267 - Elections: Voters Have Made Decisions of Enormous Consequence

South Africa

            Of the several real elections across the globe this spring, none are of greater significance than the ones that just took place in India, Mexico, and South Africa. India and South Africa both produced underwhelming results for their ruling parties, forcing the Bharatiya Janata Party  (BJP) and the African National Congress (ANC) into governing with partners.  Only Mexico's was decisive, electing a technocratic woman to cope with all of her country's woes. Today, I look closely at what is needed in South Africa. Next time, India and Mexico.

South Africa

            "Our people have spoken," announced South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday. "Whether we like it or not, they have spoken," he continued. "We must respect their choices and their wishes."  Ramaphosa was accepting South African voters' electorally cataclysmic judgment on his own failures of leadership and on the ruling ANC's ultimate malfeasance after thirty years in charge of service delivery and moral forfeiture of legitimacy. In the far beyond, President Nelson Mandela must be weeping, regretting profoundly that he foresaw the dangers of ANC arrogance as long ago as 1997, when he warned his successor as head of the ANC and putative president of the nation to avoid being "high handed" and corrupt.

            Unlike losers in U. S. elections, or former South African President Jacob Zuma's cries of foul and threats to cause mayhem because his own new party only polled 15 percent of the total vote on May 29, Ramaphosa staunchly has upheld the integrity of South Africa's electoral process even though his own party received just under 41 percent of the total vote, down from 58 percent in 2019. That low poll result, and Zuma's uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party's surprisingly high poll, reflected the continued appeal of Zuma, a Zulu, a glad-hander, and a convicted felon with a major corruption trial pending. Indeed, MK trounced the ANC in KwaZulu/Natal  by 45 percent to 18 percent -- a purely ethnic result.

            The official opposition in the 400-seat National Assembly (parliament) has long been the Democratic Alliance.  It won 22 percent of the votes, second in total to the ANC.  The vote also reaffirmed its control of Cape Town and the Cape Province.

            The parliamentary seat totals are ANC: 159 seats; DA, 87; MK, 58; Economic Freedom Fighters, 39; Inkatha Freedom Party (IKP) (also from KwaZulu/Natal), 17; the Popular Alliance (a white right wing front) 9; and the Freedom Front (a farther right wing white party), 6  -- plus a gaggle of  votes for 18 parties winning one or two seats. No registered independents (and there were many) won. Voter turnout was also greatly suppressed, at 59 percent, down from 66 percent in 2019 -- despite a larger population and many more potential voters. Clearly, voters were disgusted more than ever before by the ANC's incompetence and lack of transparency.

            The DA would be a natural coalition partner of the ANC in the new South African parliament. It could join the ANC both in governing and in reelecting Ramaphosa for a five-year presidential term (one of the Assembly's prerogatives). If such a pact of rivals were forged, the DA could (in theory at least) teach the ANC how to govern -- how to get results that the long-suffering South African people have sought. The ANC's executive meeting meets today to decide with which parties the ANC will dry to forge a coalition. Decisions must be made in parliament by June 16.

            For at least a decade, the ANC has failed to keep South Africa's lights on or to provide potable water. Crime rates have skyrocketed upward. Murders occur every day. Schooling accomplishments and medical services are meager. Promised housing is absent. Roads are full of potholes. Official formal unemployment is at a high of 32 percent but is probably closer to 50 percent. GDP growth is a paltry 0.7 percent. Inflation is running at 5 percent per year.

            Those are national failures to deliver political goods and estimable governance. The DA's reputation in Cape Town, and in the towns and cities where it controls of shares authority, is much more favorable. The DA could show the ANC how to get things done, and, critically, how to reduce the sabotage of corruption.

            But as of this writing, it is not clear that the ANC executive committee will let Ramaphosa link up with a party that is still considered a "white" party, albeit with mixed membership but with whites in the top positions. One possible coalition includes the DA, but leavens it with the addition of the IKP, a largely Zulu entity.

            The ANC's other choices are hardly palatable. Zuma was defrocked by the ANC in 2018 for wholesale corruption and for letting a trio of Indians "capture" the state in order to benefit them and Zuma's family.  Zuma wants revenge.  He would not be a friendly co-conspirator, even within a coalition tent.  The other breakaway party from the ANC is firebrand Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). It slumped a little from previous highs, gaining only 9 percent of the total vote. Conceivably, Ramaphosa could form a coalition with ten or more of tiny parties -- leaving out the bigger political machines.  But such a coalition would be inherently unstable and might not produce the kind of good governance that South Africa desperately requires.

            At the provincial level, where government political goods delivery is closer to constituents, there are stark differences among provinces. Coalitions will be required in Gauteng (the largest province surrounding Johannesburg and including Tshwane -- ex-Pretoria), KwaZulu/Natal despite the MK's sizable victory there, and in the thinly populated Northen Cape Province. The DA will continue to run the Cape Province. The ANC performed best in Limpopo Province, up against Zimbabwe, probably because Ramaphosa ethnically is from Limpopo.  Ethnicity is still very important in Africa and in South Africa, with MK's decisive showing in Zulu-dominated KwaZulu/Natal confirming that result.

            Presuming that the ANC persuades the DA or smaller parties to join it in governing South Africa going forward, it is clear that Ramaphosa must up his leadership attainments. He must be more decisive, much more ambitious and visionary about where he wants to take South Africa, and ruthless in cleaning house within the ANC.  The last is a tough demand, but the ANC's massive lapses of transparency, together with the legacy left by Zuma's trail of manifest corruption since at least 1995, have stained both the ANC and its nation.

            Unless Ramaphosa, very wealthy legitimately before becoming president, can cleanse the stables, the new ANC coalition will accomplish little. Unless it can turn the lights back on and provide drinking water, it will lose what is left of its popular support.  And it will fail to attract foreign investors.

            MK and EFF both advocate greater state control over the economy, amounting to enforced nationalization and intervention. But that would be suicidal in today's South Africa. Much better and much more productive will be energizing small- and medium-sized African entrepreneurial activities by getting infrastructural fundamentals right, and by attacking crime constantly. Most of all, Ramaphosa and South Africa need steadily to improve teaching and schooling. Southeast Asian nations became economic tigers through educational growth; South Africa needs now to follow suit.

            Ramaphosa and the ANC can learn thusly from Singapore and Malaysia.  But the test is going to be whether South Africa creates the most effective coalition and whether the ANC and its partners can truly produce meaningful governmental reforms. If not, South Africa will continue to sink while its peoples despair.