{"id":12367,"date":"2024-05-19T14:00:26","date_gmt":"2024-05-19T11:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ch.jfdi.cc\/?p=12367"},"modified":"2024-05-19T14:00:26","modified_gmt":"2024-05-19T11:00:26","slug":"south-african-election-the-fall-of-the-anc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ch.jfdi.cc\/?p=12367","title":{"rendered":"South African election: the fall of the ANC"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cThe old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born,\u201d wrote Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci in 1929. \u201cNow is the time of monsters.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Gramsci\u2019s remark is being liberally quoted by South African journalists in the run-up to the election on 29 May, for the old world in which the African National Congress completely dominated the country\u2019s politics is definitely coming to an end. For the first time since the end of apartheid, the ANC\u2019s share of the vote will fall below 50 per cent.
\nUnfortunately, the decline of the party that ended white minority rule in South Africa has not led to the emergence of big new parties with big new ideas. It\u2019s just the same old parties with the same old ideas.
\nThirty years on from the end of apartheid, the country\u2019s official unemployment figure is 32 per cent. More than three-fifths of South Africans live in poverty. The World Bank says that it is Africa\u2019s most developed country, but also its most unequal \u2013 and the inequality is still colour-coded.
\nEven when the ANC tries to do something right, it gets it wrong. One-quarter of the country\u2019s farmland is now owned by black South Africans, for example, up from 10 per cent at the end of apartheid \u2013 but both productivity and employment on those farms have crashed because the new owners lack capital to invest in them and the skills to run them.
\nFor nine years (2009-2018), when Jacob Zuma was president of South Africa and of the ANC, the country was in the hands of genuine thieves pursuing a project of \u2018state capture\u2019. Billions of rands were stolen, public institutions were subverted and state-owned companies were pillaged \u2013 and in the end Zuma spent two months in jail.
\nZuma has now founded a new party, uMkhonto we Sizwe, which will attract enough Zulu votes in the forthcoming election to guarantee that the ANC doesn\u2019t just fail to win half the votes; it will crash to around 40 per cent.\u00a0 (He\u2019s 82, but he wants revenge.) The Democratic Alliance (DA) is at 22 per cent, and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) at 11.5 per cent.
\nThe socialist ANC is riddled with corruption and nepotism, the centre-right DA is a safe haven for most white voters and many middle-class blacks, and the \u2018Marxist-Leninist\u2019 EFF are pantomime radicals whose \u2018firebrand\u2019 leader, Julius Malema, makes an unconvincing monster. If this is the \u2018new world\u2019 struggling to be born, it is deeply unimpressive.
\nEFF members of parliament wear identical red boiler suits and Malema usually wears a red Che Guevara-style beret. He talks boldly about nationalising the banks and the mines, and his line on land reform and white farmers is a real attention-getter: \u201cWe are not calling for the slaughtering of white people. At least for now.\u201d
\nBut that sort of bloodcurdling rhetoric has a strictly limited appeal, and the EFF is not polling any higher than it did in the last election. Malema\u2019s best chance of gaining a share of power lies not in revolution but as a junior partner (at least at first) in coalition with the ANC he affects to despise.
\nHe even acknowledges his real game plan publicly from time to time, albeit in his usual aggressive language: \u201cWe are going to kiss a lot of frogs along the way [to power]. We are patient. The ANC is not a small organisation. You have to eat it bit by bit.\u201d
\nIt\u2019s a plausible strategy, given how tattered and exhausted the ANC is, but by the time Malema becomes president (if he ever does) he may have mellowed a great deal more. In lifestyle, he is already as far from the people he claims to represent as the most privileged ANC \u2018comrade\u2019, although he can certainly talk the talk.
\nAs for the possibility of reform within the ANC, it\u2019s probably too late for that. Cyril Ramaphosa, president since 2018, was seen as the party\u2019s last, best hope, but he has made little headway against the local party barons who have carved up the economy between them. He is also now beset by accusations of corruption himself.
\nAnd yet, it\u2019s too soon to write off South Africa as a failed state. The economy is a wreck, but the resources are still there. The schools are atrocious, but enough children succeed to make it one of the better educated countries in Africa. The violence touches almost everybody one way or another, but people carry on regardless.
\nThe \u2018thirty lost years\u2019 were probably inevitable. Those who fought for South Africa\u2018s freedom in the ANC were only human, they made great sacrifices, and after victory they felt entitled to some reward.\u00a0 Later recruits to the ANC just followed their example.
\nThat has to end sometime. This is one of those inflection points when change becomes possible. It could happen.<\/p>\n

Gwynne\u00a0Dyer\u2019s new book is Intervention Earth: Life-Saving Ideas from the World\u2019s Climate Engineers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

– The African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa is facing a decline in support and is expected to receive less than 50% of the vote in the upcoming election.
\n– The decline of the ANC has not led to the emergence of new parties with new ideas, but rather the same old parties with the same old ideas.
\n– South Africa remains a country with high levels of poverty and inequality, with official unemployment at 32%.
\n– Former president Jacob Zuma has founded a new party that is expected to attract Zulu votes and further decrease the ANC’s support.
\n– The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, led by Julius Malema, is polling at 11.5% and has a radical platform that includes nationalizing banks and mines.
\n– Malema’s best chance of gaining power may be through a coalition with the ANC.
\n– Despite challenges, South Africa still has resources and potential for change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12368,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[589,6134,10513,1972,1902,611,8591,2134,3348,5292,1793,33,6196,295,8581,3,10263,2190,1992,26,1600,4721,27,407,8903,250,3330,7177,4407,959,2828,4691,2667,3755,2121,7633,10478,148,387,3331,4941,1799,7378,5328,4628,301,323,1004,4843,5957,4753,10377,133,317,7967,6001,1358,1026,7393,31,4560,134,1774,1379,457,6305,18,846],"class_list":["post-12367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-africa","tag-alliance","tag-anc","tag-appeal","tag-bank","tag-banks","tag-book","tag-challenges","tag-change","tag-children","tag-coalition","tag-companies","tag-congress","tag-corruption","tag-crash","tag-cyprus","tag-cyprus-mail","tag-decline","tag-decrease","tag-economy","tag-election","tag-emergence","tag-employment","tag-farmers","tag-follow","tag-google","tag-google-news","tag-guarantee","tag-hope","tag-inequality","tag-institutions","tag-intervention","tag-jail","tag-journalists","tag-land","tag-lies","tag-lifestyle","tag-local","tag-lost","tag-news","tag-organisation","tag-parliament","tag-parties","tag-party","tag-political-parties","tag-politics","tag-poverty","tag-power","tag-president","tag-productivity","tag-project","tag-revenge","tag-schools","tag-south-africa","tag-state","tag-struggling","tag-support","tag-talks","tag-thieves","tag-unemployment","tag-victory","tag-violence","tag-vote","tag-voters","tag-white","tag-who","tag-world","tag-world-bank"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\nSouth African election: the fall of the ANC<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"election. 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