Liberation DNA is dying

The product of Leslie Bank’s interesting marriage of historical analysis and policy commentary is rather disappointing (Deficiencies of our decolonisation efforts contain lessons for the future, March 27). According to Bank, our prospects for development lie in “alternative readings and engagements with the hybrid ideological, institutional and political DNA of the ANC and… other liberation … movements”. Yet it is precisely the ANC’s failure to transform itself from a liberation movement into a modern political party that has stunted the developmental agenda.

The ANC continues to imbibe a noxious ideological cocktail of racial nationalism and Marxist-Leninist theory, long past its expiry date. An internal culture of secrecy, fear, patronage and corruption — the history of which is well documented by Stephen Ellis in External Mission: the ANC in Exile, 1960-1990 — is antithetical to progress and development.

The ANC approaches state institutions as if they were neopatrimonial networks.

That is why we do not have a capable state, let alone — as the ANC likes to claim — a developmental one.

The public policy consequences are clear for all to see: a National Development Plan that cannot (and will not) be implemented, stifling statism, anaemic growth and rampant unemployment. There is nothing to be gained from placing the ANC’s DNA under a microscope. The governing party is dying.

Its genetic mutation, the EFF, offers not development, but Venezuelan-style decay. Were it not for the proportional representation system, the other liberation movements in Parliament — such as the Pan Africanist Congress — would have snuffed it long ago.

Our salvation lies in growth, job creation and a system of quality public education. Only the DA’s policy platform can offer that.

Michael Cardo, MP

DA spokesman on economic development