Those opposed to DA joining GNU warn, not unreasonably, that it could destroy the party
The faction of the ANC aligned with President Ramaphosa needs the DA to keep him in power. The DA needs to prevent our constitution unravelling. However, SA needs major policy pivots to dodge a downward spiral.
Ramaphosa could remain in power without DA support but his faction would then need to constantly be on the lookout for manoeuvres to oust him. Governance would suffer further undermining the president’s political clout.
Those opposed to the DA joining the GNU warn, not unreasonably, that it could destroy the party. On the other hand, we mustn’t casually presume legitimate elections will be held in 2029.
The ANC and its main offshoots, the EFF and the MK, are full of people who don’t favour constitutional constraints. Ramaphosa is an exception as his reputation is tied to his significant contribution toward negotiating and designing our constitution.
The DA’s campaigning to avoid “doomsday” scenarios emphasised the vital importance of keeping the EFF and MK out of national government. There are still many fully plausible scenarios where key constitutional protections rapidly erode.
If the GNU unravels and Ramaphosa is ousted from office, the path of least resistance would likely involve an ANC coalition with the EFF, along with one or two small parties, or the MK. The focus would not be on creating sustainable jobs or economic growth. Related coalitions would control provincial and municipal coalitions wherever possible.
The ANC, EFF and MK all seek power to direct public resources to benefit their large patronage networks. But, as ANC policies and practices have already pummelled economic growth and job creation prospects, the most ruthless are now advantaged – and this puts at risk constitutional protections, social cohesion and the rule of law.
That voters identify jobs as their top priority is not a problem for those who instigated the July 2021 riot, which Ramaphosa labelled an “attempted insurrection.” Such instigators threaten the social and constitutional values which legitimate elections require. Conversely, that voters prioritise jobs is a huge threat to the ANC faction which supports the constitution as their party’s fervent embrace of patronage is incompatible with sustaining rapid job creation.
Mathematically impossible?
Who are the people most likely to become SA’s next president? Would any of them genuinely pledge allegiance to our constitution? What happens if, or when, the Ramaphosa faction of the ANC is sidelined? Various ANC splintering scenarios could make it mathematically impossible to compile a majority coalition that respects the constitution?
There are no solutions under consideration which would noticeably reduce our many millions of stranded jobseekers by 2029. This is a severe problem for the ANC as the EFF and MK, among others, have expropriated what had been the ANC’s standard response, more growth-inhibiting redistribution.
If Deputy President Mashitile’s faction ousts Ramaphosa, the ANC would probably govern with support from the EFF and, possibly, the MK. New ANC leadership could then back measures promoted by the EFF or MK which would degrade our political freedoms and economic prospects.
A mirror image of that scenario could have had Ramaphosa and SA benefiting greatly from the DA kickstarting necessary pro-growth policy shifts by running DTI.
It seems that this was nearly agreed to last week. It would have been a shrewd manoeuvre to have the DA take the flak for reversing redistribution policies which undermine growth and job creation. The ANC would have been able to criticise the policy shifts while later seeking credit for whatever progress was achieved.
Lack of solutions
There is nothing the least bit normal about our youth unemployment crisis, yet our lack of solutions is even more bizarre. Any half-normal government, whether democratic or authoritarian, would be urgently pursuing formidable solution paths.
The tragically slow solution track we are on begins with fixing our politics to repair the ANC’s many governance shortfalls. As the economy gains momentum, the middle class is to then expand alongside steadily improving education outcomes. From there, job creation is to accelerate. This would take decades to produce acceptable results.
It would not be easy, yet it is certainly possible that economic growth could average 3% over the next five years. This would not, however, soon alter the fact that each year roughly 250,000 twentysomething South Africans slip into permanent marginalisation several years after leaving school, having never been genuinely employed. Averaging four percent annual growth is possible though quite unlikely, yet the impact on job creation would still be woefully inadequate.
The central problem is that the ANC, EFF, MK and other parties have no interest in concepts as central to economic development as productivity and competitiveness. They insist on assuming that SA’s ability to export minerals and agricultural products provide an isolation option as envisaged by DTI’s localisation policies.
Our economic discourse, which is more political than economic, doesn’t acknowledge that the term “resource curse” reflects most commodity dependent nations being poorly developed. Nor is farmland a panacea. Most of the world’s food-stressed households are headed by farmers, particularly smallholder farmers. The common denominator among today’s high performing economies is that a high proportion of their young workers add value to exports. The ANC and its offshoot parties vehemently reject this option while campaigning on victimhood narratives. Meanwhile, many seemingly centrist voices insist that most of our school leavers are too poorly educated to become productive.
Catch-22
Pathways to rapid, high volume job creation exist but we are looking in the wrong places. We can’t grow our economy to absorb the surplus labour as we would need to uplift millions of households from being poor to being middle class. But for this to happen we need to find jobs for many millions of idled would-be workers.
The only way out of this catch-22 situation is to follow the lead of the dozens of countries which have sustained high growth through adding value within an ever-broader array of niches within global supply chains. Such companies often have little choice but to invest in their employees to upgrade their productivity. This is antithetical to patronage politics which seek to make people dependent on government.
While localisation policies suit patronage focused political parties, they decelerate development in a world economy defined by extreme integration and constant innovation. The pre-1994 government was not easily deterred by sanctions as electoral pressures to create jobs for the majority of South Africans was suppressed by their being non-enfranchised. The lasting impression was that global integration was about attracting foreign capital. Today however, global capital flows display routine indifference toward borders.
We don’t have a workable growth model as we fixate on creating a successful isolated economy. This is unachievable and it explains why we have low growth and the world’s most severe unemployment crisis.
Our largely isolated economy is unlikely to sustain three percent growth but if it could, this would prolong much patronage without easing our bulging unemployment. Conversely, if the DA had been able to deploy a top young leader to reset DTI, Ramaphosa’s legacy might have been associated with a new dawn. Instead, he seeks to use the DA to prolong his deficient leadership.
Sanctions were lifted long ago. We now have localisation regulations, destructive identity politics and unaffordable patronage. Ramaphosa’s big opportunity to fully integrate SA into a world brimming with opportunities was sacrificed when he reneged on putting the DA in charge of DTI.