What SA can learn from the last 30 years

Globally, strong political parties are losing power to multiparty systems, causing initial uncertainty but benefiting diverse populations like South Africa. The 2024 elections reduced the ANC’s dominance, necessitating co-governance. However, corruption and unethical practices persist. For true change, systemic reviews of policies and electoral acts are essential to prevent future abuses.

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By Solly Moeng

There seems to be a general global trend consisting of previously strong, longstanding, political parties losing elections – or having their hold on power significantly weakened electorally – in favour of multiparty/multi-voice alternatives. While the phenomenon often presents initial periods of uncertainty over how to move forward without the once dominant party making all the key decisions and continuing to impose its narrative and failed policies, this is a particularly good trend, especially in countries with diverse population groups, such as South Africa. 

History has shown repeatedly that majorities are not always right, especially in cases where the rights of minorities must be protected, and their voices allowed a secured space at the table where major decisions are taken. The long-held practice of ‘winners take all/ zero sum games’ is not sustainable, as it is always just a matter of time before the tables are turned and the previous dominated become the new dominant and give in to the urge to do unto the former dominant what they did unto them. Even late Russian President Boris Yeltsin, no particular hero of mine, once said that one “can build a throne with bayonets, but one could not sit on it forever” without, I allow myself to add, having to occasionally glance over their shoulders.     

In the case of South Africa, it should be expected that supporters of the once dominant party, the African National Congress (ANC), struggle at first to embrace the changed reality, following the 2024 general elections in which its previously held 57% of the votes in the national assembly were reduced to what is supposed to be a humbling 40%, forcing it to co-govern with others without trying to play ‘big brother’. 

Ironically, indications are also that even those who have been opposed to the ANC – including some people in the general populace – still need more time to get used to the changed, and changing, reality in which the ‘national democratic revolution’ induced socio-political parlance that had been paddled by the ANC and its Tripartite Alliance partners – the electorally untested South African Communist Party (SACP) and the perennially dubious Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), becomes a thing of the past. Many still refer to the ANC as the “ruling party”, not even the more correct “(mis)governing party” –  forgetting that rulers are found in monarchies, not in Constitutional democracies such as South Africa.  

Importantly, may people seem to forget that the 2024 elections were – and must remain – a lot more than about replacing the ANC with a different bunch of governing politicians, even if they come in the form of a special version of a “government of national unity” (GNU) that has been carefully carved by the ANC, no doubt with the aim of attempting to remain in control of South Africa’s vital policy making and national resources. The truth is that the 2024 election results are a clear indication that South Africans did not vote for continuity, or more of the same, or the same packaged in different, more diverse, colours. 

The irony of the emerging GNU reality is that the parties that, following invitation by and agreement with the ANC, got given a piece of the government pie, automatically lose their status as opposition parties. Some of them did not even obtain more that 0.8% of electoral support, yet they have walked away from these discussions, seemingly thanks to ANC generosity/acquiescence, with cushy government and parliamentary positions that will keep them too well-fed to cause trouble by remembering even their own electoral campaign messages.        

Whether these past opposition parties, now comfortably ensconced in the GNU, remember it or not, the past 20-30 years of ANC governance had been an ethical and material nightmare for South Africa. The opportunity cost of many years of corruption at all levels of government, from mid-level managerial, to senior, executive, and political levels, remains incalculable. Trillions of rands have been diverted from programs aimed at improving and sustaining lives, livelihoods, critical infrastructure and strategic state institutions into the pockets of private pockets, in many cases politically connected ones. Levels of arrogance and impunity have been high, ensuring that many still walk the streets, the corridors of Luthuli House (ANC Head Quarters) and now, the GNU parliamentary corridors and cabinet, even after the elections. A good number of them have already made their way into crucial parliamentary subcommittees and will influence core government agendas where it matters most. They have been turned into lawmakers.  

One should be forgiven for suspecting that all what some of the former opposition parties, or their leaders, wanted was just a piece of the pie – their time to eat (as we often say in South Africa) – for them to forget the cries of ordinary South Africans who voted for them.

Perhaps it is too early to tell, and that they must be given more time, but most of the early signs do not inspire confidence. So far, parties involved in the GNU nominated several individuals who have been adversely named in several corruption investigations and commissions, including the biggest of them all – the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture – to represent them in parliament, with at least one, former ANC minister, Zizi Kodwa, still on the court rolls for alleged corruption. 

The much abused “innocent until proven guilty” line and other technicalities continue to be used to defend the indefensible. To the South African political class, past and, sadly, present, anything goes, even if it is unethical, if nothing in law says it is wrong. This is an attitude that is no different from the one that drove past parliamentarians to use the cover of the notorious ‘ministerial handbook’ to go on international travel, motor vehicle, residential renovation, accommodation rental, etc., spending sprees amounting to billions of rands at the cost of the taxpayer and on the basis that such spending was allowed, even when it was unethical, especially in times of Covid and when the rest of the population was faced with existential hardships due to a perennially failing economy thanks to ill-conceived, misplaced, government policies.      

Ultimately, for change to reassure the much-abused South African population that it will never have to relive any of what went wrong over the past 30 years, it must include a systemic review of failed policies, processes, toxic deployment practices, etc., including the electoral act that still places more power in the hands of political bosses – ensuring that parliamentarians remain at the beck and call of political bosses often at the expense of voter constituencies. 

In a changed, post-ANC, multiparty South Africa, there must also be a systemic review of the powers invested in the presidency to avoid possible future abuse if a rogue person were to be elected to that office. The South African political landscape has several such potential rogues salivatingly roaming it.