ANC’s nemesis has become its policy arm
Afew months ago, Brandan, Business Day’s cartoonist, portrayed the ANC leader as head of the party and the leader of the EFF as head of policy. This cartoon comes to mind as the ANC continues to be forced into a policy corner by the EFF. Should we start worrying about this de facto coalition between the ANC and the EFF?
By way of background, the EFF is a splinter from the ANC. When it left the governing party it took three critical things with it: its more radical policies, the ANC Youth League’s machinery and, apparently, the implementing capability.
There’s a growing concern among ANC supporters that the party is increasingly being captured by the EFF, without a formal pact in place and without the EFF humbling itself and returning to the ANC fold.
Ahead of the ANC’s 54th national conference at Nasrec in December 2017, the Jacob Zuma faction, stung by the electoral setback of 2016, sought to regain lost ground by adopting populist policies. Just days before the conference Zuma announced, without consultation or planning, that university education for the poor would be free.
Zuma had hoped this feefree announcement would shore up the electoral prospects of his preferred candidate – former AU chair Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. This, however, failed and in the process handed a hospital pass to Zuma’s successor, Cyril Ramaphosa.
Undeterred, the Zuma faction managed to force through a conference resolution providing for land to be expropriated without compensation. While the party was still fiddling with the conference resolutions, the EFF, acting as the policy arm of the ANC, tabled a parliamentary motion to change the constitution to widen the scope of expropriation of land without compensation beyond the current provision. The ANC had no option but to vote with its nemesis. And, after a recent national executive committee lekgotla, the ANC president felt the need to announce that the party would support the mooted constitutional change — even before the consultative process has been concluded.
Then a week ago the ANC announced it would push the government to establish a sovereign wealth fund — a state-owned investment company seeded by the proceeds of free-carry in new mineral licences – before the next general election.
Although the fund idea is part of the ANC’s policies, the party has never enthusiastically pushed for its implementation. Unsurprisingly, it has been the EFF, through its deputy leader, Floyd Shivambu, that has championed the concept.
Last Thursday EFF leader Julius Malema stole the march again by tabling a parliamentary motion for the nationalisation of the SA Reserve Bank. This was a ridiculous ANC conference resolution. As has become customary, the ANC is indifferent. Other than that it sounds radical and leftist, no serious thinking has gone into what the benefits of the central bank being owned by the state might be.
Until now the ANC, or its left-wing faction, has been in the fortunate position that the EFF has chosen its own policy proposals to taunt it. And, after voting with the EFF in parliament, it has created an impressive bureaucracy — a rigmarole of consultations including a panel of experts and public hearings — that ensures the land expropriation process drags on into the 2019 elections, with the ANC appearing to be taking the initiative instead of following the EFF.
Though technical, the Bank issue is likely to be dealt with in a similar fashion, with the ANC secretly hoping it can buy itself time by feeding the issue into a protracted process.
Meanwhile, the EFF has been building up a portfolio of proof points of what it is capable of achieving with its 6% parliamentary presence ahead of the 2019 election. These proof points include ousting Zuma, fee-free higher education, land expropriation and the central bank motion. And the ANC’s response has been to fudge its way through the issues.
The Bank issue is a serious test for the ANC. What is next in the EFF’s election playbook? Will it be the implementation of Aaron Motsoaledi’s version of National Health Insurance? Or the establishment of a state bank? Perhaps the nationalisation of banks and mines? The introduction of a basic income grant? Or will it be the doubling of social grants?
ANC supporters are concerned that the ANC has lost the initiative. They are correct. Also, the ANC doesn’t have a mandate to cogovern with the EFF; nor does the EFF have a mandate to govern at all.
The most troubling aspect is that the governing party doesn’t have a strategy beyond the general elections. It only has tactics that will, at best, take it to the elections.
Perhaps it’s about time South Africans prepared themselves for a nightmare scenario of a recessionary economy run by a post-election ANC-EFF coalition, the scenario so aptly imagined by Brandan. ● Dludlu is a former Sowetan editor.
THE MOST TROUBLING ASPECT IS THAT THE ANC DOESN’T HAVE A STRATEGY BEYOND THE GENERAL ELECTIONS. IT ONLY HAS TACTICS THAT WILL TAKE IT THERE