Campaign season has begun in earnest and the main parties are playing politics
The ANC, opposition are using every chance they get to look relevant
The 2019 general elections are just over a year away. This makes 2018 the year of the political party.
The ANC’s 106th birthday celebrations marked the beginning of campaign season in earnest. And this was not lost on the EFF and DA who used the same weekend to get attention.
Given that the ANC’s elective conference produced an outcome that was least anticipated, all eyes are now on new ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa.
Voters and investors alike are watching to see if he will drive the agenda of organisational renewal on the one hand, and rebuild the capacity and restore the integrity of state institutions on the other.
In his January 8 statement, Ramaphosa was unequivocal about confronting criminality within the state and made an undertaking that the ANC under his leadership would deal decisively with allegations of corruption and state capture.
This includes reinstating criminal investigations as well as the establishment of a commission of inquiry into state capture which President Jacob Zuma recently announced.
Since his election, Ramaphosa has gone on a charm offensive, punting the so-called radical resolutions of the 54th conference on land expropriation without compensation as well as addressing the matter of the ownership of the Reserve Bank and the party’s commitment to free education.
On both counts, that of promoting clean government and of assenting to the need for radical approaches to transforming the economy and education, Ramaphosa has appropriated the selling points of the DA and EFF.
The opposition parties are under pressure to up the ante. It is already clear that both are testing their strategies.
The EFF’s call for the closure of H&M stores on the grounds that the company is racist should not be taken at face value. It should be understood against the backdrop of 2018 being the year of election campaigning.
It is a political statement highlighting the ANC-led government’s failure to transform South Africa.
The EFF is using the H&M debacle to hog headlines to drive the point that racism continues to fester in the country on account of the ANC’s complacency.
The ANC has eschewed revolution and largely pursued the policy of progressive realisation of economic and social redress which includes not tampering with the constitutional provision of respect for property rights and of the principle of sustainable change that does not adversely affect sectors of the economy.
The EFF, by contrast, is calling for revolution and has used free higher education and the H&M saga to demonstrate that it is able to marshal forces.
Whereas the ANC may appropriate its radical language without taking radical action, the EFF is demonstrating that it is willing to take actions which have the potential to destabilise society and make the country ungovernable.
The DA’s decision to charge its mayor in Cape Town Patricia De Lille and to hold a press conference where DA leader Mmusi Maimane reiterated the party’s commitment to clean government is also a political statement.
While the ANC may talk clean government and anticorruption, the DA’s counter narrative is that the DA doesn’t just talk but acts.
This is only the beginning of the political theatrics in the lead-up to 2019.