Thinking about what comes next

By R.W. Johnson

There is a surreal silence at the moment where there ought to be motion, noise and action. Trump’s tariffs on South African goods are due to come into effect on 1 August, and there is absolutely no sign that the government is doing anything about it. The SA embassy in Washington has had no ambassador for nearly five months now. Moreover, Ramaphosa’s envoy, Mcibisi Jonas, is unacceptable to the US, can’t get a diplomatic visa, and hasn’t been seen for months. And there is no sign of action at the Pretoria end.

All the signs are that the government is sleepwalking into a huge disaster which could cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, create a recession and produce an existential crisis for the South African Treasury. For the Treasury could then find that the consequent collapse in tax receipts would mean that it lacks the money to pay the interest of South Africa’s huge debt. If that happened South Africa would default, we would have to run to the IMF for help, and the price of that help (if indeed we got it, a decision which depends on the US) would be the abandonment of a large number of the ANC’s economic policies. Such a denouement might well bring the collapse of the government.

It’s possible that Ramaphosa is paralysed by fright or that he simply doesn’t understand the economics of the crisis, but it’s also possible that he is dithering because he doesn’t know what to do and because delay and inaction are, so to speak, his normal response. He knows, after all, that Trump demands an end to BEE at least for American companies and the repeal of the Expropriation Act.

Ramaphosa is doubtless scared of asking the ANC national executive to carry out those demands, let alone such further demands as denouncing the “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer” chant. The Constitutional Court has made this last demand that much harder by recently decreeing that this lynching song is not a lynching song after all. If you allow the ANC Deployment Committee to choose your judges, you are bound to get some pretty wacky judgements.

For Ramaphosa, there is an extra personal dimension. He has always hero-worshipped Mandela and has, mistakenly, attempted to recreate Mandela’s conciliatory and consensus-seeking style into a period which demanded sharp and clear executive action. Now he must sense that not only has he led the ANC into losing its majority, but that he may soon be presiding over the fall of the House That Nelson Built. Presidents like to think of the legacy they leave, but there is no legacy that Ramaphosa would like less.

There is, however, no need for personal anguish. The ANC has been failing for a long time, long before Ramaphosa became president. Looking back, key decisions included Mbeki’s decision to Africanise the civil service, which broke the back of the state, and when Eskom warned that new power stations were essential, Mbeki responded by forbidding Eskom to build any new stations and then making the terms so unattractive that no one in the private sector wanted to build any either. The crippling of South Africa’s industries through power cuts followed.

BEE was another fatal Mbeki step, as was his support for Mugabe, thus guaranteeing the failure of NEPAD. Then came the years of Zuma’s looting, state capture and the destruction of key institutions.  Ramaphosa promised much but has done little and the downwards trend has simply continued. In all the years since 1910 Ramaphosa is the weakest chief executive the country has ever had.

The signs are clear that the ANC is near its end. The party has lost a third of its members in the last three years. The main candidates to succeed Ramaphosa, Mashatile and Mbabula, are both men of poor reputation and little popular appeal. Corruption is present at every level of the state, and Ramaphosa refuses to sack even those cabinet ministers quite publicly caught in corruption.

Johannesburg, the country’s main city, is tottering on the brink of ruin. The ability of the state – at national, provincial and municipal level – to deliver necessary services is in headlong decline. Both the police and the armed services are dubious quantities. There are worrying signs of a return to tribalism in many parts of the national life.

The question increasingly is not whether the ANC will fail, but what comes after the ANC’s failure ? Much depends on how the failure occurs. Given that so much in contracts, patronage and tenders depends on control of the local and national state, the first thing to worry about is the temptation to rig or subvert the municipal elections of 2026/7 and the national elections of 2029. We have already seen the iron determination of the ANC to continue acting as if it is the majority party, irrespective of the actual election result. But if the pre-election polls show a further drop in ANC support the temptation to rig the election result could become overwhelming.

One should remember that criminal mafias feed off government patronage in various ways and that they will have a direct interest in ensuring that their government allies remain in government. It is doubtful if the IEC – which has always been honeycombed by ANC appointees – is sufficient protection against the possible attempts to subvert elections.

But it’s possible that a weakened ANC might just fall apart under the weight of a major challenge. Imagine, for example, if the IMF is called in to rescue South Africa from default and its conditions include the abolition of BEE, the repeal of the Expropriation Act, the liberalisation of the labour laws and the privatisation of key SOEs. (The last two measures would alone largely destroy Cosatu and the SACP.) The ANC would almost certainly split into factions for and against such measures but since the situation was so dire doubtless some sort of temporary majority would be patched together to vote the package through.

But by then the ANC would barely exist. It is possible that some of the ANC hard-liners would appeal to their BRICS partners, China and Russia, to come to their aid but it is impossible to know how they would react, particularly since that might produce a strong Western response.

Perhaps more likely is simply a continued ANC decline. Whether Mashatile or Mbalula succeeds they will have little authority and the ANC’s writ will no longer run in many parts of the country. South Africa is more and more a country of five large cities and the key question will be who controls them. However, under most scenarios there will no longer be a majority party or even an easily constructed majority coalition. In the last election the EFF and MKP won nearly 25% of the vote, the DA might get 20-25% and the ANC will presumably get 25-30%, though one should expect turnout to keep falling.

With the state already so weak, a political situation in which there is no majority (and even with a coalition there might be only a very narrow majority), is tailor-made for even weaker government. There is clearly a danger of a descent into chaos with shifting coalitions at national and provincial level. Already in cities like Jo’burg and Durban the breakdown of services has seen the rise of angry community groups determined to take matters into their own hands.

Several things stand out about this situation. The first is that as party government becomes weaker the role played by criminal mafias/business forums/taxi associations will become more prominent. These groups command significant resources, are well connected and are willing to use force. Typically they have already carved out profitable niches for themselves and they will want to protect – and possibly expand – them at almost any cost. The speed with which the mafia controlling water tankers has become a significant force in areas hit by water shortages is a pointer to the mushrooming possibilities for gang rule.

Local communities will, of course, resist gang rule. The riots of 2021 give a pointer. Very quickly armed community groups came into existence in urban KwaZulu-Natal, aiming to protect their local areas (and their shops) against looting mobs. The Indian community – especially its Muslims – were often particularly effective. Should chaos descend one would expect the same urban protection militias to play a major role. Primarily these would involve white and Indian people. They have more resources of all kinds and can communicate effectively, using the internet and cell phones. A great deal would depend on Solidarity/Afriforum, the civil organisation with the most followers. It is well organised and has a strong sense of community cohesion.

Thirdly, as central rule collapses power will flow to whichever local elements are best organised and most able to fill the vacuum. For example, in the Western Cape there is an effective and well organised DA leadership both at provincial and municipal level. It would not be difficult for them to take on extra powers and functions. This might not lead to secession but in effect the Western Cape would in any case become more autonomous.

Other provinces lack such a clear-cut successor elite but in the rural provinces there would probably be a tendency for the dominant tribal groups to become more prominent. Almost certainly that would also be true in KwaZulu-Natal. But the key everywhere will be who controls the big cities. The white population will again be of critical importance because it is concentrated in those cities and is likely to be better organised and resourced than other communities. For example, the white population of Pretoria/Tshwane may not be a majority but it would be likely to prevail because it is so much better organised and resourced than the multitude of poor Africans living in squatter camps. And, very quickly, whichever groups can guarantee law and order and a peaceful existence would gain the consent or at least acquiescence of other groups.

Thus the breakdown of the present order and a “descent into chaos” would likely have the paradoxical result of increasing the rule by white elites in key parts of South Africa. This would emphatically not mean the return of apartheid or anything like it since the whites would need to garner as much support from other communities as possible and their ruling coalitions would have to be multiracial. In much of South Africa these white-led coalitions would then find themselves facing off against their principal opponents, the various criminal mafias.

The 1996 Constitution would, of course, be an early casualty of such developments. The difficulty over a new constitution would be that if law and order had been restored it would be because, in Hobbesian terms, a new sovereign (ruling authority) had arisen thanks to its ability to restore law and order and guarantee the peace – and not because it had a democratic majority. Nonetheless, the population at large might well acquiesce to rule by the new sovereign: the desire for “a South Africa that works” could well be strong enough to overcome racial or democratic misgivings. For the struggle facing that new sovereign would be that which Abraham Lincoln faced in 1860: how to hold together a badly fractured country. If Lincoln had failed America would have broken up into several different countries – but he won and preserved the Union. Similarly, if our new sovereign prevails South Africa will remain one country. Failure would mean a break-up into its constituent parts.

In many ways our current situation resembles that of the late 1980s when the ruling Nationalist government had clearly run its course and its particular ideology (apartheid) had been found wanting. Today, a successor nationalist movement has also run its course and its ideology – reflected in today’s economic and governance shambles – has also been found wanting. Last time we were lucky enough to have De Klerk – a president still fully in command of the situation who was nonetheless willing to reverse course and facilitate the emergence of a new order.

We will clearly not have such luck twice: the president now is far less than fully in command, and shows no sign of De Klerk’s selfless commitment to the national interest. Also, in 1990 the alternative to Nationalist rule was obvious – a handover to a democratic African majority. There is no such obvious alternative now, and it is more likely that our new form of government will emerge pragmatically from the struggles born from “the descent into chaos”.

FEATURED IMAGE: The container terminal in Durban Harbour. Exports to the US are hanging in the balance.  (Wikimedia Commons)