Populists don’t keep promises
Hatred spewed by radicals will only tear our already fractured social fabric apart
SOUTH Africa only has to look to Brazil – the fourth-largest democracy in the world – to see how the politics of populism gave rise to one of the most far-right governments Brazilians have elected. The factors that left the electorate disillusioned with establishment politics are some of the very same issues of concern to South Africans this election: corruption, crime, economic stagnation and unemployment.
Our biggest challenge as a country is to start effectively tackling these challenges while avoiding the wave of populism that is sweeping the globe, which plays on people’s fears and anger, but does little to provide solutions to the very real issues that vex ordinary people.
If one looks at the situation on the ground in Brazil prior to President Jair Bolsonaro’s election juggernaut, it is not dissimilar to our own, and therein lies very important lessons for both our politicians and our people. Brazilians were fed up with rocketing crime rates – some of the highest in the world. In 2017, there were 61619 homicides, or 170 killings a day, in Brazil.
Even though Brazil has three times the homicide rate of that in South Africa, the violent nature of murders in our country has left the populace reeling. Between April 2017 and March last year, there were 20 336 murders in South Africa, or 57 a day. The lower homicide rate compared withBrazil is little consolation when the vast majority of South Africans no longer feel safe in their own homes.
Perhaps the most potent issue for Brazilians that helped to propel Bolsonaro to power was that of corruption, which had spun out of control, infecting every sector of society like a cancer.
According to Transparency International’s corruption index last year, Brazil ranked 105 out of 180 countries. Again, South Africa’s ranking is not as low in comparison, coming in at 73.
But what is inescapable is South Africa’s dramatic rise in corruption, considering that in 1996 during the Mandela era we ranked 23, but by last year we had gone down to 73. It is the rapid increase in corruption, particularly in our parastatals and within government departments over the past decade, that has South Africans almost as angry as their Brazilian compatriots.
The other comparison that is worth drawing with Brazil are the levels of unemployment. In Brazil, the most recent figures put the unemployment rate at 12%. It was considered one of the most negative results of former President Michel Temer’s presidency.
The fact that Bolsonaro promised to deliver 10million new jobs in four years won him a lot of support among the poor, given that four out of 10 Brazilians work in informal jobs with no benefits or protection.
But the danger in such promises is that they are unrealistic unless they are accompanied by significant economic growth. Growth projections are not looking that promising given that for last year the Brazilian economy grew at a mere 1.1%.
In South Africa, our official unemployment rate, which at the end of last year stood at 27.5%, is far higher than that in Brazil.
We also cannot hope to make a significant dent in our unemployment figures without significant growth, and our economic growth for last year was just 0.8%.
What that means is that Brazil and South Africa found themselves in an economic recession last year, which caused a huge amount of resentment among those at the bottom end of the social spectrum, and much of their anger has been directed at political elites.
It would be foolhardy not to see that conditions in South Africa are fertile ground for populism to take root.
But the most important lesson is that such populism often takes the form of narrow nationalistic and often racist sentiment, which breeds the politics of intolerance and hatred – exclusion as opposed to inclusion.
This is the opposite of what we need in South Africa as the only way forward is to ensure greater levels of social cohesion, not less.
Ethnic division and xenophobia will only tear our already fractured social fabric apart, and set us on a downward spiral that will have devastating consequences.
As a society, we need to guard against the signs of populism that use nativist sentiment to whip up support, when in fact the dramatic political promises that accompany such rhetoric often ring hollow.
As South Africans, we must guard against the weaponisation of immigration, where politicians try to place the blame for our societal ills on illegal immigrants and foreigners.
When our politicians on both the Left and the Right start resorting to bigotry and dog-whistle politics, whereby they isolate minority racial or religious groups, then we know we have started down a dangerous and slippery slope.
There are already signs of just such vengeful nationalism emanating from some of our political parties.
Such populism often takes the form of narrow nationalist and often racist sentiment, which breeds the politics of intolerance and hatred