Falling short of objectives: the ANC, the people and the GNU

“The Government of National Unity (GNU) as it stands today is a placebo state. It has a psychological benefit, but no physiological value. What do I mean? Although we feel good about the country not having gone to the dogs, the issues that kept the majority away from the polls in May – and drove the minority to vote to return to the laager – pertain.”

This is the view of Dr Moferefere Lekorotsoana, who recently completed his PhD at the University of Cape Town (UCT). He reflected on the recent elections with his thesis, titled: “South Africa’s stunted developmentalism: challenges of ideology and practice in building a developmental state”.

Dr Lekorotsoana’s thesis focuses on the African National Congress’s (ANC) intention to implement state intervention in economic growth and development in South Africa since 2007. Using the developmental state paradigm, he examined the challenges that have inhibited state intervention by looking at four critical attributes for such a state: leadership and the ideas that motivate it; state institutions and their purpose; the role of public service officials; and relations between the state and key players in society.

“Critique of South Africa’s economic development and growth has largely focused on ideological and political considerations. Most scholars consider the economy stunted due to the ANC’s acquiescence to the neoliberal ideological framework that has prevailed globally from about 1980, and dominated from the 1990s onwards,” said Lekorotsoana.

Territorial leadership

As someone with experience in both the legislative and executive arms of the state and having had a front-row seat to policy debates and all kinds of resolutions, pronouncements, and interventions, Lekorotsoana said, “I struggled to understand why it is that these did not translate into impactful change.”

In relation to the four attributes mentioned above, he said, “Emerging from the research, the reality of the ANC is that ideologically, it was spot on. Its ideological rhetoric, both in policy pronouncements and in the speeches of the leaders, was consistent with developmental thinking. However, as research shows, this did not translate into a deliberate programme. The party did not make the shift, both in government and in its own structures, to align with the imperatives of a developmental state. This is where the challenges between ideology and practice arise.”

“All of us just want to be taken seriously by our government.”

It is therefore no surprise that we find ourselves in a country in which the ANC’s majority has diminished, and it must lead in a government in which it no longer has the often-unchecked influence and political inertia of the last decades. “My research argues that post-Polokwane [ANC conference] – and ironically, at the very point of resolving on a developmental state – the ANC bequeathed South Africa a disparate leadership and a fragmented state. Leadership of government since 2010, until now, became territorial.”

Moreover, said Lekorotsoana, “All of us just want to be taken seriously by our government. Inevitably, when the majority of us make that statement, it is directed to no one else but the ANC. The ANC’s legitimacy in the eyes of the electorate will occur when the people are fully employed. It will happen when education occurs in normal schools. It will be when people feel safe. When the environments in which they live are clean and sewage is not spilling into their homes.”

Look to 2010

“The GNU, arguably, is a loosely constructed quasi-federation that reflects South Africa’s polarised politics, inside and outside government, 30 years into democratic governance. In a normal, matured democracy, the ANC – with the larger share of the electoral mandate – would be leading a coalition government with all these parties. In that context, it would have struck a deal with each, giving each of them one or two key issues in their manifesto.

“Unemployment is high and is not being reduced. Infrastructure, public and economic, has collapsed. There is no urgency about changing this, except talk of strategic pipelines – which is not new. The economy is okay, but not great, and remains susceptible to instability in the global markets. The president [Cyril Ramaphosa] has been exceptional in pulling off a GNU. He must now preside over something beyond the nicety of fragmented parties that have individual and conflictual or competing agendas.”

“In the end, South Africa must and can bring about change to its conditions through understanding and pragmatism.”

Bearing all that in mind, Lekorotsoana concluded: “To make real change, you need an expansionary outlook, with massive investment in economic and social infrastructure – in the vein of the World Cup 2010 investment. But it will need to be sustained, with the development of manufacturing capacity in key sectors that will ensure jobs and create the potential for job training in certain productive capacities.

“There is a need for genuine respect both ways, to forge real unity and nationalism, because each sector reflects and represents different segments of society that are yet to gel. Also, there is a need to invest in the development of the political and economic institutions to realise the aspiration for developmentalism. In the end, South Africa must and can bring about change to its conditions through understanding and pragmatism. Most importantly, urgency is paramount, coupled with deliberateness.”