African foreign policy priorities, 2004–2008 Priority

Objectives

1. African Renaissance

Execute African Union (AU) Establish organs of the AU (Commission, Pan-African responsibilities Parliament, Economic and Social Council, Peace and Security Council, specialised technical committees, financial institutions and the African Court of Justice)

2. Peace and security

Activities

Promote the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad)

Operationalise the African peer-review mechanism

Finalise Southern African Development Community (SADC) restructuring and harmonise its policies with the AU/Nepad

Finalise and implement the Regional Indicative Strategic Development plan

Promote peaceful conflict resolution and encourage peace-building

Work towards the consolidation of peace processes in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Côte d’Ivoire

Align programmes of the specialised technical committees, financial institutions and regional economic communities to Nepad

Finalise the SADC Mutual Defence Pact

Continue efforts to achieve peace, stability and democracy on the continent Maintain a role in arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament issues

Continue engagements with AU/SADC mechanisms to co-ordinate and sensitise countries to the movement of small arms

Combat transnational crime 3. Sustainable Promote the agenda of the development South Work towards reform of the Bretton Woods Institutions, the UN Economic and Social Council and the World Trade Organization

Develop feedback on Nepad, promote the objectives of the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the World Conference Against Racism Co-ordinate South Africa’s position and participate in events to enhance the interest of the South by establishing active partnerships with India, Brazil and China

of these principles has proven problematic for two main reasons. Firstly, these principles are based on the assumption that dynamics and complexities of various conflicts are similar and share a common framework. Secondly, it assumes that a common understanding exists between the actors and their desired outcomes.

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Yet South Africa’s Africa-centred foreign policy has been haunted by contradictions and tensions. South Africa’s near-miraculous political transition earned it a moral prominence in Africa and beyond, and led to international expectations that it should take a lead in the management of conflicts on the African continent. However, South Africa’s ability to play this role successfully has become rather constricted, and South Africa has had to contend with a range of inhibiting factors, including: • limited institutional capacity for the execution of the country’s ambitious continental agenda; • persistent ambivalence about South Africa’s identity, both within the country and among its African peers – who still believe that the country’s feet are planted in Africa but its soul remains rooted in Europe; • continued poor appreciation of the complexity and content of Africa’s international politics; • the fact that most of the conflicts that South Africa has been called upon to mediate are so intractable that they do not lend themselves to the kinds of quick fixes that South Africa’s foreign policy elite imagine; and • the tendency to want to export the South African model of a government of national unity to other African countries without regard for local realities and contexts. As a result, the record of South Africa’s peace diplomacy in Africa, though well intentioned, has been a mixed one at best. At home, many have perceived the country’s forays into Africa as a waste of taxpayers’ money that should have been used to uplift poor people inside South Africa. Externally, the country’s activism in conflict areas has been seen as concealing a hidden (hegemonic) economic agenda and its efforts to promote good governance and human rights have been met with suspicion. In spite of all these tensions and pressures, the South African government’s determination to continue to engage with the continent in resolving its conflicts has not been dampened. This chapter seeks to highlight the complex nature of South Africa’s diplomacy in the Great Lakes, with a focus on its mediation in the DRC and Burundi. The first part provides a brief background on the historical turmoil and the complex nature of the regional political landscape; the second part focuses on South Africa’s mediation in the Great Lakes conflict and the implications for regional stability; the third part sheds light on the role of Angola, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda in the search for stability within the region; and the

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fourth part assesses the impact of and challenges to South Africa’s peace diplomacy.


The complex nature of the Great Lakes crisis South Africa’s initial forays into Africa were less than successful. In 1997, South Africa attempted to broker a negotiated settlement in the Congo between ailing President Mobutu Sese Seko and Congolese rebels led by Laurent Kabila. This initiative was largely supported by the US and France, former allies of Mobutu. Within the region, most were opposed to South Africa’s mediation in the Congo for two main reasons. First, it was seen as a US-driven initiative. Second, most countries in the region supported the Kabila rebellion. The Congo rebellion was a product of complex national and sub-regional interests, and regional players such as Uganda and Rwanda were not in favour of the South African mediation. Rwanda and Uganda’s support for Kabila was based on harsh historical experiences with the Mobutu regime and Mobuto’s proxy wars of destabilisation. Angola, in particular, was not in favour of the South African initiative largely because the fall of Mobutu was strategically important in the fight against Jonas Savimbi. Similarly, Rwanda and Uganda, the key actors behind the rebellion, were totally opposed to any solution that did not equate to total victory and the ousting of Mobutu. Within this broader context, Mandela’s mediation was, for all intents and purposes, an exercise in futility. Kabila, with the support of his allies and with outright victory in sight, was not interested in Mandela’s diplomacy and refused to settle for anything less than Mobutu’s immediate departure from Kinshasa. The failure to secure an agreement between the two parties and Kabila’s victorious march to Kinshasa, which faced only minimal resistance, raised a number of questions about South Africa’s motives, which were seen as ambiguous and subject to various interpretations (Alden & Le Pere 2003). Against this backdrop, the subsequent fallout between Kabila and his allies (Uganda and Rwanda) provided South Africa with another opportunity to revisit its peace diplomacy in the Great Lakes.

The SADC question In the aftermath of its failure to mediate a peaceful transition in the DRC, South Africa sought to mobilise continental and regional support in mediating the

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second rebellion. However, apparently unaware of the intensification of the conflict and its broader implications for regional stability, South Africa was completely outmanoeuvred when Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, with the support of Angola and Namibia, used his position as head of the SADC’s Organ for Politics, Defence and Security (OPDS) to authorise SADC military intervention in the Congo at the request of Kabila. As expected, South Africa was opposed to military intervention, preferring a diplomatic solution to the crisis. A dispute over the power and status of the OPDS arose, based on three different national positions. South Africa’s position was based on an understanding that the OPDS was not constituted as a free-standing regional entity, but derived its status from under the SADC. Zimbabwean officials were of the view that the OPDS, like its predecessor the Frontline States, was a largely informal grouping of senior officials chaired by a troika of heads of state that operated alongside – and not under – the SADC. Their view was that the SADC therefore had the right to authorise an intervention at the request of a member state (Alden & Le Pere 2003). Angola was more concerned about its own national security and containing the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) and did not deem it necessary to seek approval from the SADC. Mugabe’s decision to approve an SADC intervention thus legitimised Angola’s intervention in support of Kabila. Under the circumstances, the SADC as an institution was unable to muster a strongly articulated united position on the conflict because of the involvement of its constituent members. As a result, South Africa was faced with the mammoth diplomatic task of managing the tensions within the SADC, seeking consensus on the Great Lakes crisis and mobilising continental and international support for a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Critically, Zimbabwe’s role in the SADC intervention was a direct challenge to South Africa’s regional leadership. It split the SADC in two: Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia versus South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique (Alden & Le Pere 2003). In an attempt to resolve the split, South Africa began lobbying other SADC members to consider restructuring the OPDS to bring it under the control of the SADC chair. Aware of the role that economic incentives had played in sustaining Zimbabwe’s military in the Congo, they proposed the restructuring of the OPDS and, with the support of Swaziland and Mozambique, the uncertain status of the OPDS was resolved by the introduction of a triumvirate mechanism (comprising past, present

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and future heads of the OPDS). Mugabe was also persuaded to relinquish his leadership of the OPDS. South Africa’s successful diplomatic manoeuvre to resolve the institutional crisis within the SADC did not, however, alter the fact that Zimbabwe and Angola were already deeply involved in the Congo crisis for different reasons. To make matters worse, relations between South Africa and Angola were also at an all-time low. This frosty relationship was a direct result of South Africa’s role in the Angolan conflict. The history of South Africa’s involvement in the Angolan conflict continued to cast a long shadow due to a combination of factors. As organisations rooted in liberation struggles, there were expectations in Luanda that once the ANC was in government, it would soon sever ties between Unita and the South African mercenaries that helped sustain it. Mistrust between the two countries arose when South Africa refused to sell arms to the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) to militarily defeat Unita, and criticised MPLA’s authoritarian and kleptocratic tendencies. The antagonism was exacerbated by South Africa’s apparent insistence on accommodating Unita’s demands and fuelled by the continued links between Unita and South African mercenaries, as well as diamond smugglers and Savimbi’s rebel movement. Angola’s involvement in the DRC was thus part of the MPLA’s determination to pursue a military solution in its own country. At this stage, Pretoria was not in a position to persuade Luanda to accept a negotiated settlement because of their strained relations, and Kabila, emboldened by the support of Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola, became hostile towards South Africa’s role in the ongoing conflict. He accused South Africa of colluding with Uganda, Rwanda and the rebels to topple his regime (Landsberg 2004). The questions around South Africa’s neutrality were often used by its detractors to minimise South Africa’s role in the Congo crisis.

A complex mediation Unable to resolve the dynamics of the SADC intervention and secure the withdrawal of Zimbabwe and Angola from the Congo, South Africa pressed for a diplomatic solution to the crisis and threw its diplomatic weight and resources behind Zambian president Frederick Chiluba to broker a ceasefire agreement. To ensure broader support for this initiative, South Africa had to engage in shrewd diplomacy to win Rwandan and Ugandan support.

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Hence, despite evidence and concerns over Rwanda and Uganda’s aggression, isolating and acting against the two countries was not seen as a viable option. Instead, South Africa used international donor support and economic incentives to bring the two countries to the negotiating table and to impress upon them the need for a speedy resolution to the conflict. These links resulted in a surge of trade and investment in these two countries by South African companies (Bagagaza et al. 2002). In addition, Mandela used South Africa’s close relationship with Rwanda to persuade Rwanda’s Paul Kagame to admit publicly that Rwanda was militarily involved in the Congo in a bid to kick-start substantive negotiations with Kabila. When Mbeki was elected president in June 1999, he brought a new style and approach to foreign policy in general and to the DRC peacemaking effort in particular. He adopted a hands-on approach, worked hard behind the scenes and spent sleepless nights stitching together deals between belligerents. South Africa’s mobilisation of international pressure to support the Zambian peace initiative eventually led to the signing of the Lusaka peace agreement in July 1999, which paved the way for the deployment of a UN Observer Mission to the Congo. Under Mbeki’s presidency, South Africa also announced its willingness to contribute troops to the peacekeeping mission in the DRC. The signing of the Lusaka agreement seemed to vindicate South Africa’s strategy in pursuing a negotiated settlement. The agreement called for the formation of a joint military commission, composed of foreign, Congolese as well as UN observers. Zambia’s role as a broker was heavily assisted, diplomatically and logistically, by the South African government, which financed and organised follow-up conferences. At this stage, South Africa remained behind the scenes and used its influence within the regional structures to mobilise support for the Lusaka agreement. The assassination of Laurent Kabila and the subsequent installation of his son Joseph as Congolese president was a pivotal point in South Africa’s mediation in the Congo. Joseph Kabila was more amenable to the idea of South Africa’s mediation. This provided South Africa with an opportunity to assume a higher profile. Moreover, Joseph Kabila demonstrated his support for a negotiated settlement by disengaging government forces from the front line in accordance with the Harare plan. He allowed the deployment of more UN forces in the country and accepted Ketumile Masire of Botswana (who was viewed by Joseph’s father as a front for South Africa) as facilitator in

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the inter-Congolese dialogue (ICD). The ICD talks began in Addis Ababa in October 2001, but were marred by technical and financial problems (Devon 2007). Slow progress in the talks gave South Africa the perfect opportunity to step in and take the lead. South Africa became increasingly involved when the ICD talks resumed at Sun City in early 2002 (Alden & Le Pere 2003). The talks at Sun City were focused on instituting an inclusive arrangement and ensuring the establishment of a government of national unity to kick-start the transitional process. For this purpose, Mbeki assembled a respected negotiating team which included former deputy president Jacob Zuma, Minister Sydney Mufamadi supported by the then former director-general of foreign affairs, Jackie Selebi, and Welile Nhlapo (Landsberg 2004). This team worked mainly behind the scenes to secure an agreement between Rwanda’s Kagame and Joseph Kabila. Mbeki used the the launch of the AU in Durban as an opportunity to meet with Kabila and Kagame. To ensure broad support and legitimacy for the talks, Mbeki invited UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to assist in ensuring the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from the DRC and in disbanding the army of the previous Rwandan government (Forces Armées Rwandaises) and the Interahamwe militia. This then led to the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement by Kabila and Kagame in July 2002 (Landsberg 2004). Once again, to show that the initiative enjoyed sub-regional, continental and international legitimacy, the pact was signed in the presence of Mbeki, Annan’s representative, interim chairperson of the AU Commission Amara Essy, and Bakili Muluzi in his capacity as chair of the SADC. Aware of Tanzania’s strategic importance, Mbeki requested Tanzania’s president, Benjamin Mkapa, to become more involved in brokering and maintaining peace in central Africa. Militarily, South Africa was concerned about the withdrawal of foreign troops and the deployment of peacekeeping forces in the troubled regions of Ituri and Bunia. In this regard, South Africa was more than willing to increase its peacekeeping forces in the DRC. Politically, South African strategy sought to establish a transitional government in the DRC based on a power-sharing agreement for all major factions and role-players. In terms of diplomatic initiatives, Pretoria singled out the conflict in the Great Lakes, especially in the DRC, as its number one priority, emphasised its role as a peacemaker by insisting on a diplomatic solution, and worked closely with the UN to help implement the peace process.

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Burundi and its neighbours Burundi and its neighbouring states, the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, have all experienced similar ethno-political violence, dictatorship and coups. Ethnic violence began in Rwanda in 1959, three years before it achieved independence. After independence, the Rwandan king was dethroned by Hutu officers. Targeted violence against Tutsi people followed, and the mass exodus of Tutsi refugees to Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the DRC occurred. NzongolaNtalaja notes that ‘given the similarities in the ethnic make-up and ethnic identity construction in Rwanda and Burundi, events in one country have at one point or another affected developments in another’ (Nzongola-Ntalaja 2001: 70). Nzongola-Ntalaja argues that the respective positions of Hutu and Tutsi political leaders in Burundi were shaped by what happened in Rwanda (the so-called Hutu revolution) in 1959. The DRC was also faced with similar problems immediately after independence in 1960. By February 1961, barely a year after independence, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was assassinated and chaos erupted throughout the country. Uganda also experienced years of chaos in the hands of Idi Amin Dada. This created an arch of instability and led to a culture of armed resistance by refugees in various countries in the sub-region. Ould-Abdallah (2000) argues that the turmoil in the Great Lakes set a terrible precedent, the legacy of which has had long-term negative effects on the stability of the sub-region. The mass exodus of Hutu and Tutsi refugees to neighbouring Tanzania1 and the DRC set in motion a politics of destabilisation and retaliatory attacks by armed rebels and militias from the eastern DRC borders.2 Both the Force for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) and Forces for National Liberation (FNL) combatants were based in the DRC, and incorporated into their ranks some Rwandans now fighting against the current government of Rwanda. Some of these combatants were part of the army of the previous Rwandan government or, in smaller numbers, members of the Interahamwe militia that has been accused by Kigali of masterminding the 1994 genocide against Tutsis in Rwanda.3 These groups have largely been responsible for the instability of the sub-region, especially Rwanda and Burundi. The presence of militias in eastern Congo has created a complex web of forces and proxy wars, further complicating the peace process in the Great Lakes region. The problems in the eastern Congo are peculiar for two reasons. First, the eastern Congo has not been integrated into the broader administrative structures of the greater

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Congo. Second, a multiplicity of armed formations have taken advantage of the lack of government and administrative structure in the region to plunder mineral resources that have been used to sustain conflicts in the region (Nhlapo interview 2005). Because of these dynamics, there has been an influx of small arms and safe havens for armed groups to use to launch attacks against governments within the region.


The Burundi mediation: towards ‘sufficient consensus’ In the aftermath of Nyerere’s death, Nelson Mandela was nominated as the new facilitator of the Burundi peace process at the eighth Great Lakes regional summit in December 1999.4 The regional initiative on Burundi recognised that the negotiations had reached an advanced stage, and thus decided that Arusha would remain the venue for the negotiations. This decision was a political compromise to accommodate the regional influence on the negotiations and Tanzania’s strategic input in the peace process. News of Mandela’s appointment was welcomed by the region and the 18 opposition parties in Burundi. As was expected, in a statement sent to the UN Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), Hutu rebel groups rejected Mandela’s appointment and accused South Africa of supplying military assistance to the government of Burundi.5 On the other hand, Burundi’s government welcomed South Africa’s role as the mediator for a number of reasons: • Unlike Nyerere, Mandela was viewed as an impartial mediator because he had no historical links with interventions in Burundi. • Other regional players were perceived to be hostile to the Tutsi minority. • South Africa was seen as a potential source of economic assistance. Thus, Burundi provided a perfect opportunity for South Africa to implement its foreign policy objectives by committing resources and time to the complex peace process. It did not come as a surprise, therefore, when Thabo Mbeki stated that Mandela’s nomination was an indication of confidence in South Africa’s capacity to assist in the settlement of regional conflict. He further reiterated that South Africa would ‘do everything’ to assist Mandela to bring an end to the conflict in Burundi. A number of other South African government officials were seconded to support Mandela’s efforts in Burundi: Welile Nhlapo, South Africa’s special envoy, and Fink Haysom, earlier seconded to

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assist Nyerere, had a wealth of experience in the Burundi crisis and therefore provided the necessary support for Mandela’s mediatorship. General Andrew Masondo was also seconded to assist Mandela, and was appointed vicepresident on peace and security committee. Mandela was cautious about using South Africa’s transition as a blueprint. However, at times he borrowed directly from South Africa’s negotiating process, using notions such as ‘sufficient consensus’ – a concept that emerged from South Africa’s negotiations as a device to drive the process forward without preventing all parties from having their say (Southall & Bentley 2005). The political strategy was, firstly, simply to apply international pressure and use the presence of donors to give incentives to the conflicting parties; secondly, to impress upon the conflicting parties the need for a negotiated settlement; and thirdly, to establish a transitional government based on a power-sharing agreement. At the signing of the Arusha agreement, South Africa ensured the presence of regional leaders such as President Museveni (Uganda), President Chissano (Mozambique), President Moi (Kenya), Salim Salim (Organisation of African Unity [OAU]) and President Bill Clinton (US) (Southhall & Bentley 2005). This was not only a show of support for the peace process, but was also important in emphasising the significance of the peace agreement. South Africa left plenty of space for regional involvement in critical decisions, especially those decisions that needed the region’s approval. For example, in 2001, with the help of President Bongo of Gabon, South African mediators, then led by Jacob Zuma, managed to secure the participation of the CNDD– FDD in the transitional government. Similarly, with the help and influence of Tanzania, Gabon and US experts, Zuma’s facilitation team produced a draft ceasefire agreement that culminated in the signing of a ceasefire agreement between the Burundian government and the rebel groups. The biggest challenge for South Africa in Burundi came in 2001 when the decision was taken to establish the Transitional Government of Burundi. It soon became clear that some of the politicians in exile would not be able to return to Burundi as part of the transitional government for security reasons; even though the formation of a VIP protection unit had been agreed on, there was no agreement about its composition and the UN could not provide a unit because this was outside its mandate (Nhlapo interview 2005). South Africa took up the challenge and deployed special protection forces. This formed the

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basis of the deployments that included the deployment of UN peacekeeping forces. In a nutshell, the Transitional Government of Burundi came into being mainly because of South Africa’s commitment to deploying protection units. South Africa continued to pursue an equitable power-sharing agreement in the face of a series of walkout threats by different groups within the transitional governments in Burundi and Congo. The similar approaches adopted for both conflicts were largely based on the understanding that conflict in the Congo was intrinsically linked to the Burundi crisis.


The power-sharing model: a critique At the time of writing, the transition in the Great Lakes that culminated in democratic elections and the establishment of new governments under new constitutions in Burundi and the DRC remains extremely fragile, and peace is by no means guaranteed. The democratic elections and the formation of new governments have not brought stability to the fragile region. The powersharing democracy in Burundi is faced with a number of challenges. Since the end of the transition and the subsequent formation of the new democratically elected government, a number of fault lines have emerged. These revolve around human rights violations, divisions within the ruling party and the ongoing tensions between different political parties. The arrest of prominent opposition politicians on 31 July 2006 for an alleged coup plot threatened to undermine the democratic process and was perceived as an attempt to silence potential dissent. This action by the security services poisoned the political climate and revealed the fragility of the democratic process. Moreover, the arrest triggered fears and uncertainty among the Tutsi politicians and ex-military officials. For example, the arrest of Colonel Ndarisigaranye, a Tutsi army commander said to have brutally abused Hutu civilians in the capital 13 years earlier, affected the Tutsi political elite. Furthermore, alleged activities by the security apparatus in Bujumbura and its disregard for human rights have further exacerbated the distrust between the CNDD–FDD and its critics. Human rights abuses carried out by the National Intelligence Service and police officials have continued largely because of weak institutional capacity to deal with poor discipline within the intelligence services. The failure of the state prosecutor to investigate these allegations, and the absence of a standing security and intelligence committee composed

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of government and opposition members, exposes the lack of institutional capacity. The power-sharing model became an important tool for placating rebel leaders, rather than a mechanism for ensuring wider participation. As a result, the end of the transition in Burundi ushered in a new political dispensation based on ethnic quotas, but did not holistically address some of the underlying causes of the conflict. Nyerere once argued that conflicts in Rwanda and Burundi arose from demographic pressures emanating from high demographic densities of nearly 300 people per square kilometre, nearly every bit of which is under cultivation. This thesis makes a persuasive case for the conflicts not being only about ethnicity. The population density problems and the historical marginalisation of the Hutu cannot be solved by the formation of a government of national unity, by power-sharing or simply by holding elections. Given the high population density and deepening poverty, the struggle for scarce resources remains a major source of tension and may also account for the rise in conflict. Baregu proposes a regional policy approach that seeks to promote refugee resettlement rather than repatriation. These factors aggravate internal conflict as regular waves of landless refugees seek additional territory (Bagagaza et al. 2002). In this context, it can be argued that resource scarcity is an issue that was not effectively addressed in the negotiation process and therefore remains a stumbling block for sustainable peace in Burundi and the sub-region. Likewise, the new democratic dispensation in the Congo is also facing some serious challenges. In the Congo, the power-sharing model was used effectively to bring all the warring parties together into a transitional government. However, at the end of the transition, the power-sharing model was abandoned in favour of a winner-takes-all approach. Given the tensions during the transition and the fractured nature of political party formation, it was evident that in the absence of an institutionalised power-sharing mechanism, the new democracy would not deliver the expected results. As a result, the unfolding democratic dispensation in the Congo is faced with three main challenges. The first of these is the sharp deterioration in the new government’s relations with the opposition in the aftermath of the violent confrontation between Jean-Pierre Bemba’s guards and the military. To this end, the departure of Bemba has created a degree of uncertainty about the future of the opposition.

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Even though Kabila’s government has a strong mandate, it is important to note that the opposition, with the support of over a third of the electorate, has to play a role in building democracy if the Congo is to remain stable. The second challenge is the fact that within the broader national context, the government still lacks the capacity to govern the national territory. Therefore, to rebuild the state and augment its national authority, the government needs to strengthen democracy or risk being paralysed by recurrent unrests and renewed nationwide instability. The shrinking democratic space provides room for opportunists to foment civil unrest, which could have serious implications for internal cohesion and stability in the Congo. The third challenge is the problems in the east that have been exacerbated by illdisciplined, ill-equipped and often abusive security forces. The weakness and partisan nature of the security forces fuels popular resentment and explains the reluctance of a number of militias to integrate into the national army. To this end, the success of the integration process will depend on the government’s ability to create a national apolitical army and a competent police force capable of peacefully managing urban disorder and providing security for all citizens. It is clear that South Africa’s mediation team in the Congo hoped that by giving the main power-brokers a stake in governance, they would be persuaded to stop fighting and learn to work together. However, the Congolese politicians continue to follow a more predatory path. The turbulent nature of the transition sheds light on the political differences and the inability of politicians to compromise and develop a common vision. Years of political isolation, the culture of impunity, the multiplicity of actors and the parallel war economy have contributed to the failure of the conflicting groups to reconcile and build national consensus. It is also important to note that the anti-Mobutu group that brought Laurent Kabila to power was nothing more than an alliance with varying and conflicting interests. These interests played themselves out in the fallout between Joseph Kabila and his allies. This, coupled with issues of citizenship and the status of the Banyamulenge, gave rise to the debate around ‘true’ Congolese nationality, an issue that consistently invokes Congolese nationalism. To a large extent, these issues were not effectively dealt with in the various peace accords and remain contested at the time of writing. The unresolved question of nationality came to the fore during the elections, when Bemba

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questioned Kabila’s nationality and used it to rally Congolese nationalism and support for his presidential campaign. According to Welile Nhlapo, the nationality issue was not dealt with efficiently and the process of drawing up the Constitution and the provisions put in place did not adequately address this matter (Nhlapo interview 2007). As a result, the relationship between Bemba and Kabila has not been easy. For the most part, it informs the current tension between the two personalities. Against this background, even though South Africa can be applauded for its diplomatic efforts that concluded with elections in the Congo and Burundi, a number of outstanding transitional issues will determine whether peace holds in the Great Lakes.

Regional actors: what does the future hold? Given the regional nature of the Great Lakes conflict, several actors remain critical players and may determine the eventual outcome of the peace-building process. Of great concern is the volatile nature of the eastern Congo and the broader implications of this for Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. Similarly, Angola’s continued involvement in the Congo is problematic. As mentioned earlier, Angola’s involvement in the Congo was largely informed by its own national security and the need to cut off Unita supply lines and bases in the Congo. Angola needed an ally in Kinshasa, to ensure that the rebels were isolated. The death of Savimbi in February 2002 seemed to suggest that the MPLA’s objectives had been achieved, so why is Angola still involved in the Congo? Beyond its national interests, Angola harbours ambitions of regional leadership and Angola’s continued role in the Congo can be seen as a means to counter South Africa’s dominance both in the Congo and in the southern African sub-region. In the absence of constructive dialogue between Angola and South Africa, and the fact that both countries want to entrench their positions as key brokers in the Congo, their interests may well become a real obstacle to peace. Zimbabwe’s role has been completely eroded due to internal dynamics that have resulted in economic meltdown and a much diminished role in the region, especially in the Congo. Tanzania’s leadership in the region was a product of Julius Nyerere’s international stature and influence. Throughout the liberation period, Tanzania was, for all practical purposes, the headquarters of most liberation movements and played a leadership role in the region as co-ordinator of

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the OAU’s liberation committee, based in Dar es Salaam. Under Kikwete’s leadership, Tanzania seems to have been trying to revive its role within the region. Tanzania’s ability to bring the FNL to the negotiating table, and its role in hosting and kick-starting the negotiations between the FNL and the Burundian government, can be interpreted as a move towards reviving its historically strategic role as a peace broker in the Great Lakes. However, in comparison to Angola, South Africa and even a reconfigured Congo, which would wield greater economic influence, Tanzania still ranks as one of the poorer nations in the SADC and does not have the economic capacity to effectively influence strategic outcomes in the region. That said, Tanzania remains a significant player, especially as an important entry point for peace initiatives within the region because of its historical contribution to the region’s liberation. Rwanda’s minority regime remains a cause of concern for internal and external security. This, to some extent, explains why Rwanda has built one of the strongest national military forces within the region. However, Rwanda’s assumption of the role of regional peace broker is by and large a product of diverting attention from its own internal political dynamics – especially its tendency towards autocracy. Uganda, on the other hand, seems to be losing its influence within the region. At the height of Museveni’s power as ‘kingmaker’, he was responsible for the rise of the Rwandan Patriotic Front and its eventual capture of Kigali. In addition, with the help of Kagame, he was responsible for the fall of Mobutu’s regime. However, this influential position has significantly dwindled, especially since the fallout with Rwanda in the battle for Kisangani. At the time of writing, Museveni seemed to be more preoccupied with consolidating internal dynamics and ensuring a peaceful solution than with the crisis in northern Uganda. Additionally, Museveni has been focused on fast-tracking the Federation of East African Community and seems to harbour ambitions of becoming the Federation’s first president.

Assessing South Africa’s peace diplomacy South Africa’s multilateral peace diplomacy, guided by the precepts of the African Renaissance, has made remarkable strides in promoting continental peace. The successful democratic transition in Burundi and the DRC marked

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a high point in South Africa’s peace diplomacy. However, South Africa’s successes in the Great Lakes region have raised a number of challenges and lessons for its future involvement in conflict resolution: first, parties to the conflict must be given adequate space to manage their own transition; second, external peacekeeping models are useful only if they are carefully adjusted to local circumstances; third, ‘babysitting’ is necessary if protracted conflicts are to be successfully resolved; and fourth, the transition to peace is just the beginning of a more delicate phase of peace consolidation and post-conflict reconstruction (Kagwanja 2006). Within this context, South Africa’s diplomacy in the Great Lakes faces a number of challenges. This raises concerns about whether its involvement has created an environment for consensus-building and political partnerships that can guarantee regional security. At the end of the transitions in Burundi and the Congo, South African diplomacy is confronted with the challenge of peace consolidation and post-conflict reconstruction, which requires continued involvement and, particularly, financial commitment to the unfolding democratic regimes in the Great Lakes. Mbeki’s administration faced the difficult task of convincing its internal critics that investing heavily in the regional peace agenda is in South Africa’s best interests. It is difficult to gauge whether there is broad domestic consensus about South Africa’s peace initiatives in the Great Lakes, but it is likely that the ANC government will continue to have a difficult time convincing its citizens that peace diplomacy is important while they face high unemployment and poverty. South Africa’s continued involvement in the Great Lakes will therefore be influenced by its ability to build domestic consensus for its foreign policy. The reputation of South Africa’s peacekeeping force has also, to a large degree, left an undesirable legacy in the region. Continued lack of discipline on the part of South Africa’s forces, particularly sexual misconduct in the DRC and Burundi, has the potential to erode confidence in South Africa’s otherwise robust peacekeeping efforts (Kagwanja 2006). Most importantly, military indiscipline has exposed South Africa’s failure to embark on effective peacekeeping training before deployment. This is problematic, especially for a country that has assumed leadership of peacekeeping within the region. It is vital for these problems to be addressed if South Africa is to continue playing a meaningful role in post-conflict peacebuilding, especially in the Great Lakes.

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Some scholars have also raised concerns about the economic limits to South Africa’s peacekeeping capacity. In February 2005, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel presented a R1.4 billion budget to Parliament in support of South Africa’s peacekeeping operations, the AU and the Pan-African Parliament. Kagwanja (2006) argues that in spite of this, South Africa is beginning to feel the budgetary weight of its peacekeeping efforts. Currently, the country has over 3 000 peacekeepers deployed under AU or UN mandates. This, coupled with relatively low military capacity, has overstretched its deployment abilities and brought into question whether South Africa’s ambitious foreign policy objectives can be translated into effective peacekeeping and postconflict peace-building tools. That said, South Africa’s willingness to commit personnel and financial resources to conflict zones is a clear indication of its commitment to peace in Africa. However, given its limitations, the challenge for South Africa lies in its ability to mobilise broader African and international support for peace on the African continent.

Conclusion Jack Spence (2004) argues that South Africa’s conflict resolution model reflects a liberal and rational ethos that does not suit all conflict environments. Against this background, South Africa’s peace model in the Great Lakes has created two types of complex post-conflict states that have by and large failed to cultivate a culture of consensus-based politics. On the one hand, the peace process and the transition in Burundi culminated in the creation of a power-sharing government based on a Constitution that catered for ethnic minorities. On the other hand, the DRC transition, which was broadly based on a power-sharing arrangement, concluded with winner-take-all presidential elections. From a distance, these two cases appear to be successful transitions to democracy. However, a closer and more critical assessment of the case of Burundi reveals that the constitutional ethnic power-sharing has not created a significant break from the past. The political culture has not changed, and there have been worrying signs of tendencies towards authoritarian rule. The elections transferred political power to a new elite while the old guard maintained control of private business and the economy. In the DRC, Kabila’s electoral victory has failed to provide much-needed political legitimacy.

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Tensions with Bemba have resulted in violence and have further weakened Kabila’s democratic credentials. Importantly, the violent confrontation between Bemba and Kabila showed that the political culture has not changed, and that the military reflex to conflict resolution is still the modus operandi. The weakness of the Congolese state and the existence of competing structures of local authority mean that armed groups roam freely, particularly in the east. In the western parts, where presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba received over 70 per cent of the vote, tensions have increased in the aftermath of the elections. In conclusion, South Africa’s commitment to peace in the Great Lakes was a critical ingredient in the peace process. South Africa played a critical role in ensuring diplomatic resolution to conflicts in Burundi and the DRC. During the transition, South Africa contributed significantly to shaping the outcome of the transitional process and to mobilising international and continental support for the Great Lakes peace initiative. In this regard, the efforts of South Africa and other regional players in the Great Lakes should be lauded. However, South Africa’s failure to tailor its peace diplomacy to accommodate local political and regional realities has produced mixed results. At worst, the desire for inclusivity might have rewarded violent behaviour and contributed to an ongoing culture of impunity. These challenges must be considered as South Africa embarks on the next phase of post-conflict peace-building in the DRC and Burundi. Notes 1

It is estimated that there are approximately 540 000 Burundian refugees in Tanzania. See UNHCR (2002).

2

According to Human Rights Watch, Vol. 15, December 2003, Force for the Defence of Democracy combatants based in Tanzania launched incursions into Burundi despite efforts of the Tanzanian government to discourage such activities within the refugee camps.

3

For accounts of the Rwandan genocide and its implications for regional instability, see Jones (2001), Keane (1996) and Mamdani (2001).

4

See Zihindula M, CBGM News Archives, ‘Mandela to facilitate Burundi peace process’, 13.12.99.

5

IRIN, ‘Rebel groups boycott Mandela talks’, 28.12.99.

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References Alden C & Le Pere G (2003) South Africa’s post-apartheid foreign policy: From reconciliation to revival? Adelphi Paper 362. New York: Oxford University Press Alden C & Le Pere G (2006) South Africa’s post-apartheid foreign policy. In W Carlsnaes & P Nel (Eds) In full flight: South African foreign policy after apartheid. Midrand: Institute for Global Dialogue


Bagagaza J, Abong C & Mukarubuga C (2002) Land scarcity, distribution and conflict in Rwanda. In J Lind & K Sturman (Eds) Scarcity and surfeit: The ecology of Africa’s conflicts. Pretoria: Institute of African Studies and African Centre for Technology Studies Devon C (2007) Exporting peace to the Great Lakes. In A Adebajo, A Adedeji & C Landsberg (Eds) South Africa in Africa: The post-apartheid era. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press Duffield M (2000) Global governance and the new wars: The merging of development and security. London: Zed Books Jones B (2001) Peacemaking in Rwanda: The dynamics of failure. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers Kagwanja P (2006) Power and peace: South Africa and the refurbishing of Africa’s multilateral capacity for peacemaking. Journal of Contemporary African Studies 24(2): 159–184 Keane F (1996) Season of blood: A Rwandan journey. New York: Penguin Books Landsberg C (2004) The quiet diplomacy of liberation: International politics and South Africa’s transition. Johannesburg: Jacana Media Mamdani M (2001) Nativism and the genocide in Rwanda. Princeton: Princeton University Press Nzongola-Ntalaja G (2001) Ethnic identification in the Great Lakes region. In S Bakker, M Dodds & M Khosa (Eds) Shifting African identities (Vol. 2). Pretoria: HSRC Southall R & Bentley K (2005) An African peace process: South Africa, Mandela and Burundi. Cape Town: Nelson Mandela Foundation and HSRC Press Spence J (2004) South Africa’s foreign policy: Vision and reality. In E Sidiropoulos (Ed.) South Africa’s foreign policy 1994–2004. Johannesburg: South African Institute of International Affairs UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) (2002) Global report 2002. Geneva: UNHCR

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Inteview


Welile Nhlapo, former South African envoy to the Great Lakes, 2005 and April 2007

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12

Cry sovereignty: South Africa in the UN Security Council, 2007–2008


Peter Kagwanja

In our new role on the Security Council, we have two options: to go there and look at where the wind goes, and then wait and see where it blows us, where everyone goes. We would get good publicity, and would be loved. But if we behaved this way, would this be consistent with our foreign policy objectives or the views we hold as members of the South, the developing world? Would we be able to recognize ourselves after two years? The UN should not change us. We should change the UN. (Senior government official, cited in DFA 2007e; emphasis added) This is how the African National Congress (ANC) liberation diplomats, now at the helm of power in Pretoria, saw their role on the UN Security Council as South Africa geared itself to occupy its new non-permanent seat on 2 January 2007. South Africa was endorsed by the African Union (AU) to fill one of the three non-permanent seats reserved for Africa in the powerful 15-member UN Security Council for the period 2007 to 2008,1 and elected to the Council on 16 October 2006 by an overwhelming 186 out of 192 UN member states. Pretoria’s pan-Africanists celebrated the Security Council seat as a significant milestone in their effort to deepen South Africa’s role in global governance and to ‘serve the people of our continent and indeed the world’ (DFA 2007a). But they also recognised the ‘challenges that will certainly arise from…the membership of the UN Security Council as an instrument of our collective peace and security’ (DFA 2007d). One of these challenges was to reassert a rule-based multilateral system as the pillar of global governance, especially in the light of the unilateral tendencies of the major powers post-September 11, 2001 (Kagwanja 2008). Apart from the plight of global multilateralism, South Africa was also genuinely concerned about the growing trend by major powers to impose sanctions on

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the sovereignty of the world’s weaker states. Related to this, the doctrines of ‘responsibility to protect’ and ‘humanitarian intervention’, initially meant to enable the UN to intervene usefully in countries embroiled in civil wars, in the age of unilateralism had provided an excuse for stronger states to erode the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs of weaker states. This reproduced colonial situations, particularly in Africa (DFA 2006). South Africa perceived its main task and legacy in the UN Security Council as that of consolidating the African peace and security agenda and creating synergies between the work of the UN Security Council and regional organisations, such as the AU’s Peace and Security Council, to stem Africa’s endemic violence and conflict in ways that ensured the sovereignty of states and regions. Confronted with increasingly hegemonic global politics, ANC diplomats advanced regionalism, in its ideological and strategic senses, as a counterhegemonic force. Conceptually, the Cold War tended to freeze the pace (but not the processes) of region-building. The post-Cold War era witnessed an acceleration of regionalism. Viewed as subsystems above the state level but below the global level, the notion of regions is premised on a configuration of the prevailing global power, and agents of power, as constituting a hierarchy. For instance, Buzan and Waever (2003) identify a three-tier hierarchy of power: one superpower (the US), four great powers (Japan, China, Russia, France/Germany/the EU), and a multitude of regional powers and other states. Post-apartheid South Africa has itself been theorised as an emerging regional power in Africa which, together with Nigeria, Egypt, Libya and other so-called ‘middle powers’ in Africa, has championed the emergence of a regional peace and security architecture and a normative framework woven around the AU (Kagwanja 2006; Schoeman 2003). This regional structure seeks to stabilise the African region and to ensure its sovereignty. Theorists have drawn a direct link between regionalism, sovereignty and global peace (James 1984; Makinda 1998). Regarding sovereignty, these theorists distinguish between internal sovereignty and external or juridical sovereignty, which is ‘basically about status rather than stature, and it highlights the legal identity of the state in global politics’ (James 1984). The fundamental conceptual shift from state-centric to human-centred notions of sovereignty and security in the post-Cold War era gave rise to the doctrines of ‘the right to protect’ and ‘humanitarian intervention’ in civil wars. In Africa, the widespread abuses and erosion of sovereignty arising from international

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S outh A frica in the U N S ecurity C ouncil , 2 0 0 7 – 2 0 0 8


military interventions from Congo to Somalia generated a new momentum towards, and re-imagination of, regionalism as an instrument of ensuring the sovereignty and integrity of the African region or civilisation. The AU’s peace and security architecture established a normative framework that allowed for collective intervention by the Union to prevent crimes of humanity, genocide and other adversities in failed or failing states. Such intervention by the region to stabilise the African state is based on the mantra of ‘African solutions to African problems’, an assertion of regional sovereignty. However, far from advancing an autarkic view of sovereignty, South Africa and other promoters of regionalism in Africa have underwritten the idea of international burden-sharing regarding peace and security. This has recently led to the creation of a UN/AU hybrid peacekeeping force in Darfur, western Sudan. This rethinking of regionalism and sovereignty underpinned South Africa’s view of what scholars have rightly theorised as a new hegemonic world (Baron & Lechini 2005). This global order has been traced to the preponderant rise of the doctrine of New Empire or Neo-Empire, first articulated by Robert Cooper, the foreign policy adviser to Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair, in his article ‘Why we still need empires’ (The Observer 07.04.02). The doctrine of New Empire was forcefully thrust into public debate in the US after the September 11 terrorist attacks, becoming the theoretical and strategic cornerstone of the unilateralism of leading powers signified by Washington’s doctrine of pre-emption. The UN Security Council is widely viewed as the linchpin of a post-September 11 global order, itself based on a tragically naïve concept of power and a flawed understanding of hegemony. This order, which is increasingly linked to America’s new global hegemony, is based on what Andrew Latham aptly characterises as an ‘erroneous understanding of “power” that is possessive, material and subjective in nature’. He writes: It is possessive in that it rests on the premise that a state can possess a quantifiable commodity of power simply by controlling resources. It is material because it equates the possession of tangible resources, such as guns and money, with the ability to influence outcomes and realize objectives. Finally, it is subjective because it ignores the social (or inter-subjective) nature of power,

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at least in the sense of an ability to bring about desirable outcomes in a multi-actor setting. (Latham 2007: 73) This conception has led to a tragic view of power as a threat or use of force – whether military, diplomatic or economic – to compel other states to behave in a particular way, which now underpins the US’s war on terrorism. Conceived this way, coercive power underwrites the view of hegemony as domination. As Gramsci, Cox and others have correctly shown, hegemony is based on the legitimacy that accrues to a leader who pursues legitimate ends or goals that are widely accepted as of benefit to both the hegemony and a sizeable segment of the subordinate actors. This form of hegemony is grounded on legitimate means or methods consistent with the rules and institutional practices, and with the negotiated change of rules or procedural and substantive norms, agreed on in the main and endorsed by those subject to these rules and norms. Even as hegemony might carry implicit notions of coercion, explicitly and in a more immediate sense it is underpinned by the idea of the consent of the governed. ANC diplomats have sought to transform a world based on hegemony as domination. Their current vision of the world is largely informed by the lessons learned in their engagement with the UN during the struggle against apartheid. This vision of a just and rule-based multilateral global system has also driven South Africa’s agenda of pursuing a comprehensive reform of the UN, including the reform and expansion of the UN Security Council, to ensure the enhanced role of other regions or civilisations in global governance. However, this crusade has increased tensions with the world’s sole superpower. These tensions have become palpable following South Africa’s vote against the sanctioning of Zimbabwe and Myanmar by the UN Security Council, and over what Washington views as Pretoria’s ‘lukewarm’ response to the threat of terrorism and fervent opposition to America’s efforts to establish its military presence in Africa. South Africa’s stance on the UN Security Council reform debate has also heightened tensions with the major powers, particularly America (Gardiner 2007). This chapter analyses South Africa’s vision and role in the UN Security Council during its first year (2007). The chapter starts off by examining the connection between the lessons of South Africa’s relations with the UN, in general and with the Security Council in particular, and its post-apartheid vision of global governance. It then focuses on South Africa’s role in the debate on the reform of the UN system generally and the reform of the UN

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Security Council specifically. Finally, it examines South Africa’s first year of involvement in the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member, and as president of the Council in March 2007. It is argued that, while self-interest may have played a role, South Africa’s agenda as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council has largely reflected the pan-African ideals of the ANC leadership, which has sought to assert sovereignty based on the region or civilisation as a response to an increasingly hegemonic post-September 11 world. While this stance has lent a distinctly activist hue to South Africa’s role in the Security Council, the global idealism of the ANC leadership has increased tensions with the world’s sole superpower in ways that will affect its ambition for a permanent Security Council seat in the future.

The anti-apartheid legacy Despite being one of the original 51 founding members of the UN, which came into existence on 24 October 1945, South Africa’s relations with the UN were framed by the imperatives of the struggle against apartheid. Apartheid was declared ‘a crime against the conscience and dignity of mankind’ (UN 2007a). The legacy of the anti-apartheid struggle on democratic South Africa’s vision of the world is profound. The first lesson was the belief in a rule-based multilateral system that enabled the countries of the global South to play a more effective role in the anti-apartheid struggle than they would have done under unilateralism. In this context, in June 1946 India blazed the trail in the global anti-apartheid struggle by getting the newly enacted Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Act, or the ‘Ghetto Act’, onto the UN General Assembly agenda. This led to the condemnation of South Africa for the poor treatment of Indians and the call on South Africa to meet its international obligations. South Africa was a subject of deliberations by the UN and its various bodies and committees no fewer than 200 times between 1946 and 1994 (UN 2007a). As Sharpeville burst onto the world’s conscience, newly liberated African states joined the global condemnation of apartheid policies. This led the UN Security Council to adopt Resolution 134 (1960), which called on the apartheid regime ‘to make such arrangements as would adequately help in upholding the purposes and principles of the [United Nations] Charter’. Perhaps the sharpest tool in the UN’s multilateral antiapartheid box was the Special Committee Against Apartheid, created by the General Assembly in 1962.

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The second lesson was the role of sanctions within a multilateral framework in pressuring the apartheid state to abandon its policies. In December 1963, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 182, which implored all member states ‘to cease forthwith the sale and shipment of equipment and materials for the manufacture and maintenance of arms and ammunition in South Africa’ (UN 2007a). Further, on 23 July 1970, the Council adopted Resolution 282, which called on member states to take a series of measures to strengthen the arms embargo against the regime. In November 1974, the UN General Assembly suspended South Africa from participating in its work. This was itself a milestone decision in the struggle against apartheid. The UN Security Council imposed tighter economic sanctions in the aftermath of the Soweto uprising on 16 June 1976, when police shot scores of students demonstrating against the imposition of inferior ‘Bantu education’ and Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. In June 1980, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 473, which strongly condemned the regime’s violence against the African people and the violation of their citizenship rights. The Council also adopted Resolution 554, which urged states to reject the elections held under a new racist Constitution that South Africa introduced in August 1984. The third lesson was the harmony of position and co-ordination between the UN and regional organisations, particularly the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). In February 1972, the UN Security Council held an extraordinary meeting at the headquarters of the OAU in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. At this meeting, it adopted Resolution 311, which condemned the apartheid system and recognised the legitimacy of the struggle of the oppressed people of South Africa. This paved the way for the UN to recognise and provide financial support to the liberation movements (the ANC and the Pan-Africanist Congress [PAC]) that the OAU listed as ‘the authentic representatives of the overwhelming majority of the South African people’ (OAU 1973). The fourth, and perhaps the most enduring, lesson from the anti-apartheid struggle is the importance attached to the instruments of soft power, such as mediation and peaceful negotiations. From the late 1980s, the UN Security Council worked closely with regional organisations, particularly the OAU, to build broad-based consensus. In a landmark decision, a meeting of the OAU leaders in Harare in August 1989 adopted a declaration, suggested by the ANC, which recognised the possibilities of a negotiated resolution of the country’s political crisis.

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The UN General Assembly followed suit, adopting its ‘Declaration on Apartheid and its Destructive Consequences in Southern Africa’, which called for negotiations to end apartheid and establish a non-racial democracy. The declaration also laid down the prerequisite steps to creating an enabling climate for negotiations, modalities of negotiations and principles for a new Constitution (Resolution A/RES/S-16/1). For its part, the UN Security Council called for ‘the release of all political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela and all other black leaders with whom the regime must deal in any meaningful discussion of the future of the country’ (Resolution 554). These measures paved the way for a series of negotiations enabling President FW de Klerk to lift a 30-year ban on the ANC, the PAC and other anti-apartheid organisations. In February 1990, the regime suspended the death sentence, released some political prisoners and partially lifted restrictions on the media and on some detainees. The UN Security Council welcomed these changes. However, this period also laid the foundation for the contending visions of the world between the liberation movements and regional organisations on the one hand and the key powers in global politics on the other. For instance, after Sharpeville, western powers, including France, the UK and the US, vetoed a UN Security Council proposal for the immediate expulsion of South Africa from the UN in compliance with Article 6 of the Charter. In the early 1990s, the US terminated the sanctions against South Africa, arguing that the South African authorities had met all five conditions set forth in the US Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986. As the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid, the ANC, the PAC and the OAU rightly warned, the premature decision by the key veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council to lift sanctions against the apartheid regime fostered a climate that threatened to derail the transition. In February 1990, Nelson Mandela addressed the Special Committee Against Apartheid in New York, urging the UN to uphold all measures against apartheid to support the accelerated dismantling of the system. In September 1991, UN SecretaryGeneral Boutros Boutros-Ghali argued that lifting the sanctions halted the pace and inspired recidivistic violence that imperilled the transition. In mid-July 1992, responding to pressure from the OAU, the ANC and the PAC, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 765. This

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resolution allowed the Secretary-General to appoint a Special Representative, Cyrus Vance, to recommend measures for effectively resolving the violence and for creating conditions in which stalled negotiations could resume. In his recommendation to the UN Security Council following a visit to South Africa, Vance asked the UN to send in observers to support the National Peace Accord. As a result, the UN Security Council invited a deployment of observers from the OAU, the Commonwealth and the European Union, and authorised the UN Observer Mission in South Africa (UNOMSA), headed by Angela King, to work closely with the National Peace Secretariat to address violence and other areas of concern. These measures were in accordance with Resolution 772 of 1992. The presence of UNOMSA enabled the peace process to get back on track. It enabled Mandela to call on the international community to lift all economic sanctions against South Africa in September 1993. The UN Security Council approved the UN decision to observe the April 1994 democratic elections, which ushered in Mandela and the ANC’s leadership. The dismantling of apartheid enabled the Security Council to lift its 1977 arms embargo and other restrictive measures against South Africa in May 1994, thus removing the remaining UN sanctions against South Africa (UN Security Council Resolution 919). In June, the Special Committee Against Apartheid issued its final report to the General Assembly and the UN Security Council. The Secretary-General also issued his final report on the question of South Africa. The General Assembly then approved the credentials of the South African delegation to the UN, and removed the issue of apartheid from its agenda. The UN Security Council followed suit and removed the question of South Africa from its agenda. The demise of apartheid marked the triumph of global multilateralism and concerted efforts between regional organisations and the UN. It also highlighted the need for collective, rather than unilateral, sanctions, as well as for the soft power of negotiation as the most effective way of dealing with global disputes.

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South Africa and the UN Security Council reform debate Upon becoming democratic, South Africa identified with the long-standing view that ‘the Security Council needs to be reformed so that its membership becomes more reflective of both the actual distribution of power and the major regions or civilizations comprising the global community’ (Latham 2007: 75). In their crusade for UN reform, ANC pundits have shared the gist of the criticism against the UN Security Council. Unlike the UN General Assembly, the Council not only lacks true representation of all regions or civilisations, but the prevailing distribution of power in the body has enabled the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – America, Russia, France, the UK and China, which are all nuclear powers – to create an exclusive nuclear club with almost unchecked powers. In practice, the UN Security Council has served as an instrument of the strategic interests and political motives of its permanent members, and as a heavy club in the hands of these powers to veto proposals that do not serve their own specific vision of the world. The UN Security Council has actually stood in the way of efforts to democratise global governance. The exclusive veto power held by the Big Five permanent powers has reinforced a counter-democratic system, where objection by one of the veto-wielding nations overrides the views of the majority. In the past, this has crippled any effective UN military or diplomatic responses to crises. For instance, the US has vetoed 32 UN Security Council resolutions criticising Israel since 1982. This is more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Council members. The absence of penalties for violating a Security Council resolution, especially by the powerful nations, has cast doubt over the relevance of the Council. Arising from the above criticism of the Council, South Africa has backed the UN Security Council’s reform. The debate about UN Security Council reform has centred on a variety of proposals, ranging from procedural reforms such as the elimination of the Big Five’s veto to the expansion of Security Council membership. However, the Big Five have opposed a significant expansion of the Council, arguing from a position of self-interest that this would adversely affect the UN, as well as American interests (Gardiner 2007: 51).

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The ‘In Larger Freedom’ plan The issue of the reform of the UN Security Council has been a subject of contestation since the late 1950s, when many countries joined the UN and began to challenge its composition of power. As a result, in 1965 the UN Security Council was enlarged from 11 members to the current 15 members. However, previous reforms have merely tinkered with the numbers of nonpermanent members, while leaving intact the UN Security Council’s structure and power. In March 2005, Secretary-General Annan presented a grand reform plan to the UN. This plan took the form of a report called In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human rights for All (UN 2005). His reform proposal incorporated many of the recommendations of the Report of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, including two possible formulas for expanding the UN Security Council. Annan proposed the expansion of the UN Security Council from its present 15 seats to 24 seats, providing two plans (A and B) for implementation. These plans are outlined in Table 12.1. Table 12.1 Kofi Annan’s plans for the reform of the UN Security Council, 2005

Region Plan A Africa

No. of states

Permanent seats (continuing)

Proposed new Proposed twopermanent year seats (nonseats renewable) Total

53

0

2

4

6

Asia & Pacific

56

1

2

3

6

Europe

47

3

1

2

6

The Americas

35

1

1

4

6

191

5

6

13

24

53

0

2

4

6

Asia & Pacific

56

1

2

3

6

Europe

47

3

2

1

6

35

1

2

3

6

191

5

8

11

24

Total Plan B Africa

The Americas Total

Source: Adapted from UN (2005: Chap. 5)

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The Secretary-General’s first alternative, or Plan A, provided for six new permanent seats, with no veto being created, and three new two-year term non-permanent seats. Plan B provided for no new permanent seats, but created a new category of eight seats with terms renewable every four years. Plan B also created one new two-year non-permanent (and non-renewable) seat. The two models followed the logic of representation on the basis of regions or civilisations. However, as the drive to assemble a broadly acceptable reform document got under way in early June 2005, it became crystal clear that Kofi Annan’s proposal was dead in the water long before it was even unsealed. Far from becoming a basis for a new consensus, Annan’s proposal triggered various contending visions of the global power structure. Africa emerged as the deciding factor in the run-up to the September 2005 Millennium + 5 Summit, a high-profile plenary meeting called to review Kofi Annan’s report, the status of the implementation of the 2000 Millennium Declaration, and other issues relating to reform of the UN.

Contending visions of the UN power structure In July 2005, Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Italy and Pakistan, representing a larger group of nations that came to be known as ‘Uniting for Consensus’, proposed to the General Assembly a third option, Plan C, which, while retaining the five UN Security Council permanent members, suggested an increase in the number of non-permanent members to 20. China endorsed this option. South Africa gravitated towards an alliance with the G4 nations, India, Japan, Germany and Brazil. The G4 pushed for an alternative vision of UN reform as follows: • an increase of UN Security Council seats from 15 to 25 members, comprising nine permanent seats with two seats allocated to two African states, two to two Asian states, one to Latin American and Caribbean states, and one to western European and other states; and • four non-permanent seats allocated to Africa, Asia, eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean states.

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In its crusade for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, South Africa fell back on a trilateral arrangement with India and Brazil for South–South co-operation in trade and development to reduce dependency on rich Northern countries. There was no fundamental difference between the AU common position relating to the reform of the UN Security Council and the G4 position. This ensured that South Africa was not perceived as a lone ranger, and was thus not alienated from the rest of Africa. However, the AU and G4 positions differed radically on their views to the veto. As noted earlier, the AU was, in principle, opposed to the veto, but decided to seek it ‘so long as it exists’. In contrast, although the G4 proclaimed that ‘the new members shall not exercise the right of veto until the question of the extension of the right of veto to new permanent members’, it was not fundamentally opposed to the veto, promising to raise the issue ‘fifteen years after their entry into the force’.2

The battle for the soul of Africa Underpinning Africa’s response to Kofi Annan’s UN Security Council reform proposal was a deep sense of vulnerability, and a quest by African states for the sovereignty of their region or civilisation, in the light of unilateral tendencies by the world’s major powers in post-September 11 global politics. This pursuit of the sovereignty of the African civilisation was encapsulated in Thabo Mbeki’s precept of African Renaissance, and the mantra of African solutions to Africa’s problems. The vehicle of these ideas was a newly created African peace and security architecture anchored on the AU, which replaced the OAU in 2002. Africa’s position was concretised by the time the UN reform debate kicked off ahead of the September 2005 UN General Assembly. In 1997, the OAU adopted the Harare Declaration on the African position on the UN reforms. The document stressed four positions in regard to the reform of the UN Security Council: • First, the UN Security Council should expand membership to its permanent and non-permanent categories. • Second, Africa should be allocated not less than two permanent seats on a rotating basis, chosen by Africans themselves. The nature of the rotating basis should be based on OAU criteria.

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• Third, Africa should be allotted five non-permanent seats in the reformed UN Security Council. • Fourth, the exercise of the right to veto should be progressively curtailed until abrogated. The new permanent members should have the same powers and prerogatives as the existing five members (AU 1997).


The Executive Council of the AU held a meeting about the UN Security Council proposals in Addis Ababa on 7–8 March 2005, which adopted the seminal Ezulwini Consensus. The document reaffirmed the OAU’s Harare Declaration of 1997, which advocated the expansion of the UN Security Council to 26 members, the nomination of permanent members by their respective regions and the eventual elimination of the veto (AU 1997). The Ezulwini Consensus formed the basis of the Common African Position on the UN Security Council (AU 2005a). The African position was promoted by the Group of Ten foreign ministers, two from each AU sub-region, who met in Addis Ababa in early May 2005. Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma represented South Africa at this meeting. On the UN Security Council reform, the Common African Position declared: • Africa must be fully represented in the UN, particularly in the Security Council, which is the principal decision-making organ of the UN in matters relating to international peace and security. • Africa should have no fewer than two permanent seats, with all the prerogatives and privileges of permanent membership, including the right to veto. • Africa should also have five non-permanent seats. • Even though Africa is opposed in principle to the veto, it is of the view that so long as it exists, and as a matter of justice, it should be made available to all permanent members of the Security Council. • The selection of African members to the Security Council will be determined by the AU with consideration given to the representative nature and capacity of those to be chosen. These premises formed the basis of the AU’s plan for the reform of the UN Security Council, and are delineated in Table 12.2. The plan insisted that the UN Security Council should be expanded to consist of 26 members, comprising the existing five permanent seats, ten rotational non-permanent seats, six new veto-wielding members (two for Africa and four seats for the G4), and five new non-permanent rotating seats (two for Africa).

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Table 12.2 AU plans for UN Security Council reform, 2005

Permanent seats (continuing)

Proposed new permanent seats (with veto power)

Rotational nonpermanent seats

Proposed two-year seats (nonrenewable)

Region

No. of states

Africa

53

0

2

2

2

6

Asia & Pacific

56

1

2

3

1

7

Total

Europe

47

3

1

2

1

7

The Americas

35

1

1

3

1

6

191

5

6

10

5

26

Total


Source: AU (2005a)

The AU plan was a radical departure from the proposals contained in the ‘In Larger Freedom’ document. It called for two permanent seats for Africa, which should come with the right to veto (prerogatives and privileges). In principle, Africa opposed the veto system, only basing its claim to permanent seats on the continued existence of the veto system. Notably, Africa’s position was premised on the notion of equality of regions. The AU failed to select representatives for the two seats set aside for Africa in the Annan plan, setting off a bitter regional power struggle and competition for the UN Security Council seats. In September 2004, long before the reform debate kicked into gear, President Mbeki announced that South Africa was in the race for one of the UN Security Council seats. South Africa’s claim to a permanent seat in the UN Security Council was implicitly based on its huge economic clout, military strength, democratic credentials and role in stabilising the continent, which made it an emerging regional power. But South Africa was joined in the race by other regional powers on the continent, such as Nigeria and Egypt, as well as sub-regional powers such as Senegal, Libya and Kenya (UN 2005). In the ensuing competition, Nigeria angled towards China and Russia while Egypt banked on the US’s support, hoping to serve the ‘double purpose of also representing the Arab world, which would otherwise be unrepresented’ (Okumu 2005). The battle for a UN Security Council seat became, in a Hobbesian sense, short, nasty and brutal. Nigeria charged that South Africa and Egypt were ‘not black enough’ to authentically represent Africa, and that

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they were, respectively, too ‘white’ and too ‘yellow’ (Okumu 2005). However, on 6 May 2005, Nigeria and South Africa called a truce, with Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad announcing that ‘South Africa and Nigeria have decided to work together to ensure we get the two seats in the Security Council’ (Bua News 06.05.05). Egypt also threw its support behind South Africa (Sunday Independent 30.06.02). At the AU Fifth Extraordinary Summit in Addis Ababa in August 2005, South Africa and Nigeria pleaded in vain for flexibility in the AU position regarding the right to veto. The two regional powers lost the vote, with 46 out of 53 AU member states rejecting the proposal for flexibility (Banya 2005). South Africa still believed that the most realistic way for Africa to get permanent seats (without veto, however) in the UN Security Council was to concede to the G4 proposal. Pretoria believed that a G4/AU common position ‘would have greatly strengthened Africa’s chances of persuading the UN to expand the Security Council by adding six new permanent seats – two from Africa’ (Adebajo 2006).

The end of the road As the UN General Assembly got under way in September 2005, there were three competing proposals on the UN Security Council reform. These were the Uniting for Consensus group, the AU and the G4. This meant that none of the proposals would assemble the required two-thirds majority vote in the UN General Assembly for it to prevail. Further, America and China had closed ranks, with Washington announcing that it would join China in blocking the UN Security Council expansion. After this, the UN Security Council reform was effectively dead. The G4 laid the blame for the failure of the drive to expand the UN Security Council on Africa’s doorstep. ‘Perhaps we made a mistake in judging Africa as a bloc,’ said Ambassador Ronaldo Mota Sardenberg of Brazil (Traub 2006: 371). The AU’s indecision on the selection criteria for African states may have fostered an atmosphere where ‘the selection of who will represent Africa on the expanded UN Security Council was to be determined by foreign busybodies and regional power struggles’ (Okumu 2005). But the UN Security Council’s position on Africa reflected a nuanced understanding of the delicate balance of power in the region, which the UN Security Council

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reform threatened to destabilise. To begin with, many smaller countries feared that the UN Security Council reforms risked propping up a new regional hegemonic structure, with one or two regional powers (Nigeria and South Africa) playing the same role as the veto-wielding powers in the UN Security Council. This failure to address the impact of veto power on the regional power balance in the reform proposals posed a real possibility of stoking intra-regional power rivalry. The call for the permanent seats to be rotational was, therefore, aimed at addressing this problem. Finally, the AU position sought to align the criteria of the continent’s participation in the UN Security Council to its own non-hegemonic Peace and Security Council, which has no permanent or veto-wielding seats.3 Although South Africa missed the chance to get a permanent seat, in the end it was elected into the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member.

South Africa in the UN Security Council On 16 October, South Africa was elected by an overwhelming vote of 186 out of 192 in the UN General Assembly to serve on the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2008. As Africa’s wealthiest and most influential state, South Africa’s entry into the UN Security Council fuelled expectations that this would significantly enhance Africa’s influence in decision-making in the Council. Critics of South Africa’s involvement in the Council would charge that it was punching above its weight. But Pretoria’s diplomats were fully aware of the moral weight that their country carried internationally, and were prepared to tap into this political resource to make an impact on global governance. As a senior Department of Foreign Affairs official stated, ‘The UN should not change us. We should change the UN’ (DFA 2007e). The ANC diplomats chose to ‘change the UN’, believing that ‘an ounce of principles is worth more than a pound of compromise’ (DFA 2007e). Thus, from the start South Africa’s role in the UN Security Council took on a distinct activist hue. Pretoria’s pundits saw their country’s mission in the Council as that of serving ‘the people of Africa, the South and the world’ (DFA 2007d). But they also recognised the challenges that arose from membership of the UN Security Council as an instrument of the world’s collective peace and security. One of these is the challenge of promoting ‘the multilateral system of global

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governance’ as ‘the only hope for challenges facing humanity today’ in the post-September 11 environment (DFA 2007b). At the national level was the challenge of building ‘necessary all-round capacity both in Pretoria and New York in particular, to enable…government and its diplomatic service properly to discharge…responsibilities’ (Mbeki 2006) and to enable the country to take properly informed and independent positions on any of these issues in the Council agenda. A meeting of experts that the Department of Foreign Affairs convened in November 2006, prior to taking up its seat in January 2007, assessed the opportunities and challenges that faced South Africa in the UN Security Council and examined the impact of the existing modes of intervention by the UN Security Council on state sovereignty, including the use of sanctions to modify the policies of states or non-state actors and the doctrine of ‘the responsibility to protect’ (DFA 2006). The meeting also helped to identify the priority of South Africa in the UN Security Council, including the legacy it should promote during its term as president of the Council in March 2007 and late 2008. South Africa’s priority in the UN Security Council, it was suggested, should be that of linking its conflict-prevention drive in Africa with the business of the UN Security Council, where 12 out of 28 country-specific situations on the agenda are in Africa.4 The continent is a subject of more than 60 per cent of UN Security Council deliberations, and seven of the UN’s 17 peacekeeping missions, and nearly 90 per cent of its peacekeepers, are deployed in Africa (Adebajo 2006). However, Pretoria realised the need to focus on the volatile situations in the Middle East and Occupied Palestinian Territory, which send strong ripples into Africa. Furthermore, the power relations and changing perceptions of threat in post-September 11 global politics had thrust to the fore issues such as counter-terrorism and non-proliferation. South Africa was also alerted to a number of challenges arising from the character of the UN Security Council as a sturdy pillar of the hegemonic world. Sadly, because of power imbalances, African countries have no ability to influence decision-making significantly, despite African issues dominating the UN Security Council agenda. The five permanent members also tended to negotiate the issues of the UN Security Council’s agenda in small countrydominated groups, resulting in the tendency to impose the decisions of these groups on the UN Security Council. Equally problematic was the UN

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Security Council’s tendency to infringe on the work of other UN organs or multilateral bodies, thus undermining the rule-based system. Developed countries’ practice of acting as ‘lead nations’ for particular country-specific issues on the UN Security Council agenda also tended to promote ‘coloniallike’ situations and to undermine the sovereignty of smaller nations, especially in Africa, Asia and former Eastern Europe. Many delegations at the UN took issue with the practice of Britain serving as ‘lead’ nation in Sierra Leone; the US in Liberia, Sudan and Iraq; France in Rwanda and Côte d’Ivoire; and Japan in Afghanistan. Arising from this, South Africa adopted the consolidation of the African peace and security agenda and the forging of the relationship between the UN and regional organisations, particularly the AU, as the salient theme of its membership and the legacy of its UN Security Council presidency. Driving its participation, however, was the pursuit of a rule-based multilateralism and the sovereignty of states and regions in the face of the unilateralism of key UN Security Council members.

Rule-based multilateral governance: the Myanmar vote Ten days after taking its seat, South Africa drew the ire of its domestic and international critics for joining China and Russia to shoot down a UN Security Council draft resolution calling on the military junta in Myanmar to cease military attacks against civilians in ethnic minority regions, and to begin substantive political dialogue that would lead to a genuine democratic transition (UN 2007b). While reaffirming its concern about the situation in Myanmar, South Africa viewed the Myanmar issue as a case illustrating the dangerous trend by the UN Security Council of infringing on the work of other UN organs or bodies and ignoring the role of regional organisations in ways that undermine the practice of a rule-based global multilateral system. The leader of the South African delegation, Dumisani Kumalo, based his country’s negative vote on three interlinked premises that: the text would compromise the ‘good offices’ of the Secretary General in dealing with the sensitive matters of peace, security and human rights; the draft dwelt with issues that would be best left to the Human Rights Council; and most importantly, it did not fit

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in the mandate conferred upon the Council by the Charter. (UN 2007b)


Despite this, South Africa’s critics charged that in voting against the draft resolution, South Africa positioned itself against the human rights of the people of Myanmar, and made the same argument that had been made by the apartheid regime. For instance, Archbishop Tutu argued that due to the struggle in the history of South Africa, it should side with people who are victims of one of the most repressive regimes, so the critical vote against the resolution is inconsistent with South Africa’s history (Business Day 11.01.07). In response, Pretoria’s officials were at pains to reiterate that the vote against the draft was not a vote against the people of Myanmar, and that they would continue to call for the release of the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and to fight for the restoration of democracy, human rights and freedom in Myanmar. South Africa’s vote was based on principle: the sovereignty and integrity of the UN and its organs, and the recognition of regional players. The UN Secretary-General had invoked his ‘good offices’ to appoint Professor Ibrahim Gambari, the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, to establish channels for private and confidential communication with the parties in Myanmar. In the light of this, South Africa felt that the draft resolution would have closed forever the window of communication that Gambari had opened. While non-aligned countries and the G77 countries consistently pointed to the danger of the UN Security Council’s tendency to encroach upon the mandate of other UN entities, the draft resolution dealt with issues that were best left to the newly created Human Rights Council. If the situation in Myanmar was taken up by the UN Security Council, the Human Rights Council would never be able to address it. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations ministers’ meeting in the Philippines on 11 January 2007 reaffirmed that Myanmar was not a threat to international peace and security, which meant that the resolution did not comply with the UN Security Council’s Charter mandate (DFA 2007c). The International Labour Organization was also dealing with issues of workers’ rights in Myanmar. South African officials denied that their country was aligning itself with China and Russia in the UN Security Council, arguing that ‘our choice was informed by a different imperative and no strategic interests’ (DFA 2007e). South Africa has maintained its position. In October 2007, South Africa welcomed the talks between opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar’s military leaders,

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stressing that negotiations were the only guarantee for a peaceful resolution of the Myanmar crisis. Foreign Affairs Minister Dlamini-Zuma reaffirmed South Africa’s support of Gambari’s efforts to facilitate dialogue in Myanmar, and those of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Paolo Sergio Pinheiro. Notably, South Africa failed to achieve consensus with African countries in the UN Security Council around the issue of Myanmar, with Ghana voting for the resolution and Congo abstaining, arguing that gross violations of human rights are ultimately threats to international peace and security.


The Zimbabwe vote The government of Zimbabwe’s crackdown on the opposition in late March 2007 thrust South Africa’s handling of crisis situations in the UN Security Council into the international spotlight. Britain urged the UN Security Council to ‘accelerate action on Zimbabwe to match that of the European Union and regional organizations such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC)’ (Nichols 2007). South Africa’s ambassador to the UN, Dumisani Kumalo, who also held the UN Security Council’s rotating presidency, called the British request ‘surprising’, articulating Africa’s position that the situation in Zimbabwe is not a threat to international peace and security (Nichols 2007). South Africa, which has mediated the Zimbabwe crisis since its eruption in 2000, believes that the situation is an internal affair which does not need the UN Security Council’s attention, and that Mugabe will step down peacefully in time. Faced with the possibility of Zimbabwe entering the UN Security Council agenda, South Africa invoked the same argument it had made on Myanmar, stating that ‘we do not believe that the issue of Zimbabwe belongs to the Security Council because it is not a matter of international peace and security’ (Voice of America 17.03.07). Britain’s efforts to bring the Zimbabwe issue into the UN Security Council tended to give credence to the widely held view in Africa that Britain is at the root of the Zimbabwe crisis. In 2005, Britain invoked a rare UN Security Council provision to get Council members to be briefed by the UN Special Envoy, Anna Tibaijuka, on her report on Zimbabwe’s controversial slum demolition, which Kofi Annan described as ‘catastrophic injustice’ (Crisis Group 2005: 1). While the US, France, Denmark, Romania, Greece, Japan, Argentina and the Philippines supported the move, the entire African

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contingent of the UN Security Council (Algeria, Benin and Tanzania), together with China and Russia, opposed the British move. South Africa, like all African states, is vehemently opposed to attempts by the UK and its western allies to drag the Zimbabwe crisis into the UN Security Council and other international UN bodies. Instead, it has insisted that constructive diplomacy within the SADC is the surest way of resolving the crisis. In September 2007, the European Union parliament urged the UN Security Council to ‘report on the human rights and political situation in Zimbabwe as a matter of urgency’ (Nichols 2007). Pressure groups are fretting that crimes against humanity are being committed in Zimbabwe, to build a case for UN sanctions or even intervention (afrol News 08.09.07). However, Africa has counted on the Chinese and Russian veto to block the west’s effort to bring Zimbabwe onto the UN Security Council agenda. Although the SADC appointed President Mbeki in March 2007 to facilitate dialogue between the Zimbabwean government and the opposition, the failure of the SADC talks to yield quick results ahead of Zimbabwe’s 2008 elections gave ammunition to those nudging the UN Security Council to take action.

The presidency: the UN and the regions Pretoria’s academics advised that ‘if South Africa is to make an impact during its two-year stint on the Security Council, it will be as an African power on issues concerning the continent’ (DFA 2006). Upon assuming the presidency of the UN Security Council in March 2007, South Africa underlined as the immediate priority and long-term legacy of its presidency the consolidation of the African agenda in the UN Security Council and the creation of ‘synergies between the work of the AU Peace and Security Council and the UN Security Council with a view to the prevention of outbreaks of violence and conflict in the continent of Africa’ (DFA 2007d). The seminal statement by the president of the UN Security Council of 28 March 2007 on the relationship between the UN and regional organisations reaffirmed the UN Security Council’s ‘primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in accordance with the United Nations Charter’ (UNSC 2007c). But the statement also noted the UN Security Council’s recognition of the ‘important role of regional organizations in the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts’ (UNSC 2007c).

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The funding of peacekeeping operations by African nations was one area requiring co-ordination. South Africa reiterated the call of the January 2007 summit of the AU on the UN ‘to examine within the context of Chapter VIII of the UN Charter, the possibility of funding, through assessed contributions, peacekeeping operations undertaken by the AU or under its authority and with the consent of the United Nations’ (DFA 2007d). Another area requiring co-ordination is the activities of the African Peace and Security Council and the UN Security Council for creating synergy in the maintenance of peace and security in Africa. South Africa focused on specific situations of conflict. One of these is Sudan’s Darfur region, where 200 000 people have been killed, at least 2 million others forced to flee their homes since 2003, and over 4 million civilians are in need of assistance. South Africa supported the three-phased UN plan to support the AU Mission in Darfur, which the AU endorsed on 30 November 2006. The phases of this plan are a light support package, a heavy support package and a hybrid operation. It also called for the speedy implementation of the UN–AU hybrid force. On Somalia, South Africa called on the UN to transform the AU Mission into a UN force within six months, as the AU requested. South Africa also aimed to ‘work with all members of the Security Council, and regional organizations in pursuit of peace and stability in all regions of the world especially in the Middle East’ (Mbeki 2006), where ripples of conflicts are felt in Africa.

South Africa and the superpower South African officials describe relations with Washington as ‘very good’. President George W Bush’s visit to South Africa in July 2003, the first-ever visit to South Africa by a Republican president, cemented relations with Pretoria. Yet South Africa’s quest for an autonomous path in international relations have often given rise to differences with the Clinton and George W Bush administrations. Tensions between Washington and Pretoria have arisen from post-apartheid South Africa’s strong sense of sovereignty. South Africa has also taken on critical international trade negotiations guided by its own interests and its strong commitment to South–South solidarity (Business Day 11.11.03).

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Regarding global politics, the US National Security Strategy of June 2002 identified South Africa, together with Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia, as ‘anchors for regional engagement’ for the US in Africa. The superpower assumed that under the ‘pre-emptive’ doctrine, these pivotal states would back its ‘coalitions of the willing’ to confront the threat of ‘global terror’. South Africa has been reluctant to be a part of the ‘coalition of the willing’ and has actively opposed America’s pre-emption strategy. South Africa openly opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 on the grounds that it had neither obtained UN backing for such a war nor fully exhausted existing UN processes of inspection to determine the existence of weapons of mass destruction. The invasion was greeted with angry protests across South Africa. Former president Nelson Mandela lent his moral weight to the public anti-war campaign by saying, ‘If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world… it is the United States of America…One power with a president who has no foresight – who cannot think properly – is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.’5 However, the US–UN rapprochement on the reconstruction of Iraq softened South Africa’s position on the matter to the extent that when Bush visited Pretoria in July 2003, no mention of differences was made. However, the relationship with America has been affected by South Africa’s position on the global war on terrorism.

The war on terror While recognising international terrorism as a threat to global security that must be confronted, Pretoria’s officials differed with the Bush administration’s interpretation of ‘war’, which privileged the use of military power to deal with terrorism. South Africa’s response to terrorism is guided by its own internal experience. This is framed by the four tenets of anti-terrorism encapsulated in its 1998 anti-terrorism policy, which are to uphold the rule of law, never to resort to any form of general and indiscriminate repression, to defend and uphold the freedom and security of all its citizens, and to acknowledge and respect its obligations to the international community (Schönteich 2000). After September 11, South Africa’s counter-terrorist pundits urged a broader definition and conscientious approach to the ‘global war on terror’. They remain opposed to the military-heavy approach preferred by Washington in

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favour of a nuanced application of the law. According to Ronnie Kasrils, the minister for intelligence services, ‘we…maintain that terrorism can only be purposely dealt with by going beyond its manifestations to paying concerted attention to its root causes and we are concerned that the so-called “global war on terror” has opened a Pandora’s Box’ (Benton 2007; Ministry for Intelligence 2007). Because of its strong economy, infrastructure, banking system and diverse population, South Africa is viewed in Washington as strategically significant in the war on terror as a potential transit point for terrorist organisations such as al-Qaeda to launch attacks on western targets (Jihad Watch 28.03.04). But Washington’s officials are impatient with what they see as Pretoria’s ‘soft’ approach and embracing of groups like Hamas in Lebanon and Hezbollah (The Weekly Standard 29.05.07). US–South African diplomatic tension over terrorism reached the UN Security Council floor in January 2007. It all began when the US Treasury named two South African cousins, Junaid and Farhad Dockrat, as Specially Designated Global Terrorists and submitted their names to the Sanctions Committee on al-Qaeda and the Taliban for designation by the UN Security Council for their support of al-Qaeda and the Taliban (The Weekly Standard 29.05.07). Farhad had been detained in Gambia for suspected terrorist activity in 2005, and was identified as having provided nearly $63 000 to al-Akhtar Trust, a charity that was designated in 2003 for providing support to al-Qaeda. Junaid was responsible for raising $120 000 for Hazma Rabia, the al-Qaeda operations chief killed in Pakistan by the US military in 2005. Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad expressed concerns about the designation and asked for more information, claiming that the rights of South Africans need to be defended. Foreign Affairs Minister Dlamini-Zuma used South Africa’s new seat on the Security Council to ask the 1267 committee, created in 1999 to impose financial sanctions against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, to put a hold on the UN designations. The Dockrat cousins are free to conduct business everywhere else in the world. But the US, on the basis of its domestic Terrorist List, can freeze any of their assets reaching US banks. Another issue that has strained US–South Africa relations is the refusal of entry or the deportation of South Africans. The most publicised of these cases is that of Professor Adam Habib, the former Executive Director of the Democracy and Governance Research Programme at the HSRC.6

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Conclusion While in the UN Security Council, South Africa sought to link the African agenda with the work of global peace, security and governance structures. Its vision of the UN is largely informed by the experience of the ANC diplomats of the role of the UN in the struggle against apartheid. The hallmark of the apartheid era was the role of UN multilateralism, linked to regional organisations, particularly the OAU, in countering the interests of the major powers. Global multilateralism has declined in the post-Cold War era and, more specifically, after September 11, giving way to the unilateralism of the major powers and the doctrine of pre-emption championed by Washington. Shorn of their multilateral context, sanctions and doctrines of the ‘right to protect’ and ‘humanitarian intervention’ have become a heavy club in the hands of major powers and have eroded the sovereignty of weaker states in what is increasingly becoming a hegemonic world. Thus, asserting a rulebased multilateral global governance and charting a new role for regional organisations in the UN has been the main strategy of ANC diplomats in ensuring the sovereignty of weaker states in global governance. In this regard, regionalism is viewed as a hegemonic force to check the hegemony of major powers in global politics. These concerns informed South Africa’s voting on controversial issues, from Myanmar to Zimbabwe, and its position on global counter-terrorism spearheaded by the US. This principled stand has won South Africa much acclaim from the weak countries of the South, but has put the ANC government on a collision course with America. The US has become critical of Pretoria’s lax position on cases of governance and on terrorism. This has ramifications for its ambitions for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, when the debate once again begins. Notes 1

The seat fell vacant when Tanzania’s term expired on 31 December 2006. Also elected, together with South Africa, in 2006 were Belgium, Indonesia, Italy and Panama, which joined the Congo, Ghana, Peru, Qatar and the Republic of Slovakia (non-permanent members) and China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and the United States and permanent members.

2

See the G4 and Others Resolution at http://www.reformtheun.org/index.php/issues/ 93?theme=alt4#un. Accessed on 16 May 2007.

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3

The AU Peace and Security Council was launched in May 2004 as the standard decision-making organ of the AU. It has 15 seats: 5 three-year seats and 10 two-year seats.

4

African cases in the UN Security Council as at November 2007 were Burundi, Rwanda, Central African Republic, Chad, Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, the DRC, Ethiopia–Eritrea and Western Sahara.

5

See Wikipedia ‘Nelson Mandela: International figures’ position on invasion of Iraq’, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_figures’_positions_on_invasion_of_Iraq. Accessed on 28 October 2007.

6

Habib was part of an HSRC delegation visiting American institutions in October 2006. He had a valid visa but was deported.

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DFA (2007a) South Africa assumes non-permanent seat on UN Security Council. Department of Foreign Affairs. Media Statement, 2 January, Pretoria. Available at http://www.dfa.gov.za/docs/2007/unsc0102.htm. Accessed on 15 July 2007 DFA (2007b) South Africa assumes non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Department of Foreign Affairs. Media statement, 12 January, Pretoria


DFA (2007c) Notes following the briefing by the deputy minister, Aziz Pahad. Department of Foreign Affairs, 17 January, Pretoria. Available at http://www.dfa.gov. za/docs/2007/unsc0102.htm. Accessed on 10 October 2007 DFA (2007d) Statement to the United Nations Security Council by Minister DlaminiZuma, president of the Security Council, on the relationship between the United Nations and regional organizations, in particular the AU. Department of Foreign Affairs, 28 March, Pretoria. Available at http://www.dfa.gov.za/docs/speeches/2007/ dzum0329a.htm. Accessed on 15 October 2007 DFA (2007e) Round-table discussion on the review of South Africa’s current tenure in the United Nations Security Council (UN Security Council). Department of Foreign Affairs, South Africa, Pretoria, 3 August Gardiner N (2007) The decline and fall of the United Nations: Why the UN has failed and how it needs to be reformed. Macalester International 19 (Summer): 35–60 ICG (International Crisis Group) (2005) Zimbabwe’s Operation Murambatsvina: The tipping point? Africa Report 97, 17 August. James A (1984) Sovereignty: Ground rule or gibberish? Review of International Studies 10(1): 1–18 Kagwanja P (2006) Power and peace: South Africa and the refurbishing of Africa’s multilateral capacity for peacemaking. Journal of Contemporary African Studies 24(2): 159–184 Kagwanja P (2008) From interdependence to pre-emption: The securitization of global politics and the future of South Africa’s multilateral diplomacy. Journal of Contemporary African Studies (forthcoming) Latham A (2007) Response to Nile Gardiner: The decline and fall of the United Nations: Why the UN has failed and how it needs to be reformed. Macalester International 19 (Summer): 70–76 Makinda SM (1998) Sovereignty and global security. Security Dialogue 29(3): 281–292 Mbeki T (2006) Honouring our collective responsibilities. Available at http://www.anc. org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2006/at41.htm. Accessed on 11 January 2008

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13

Praetorian solidarity: The state of military relations between South Africa and Zimbabwe


Peter Kagwanja and Martin Revayi Rupiya

South Africa’s policy response to the deteriorating political and economic situation in Zimbabwe since 2000 has been described as ‘quiet diplomacy’ – as opposed to megaphone diplomacy (Sachikonye 2005). The policy is anchored in the historical relationship between the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National UnionPatriotic Front (Zanu-PF), forged on the anvil of the liberation struggle. Quiet diplomacy also reflects an overarching trend on the part of Pretoria’s diplomats to export the talismanic lessons of South Africa’s transition to the rest of Africa. They have, therefore, sought to mediate a political settlement between Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). It can be argued that the policy reflects a realistic acknowledgement of the limits of post-apartheid South Africa’s power in the region. Critics of quiet diplomacy, however, insist that the policy has failed largely because South Africa has not played a more forceful role, commensurate with its status as a regional superpower, given that it has the largest military force and the most economic power in southern Africa (Sachikonye 2005). The presumed failure of South Africa’s quiet diplomacy typifies one of Greg Mills’s (2005) paradoxes of power: the tension between military power (and the allied instruments of coercion and sanctions) and soft power (mediation, persuasion and peer pressure) in intervening with sovereign states to resolve conflicts and restore democracy. Faced with a potentially explosive situation on its doorstep, Pretoria embraced quiet diplomacy as an alternative to military power. As Finance Minister Trevor Manuel is famously quoted as saying:

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They say quiet diplomacy has failed. Should we act like Ariel Sharon [Israeli prime minister]? Should we? Should we just go in there; kick butt; blow them up; drive over their cars…should we send in our tanks? If there are alternative solutions, let’s hear what they are. (Mills 2005: 279)


Opponents of the policy quickly retorted that ‘quiet diplomacy and armed force are not the only options for dealing with the Zimbabwe crisis’ (Mail & Guardian 31.05.02). However, they failed to take up Manuel’s challenge and proffer a better alternative in terms of a policy response. Conspicuously missing from the debate about the pros and cons of quiet diplomacy is the military context in which the policy has been put in place. Zimbabwe’s praetorian guards have become the central plank of President Mugabe’s ‘third Chimurenga’ – the struggle for economic liberation (the first being against British colonial rule and the second against the white minority Rhodesian regime). This campaign was launched after his party lost the February 2000 referendum on the issue of a new Constitution, which would have allowed a legal transfer of swathes of land owned by white farmers to black Zimbabweans. Zimbabwe’s politics has since become heavily militarised, and the military intensely politicised, with Zimbabwe turning into a theatre of military ‘operation’. In the post-September 11 world order – underpinned by the increasingly unilateral tendencies and militarism of the major powers – and even more since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the Zanu-PF elite has been gripped by an intense fear of regime change sponsored by the west. In response, Harare has intensified its reliance on its praetorian guards for regime security and survival, giving currency to notions of a ‘creeping coup’. Pretoria’s securocrats based the policy of quiet diplomacy on the shared ‘history of the liberation struggles of Southern Africa and the resultant shedding of blood for a common cause’ (DFA 2005). But on the military question, the two countries have since taken distinctly divergent paths. South Africa’s security policy has favoured civilian oversight over the military and a limited role for Pretoria’s praetorians in security affairs, preferring mediated and negotiated solutions to security-force intervention. By stressing civilian oversight in civil–military relations, the ANC elite not only recognised the limits imposed on South Africa by the burden of apartheid’s former military aggression in the region, but also tapped into the ‘miracle’ of transition from the apartheid regime to a democratic state. In contrast, Zimbabwe’s military

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the state of military relations between S A and Z imbabwe


success in the struggle to free Rhodesia, as well as its leading role as a bulwark of other liberation struggles, elevated the Zimbabwean military into a key role in the country’s internal politics, and making it a central pillar of its regional diplomacy. These diametrically opposing views of the role of military power in conflict resolution led to tensions between the two countries that rocked the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the 1990s. Both countries then drew on their common history of liberation struggle to forge a degree of co-operation on the military front, leading to the signing of a bilateral security agreement in 2005, and enabling Zimbabwe’s air force to train South Africa’s pilots. Further, it has enabled the two countries to take a common position on the creation of a regional standby brigade for the purposes of conflict prevention, and to adopt a united stance against the establishment of foreign military bases in southern Africa, especially after the creation of America’s African Command (Africom) in 2007, which is discussed again later in this chapter. Since the guerrilla veterans of Zimbabwe’s anti-colonial war burst into the world media as storm troopers in Mugabe’s new war of economic liberation, the international spotlight has increasingly focused on the impact of the ensuing crisis on the military (Kriger 2003). Military force has long been a yardstick of Africa’s chronic instability. Between 1956 and 2001, 48 sub-Saharan African states experienced 139 reported coups and military conspiracies, of which 66 were successful. In other words, 90 per cent of African states were rocked by at least one coup event in this period. At the height of the euphoria around modernisation in the early 1960s, African armies were imagined in western political science orthodoxy as modernisers and key instruments of nation-building that would help to break down ethnic divisions and promote true national consciousness (Huntington 1957). However, the waning of this euphoria from the late 1960s gave way to the ‘era of military intervention par excellence’ as the African soldier became the greatest threat to civil order in Africa (Goldsworthy 1981: 51). Ali Mazrui even chastised these elements as reviving the pre-colonial ‘warrior tradition’ to serve their own selfish ends (Mazrui 1976). As a wave of liberalism then washed over Africa, the military was unveiled as irredeemably unstable and a dangerous threat to democracy, raising the question of who would guard the guards. At the regional level, the newly formed African Union (AU), established in July 2002, outlawed

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the unconstitutional takeover of governments. Intellectually, studies on civil–military relations have turned into a growth industry, fundamentally exploring diverse ways of putting an end to coups and asserting civilian oversight over the military (Baker 2007). The African military debate now colours analyses of the Zimbabwe situation, launching Zimbabwe into the African debate on the military and the democratisation of the polity (Hutchful 1989). Zimbabwe has defied all predictions by enemies of the Mugabe regime that the country’s political tensions and extraordinary economic slide would trigger a ‘good’ or ‘prodemocracy’ coup (Ikome 2007). In nearly three decades of Zimbabwe’s existence as a sovereign state, it has confounded its critics by ranking as one of Africa’s few ‘coup-proof ’ states. One explanation for this is that despite internal contradictions within the nationalist movement, Zimbabwe is one of the few African countries where the liberation guerrillas ascended to power as soldiers not trained by their erstwhile colonial masters. This left a legacy of strong bonds between the military leadership and the ruling civilian elites. It has also created one of the most complex and intriguing war machines in Africa. Zimbabwe’s post-colonial discipline force is an amalgam of just over 30 000 military personnel,1 a 20 000-strong police force and some 3 000 officers of the Central Intelligence Organisation; party militias (the Green Bombers) and the Reserve War Veterans Organisations have also operated under the command of the military (Kriger 2003; Rupiya 2005). Furthermore, Zimbabwe’s role in supporting other liberation struggles in southern Africa has created strong bonds of military solidarity with the region’s key military powers, including those of Angola and South Africa. Even though the idea of South Africa intervening militarily to ‘restore democracy’ in Zimbabwe has been attractive in some quarters, these historical bonds ensure that this remains a pipe dream. Yet the role of Zimbabwe’s military in regional diplomacy, especially with regard to quiet diplomacy, is largely unexplored. Contributors to past issues of State of the Nation have illuminated aspects of South Africa’s policy towards Zimbabwe since the onset of the current crisis in 2000 (Sachikonye 2005). But the military aspects of South Africa’s policy towards Zimbabwe have received little attention. This chapter explores

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the past, present and future of military relations between South Africa and Zimbabwe within the context of former president Thabo Mbeki’s policy of quiet diplomacy.


The liberation era: ‘white’ and ‘black’ blocs Military links between apartheid South Africa and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) go back to September 1890, when Cecil John Rhodes’s expeditionary force arrived in Mazoe and claimed both Mashonaland and Matabeleland as a single colony under the British Government Charter. Black and white forces from South Africa and Rhodesia fought under the British flag in both the 1914–18 and 1939–45 world wars. From 1953, pilot training for the Commonwealth was a joint affair between Rhodesia and South Africa. The military relationship between South Africa and Zimbabwe before 1994 was shaped by two interlinked factors. On one extreme was apartheid South Africa’s Total Military Strategy, itself linked to the Cold War era’s low-intensity warfare as a western strategy to contain communism (Kitson 1971). On the other extreme were the alliances between Zanu and the ANC, especially after 1980.

Zimbabwe and apartheid’s Total Military Strategy As the British prime minister Macmillan was proclaiming the ‘winds of change’ that ushered in Africa’s decolonisation in the 1960s, apartheid South Africa positioned itself among the ‘white bloc’, represented by Rhodesia and the colonial Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique. These countries shared the threat of African liberation movements and communism and perceived their role in the ‘Pretoria–Lisbon–Salisbury Axis’ as that of co-ordinating greater military co-operation with their white neighbours (Hanlon 1986). PW Botha (executive president of South Africa from 1984 to 1989) launched the Total Strategy as a pre-emptive response to escalating black militancy, assumed to be inspired by communism’s ‘total onslaught’ (Cawthra 1986). Under this strategy, South Africa actively deployed its defence force (the SADF) in Zimbabwe to ward off the ANC and Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) fighters based in the independent states of Tanzania and Zambia and, after 1975, in Angola and Mozambique. South Africa’s troops, mainly aircraft pilots and police, only left Zimbabwe at independence in 1980.

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Reinforcing the Total Strategy was the Botha Doctrine, fashioned as the southern African equivalent of the US’s Monroe Doctrine. (America invoked the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 to bar European powers from intervening in the Americas. It was used again more recently to justify American intervention in Latin America during the Cold War, ostensibly to stem the spread of Soviet communism.) As a regional superpower, South Africa sought to turn the entire region ‘into a security commonwealth which would ensure the integrity of its borders, the safety of the domestic population and the perpetuation of white and Nationalist rule’ (Pottinger 1988: 201). Military solidarity between white South Africa and what was then Rhodesia was also boosted by the South African-sponsored ‘constellation’ of seven southern African states (Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, Rhodesia and Malawi, and the three apartheid bantustans of Bophuthatswana, Transkei and Venda), mooted in 1979 as a kind of sub-regional military alliance. Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 dealt a devastating blow to the white settler politico-security architecture. In response, South Africa introduced a policy of ‘constructive engagement’ designed to dissuade Pretoria’s neighbours from providing safe havens to liberation movements. In return, South Africa would offer economic assistance. In essence, this was Pretoria’s version of a southern African ‘Truman Doctrine’ – a cornerstone of Cold War militarism designed by US President Harry Truman in 1947 to support ‘free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressure’ (Jaster 1988: 88). The cost of South Africa’s military aggression against its African neighbours, especially incursions to destabilise such frontline states as Zambia, Zimbabwe and Lesotho, was colossal and horrendous. At the end of the Cold War in 1989, a UN report noted that the total regional cost of South African destabilisation and aggression over the period from 1980 to 1988 totalled roughly US$60 billion (UNECA 1989: 4). After 1994, democratic South Africa’s policy towards the rest of Africa was geared towards dealing with the legacy of apartheid militarism. Even though this history has limited South Africa’s unilateral use of its military power to leverage its preventative diplomacy, the common struggle by African liberation movements against apartheid provided ties that now bind South Africa and Zimbabwe.

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The ANC and Zanu-PF, 1980 to 1994


Prior to 1980, military relations between the ANC and Mugabe’s Zanu were framed by deep suspicion and hostility. Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) was the ANC’s ally within the Moscow-aligned cluster of liberation movements, while Zanu was allied to the PAC within the ‘Beijing Consensus’, subsequently described by the ANC’s upper echelon as ‘spurious stooges [of] the imperialists’ (Gevisser 2007: 431). Zanu had put forward a proposal for military co-operation with the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), in 1977, but this was rejected out of hand because at the time MK already had about 250 operatives in Zimbabwe under the direct command of Zapu. Relations between the two liberation movements started to change after Mugabe’s victory over Joshua Nkomo in 1980. Zimbabwe then became a leading member of the so-called Frontline States (FLS), formed by the independent African states of Botswana, Tanzania, Zambia, Angola and Mozambique to counter the South African-led ‘white bloc’ (Hanlon 1986). The ANC/MK opened offices in Harare in the early 1980s, where it received financial and material support within the context of the FLS. But Harare’s authorities stifled the emergence of a robust ANC/MK military infrastructure in the country, largely because of its economic dependence on South Africa, and Pretoria’s explicit threat that Zimbabwe would face an all-out military campaign if it sheltered South Africa’s ‘terrorists’. The ANC–Zanu relationship collapsed following the assassination of Joe Gqabi, the ANC’s representative in Harare, by Pretoria’s hit squad in July 1981, and the outbreak of the civil war between Zanu and Zapu in 1982. When arms caches were found on Zapu farms in Matabeleland in 1982, the entire MK command in Matabeleland (20 to 30 fighters) was rounded up and imprisoned in the ensuing swoop on Zapu commanders by Zimbabwe’s dreaded Fifth Brigade. The ANC’s military infrastructure in Zimbabwe was destroyed and permission to move fighters through the country, or even to set up minimal bases, was withdrawn. Although the ANC–Zanu-PF relationship improved after the 1987 Zapu–Zanu unity accord, it suffered another setback in January 1988 when an ANC/MK safe house in Bulawayo was bombed. The perpetrators (Kevin Woods, Michael Smith, Phillip Conjwayo, Barry Bawden and Dennis Beehan)2 were arrested

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and jailed, but the event revealed Harare’s inability to protect ANC cadres. For their part, Zimbabwe’s military chiefs were not particularly impressed by the ANC/MK cadres. ‘They are sitting here around Harare, they are doing nothing,’ said one Zimbabwean general, calling on the ANC leadership to ‘take them to the bush and let them be bitten by mosquitoes, because that way, they will understand the importance of getting to South Africa’ (Gevisser 2007: 438). As a result, the ANC chiefs became convinced that Zimbabwe was not going to be the ‘military route’ home, but the ‘peaceful route’, largely because of Mugabe’s stature and prestige as a nationalist (Gevisser 2007: 438).


Post-1994 South Africa–Zimbabwe military relations On the eve of the demise of apartheid in November 1993, President Mandela declared that ‘we are inextricably part of Southern Africa and our destiny is linked to that of a region, which is much more than a mere geographic concept’ (Mandela 1993: 89). He added, ‘While South Africa experienced discrimination and repression at home, Southern Africa fell victim to apartheid’s destabilisation strategy, which left two million dead and inflicted an estimated $62.45 billion of damage to the economies of our neighbours’ (Mandela 1993: 92). South Africa joined the SADC in August 1994. As discussed earlier, its regional security policy came to rest on notions of soft power. Two guiding documents formed the basis for this policy, namely the ANC Policy Guidelines (ANC 1992) and the 1996 White Paper on Defence, both of which stressed the concept of human security and ‘security no longer viewed as predominantly a military and police problem’ (DoD 1996: 5–6). But the entry of this regional power, accounting for more than 75 per cent of southern Africa’s GDP, dramatically changed the balance of power in the region, leading to tensions especially with Zimbabwe. Fears of South Africa’s presumed hegemonic ambitions in the region also slowed the growth of SADC as a regional security community.

‘The star and the sun’ The 1992 SADC Declaration and Treaty envisaged the creation of a collective security mechanism in southern Africa. However, after 1994, progress in security co-operation was greatly hampered by the rivalry and ideological

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differences between the two leading figures in the region, Nelson Mandela and Robert Mugabe. Mandela is famously quoted as having said that ‘Mugabe’s problem is that he was the star – and then the sun came up’ (Sparks 2003: 269). Rival camps allied to South Africa and Zimbabwe became embroiled in an ugly dispute over the status of the Organ for Politics, Defence and Security (OPDS). The OPDS was created on 28 June 1996 as a successor to the FLS to steer regional security co-operation. Disputes arose when South Africa fiercely resisted its establishment as an entity separate from the SADC summit, the supreme policy-making institution of SADC (see Chapter 11, this volume). In its objection, South Africa charged that the OPDS was an infringement of Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, which prescribes the rules for collective security mechanisms. The OPDS essentially privileged the use of military force for conflict resolution over other, more peaceful means, such as early warning mechanisms, preventive diplomacy and other instruments of soft power. More virulent critics of Zimbabwe even suggested that Mugabe was unsuitable to lead the sub-regional body because of his poor human rights record (Campbell 2003). Others went as far as pronouncing the SADC dead, calling on Mandela to pull South Africa out of the bloc and to pare its interests down to the Southern African Customs Union, which brings Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland together under Pretoria’s economic sphere (Brammer 1999). At the SADC’s 1997 summit in Blantyre, Mandela even threatened to resign as SADC chair and pull South Africa out of the organisation. South Africa’s opposition to the OPDS exposed it to damaging criticism that it was pursuing ‘white interests’ by destabilising existing structures with the intention of imposing its dominance on the region (Ngoma 2005). In line with this ‘white interest’ thesis, Ibbo Mandaza posited that the apartheid state had merely recreated itself and taken up the new and ‘politically acceptable’ governance of the republic. In the same vein, Baregu concluded that ‘the common denominator between the apartheid and the new South African state is the quest to maintain and sustain the republic’s hegemony in regional and African affairs’ (cited in Mandaza 1999: 14). Zimbabwe’s security analysts saw ‘South Africa’s isolationist stance and quest to dominate the Southern Africa region’ as a reflection of ‘the fact that “whites” still controlled its security establishment’ – itself subordinated to ‘state machinery [which]…is inordinately white in complexion’ (Tapfumaneyi

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1999: 23). This started when the ANC/MK and the PAC fighters were labelled as ‘unconstitutional’ forces and hastily demobilised, leaving ‘post-apartheid South Africa with a national defence force – and also foreign services, intelligence community, news media and academic community – that is majority white and apartheid oriented’ (Tapfumaneyi 1999: 24). Proponents of the OPDS argued that, with the SADC being funded in excess of 90 per cent by western donors, another body was necessary to preside over sensitive regional security matters. As Campbell observed, ‘SADC had been undermined by the insistence of the so-called donor community and its partners in South Africa that the strategy of SADC be based on sector projects co-ordinated by donor agencies’ (Campbell 2003: 6). Thus Zimbabwe’s defence of the OPDS ‘was not well received by those forces of the old apartheid military who wanted to see the privatization of violence and wanted to develop a military capacity outside of the control of elected African governments’ (Campbell 2003: 7). The depiction of South Africa as a white lackey on the southern tip of Africa handling the conflicts in Angola, Congo and Lesotho began to hurt, raising the stakes for its isolation across the region and on the continent. In March 1998, South Africa supported the establishment of a committee of three presidents to resolve the dispute, leading to the creation of a triumvirate mechanism comprising past, present and future heads of the OPDS. This paved the way for the signing of the protocol on politics, defence and security co-operation and Mugabe’s exit from the OPDS chair in August 2001. But the differences between South Africa and Zimbabwe over the role of the military vis-à-vis the soft-power negotiations in the SADC were echoed in almost all conflict spots in southern Africa.

The Congo crisis South Africa and Zimbabwe were sharply split over military intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In 1998, the government of Laurent Kabila appealed via the presidents of Angola and Namibia for the SADC to provide military support against rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda advancing from the east. The two presidents delivered the message to Zimbabwe’s president as the chair of the OPDS. On 18 August 1998, President

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Mugabe declared that the DRC was under invasion by Uganda and Rwanda, and called upon the SADC to respond to the aggression (IRIN 1999b).


Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe offered to send troops to the DRC. This was the origin of the formation of the ‘SADC alliance’ that proceeded to form the Mutual Defence Pact signed by Angola, Namibia, the DRC and Zimbabwe in Luanda. Aside from providing the framework for harmonising the trio’s military aid to the DRC, the pact threatened retaliatory action because any attack on one represented an attack on all. As Ngoma rightly argues, although left open to all SADC countries, the pact was ‘evidently a reaction to the frustration over the inability of the OPDS to function – a situation attributed to South Africa’ (2005: 158). The Congo war effectively split the SADC through the middle. The SADC trio invoked the SADC treaty (Article 4), which provides for ‘achievement of solidarity, peace and security in the region’, and the OPDS which provides for the region to protect people against ‘inter-state conflict and aggression’ to back their military intervention. But critics cited economic and political interests as the motives behind the military foray (Campbell 2003). Mandela openly criticised Mugabe’s sanctioning of the use of the military. But South Africa was seen as breaking ranks with the SADC for criticising a response to a genuine appeal for military assistance by a fellow SADC member. As Ngoma correctly observes, ‘[t]he country’s military might… invited expectations of a “natural” role as the region’s “superpower”’ (2005: 158–159). Mandela’s criticism attracted hostile responses from those who saw South Africa’s refusal to be part of the SADC’s military alliance in defence of Kinshasa as part of the strategic interest of South African-backed capital expansion in the region. The refusal to offer military support, argues Ibbo Mandaza, reflected the ‘strategic war game’ of apartheid South Africa, which sought to control the entire region by colluding with multinational corporations such as Anglo American to bring about the fall of the Kabila regime. Mandaza cites an executive of Anglo as saying, ‘We want that Kabila fellow out of there. We will soon get him out…we are not alone in this. The USA and Canadian mining interests have been let down…and Mugabe can kiss good-bye any suggestion that South Africa will support the so-called SADC allies in the DRC…we cannot allow Zimbabwe to usurp our interests in the DRC’ (Mandaza 1999:

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14). These revelations fuelled suspicion of South Africa as a sub-imperial and hegemonic power. On 3 September 1998, President Mandela made a volte-face, endorsing military intervention by the SADC trio. South Africa’s new defence minister, Mosiuoa Lekota, even hailed the idea of a mutual defence pact as a tool that ‘provides the guidelines to protect legitimate governments in the region from foreign armed aggression’ (IRIN 1999a). However, Pretoria’s pundits defended South Africa’s stance on the use of the military, which they said reflected its post-apartheid desire to tone down its military involvement and take a low profile – largely due to ‘fear of the history’ of apartheid’s militarism. South Africa should not to be seen to behave like ‘a bull in a china shop rushing in as the old South African Defence Force did’, said Lekota (SouthScan 16.09.96). When Laurent Kabila was assassinated in early January 2001, the SADC trio maintained military control, enabling Kabila’s son, Major General Joseph Kabila, to assume power. South Africa signed the Mutual Defence Pact in August 2003, but has remained sceptical of a reliance on the military or any form of violence as a solution to conflict. As a result, its interpretation of the Defence Pact has been ambivalent. Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad stated that the Mutual Defence Pact would not demand ‘immediate response’ from member countries in the case of an attack on a fellow SADC country. Rather, it allows for states to respond according to their possibilities (Mail & Guardian 28.08.03). Arguably, in signing the pact, Pretoria was convinced that it would serve only a symbolic purpose. With the conclusion of civil war in Angola in 2002 and the possibility of the DRC returning to peace, it was expected that the entire southern African region would finally move towards peace and stability, so there would be no need for military action. Notably, the backdrop to South Africa’s policy U-turn was provided by the severe criticism of its own military invasion of Lesotho.

The Lesotho crisis: 1994 to 1998 In contrast to the Congo, Lesotho started off well as a showcase of military co-operation between South Africa and Zimbabwe. When King Letsie III, with the backing of the political opposition and sections of the Royal Lesotho Defence Force (RLDF), suspended the Constitution and removed Prime Minister Ntsu Mokhele from power in 1994, presidents de Klerk, Mugabe

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and Masire of Botswana took a common stance. As Baregu rightly puts it, the troika was determined ‘not to allow a military coup in Southern Africa’ (Baregu 2003: 67). Displays of military force through constant flights by fighter aircraft over Lesotho airspace and parachute drops ‘in full sight of the citizens of the Lesotho capital’ (SouthScan 16.09.06) paid off. The monarchy capitulated and restored the Lesotho government on 14 September 1994 (Lambrechts 1999). This was a triumph of multilateralism as the best vehicle of South Africa’s military engagement. Zimbabwe’s former foreign minister and Zanu-PF Secretary of Information, Nathan Shamuyarira, praised it as ‘an arrangement to defend democratic trends in the region and to ward off the dictatorship and militarism present in the other regions of the world’ (Ngoma 2005: 167). Lesotho came to the threshold of another crisis in 1998. The monarchy staged a rerun of the 1994 collusion with the opposition and members of the military to reject the verdict of the May 1998 election, claiming that the polls were massively rigged by the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy, which scored 79 out of 80 seats (Southall 2001). On 22 September 1998, South Africa unilaterally launched ‘Operation Boleas’, a fully fledged military invasion of Lesotho involving 600 SADF troops and supported by 200 Botswana Defence Force troops (Matlosa 2005: 91–93). Eight South Africans and 58 Basotho troops died in the ‘splendid little war’ (Sunday Independent 04.10.98), which also saw the total destruction of businesses through riots and looting. Some analysts, such as Richard Cornwell, have argued that South Africa’s heavy-handed use of the military was unnecessary because the deployment of troops along the Lesotho border, aggressive fly-overs or dropping airborne troops at the border would have done the job (Cornwell interview 2007). The invasion drew condemnation over human rights violations and fuelled antiSouth African feelings, reviving the memories of similar apartheid attacks in the 1980s. As Brimmer and Gilmore (Mail & Guardian 17.11.00) rightly state, ‘the unfinished business in South Africa-Lesotho relations’ is the ‘massacre at Katse Dam’, where paratroopers from the Bloemfontein-based parachute brigade targeted Katse barracks in helicopter gunships and slew 17 RLDF soldiers. The need to secure the US$4 billion Katse Dam Project that supplies water to the industrial heartland of South Africa has been cited as the real motive for

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the use of force. But as one Lesotho opposition leader argued, ‘South Africa was looking for an excuse to flex its military muscle and to say “I am the biggest in the region”’ (cited in Ngoma 2005: 167). Roger Southall has observed that ‘It is not clear through which legal procedure the South African…decision to intervene in Lesotho was taken’ (2001: 29). It lacked the sanction of the SADC, the Organisation of African Unity or the United Nations. South Africa also ignored Zimbabwe and Mozambique, which were in the inner circle of SADC decision-making. South Africa soon learnt, however, that multilateralism remained the best vehicle for its military involvement in Africa (Kagwanja 2006).

The Angolan conflict South Africa and Zimbabwe also differed on the military approach to the conflict in Angola. By the time the ANC came to power in 1994, Jonas Savimbi had violated so many peace accords that the UN Security Council had passed Resolution 864/93 (later buttressed by Resolutions 1127/97, 1173/98 and 1295/2000), which slapped military, political and economic sanctions on the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita). Zimbabwe provided military support to Angola, which partly enabled Angolan and Cuban forces to inflict a crippling defeat on Unita at Cuito Cuanavale in Angola in the late 1980s. This victory paved the way for the 1988 Bicesse/New York Agreement which secured the commitment of ‘foreign forces’, Cuban and South African, to leave Angola, and provided for the independence of what was then South West Africa (now Namibia). Clearly, the defeat of Unita in Angola shaped the larger political context within which political negotiations that led to the demise of apartheid in southern Africa occurred. Angola’s president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, was one of the ANC’s staunchest supporters, with the Angolan Armed Forces and the ANC/MK sharing trenches against apartheid’s aggression. Despite these historical bonds, ANC cadres held bitter memories of the heavy-handed approach of Angolan government security forces towards the ANC/MK – they allegedly detained and tortured key ANC leaders, including future president Thabo Mbeki. Once in office they saw the government as being led by kleptocratic thugs directly implicated in fuelling the flames in the Congo war (Sunday Independent 14.11.99). They came to believe that the apartheid-funded Savimbi had to be engaged with because ‘he was deeply rooted in the populace of Southern

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Angola, and there would be no peace without him’ (Gevisser 2007: 444). While the ANC leadership remained adamant that Angola’s chance for peace was around a table with Savimbi, it failed to rein in white mercenaries, armed merchants and diamond smugglers who bankrolled Savimbi’s Unita. The ANC further enraged Angola and its allies in the SADC when it gave Savimbi a red-carpet welcome during talks with Mandela in 1997. The ANC found itself alone in this position as Zimbabwe and other key SADC states continued to express solidarity with the government of Angola and to call for tighter sanctions on Unita. After the September 11 attack, Zimbabwe steered the Inter-State Defence and Security Committee to adopt a recommendation to place ‘Unita on the list of international terrorist organizations and freezing of the movement’s bank accounts’ (SADC 2001). In December 2001, it also endorsed the Angolan government’s peace plan adopted by the OPDS Committee of Ministers, which sanctioned military intervention as the solution to the Angolan conflict. Zimbabwe and allied states resolved to put military support at the disposal of Angola to defeat Unita, the most direct military involvement by SADC states in the Angolan conflict. The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and its allies proved Pretoria’s approach wrong when Unita evaporated almost overnight in the wake of Savimbi’s death in battle in February 2002. On 17 February 2005, South Africa and Angola signed an agreement to set up a bilateral defence committee to extend co-operation in areas including peace support missions and disaster relief (Independent Online 17.02.05). But the relationship between the ANC and its erstwhile MPLA ally has remained fairly frosty.

A military in the eye of the storm The Zimbabwe military has been in the eye of a political storm since ZanuPF’s defeat – its first-ever electoral loss – during the February 2000 referendum for a new Constitution that would have allowed it to legally seize white-owned land and transfer it to black Zimbabweans. Chitiyo and Rupiya (2005) have argued that the military progressively became drawn into the crisis as Zimbabwe’s politics became militarised, and the military in turn became intensely politicised. Two different perspectives offer insights into the impact of the crisis on the military. First, the increasing role of the military in politics has fostered the idea of a ‘creeping coup’, a takeover by the military as the

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last bastion of Zanu-PF power and survival. Second, Zimbabwe’s economic slide has given rise to the theory of a ‘military meltdown’, signified by isolated mutinies, the involvement of the armed forces in domestic and trans-border criminality, as well as mass resignations and desertions and the exodus of soldiers to South Africa.


The ‘creeping coup’ Zimbabwe’s soldiery has always perceived itself as a praetorian guard for the country’s nationalist revolution. In 2000, the military became the spearhead of what the Zanu-PF leadership dubbed the ‘third Chimurenga’ (struggle period) for economic liberation. Asserting the military’s role as the guardian of Zimbabwe’s revolution, defence force commander General Vitalis Zvinavashe warned that ‘any change designed to reverse the gains of this revolution will not be supported’ (BBC News 09.01.02). In 1980, the ruling party re-established the Joint Operations Command (JOC), first created by the Rhodesians to fight Zanu and Zapu during the liberation war. The revived JOC brings together the minister of state security, the defence minister, the commander of the defence forces, the directorgeneral of the Central Intelligence Organisation, the commander of the air force and the commissioner of police. The Reserve Bank governor is an ex-officio member. At the beginning of 2007, war veterans were also formally constituted as a reserve force within the defence ministry. From March, the army was heavily involved in the seizure of land owned by some 4 500 white commercial farmers. ‘We hit people [farmers] like hell. They had no choice but to leave,’ reminisces a soldier from the Fifth Brigade of the 52nd Battalion (Interview 2007; see also Baldauf 2007). The army was also used to put down riots after the 2000 parliamentary elections. As the crucial 2002 presidential election got under way, General Zvinavashe, on behalf of service chiefs, declared ‘we will…not accept, let alone support or salute, anyone with a different agenda’ or lacking ‘liberation credentials’ (BBC News 10.01.02), a thinly veiled reference to Morgan Tsvangirai, a former trade unionist who never joined the liberation movement. The military and youth militias were deployed to (violently) crush opposition demonstrations in 2003 and 2004, and to enable Zanu-PF to secure victory and retain power in the March 2005 parliamentary elections (Rupiya 2005).

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Fear of an externally inspired regime change intensified after the March 2005 parliamentary elections and the government turned the JOC into the primary instrument of policy-making, eclipsing the Zanu-PF politburo and the Cabinet (Mafunda 2006). In mid-2005, the JOC engineered Operation Murambatsvina (Restore order), allegedly to nip a Ukrainian-style popular revolt against the government in the bud. Zimbabwe’s securocrats in the JOC also masterminded the reintroduction of the senate in November 2005 to ensure the survival of Zanu-PF after Mugabe’s retirement (Interviews with opposition party leaders, security officials and political analysts 2006). They have also effectively neutralised the impact of power struggles by rival factions within the ruling party. Some analysts claim that the JOC organised this in response to the SADC mediation led by Mbeki (ICG 2007). The role of the military in economic recovery has also increased. In November 2005, the government launched Operation Taguta/Sisuthi (Operation Eat Well), a military-led Stalinist-style command of agriculture to stem food shortages. This involvement of the military has popularised the notion of a silent coup and of Zimbabwe as a military dictatorship (Sithole 2006). However, it should be borne in mind that because of the unique history of Zimbabwe’s military as one of the few liberation forces in the former colonial dependencies to ascend to office almost intact, the resurgence of the nationalist discourse has simply reasserted its historic role.

Military meltdown? Zimbabwe’s economic downturn has given wings to the idea of a systemic disintegration of the military, presumed to mirror a parallel collapse of the ruling party and the state. Proponents of the ‘meltdown’ theory stress the growing factionalism within the top ranks of the military, mirroring factional fights within the ruling party over presidential succession (ICG 2007). Flowing from this, they predict the crumbling of the military as part of a monumental collapse of the party, and the state, in a post-Mugabe cataclysm. Others still entertain the idea of a ‘benign coup’ (Ikome 2007) to restore democracy. However, the loyalty of Zimbabwe’s military to the Zanu-PF establishment has minimised the chances of a coup.

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A second strand of the meltdown thesis focuses on the response of the lower ranks of the military to the impact of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown. Attention has been given to the so-called ‘missing regiment’, a reference to an alleged 1 500 soldiers having deserted the Zimbabwean defence forces and fled across the Limpopo River, joining ranks with an estimated 3 million Zimbabwean ‘refugees’ in South Africa (Baldauf 2007). Junior soldiers, police and intelligence officers are also alleged to be resorting to armed robbery to make ends meet (Zimbabwe Standard 30.10.05). There are also reports of mutinies reflecting divides in the succession struggle in the ruling party (Zimbabwe Times 08.06.07). Conclusions arising from these analyses are predictable: ‘This is a breakdown of Mugabe’s most trusted sector…This spells doom and a painful end, [in the same vein as] Mengistu, Idi Amin, and Charles Taylor’ (Christian Science Monitor 25.04.07). However, while Mugabe may be considered by the west as a dictator, in Africa he is still venerated by many as a liberator and nationalist hero rather than a bare-knuckled tyrant. This view is shared by many in the military. Aware of the importance of the support of this sector, the government has dramatically increased the wages of the armed forces to cushion them from inflation (The Zimbabwe Independent 02.07.07). Retired or serving soldiers have been assigned to lead strategic institutions such as the Grain Marketing Board, the National Railways of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority, the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe, and the Electoral Delimitation Commission. South Africa’s quiet diplomacy is a conscious response to the role of the military, particularly to a fear of military meltdown and the consequent heavy cost of reviving a failed military state on its doorstep.

Quiet diplomacy and Zimbabwe’s praetorians South Africa’s quiet diplomacy came under attack from a medley of voices within South Africa, ranging from opposition parties and the media to ANC officials and their alliance partners, such as the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the South African Communist Party and the ANC Youth League. These critics have declared quiet diplomacy a failed project, joining western countries in calling on South Africa to take a hard line against Zimbabwe’s seizure of white-owned land and the ensuing crisis.

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Faced with domestic and international pressure for not taking a more forceful stance on Zimbabwe, the architects of quiet diplomacy defended the policy as the only viable alternative to war. ‘Our goal in foreign affairs is good neighbourliness,’ declared Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who continued to say that ‘we build bridges across countries. Don’t advocate war with Zimbabwe, we won’t do it’ (Mills 2005: 279; emphasis in original). This theme of war was taken up more forcefully by Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad: ‘If it is not diplomacy we pursue in Zimbabwe, then it is war. We will not go to war with Zimbabwe’ (Sunday Times 29.09.02). Critics of quiet diplomacy then insisted that,‘we are not called upon to invade Zimbabwe…but we are called upon to speak for the values upon which our democracy is built’ (Business Day 30.10.02). What these critics missed is the fundamental point that South Africa’s policy has not been seamlessly ‘quiet’, as its critics presumed. In fact, since 2000 quiet diplomacy has yielded to loud moments of strategic recourse to ‘mega-diplomacy and screaming from the rooftops’, to borrow Minister Pahad’s phrase. For instance, South Africa went public in its strong condemnation of the Zimbabwe military’s veiled warning that it would support only the Mugabe government in the 2002 elections. ‘You cannot have a situation where in a sense the security forces are trying to pre-empt an election,’ said a statement from President Mbeki’s office. ‘We are actually…opposed to military coups and therefore you know we will not support military governments,’ it added (BBC News 11.01.02). The policy has often been more subtle and more daring than its critics have been prepared to investigate or recognise. This becomes clear from the 2004 spy debacle.

The 2004 spy saga South Africa’s stakes in Zimbabwe’s politics spiked in the run-up to the December 2004 Zanu-PF congress, expected to elect Mugabe’s heir. The party was split down the middle with rival camps, allied to retired General Mujuru and Emerson Mnangagwa respectively, engaged in manoeuvres and counter-manoeuvres to win Mugabe’s mantle. South Africa was in acute need of up-to-date insider intelligence on the internal dynamics in Zimbabwe’s ruling party. On 18 December 2004, a South African intelligence agent, Aubrey Welken, was arrested by Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organisation at Victoria

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Falls, and charged with espionage. This also prompted the arrest of 15 leading Zimbabweans implicated in intelligence leaks to South Africa. Welken’s contacts were arrested and subsequently jailed. In February 2005, Zimbabwe’s high court sentenced Godfrey Dzvairo to six years in jail; Zanu-PF Director for External Affairs Itayi Marchai and former banker Tendai Matambanadzo each got five years. Others tried and jailed included Phillip Chiyangwa (Mugabe’s cousin and provincial chairman of Mashonaland West), Director for Security Kennedy Karidza, and other Zanu-PF officials. A sixth suspect escaped to Switzerland under diplomatic cover. The rival faction aligned to retired general Rex (Solomon) Mujuru quickly used the incident to checkmate the rival faction aligned to Emerson Mnangagwa, the rural housing minister and an Mbeki ally from the struggle days (Gevisser 2007). South African officials downplayed the issue, with Minister Pahad saying: ‘That’s the world of intelligence. Everyone expects that every country has declared and non-declared agents in operation but we [South Africa and Zimbabwe] are not enemies’ (The Sunday Times 23.01.05). The damage of the espionage affair was reduced by the triumph of the Mujuru faction during the December 2004 congress. Zimbabwe, which needed South Africa’s support in the March 2005 elections, toned down its criticism, claiming that the spy was not under arrest, but rather was being held for questioning as an essential witness in the espionage trials of the arrested Zimbabweans. Aubrey Welken was eventually released in December 2005 (New York Times 14.12.05). The spy saga resulted in minimal damage to diplomatic relations between Harare and Pretoria, but it forced Zimbabwe to take a cautious stance on South Africa. Despite that, military relations between the two countries experienced a boost following the signing of the Joint Permanent Commission on Defence and Security and an agreement enabling Zimbabwe’s pilots to train their South African counterparts.

The Joint Permanent Commission on Defence and Security On 17 November 2005, South Africa and Zimbabwe inaugurated the Joint Permanent Commission on Defence and Security. The Commission built on an earlier Defence Co-operation Agreement that defence ministers Joe Modise of South Africa and Moven Mahachi of Zimbabwe signed on 21 February 1996. That agreement established a South Africa–Zimbabwe Defence Liaison Committee, now replaced by the Joint Commission. 322


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The overarching aim of the Joint Commission was to ensure that the appropriate levels of stability and security for sustainable progress and development were in place (DFA 2005). In operational terms, the Commission was designed to operate at two levels: at the ministerial level and at the level of officials appointed by their respective ministers. Its work was designed to bring together the defence, public security and state security committees. In a sense, the Joint Commission provided a comprehensive framework for dealing with security challenges generated by the Zimbabwe crisis. The prompters suggested that the Joint Commission would meet annually in both countries on an alternate basis. During the inaugural meeting, Zimbabwe and South Africa signed two Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs). The first MOU established the Joint Commission agreement and outlined its guidelines and operating procedures. On the whole, the Joint Commission had three core objectives: • to identify areas of co-operation in the fields of defence and security; • to establish channels for the exchange of information and experience in the fields of defence and security, and any related matters of mutual interest; and • to give guidance to the committees on ways and means of implementing its decisions. (DFA 2005) The Joint Commission’s other purpose was to identify areas of co-operation in the fields of defence and security, including military, policing and intelligence issues in general; cross-border crime; illegal immigration; and mutual capacity-building in these areas. The ministerial meeting of the Joint Commission in November 2007 focused on cross-border crime, illegal immigrants and preparations for the 2010 Fifa World Cup. An example of the bilateral capacity-building aspects of the initiative currently in place is for Zimbabwe’s flying instructors to train South African Air Force (SAAF) pilots, aircraft technicians and support staff.

Training Pretoria’s air force During the inaugural meeting of the Joint Permanent Commission, the two countries signed an agreement relating to the provision of Air Force of Zimbabwe flying instructors to the SAAF. This entailed the secondment of Zimbabwe’s flying instructors to train SAAF pilots, aircraft technicians and

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support staff. This initiative targeted the acute shortage of pilots and technical personnel that post-apartheid South Africa’s air force has experienced. The top cadre of the SAAF has faced serious attrition, mainly among skilled white personnel, partly for ideological reasons, but also to take up positions in the burgeoning and well-paying domestic commercial passenger airline business. Others, especially helicopter pilots, were attracted to oil-rig operations. The war in Iraq in 2003 also offered quick, albeit risky, rewards. The training initiative was, therefore, designed to accelerate interactions between the SAAF and the Air Force of Zimbabwe within the larger context of SADC air forces. More significantly, the initiative prioritised fast-tracking the training of black pilots as part of the transformation of the South African National Defence Force. The initiative has registered some remarkable success. In March 2006, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota announced the arrival of six Zimbabwean air force pilots and six Zimbabwean air force technicians. Another area of co-operation has been joint training of other air force personnel. In the second half of 2007, sections of the SAAF went to Harare with fuel, ammunition and supplies to take part in a two-day military air show with Zimbabwean counterparts (Interviews with Zimbabwean military officials and analysts 2007). These events have greatly enhanced relations between the two countries, reinforcing Mbeki’s use of SADC mediation to resolve the political and economic crisis facing Zimbabwe. Military collaboration with Zimbabwe was also bolstered by the launch of the SADC standby brigade in August 2007.

A regional praetorian guard: the SADC Brigade The SADC Regional Peacekeeping Brigade was launched during the SADC summit held in August 2007 in Lusaka. At its inauguration, the military– police–civilian Brigade was made up of personnel drawn from 11 of the SADC’s 14 member states. It was set up to form a component of the AU’s multiskilled continental standby force consisting of five regional standby brigades. The Brigade forms part of a nascent regional conflict-prevention architecture, which consists of the Harare-based SADC Regional Peacekeeping Training Centre, and the Regional Early Warning Centre for conflict prevention, itself still a work in progress. Given its size (just 3 500 to 5 000 troops), the Brigade

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may not be sufficient to deal with the complex security challenges in southern Africa, but it offers an expandable framework for collaboration. The purpose of the Brigade, as Zambia’s President Mwanawasa explained at the launch, is ‘to participate in missions as envisaged in article 13 of the “mandate” of the protocol establishing the Peace and Security Council of the AU’ (Zambia Government 2007). Mbeki saw the Brigade as a sign of ‘the resolve of our region and continent to rely on its resources effectively to ensure peace and security throughout Africa’, in line with the mantra of African solutions to African problems (Mbeki 2007: 24). South Africa’s officials have welcomed the Brigade, which has its operational centre at the SADC headquarters in Gaborone, Botswana, as a sign of the region’s independence from perceived South African military domination. ‘The Brigade is important because now we have a force that is not South African but Southern African. When the AU undertakes a mission, we are in a position to ask the SADC to deploy the force to the AU mission,’ said Defence Minister Lekota (Mantu 2005). It is also a burden-sharing instrument that minimises the region’s financial dependence on Pretoria. Debates have tried to link the Brigade to the crisis in Zimbabwe, with regional powers viewing it as a means to defend the sovereignty of member states such as Zimbabwe that are facing external interference and the threat of regime change. Following the crackdown on opposition protesters by police and soldiers in Zimbabwe on 11 March, Angola, as the most powerful military nation in Africa after South Africa, reportedly prepared to dispatch some 2 500 Ninjas (its dreaded paramilitary police) to reinforce Zimbabwean forces that were unable to contain the protests. Angolan officials denied this, but the announcement had already created fear in Zimbabwe. Angola has praised the Brigade as a force against external interference and ‘a departure from the “donor dependency syndrome”’ (The Herald 04.12.07). The damning revelation by the former head of the British army, General Lord Guthrie, that he regularly discussed with former British prime minister Tony Blair the possibility of invading Zimbabwe militarily has confirmed Zimbabwe’s claims that western powers, particularly Britain, have been seeking to effect regime change in the country (Financial Gazette 22.11.07). In the light of this, South African Defence Minister Lekota warned, during the opening of the ministerial session of the South Africa–Zimbabwe Joint

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Permanent Commission on Defence and Security in November 2007, that ‘Southern African countries face a real challenge of regime changes encouraged by foreign powers’ (SWRadio Africa 20.11.07). The link between the SADC Brigade and the defence of regional sovereignty has increased since the unveiling of America’s Africom in mid-2007. South Africa and Zimbabwe have been at the forefront of a fierce resistance to the establishment of an Africom base in southern Africa, or in any other part of Africa.


The response to Africom In mid-2007, the US unveiled its plans to establish Africom within 18 months (Kagwanja 2007). The official version of the purpose of this military structure is given as strengthening capacity against international terrorism on the continent. However, Africom is clearly an American move to counter China’s growing presence and military role in Africa. South African Defence Minister Lekota refused to give audience to the newly appointed Africom chief, the African American General Ward. This was interpreted as a sign of South Africa’s displeasure with the US military policy on the African continent, which is widely and rightly viewed as a challenge to South Africa’s dominance in southern Africa. Pretoria’s resistance to Africom also represents its quest for sovereignty. ‘Africom…threatens our sovereignty,’ declared Lekota, urging SADC countries to ‘speak with one voice on the issue of the United States African Command, whose establishment will result in thousands of American soldiers being stationed in Africa’ (Financial Gazette 22.11.07). A recent meeting of the South Africa–Zimbabwe Joint Commission on Defence and Security stressed sharing information as a way of safeguarding themselves against the threat of regime change (iAfrica.com 15.11.07).

Conclusion Over the last seven years, Zimbabwe’s military has steadily re-entered the public sphere, blurring the line between military and civilian spaces. This creeping back of the military into the public sphere has been aided by the unique position of Zimbabwe as one of very few ex-colonial dependencies where the guerrilla army of the liberation struggle swept into power and formed the bulk of the praetorian guard. Further, Zimbabwe’s soldiery

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has been at the forefront of the struggle against colonialism and racism in southern Africa, and peacekeeping in Africa’s troubled spots. In addition to strong bonds created with key regional military powers such as Angola and Namibia, Zimbabwe’s military is one of the pillars of the emerging regional security architecture within the SADC. This simple reality has framed the possibilities and limits of quiet diplomacy. In essence, South Africa has always had two options in relation to Zimbabwe. The first is a forceful unilateral approach driven by notions of militarism, including sanctions, coercion and public condemnation. This could potentially reinforce the role of Zimbabwe’s military which is already intensely involved in politics. South Africa’s experience during the Lesotho invasion reveals the potential condemnation and isolation South Africa could face in the region, reviving the history of apartheid militarism, should it follow this path. Moreover, a military approach could possibly trigger counter-military alliances to neutralise perceptions of Pretoria’s threat to the wider region, perhaps involving powers like Angola and Namibia with which Zimbabwe has a mutual defence pact. This would roll back the gains South Africa has made in the last decade or so in consolidating its African leadership and integrating its own military regionally within the SADC and more broadly within the AU. The second is entrenching quiet diplomacy. South Africa’s efforts to resolve the Zimbabwean situation between 2004 and 2005 by encouraging bilateral mediation between the opposition groupings and Zanu-PF failed due to sensitivities relating to Zimbabwe’s sovereignty. In March 2007, then President Mbeki was appointed as the SADC’s point man to mediate the talks multilaterally on behalf of the regional states. The SADC talks have been acclaimed as having the best chance of resolving the Zimbabwean situation. However, failure to sufficiently guarantee Zimbabwe’s security will mean a continued role for the military in public affairs. It does not matter how many rounds of mediation South Africa and its neighbours sponsor in Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe’s praetorian guards are likely to remain a feature of the country’s politics until the security and future of Zanu-PF is comprehensively addressed and their fears are allayed. The future of quiet diplomacy seems to lie in boldly confronting this military dilemma. For the Zimbabwe situation is not solely a political and economic crisis, as it is widely assumed. It is essentially a military challenge.

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Notes


1

Regarding the military, the 30 000 or so troops are divided into five Brigades and several special units such as the Presidential Guards, the Commandoes, the Parachute Regiment, the Armoured Cars Regiment, the Artillery Regiment and supporting Corps from Engineers, Signals, Training Academies (including the Regional Peacekeeping Training Centre and Staff College, Pay and Records, Medical, Logistics and Service Corps) as well as Chaplaincy. The units are located within the major towns of Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare and Masvingo, with battalions scattered after the integration of the 1980s within the rural areas of Karoi, Magunje, Mrewa, Gutu and Rusape, among others.

2 The National Party granted Woods, Smith and Conjwayo South African citizenship on 21 April 1994 to obligate the incoming ANC government to intervene on behalf of the men in the future. The five were granted presidential pardon in Zimbabwe in 2005, a decision communicated to South African intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils during the Joint Permanent Commission on Defence and Security in 2005.

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Contributors Che Ajulu Researcher, Institute for Global Dialogue, Johannesburg


Leslie Bank Associate Professor and Director of the Fort Hare Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Fort Hare Jonathan Carter Senior Research Manager, Policy Analysis Unit, Human Sciences Research Council Scarlett Cornelissen Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Stellenbosch Somadoda Fikeni Independent consultant, and social and political commentator/analyst Donald Gibson Director, Transnet Programme on Sustainable Development, Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria; and Principal Consultant, Sustainability Unit, SRK Consulting William M Gumede Research Fellow, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, University of the Witwatersrand David Hemson Research Director, Centre for Service Delivery, Human Sciences Research Council Thabisi Hoeane Lecturer, Department of Political and International Studies, Rhodes University Amina Ismail Senior Consultant, Sustainability Unit, SRK Consulting, Johannesburg

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Peter Kagwanja President, Africa Policy Institute, and former Research Director, Democracy and Governance Research Programme, Human Sciences Research Council Geci Karuri-Sebina Chief Research Manager, Centre for Service Delivery, Human Sciences Research Council


Darryll Kilian Principal Consultant, Sustainability Unit, SRK Consulting, Johannesburg Kwandiwe Kondlo Executive Director, Democracy and Governance Research Programme, Human Sciences Research Council Maia Matshikiza Consultant, Sustainability Unit, SRK Consulting, Johannesburg Thiven Reddy Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science, University of Cape Town Shaun Ruggunan PhD candidate, Programme for Industrial, Organisational and Labour Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal Martin Revayi Rupiya Senior Researcher, Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria Sampie Terreblanche Emeritus Professor, Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch

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Index


A Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (Asgisa) xxxvi, 151, 197–18 and anti-Mbeki rebellion 9 and the environment 193 ACDP (African Christian Democratic Party) 72–73 affirmative action 46, 108, 109–110, 124, 160, see also Black Economic Empowerment African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) 72–73 Africanism 60–61, 62, 76 see also African nationalism; pan-Africanism African National Congress (ANC) 1994 National Conference 40 1997 National Conference (Mafikeng) 38–41, 50 2002 National Conference (Stellenbosch) xxiii–xxiv, 47 2007 National Conference (Polokwane) see Polokwane conference 2007 National Policy Conference 50–52, 54–55 and Angola 316–317 appointment of mayors and premiers 42, 52, 20 armed struggle 68 and Azapo 46, 92–95, 98–99 and black consciousness 87–88, 89 branches 38, 40, 43–44, 49–50 candidates lists 41–43, 50–51 centralisation of power xx–xxi, 6–7, 41–51 and civil society 47 democratic transition xv–xvi, xxx–xxxiii, 3–4, 6, 113

and the developmental state xxiv, 123–124 and directors-general 45 economic denialism 112–113 Electoral Commission 50 elite consensus xvi–xx, xxviii ethnonationalism xviii–xx, xxx exile xx–xxi, 6–7 foreign policy xl–xli, 253–256, 270–271 gender parity 50 and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) 37, 46 judiciary, attacks on 27–28 leadership style 6–7 liberation movement to political party 35–41 and the Mass Democratic Movement 6 membership 15–16, 17fig National Democratic Revolution (NDR) 111–112 National Executive Council (NEC) xxix, 16–21, 38–47, 51–53 National General Council (NGC) 9, 38, 48, 49, 50, 51 National Working Committee xxix, 18–19, 39 and the New National Party 46 organisational redesign xxi–xxii, 35–41 and the PAC 46, 58, 63, 69 and pan-Africanism 74, 75–77 and parliament 39, 43, 50–51 and a patriotic front 93 policy formulation 39–40, 44–48, 54 and Sanco 40, 43–44 and the Soviet Union 37 state-society relations 113–115, 118

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Strategy and Tactics (2007) xxxvi, 111–112, 119 two centres of power 3–4, 21–24 Umkhonto we Sizwe 11 united front approach 46–47 Women’s League 11, 15, 22, 50 Youth League xxix, 8, 11, 12, 22, 320 and Zanu-PF 303, 309–310 and Zapu 309–310 see also Mbeki, Thabo; Mbeki, Thabo and Jacob Zuma; Polokwane conference (ANC National Conference 2007); tripartite alliance; Zuma, Jacob African nationalism xv–xvi, xxxi see also Africanism; pan-Africanism African People’s Convention xxxii, 75 African Renaissance xviii–xx, xxxix–xli, 75–77, 97, 254, 255 &fig PAC and 75–77 African Union (AU) 305–306 Ezulwini Consensus 287, 288fig Government xlii and peace 277 SADC Regional Peacekeeping Brigade 324–326 and UN Security Council reform 286–287, 288 &fig see also Organisation of African Unity Africom xlvi, 305, 326 air quality 187, 190 alcohol 206, 211, 219–221 Alexandra 206–207 al-Qaeda 298 ANC see African National Congress Anglo American Corporation 313–314 Angola and the DRC 257–258, 268, 312–314 and Mbeki 316 relations with South Africa 258, 259, 268, 325

and South Africa–Zimbabwe military relations 316–317, 325 Unita 258–259, 268, 316–317 see also Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) conflict Annan, Kofi 261 and reform of the UN Security Council 284 &fig, 285 apartheid 59 cost to neighbours 308 economic 124–126 military links with Rhodesia 307 and the PAC 60 ‘Total Military Strategy’ 307–308 urban planning 204, 205, 232–233 and the United Nations 279–282 APC (African People’s Convention) xxxii, 75 Apla 68–69 armed struggle ANC 68 PAC 59, 64, 66, 68–69, 71 Arusha agreement 264 Asgisa see Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa AU see African Union Aung San Suu Kyi 293–294 Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) xxxii, xxxiii, 27, 84 and the ANC 46, 92–95, 98–99 and the democratic transition 92–96 elections 93–96 history 86–92 and a patriotic front 93 Marxism 87, 91 Soweto uprising 86–87 see also black consciousness Azapo see Azanian People’s Organisation

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B backyard dwellers see Duncan Village backyard dwellers; shack dwellers Bantustans 208, 360 BC see Black Consciousness BCF (Black Consciousness Forum) 94 BCM see Black Consciousness BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) 108, 109, 117 Bemba, Jean Pierre 266–267 Biko, Steve Bantu 88–89, 91–92, 96, 99–100 Steve Biko Lecture 100 biodiversity 187, 188 &fig, 191 Black Consciousness (BC) xxx–xxiii, 84–85 and the ANC 87–89 in civil society 99–101 and class 88 formation 85–87 and the Freedom Charter 88 Mbeki and 96–99 in political culture after 1994 96–101 and the public 99–101 and students 89–91 see also Azapo; PAC Black Consciousness Forum (BCF) 94 Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) see black consciousness Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) 108, 109, 117 Black People’s Convention (BPC) 85–86 Blair, Tony xxiii, 325 Block, John 42 Boesak, Allan xviii Botha PW 307–308 Botswana and the Lesotho crisis 314–315 BPC (Black People’s Convention) 85–86 Breaking New Ground policy 204 Britain and Zimbabwe 62, 294, 325 Brundtland Report 178 Burundi

Arusha agreement 264 ethnic violence 262 Mandela as mediator 263–264 mediation 263–265 power-sharing 264–268, 271–272 Zuma as mediator 264 see also Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) conflict bush colleges 90 Bush, George W 296–297 business culture 117–120 Buthelezi, Chief Mangosuthu xxxiv, 26, 46 see also Inkatha Freedom Party

C Cape Town development goals 239fig flagship projects 240–241 urban internationalisation 237–238 Cape Town Routes Unlimited (CTRU) 240–241 capitalism see global capitalism; neoliberalism carbon dioxide emissions 183, 188 CBOs see civil society centralising of power xx, 6–7, 41–51 Chiluba, Frederick 259 China see People’s Republic of China civil society 47, 99–101, 113–115, 184 and the environment 196–16 civil unrest see protests climate change 188–189, 191–192 coalitions 99 Codesa 66–71 see also democratic transition (South Africa) colonialism 61–62, 98 communism (PAC) 63 see also socialism; South African Communist Party community-based organisations (CBOs) 114 see also civil society

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index

conflict resolution see peace diplomacy Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) 16, 22, 109 and the developmental state 155 economy 21 and GEAR and RDP 5 policy formulation 40–41, 46–51 see also tripartite alliance constitution see South African Constitution Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa) 66–71 see also democratic transition corporatism xxxvi, 113, 118, 124 see also neocorporatism corruption and state capacity 155, 158 Zuma 7, 28–29 Cosatu see Congress of South African Trade Unions; tripartite alliance Cronin, Jeremy xxiii, 109

D DA (Democratic Alliance) xxxiii–xxxiv, 25–26, 46, 72, 99 Darfur 277, 296 DBSA (Development Bank of Southern Africa) 116–117 DEAT (Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism) 178, 193–194 de Lille, Patricia xxxiv, 26, 74, 75 Democratic Alliance (DA) xxxiii–xxxiv, 25–26, 46, 72, 99 Democratic Party 72 see also Democratic Alliance Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) conflict 257 and Angola 257–259, 268, 312–314 Arusha agreement 264 and Burundi 262–263 democratic dispensation 266–267

eastern Congo 262–263, 267 ethnic violence 262 inter-Congolese dialogue (ICD) 261 Lusaka peace agreement 260 and Mandela 257, 260, 263 and Mbeki 260–261, 263 Mutual Defence Pact 312–314 and Namibia 312–314 power-sharing 266–267 and Rwanda 257, 259–262, 269 SADC military intervention 258–259, 312–314 South African mediation in 257–261, 267–272 and Tanzania 261, 263, 268–269 and Uganda 257, 259–260, 269, 312–314 and Zambia 259–260 and Zimbabwe 258–259, 268, 311–312 democratic transition (SA) 4, 66–71, 92–96, 153, 253–255, 281 see also negotiated settlement Department of Education 164–165 Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) 178, 193–194 Department of Housing 204 Department of Justice 157 Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) 193–194 Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) 186–187 Desai, Barney 66–67 developmental state xxiv, xxxv – xxxvii, 9, 109, 20 and the ANC 123–124 and the business culture 117–120 and centralised policy-making 45 factors affecting 116–122 and global capitalism 108, 109, 111, 113, 118–122, 152 and markets 121–122

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and Mbeki, rebellion against 9 public sector 117, 118, 152, 155–159 service delivery 155–157 state capacity 152, 154–155 see also state capacity; sustainable development Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) 116–117 diplomacy economic xl–xlii peace xxxix, 253–254, 256–257, 269–271 quiet xlii–xliii, 21, 303–304, 320–321, 327 see also foreign policy Direko, Winkie 42 DME (Department of Minerals and Energy) 193–194 Dockrat, Farhad and Junaid 298 dos Santos, Jose Eduardo 316 DRC see Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) conflict Duncan Village backyard dwellers alcohol 211, 219 expansion 207–208 feminisation of 213–218 forced removals 208 landlordism 205, 207–212 patriarchy 211, 219–221 population 207–209, 213–214 selection of tenants 211–212 street committees 209–210 women 206, 209, 211, 213–218 yard-level political structures 207 see also women and backyard dwelling; under yard Duncan Village Residents’ Association 208, 209–210 Durban Investment Promotion Agency 242– 243&fig see also eThekwini DWAF (Department of Water Affairs and Forestry) 186–187

E ecological footprint 181, 182–183, 195–7 economic development see developmental state; sustainable development economic diplomacy xl–xlii economy and civil society 113–115 denialism 112–113 energy-intensiveness 183 inequality 108–109 people-centred 110–113, 115 pre-1994 107 restructuring 108–110 see also developmental state; sustainable development ecosystem services 180, 181 &fig, 195–8 Egypt xlii, 276, 288–289 elections, national 4, 25–27, 71–74, 72fig, 93–94 electoral system 53 elite consensus xvi–xx, xxviii energy-intensiveness 183 entrepreneurialism 227, 228–229 environment 178–179 agriculture 183 air quality 187, 190 and Asgisa 193, 197–18 biodiversity 187, 188 &fig, 191 and civil society 196–16 carbon dioxide emissions 183, 188 climate change 188–189, 191–192 current state of 185–189, 191 drivers of change in 182–184 ecological footprint 181, 182–183, 195–7 ecosystem services 180, 181 &fig, 195–8 energy-intensiveness 183 governance of 183–184 greenhouse gases 188–189 and growth and development 189–192 land degradation 185 &fig, 186, 190–191

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index

and malaria 191–192 and mining 183, 186, 187, 193 National Environmental Management Act 179–180, 195–4 National Framework for Sustainable Development (NFSD) (DEAT 2006a) 178–179, 180, 192–194 and population change 182, 196–12 and poverty 182, 192 and primary economic sector 183, 193–194 South African Constitution 179, 195–3 Southern African Millennium Ecosystems Assessment (SafMA) 180–181 waste 189–190 water availability and quality 186–187, 190 see also sustainable development eThekwini development goals 239fig flagship projects 242–243 see also Durban ethnic violence Great Lakes region 262 ethnonationalism xv, xvii–xx, xxvi, xxx, xxxiv Ezulwini Consensus 287, 288fig

F Fanon, F 91 Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA) 46 FIFA World Cup 2010 240, 241, 242, 243–244 public criticism of plans 244 fiscal policy conservatism 153–154 maritime 138–142 and state capacity 153–154 flag of convenience (FOC) shipping 131–133, 134 &fig, 135 &fig, 136 fiscal policy 138–142 and labour 131–132, 137, 140–147

ship ownership 134 &fig, 135 &fig, 136–138 taxation 138–142 flagship projects of cities 238, 244 Cape Town 240–241 Durban 242–243 features and implications 243–246 Johannesburg 241–242 see also urban internationalisation floor-crossing 74–75 FOC see flag of convenience shipping forced removals 204–205 Duncan Village (East London) 208 foreign policy and Africa 253, 254, 255 &fig, 269–271 Angola 258, 259, 268, 325 economic cost 271 economic growth 254 factors inhibiting conflict management 256, 270–271 peace diplomacy 253–257 Lesotho invasion by SA 314–316 multilateralism 292, 315–316 SA hegemony 310, 311, 313–314 see also African Renaissance; Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) conflict; foreign policy and the United States; foreign policy and Zimbabwe; diplomacy; United Nations foreign policy and the United States 296–299 Africom xlvi, 305, 326 and Farhad and Junaid Dockrat 298 war on terror 278, 297–299 see also United Nations foreign policy and Zimbabwe 303–304 quiet diplomacy 303–304, 320–321, 327 spy saga 2004 321–322 see also Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) conflict; foreign policy and

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Africa; Zimbabwe and South Africa, military relations Freedom Charter xxii, 87–88, 115 Freedom Front/Freedom Front Plus 72


G Gadaffi, Muammar xlii Gambari, Prof Ibrahim 293, 294 Gauteng as global city region 237 Gautrain 241–242 GEAR see Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy gender 9, 12–13, 19–20, 50, 98, 216–218 see also patriarchy; women; women and backyard dwelling Ghana 61 global capitalism commercial shipping 131–136 and the developmental state 108, 109, 111, 113, 118–122, 152 and the state 136 and urban governance 227–228, 229–235, 244 see also neo-liberalism global hegemony xlvi multilateralism 275–276, 278, 279, 290– 291, 292 unilateralism 276, 277, 279 global hegemony of US 120, 277–278 Godi, Themba 75 grants xxxv, 116, 156, 157, 172 see also social security Great Lakes crisis see Burundi; Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) conflict greenhouse gases 188–189 Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy xxii, 5 and anti-Mbeki rebellion 9 and state capacity 153–154, 163–164 and urban development 233

Gutto, Shadrack xxviii–xxix

H Hamill, James 76 Hani murder xxvii Harare Declaration on UN reform 286–287 hegemony 101, 278 black 91 South African 310, 311, 313–314 white 90 see also global hegemony Hogan, Barbara 43 Holomisa, Bantu xxxiv, 26 human capital consultancies 167–168 mobility 162 performance management systems 167, 170 state capacity 153, 160–162, 163–164, 166–168 see also skills Human Development Index 126 Human Rights Commission xxix

I ICD (Inter-Congolese dialogue) 261 ID (Independent Democrats) xxxiv, 26, 72, 74 IDP see Integrated Development Plans IFP see Inkatha Freedom Party imifino 217–218 imperialism see global hegemony Independent Democrats (ID) xxxiv, 26, 72, 74 informal housing see Duncan Village backyard dwellers (East London) Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) xxxiv, 26, 46, 72 and the ANC 37, 46 Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) 235–237 Cape Town 237–238

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index

JDA (Johannesburg Development Agency) 241–242&fig Johannesburg development goals 239fig flagship projects 241–242 urban internationalisation 236–237 Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) 241–242&fig Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) 180, 195–6 Joint Operations Command (JOC) 318–319

degradation 185 &fig, 186, 190–191 and the PAC 69–71, 77 whites in Zimbabwe 318, 320 landlordism 205, 207–212 Leballo, Potlako 63–64, 65 Lekota, Mosiuoa 314, 325–326 Lesotho invasion by SA 314–316 Katse Dam 315 PAC in 64 liberalism 85, 101 white 89–90 liberal peace 253 liberation movements to democratic parties xxx–xxxiii Liberia 132–133 Likotsi, Mofihli 75 Local Development Forums 40 local government 42 Lusaka peace agreement 260

K

M

Kabila, Joseph 260–261, 267, 268, 314 see also Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) conflict Kabila, Laurent 257, 260, 268, 314 see also Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) conflict Kagame, Paul 260, 261, 269 see also Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) conflict Kasrils, Ronnie 298 Katse Dam massacre 315 Kaunda, Kenneth xxiii Kumalo, Dumisani 292–293, 294

Macozoma, Saki 9 Magashule, Ace 42 Makwetu, Clarence 60, 73 malaria 191–192 Malema, Julius xxix, 27 Mandela, Nelson xviii, xxv, xxxviii, xxxix on apartheid destabilisation 310 black consciousness 100 democratic tranformation 37 on George W. Bush 297 mediation in Burundi 263–264 mediation in DRC 257, 260, 263 and Mugabe 311, 313 and nation-building 37 parliament 39, 45 and the SADC 310–311, 313, 314 social policy 110, 118 succession xxiii

Johannesburg 236–237 inter-Congolese dialogue (ICD) 261 intergovernmental communication 170–171 internationalisation see urban internationalisation international relations see foreign policy Iraq war 279, 304


J

L labour, shipping 131–132, 137, 140–147 training 144–147 land

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and the United Nations 281, 282 and the war in Iraq 297 Manuel, Trevor 303–304 maritime fiscal policy 138–142 maritime taxation policy 132, 138–142, 144–145 market fundamentalism see neo-liberalism Marxism, Azapo 87, 91 Masethla, Billy 8, 9, 32–9 Masondo, Amos 42 Mayekiso, Moses 206 Mbeki, Govan xxiii Mbeki, Thabo as ‘activist president’ xvii African Renaissance xviii–xx, 75–76, 254 ANC from liberation movement to political party 35–41 and Angola 316 appointment of mayors and premiers 42, 52 and Black Consciousness 96–99 centralisation of power xx, 6–7, 41–51 as CEO 44 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) conflict 260–261, 263 and directors-general 45 economics 110–111 ethnonationalism xviii–xx foreign policy 254 and GEAR 6, 9 and global apartheid 121–122 Govan Mbeki burial xxiii ‘I am an African’ speech 75–76, 97 leadership style xxi, xxiii, xxv, 5–6, 7–8, 51–55, 115 marginalisation of opponents 51 and nation-building 37 and parliament 43, 45, 115 policy formulation 39–40, 44–46

and popular participation in government 115 and presidential working groups 45 and RDP 5 rebellion against 7–10 social policy 110 third term xxvi, xxviii and the tripartite alliance 5–8, 12 ‘Two nations’ speech 97, 98–99 Unauthorised: Thabo Mbeki. Documentary xxvii Mbeki, Thabo and Jacob Zuma 51–53 and ANC membership 15–16 ANC traditions, values xxvi–xxvii, 14 ANC Women’s League 15 candidates for presidency 13 characterisations of 8, 11 and the ‘elite consensus’ xxiv–xxv ethnicity xxvi, xxx, 13–14 expulsion of Zuma xxiv–xxv, 5, 7–8, 9, 21–22, 51 conspiracy claims xxv, xxvii, 8–9 Kgalema Motlanthe 13, 15 leadership contest 10–16 negative campaigning xxv, xxvii, 8–9, 12–13 Polokwane votes 17–19, 18fig rebellion against Mbeki 7–10 strategies in leadership contest xxvi–xxvii, 11–16, 19 ‘third way’ xxviii and the tripartite alliance xxii, 5–8, 12 and the two centres of power 3–4, 21–24 see also Polokwane Conference Mboweni, Tito 39 mining and the environment 183, 186, 187, 193 Mkapa, Benjamin 261 Mlambo, Johnson 64, 67 Mlambo-Ngcuka Phumzile 8–9

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index

Mnangagwa, Emerson 321, 322 Mobuto Sese Seko 257 Motlanthe, Kgalema xxviii, 13, 15, 23, 27, 44, 47 Motshekga, Mathole 42 Mphahlele, Letlapa 68, 77–78 Mugabe, Robert xx as chair of SADC OPDS 258–259, 311–312 and the Lesotho crisis 314–315 Mandela on 311, 313 SADC military intervention in DRC 258– 259, 312–314 see also under Zimbabwe Mujuru, Solomon 321, 322 multilateralism 275–276, 278, 279, 290–291, 292 multiracialism 60 municipalities and backyard dwellers 204 capacity 165–167 see also urban internationalisation Mutual Defence Pact 312–314 Myanmar 278, 292–294

N Nasrec Urban Development Framework 242 Namibia 312–314 National Democratic Revolution (NDR) 111–112 National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) 45 National Environmental Management Act 179–180, 195–4 National Framework for Sustainable Development (NFSD) (DEAT 2006) 178–179, 180, 192–194 nationalism, African xv–xvi, xxxi National Party/New National Party xxxiii, 46, 72

National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) 7, 8, 20 see also Scorpions National Spatial Development Perspective (NSDP)(Office of the President 2003) 234–235 nation-building xviii NDR (National Democratic Revolution) 111–112 negotiated settlement for SA 66–71, 92–96, 253–255 see also democratic transition neo-commUnitarianism 231–232 neo-corporatism 231–232 see also corporatism neo-liberalism 108, 109, 111, 113 and African Nationalism xix and the African Renaissance xviii and slum landlordism 203 and the tripartite alliance xxii and urban governance 227–228, 229–235, 244 see also; global capitalism neo-statism 231–232, 235 Netshitenzhe, Joel xxv, 35, 44, 45 New National Party/National Party xxxiii, 46, 72 NFSD (National Framework for Sustainable Development) (DEAT 2006) 178–179, 180, 192–194 Ngoma, N 311, 313 NGOs see civil society Ngcuka, Bulelani 7, 8–9 Nhlapo, Welile 261, 264, 268 Nigeria 288–290, 297 Nkrumah, Kwame xix, xliii, xlv, 61 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) see civil society non-racialism 60–62, 75–77 NPA (National Prosecuting Authority) 7, 8, 20 see also Scorpions

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NSDP (National Spatial Development Perspective)( Office of the President 2003) 234–235 Nyerere, Julius xix, xliii, 263, 264, 266, 268–269 Nzimande, Blade 49


O OAU see Organisation of African Unity OPDS (Organ for Politics, Defence and Security) (SADC) 258–259, 311–313, 317 Operation Murambatsvina (‘Restore Order’, Zimbabwe) 204–205, 319 Organ for Politics, Defence and Security (OPDS) (SADC) 258–259, 311–313, 317 Organisation of African Unity (OAU) xix, 62–63 Harare Declaration on UN reform 286– 287 and the PAC 65 and the United Nations 280–281, 286–287 see also African Union

P PAC see Pan-Africanist Congress Pahad, Aziz 298, 314, 321 pan-Africanism 60–61, 74, 75–77 see also Africanism Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) xxx–xxiii 1994 to the present 71–77, 26–27 African Renaissance and 75–77 and the ANC 46, 58, 61, 63, 69 anti-pass campaigns 59 Apla 68–69 armed struggle 59, 64, 66, 68–69, 71 and China 63 and communism 63 elections and 71–74 establishment 58–59

exile 61–66 floor-crossing and 74–75 and the freedom charter 69 future prospects 77–78 headquarters in Basutoland 64 ideological conflicts 65 land 69–71, 77 leadership conflicts 63–66, 77–78 marginalisation during democratic transition 66–71 and multi-racialism 58 non-racialism 60–62, 75–77 pan-Africanism 60–62, 74, 75–77 and a patriotic front 93 and the Soviet Union 63, 67 underfunding of 62–63 and whites 62 see also black consciousness parliament 23, 25 &fig, 39, 41, 43, 50–51, 159 Mbeki and 43, 45, 115 patriarchy 211, 219–221 see also gender; women peace diplomacy xxxix, 253–254, 256–257, 269–271 People’s Republic of China (PRC) 63 performance management systems 167, 170 Peters, Dipuo 42 Phama, Sabelo 68 Pheko, Motsoko 70, 74 Phosa, Mathews 42 Pikoli, Vusi xxvii Pokela, Nyathi 64 Polokwane conference (ANC National Conference 2007) xxviii–xxx, 3–4 African Renaissance xl, xli ANC Women’s League 11, 15, 22 ANC Youth League xxix, 8, 12, 22 attendance 16, 17fig build-up to 10–16 context 5–10

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index

Cosatu xxix, 8, 12, 22 democracy after 24–28 democratic transition 4 elections 17–19, 18fig GEAR and RDP 5 policies and resolutions 19–21 political intolerance 23–24 scenarios consequent to 28–30 succession race 10–11 tripartite alliance xxix, 5–8, 12, 22, 28–30 two centres of power 3–4, 21–24 see also Mbeki, Thabo and Jacob Zuma population change 182, 196–12 Poqo 64–65, 79–5 poverty 108–109, 111, 112, 182 and the environment 182, 192 urban 203, 204, 205 protests xxi, 297, 325 service delivery 52, 166, 173 provinces 42, 169, 170–171, 173–174 PSC (Public Service Commission) 155, 157, 158 public sector see state capacity Public Service Commission (PSC) 155, 157, 158

Q quiet diplomacy xlii–xliii, 21, 303–304, 320–321, 327

R Radebe, Jeff 44 Ramaphosa, Cyril xxv, xxviii, 38 Reader, Desmond 207 Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) xxii, 5, 9, 40, 75, 233 regionalism and the UN 276–277, 295–296 Regional Services Councils (RSCs) 245 RDP (Reconstruction and Development Programme) xxii, 5, 9, 40, 75, 233

rental market, informal 204, 211–212 Rhodesia 61–62, 307 see also Zimbabwe RSCs (Regional Services Councils) 245 Rwanda and the DRC 257, 259–261, 269, 312–314 ethnic violence 262 see also Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) conflict

S SACP see South African Communist Party SADC see Southern African Development Community SafMA (Southern African Millennium Ecosystems Assessment) 180–181 Safmarine 137–138, 143, 147 Samsa (South African Maritime Safety Authority) 139 Sanco (South African National Civic Organisation) 40, 43–44, 46 Sars (South African Revenue Service) 171 Saso (South African Students’ Organisation) 85–86, 89–90 Satawu (South African Transport and Allied Workers Union) 140, 145 Savimbi, Jonas 257, 259, 316–317 savings clubs 218 Scorpions 8, 20, 23, 28 September 11 attack 277, 279, 291, 297, 304 service delivery see state capacity, service delivery Sexwale, Tokyo xxviii shack dwellers 203–206 and neo-liberalism 203 see also Duncan Village backyard dwellers (East London) Shaik, Schabir 7 shipping see flag of convenience (FOC) shipping Sibeko, David 64, 65

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skills industry-specific skills 161 levies 145 mobility 161, 166 municipalities 166 public service 160–162, 165, 167–168 soft skills 161 vacancy levels 161 see also human capital Skills Development Fund 145 slum landlordism 203, 205, 207–208, 221–223 and street committees 209–211 and yard socialism 206–211 see also Duncan Village backyard dwellers Sobukwe, Mangaliso Robert 58, 63, 79–1 non-racialism and pan-Africanism 60–61 and whites in the struggle 62 socialism, Azapo 87, 91–92 Socialist Party of Azania (SOPA) xxxiii, 84, 89, 94 social security 116, 120, 156 Somalia 296 Sopa (Socialist Party of Azania) xxxiii, 84, 89, 94 South African Air Force 323–324 South African Communist Party (SACP) xxii, xxiii, 5, 29–30, 49, 49–51, 109 see also tripartite alliance South African Constitution xvii, 43, 93 and democratic governance 54 and metropolitan governance 166, 235, 245 and presidential succession 10–11 on the environment 179, 195–3 South African Human Development Report (UN) 109 South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) 139

South African merchant navy and global capitalism 131–136 South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) 40, 43–44, 46 South African Revenue Service (Sars) 171 South African Students’ Organisation (Saso) 85–86, 89–90 South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) 140, 145 Southall, R xx, xxv, xxvi, 316 Southern African Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (SafMA) 180–181 Southern African Development Community (SADC) xli and Africom 326 Declaration and Treaty 310–311 and the DRC 257–259, 295, 305, 310, 311–314 and Mandela 310–311, 313, 314 Mutual Defence Pact 312–314 Organ for Politics, Defence and Security (OPDS) 258–259, 311–313, 317 Regional Peace-keeping Brigade 324–326 South Africa and Zimbabwe 258–259, 305, 311–312, 317, 324–326 South Africa joins 310 South African hegemony 310, 311, 313–314 split over DRC 312–314 Soviet Union 63, 67 Soweto uprising 86–87 squatters see Duncan Village backyard dwellers (East London) state capacity accountability 158, 158 coherence 153, 169–170 consultancies 167–168 and corruption 155, 158 and the developmental state 152, 155–158 environmental governance 183–184

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index

and financial management 163 and fiscal conservatism 153–154 future trends 167–171 and GEAR 153–154, 163–164 and human capital 153, 160–162, 163–164, 166–168 indicators 153, 162–164 intergovernmental communication 170– 171, 172 municipal capacity 165–167 performance 158, 159, 170 planning systems and practices 164–165, 170 political will 158, 159, 172 private sector 168 provinces 169, 170–171, 173–174 reach and responsiveness 153, 167, 168–169 and service delivery 151–152, 154–158, 171–174 and transformation 153, 154, 156, 160–167 see also developmental state state sovereignty and the UN 275–276 Strategy and Tactics (ANC, 2007) xxxvi, 111–112, 119 street committees 209–210 and patriarchy 211 structural adjustment programmes 120 Sudan 277 sustainable development 178–182, 195–1 ecosystem services 180, 181 &fig models of 180 &fig National Environmental Management Act 179–180, 195–4 National Framework for Sustainable Development (NFSD) (DEAT 2006a) 178–179, 180, 192–194 Southern African Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (SafMA) 180–181 see also environment

T Taliban 298 Tambo, Oliver xxvi, 13 Tanzania and the DRC 261, 263, 268–269 taxation 156, 237, 245 maritime 132, 138–142, 144–145 TETA (Transport Education and Training Authority) 140, 141, 142, 144–145 Toure, Sekou 61 tourism 240–241 trade unions 46, 60 Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) 46 South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) 140, 145 see also Cosatu transition to democracy (SA) 4, 66–71, 92–96, 153, 253–255, 281 transformation determinants of change 154–160 drivers of change 160–167 and human capacity 160–162 indicators of capability 162–164 municipal capacity 165–167 planning systems 164–165 and state capacity 153, 154, 156, 160–167 targets 154, 157, 168, 173 Transport Education and Training Authority (TETA) 140, 141, 142, 144–145 tripartite alliance ANC 1997 National Conference (Mafikeng) 40–41 and Mbeki 5–8, 12 opposition to ANC reforms 35, 43–44, xxii–xxiii organisational redesign 46–51 policy formulation 40–41, 46–48 Polokwane conference xxix, 5–8, 12, 22, 28–30 Tshabalala-Msimang, Manto xxvii

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Tutu, Desmond 101, 293 two centres of power 3–4 ‘two nations’ xvi, xxxv, 108–109


U UDF (United Democratic Front) xviii, xxi, 40, 86, 94–95 UDM (United Democratic Movement) xxxiv, 26, 72 Uganda and the DRC 257, 259–261, 269, 312–314 ethnic violence 262 Umkhonto we Sizwe 11 Unauthorised: Thabo Mbeki. Documentary xxvii unemployment xxxv, 5, 29, 70, 112, 120, 128–10 unicities 233 Unicorn Shipping 134 &fig, 135 &fig, 137– 138, 144 unilateralism 276, 277, 279 UNITA 258, 259, 316–317 United Democratic Front (UDF) xviii, xxi, 40, 86, 94–95 United Democratic Movement (UDM) xxxiv, 26, 72 United Nations (UN) and apartheid 279–282 and Mandela 281, 282 and multilateralism 275–276, 278, 279, 290–291, 292 and the OAU 280–281 sanctions against SA 280 South African Human Development Report 109 United Nations Human Rights Council 293 United Nations Security Council (UNSC), South Africa and 275, 299 Africa 285–289, 288 &fig

African nations competing for seats 288–289 African Union and reform 286–287, 288 &fig Annan’s plan for expansion 284 &fig, 285 and apartheid 279–282 criticism of the Council 283 and Darfur 296 and democracy 283 and hegemony 276–278, 291–292 In Larger Freedom plan 284–286 and multilateralism 275–276, 278, 279, 290–291, 292 and the Myanmar vote 278, 292–294 and the Organisation of African Unity 280 and the reform debate 283–290 and regionalism 276–277, 295–296 South Africa and the reform debate 285–286 South Africa and the US 296–297 South Africa in the Council 290–296 and state sovereignty 275–277 and unilateralism 276, 277, 279 veto system xx, 283, 286–287, 288–290, 297 and voting on sanctions 278 and the war on terror 297–299 and the Zimbabwe vote 278, 294–295 United States of America xiv African Command (Africom) xlvi, 305, 326 empire 120–121 global hegemony 121, 277 and SA foreign policy 296–297 war in Iraq 297 war on terror 278, 297–299 UNSC see United Nations Security Council urban development balancing growth and socio-economic needs 244–245 flagship projects 238–243

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index

goals 239fig implications of plans 243–246 legislative context 245–246 urban governance 226–228 apartheid 204, 205, 232–233 entrepreneurialism 227, 228 Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) 235–237 legislation 233–234 national policy goals 227 National Spatial Development Perspective (NSDP) 234–235 political economy 229–230 unicities 233 urban hierarchies 233–234 world/global city discourse 230–231 urban internationalisation 227–228, 246–247 aspirationist 230–231 Cape Town 237–238 entrepreneurialism 227, 228–229 features and implications 243–246 institutional vehicles and partnerships 238–243 Johannesburg 236–237, 241–242 legislative context 245–246 theoretical perspectives 228–232 see also flagship projects urbanisation 196–12 see also Duncan Village backyard dwellers urban poor 203, 204, 205

V Vavi, Zwelinzima xxix, 27

W ward system 38, 43 war on terror 278, 297–299 water availability and quality 186–187, 190 piped to homes 156

whites xxxiii seizure of land in Zimbabwe 318, 320 economic power 124–126 liberalism 90, 101 and the PAC 62 South Africa and Zimbabwe 307–308, 311–312, 319, 320 in South African military 311–312 women ANC Women’s League 11, 15, 22, 50 patriarchy 211, 219–221 see also gender women and backyard dwelling 206 alcohol 206, 211, 219–221 cooking and cleaning 215, 217–218 demographics 213–214 imifino 217–218 landladies and young men 220–221 migration 209 paraffin as gendered commodity 216–218 patriarchy 211, 219–221 savings clubs 218 single mothers 206, 222 social networks 216–218 thrift 216–217 world/global city discourse 230–231

Y ‘yard capitalism’ 205 yard committees 206–207 ‘yard socialism’ 205, 209–218, 221–222 and slumlords 206–211 see also Duncan Village backyard dwellers; women and backyard dwelling yard upgrading policies 222

Z Zambia 259, 260 see also Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) conflict Zanu 307, 309–310, 318

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Zanu-PF xliii, xliv, 303, 309–310, 317–319 Zapu 309–310 Zille, Helen xxxiv, 46 Zimbabwe xliii–xliv and Angola 316–317, 325 Britain and 294–295, 325 in the DRC 258–259, 268, 311–312 Operation Murambatsvina (‘Restore Order’) 204–205, 318 quiet diplomacy xlii–xliii, 21, 303–304, 320–321, 327 seizure of white-owned land 319, 320 South Africa’s vote in the UN 294–295 United Nations Security Council 278, 294–295 Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu) 307, 309–310, 318 Zimbabwe African National Union-PF (ZanuPF) xliii, xliv, 303, 309–310, 317–319 Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) 309–310 Zimbabwe and South Africa, military relations 304–307 and Africom 305, 326 Angola 316–317, 325 apartheid military links with Rhodesia 307 and apartheid’s ‘Total Military Strategy’ 307–308 Congo crisis 312–314 co-operation 305 Joint Permanent Commission on Defence and Security 322–323

Lesotho crisis 314–316 post-1994 310–326 quiet diplomacy xlii–xliii, 21, 303–304, 320–321, 327 SADC OPDS 311–312 SADC Regional Peacekeeping Brigade 324–326 spy saga 2004 321–322 training SA’s air force 323–324 ‘white’ and ‘black’ blocks 307–308, 311–312 Zanu, Zapu and the ANC 309–310 see also Zanu; Zanu-PF; Zapu Zimbabwe military 304–306, 317–318 ‘creeping coup’ 317–319 desertions and mutinies 320 Joint Operations Command (JOC) 318– 319 military meltdown 319–320 Zuma, Jacob as ANC deputy president 51–52 branding of 8 conspiracy claims 8–9 on the constitution 43 corruption trial 7, 28–29 ethnicity xviii expulsion xxiv–xxv, 5, 7–8, 9, 21–22, 51 and Mbeki 7–11, 43, 51–53 mediation in Burundi 264 rape trial 9 and the two centres of power 3–4, 21–24 see also Mbeki, Thabo and Jacob Zuma

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