CONSIDER THE LOW ROAD
If Ramaphosa suffers a bloody nose at the polls, the Magashule-zuma crowd will try to get rid of him
There are a million and one election scenarios doing the rounds at the moment. Everyone has one. Cyril Ramaphosa will be great — just give him the mandate. Julius Malema will bring the energy we need in our politics — give him a chance. Mmusi Maimane is the man to take us to Singapore and Rwanda — elect him.
It reminds me of the late 1980s and early 1990s. My friend Clem Sunter was painting pictures of the high road (he was right to be optimistic then, by the way) while others were all about the low road. Those who saw only the low road and fled missed out on the joy of the Mandela presidency and the economic boom of the Mbeki years.
And now here we are. Much has changed since the early 1990s. And much hasn’t.
The economy was an utter mess thanks to PW Botha in the 1980s. It is an utter mess now because of Jacob Zuma in the 2010s. The national discourse was hateful in the late 1980s, and it has returned to those awful levels in the late 2010s. Poverty is endemic. Unemployment is damnably high.
As we approach elections on May 8, many analysts are uncertain about the future. They don’t want to paint the negative scenarios in stark terms. Why? Consider the fact that Ramaphosa is surrounded by some of the most corrupt politicians to ever utter Nelson Mandela’s name. Consider the fact that the gangs within the ANC which meet at Durban hotels to plot Ramaphosa’s downfall are many. Despite all this, many still maintain that he has a chance of turning things around. Really, with his arch-nemesis Ace
Magashule in tow?
It is time to consider the real possibility that there is a down scenario and that if it came to pass it could be utterly devastating for SA. We are all allowed to be bullish, but one mustn’t discount the bears. They are not always wrong.
Imagine that Ramaphosa suffers a bloody nose at the polls. Imagine that he gets, say, 53% of the vote nationally and scrapes through a win in the Eastern Cape and Free State. In Gauteng he will take a lashing, as already demonstrated by the 2016 local elections, while the EFF rises. In the North West and Limpopo the ANC will still hold strong, but the EFF will make serious inroads.
In such a scenario the Magashulezuma crowd will be very quick to point fingers at Ramaphosa, labelling him a failure.
They will try to get rid of him.
The weakened ANC will strike a desperate and poor coalition deal with the EFF that will favour the Red
Berets. Policy on land, inflation targeting, the independence of the Reserve Bank and many others will change drastically, tilting towards populism and fascism.
International and domestic investors will depart in droves as the spectre of property rights being trampled becomes a reality. Moody’s, S&P and Fitch will go ballistic. Junk status will be the new normal. The rand will tank.
No-one likes to paint the negative picture. The Zuma years became a reality because many of us did not want to paint the negative picture we knew was awaiting us as he took the reins of the ANC in 2007. We called him “the man of the people” and said he would listen to advisers. Instead, he looted the people’s fiscus, empowered his cronies and fired every single level-headed adviser at the Union Buildings. He ran this economy into the ground.
The past five years of downgrades, rising unemployment, corruption and increasing poverty are a reminder of what happens when we don’t paint negative scenarios when they are warranted.
The May 8 election is SA’S chance to self-correct and find its winning ways. If the electorate weakens Ramaphosa and emboldens the EFF, then a negative scenario awaits.
This scenario is one which will return us to the volatility, anger, confusion and despair of December 9 2015.
That’s the day Zuma fired Nhlanhla Nene from the finance ministry and appointed David Des van Rooyen to the job.
Every day in SA will be like that crazy day.
A weakened ANC will strike a desperate deal with the EFF, tilting towards populism and fascism