ANC must relieve our morbid symptoms
‘ THE crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”
The line comes from The Prison Notebooks written by Italian politician Antonio Gramsci, who was a founding member and one-time leader of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime.
The definition of interregnum is a period when normal government is suspended, especially between successive reigns or regimes.
It’s an apt description for where we are now in South Africa, in the throes of a finalterm presidency, where the crown is worn by a man fearful of what retirement may bring.
There’s also an older generation of leaders within President Jacob Zuma’s party who are wondering in what parlous state they are going to leave their “beloved” movement and the country it has spent most of its existence trying to liberate.
Whatever comes from this weekend’s national executive committee meeting of the ANC, we’ll know whether this interregnum will be our fate for a few more years.
Should Zuma continue his term without censure from his party, we should brace for more policy uncertainty on everything from energy to the governance of state-owned enterprises such as SAA.
Every policy debate will revolve around who it will be that takes over the party next year, and whether they’ll be kind to their predecessors.
More reshuffles are a distinct possibility.
While it would be fine — or would at least not cause too much alarm — if musical chairs was played in ministries such as sport or home affairs, it gets ugly when the National Treasury and all its spheres, including the Public Investment Corporation, become the main prize.
By staying true to its core mandate of inflation-targeting and raising rates this week despite the low growth environment, the Reserve Bank reasserted its independence.
Were the political noises around the Treasury not so deafening, the bank would have — or rather could have — played its “flexibility” card and given growth greater weighting in its decision.
Credibility is the only commodity for any central bank and the strengthening of the rand after the interest rate hike means the Reserve Bank still has it. It has to be protected.
Should the ANC fail to censure Zuma and show the country that it is indeed the party that leads, and not the individual, it will become ever more difficult for the Reserve Bank to maintain its credibility.
This is not just scaremongering. In Turkey, one of the fragile five that include South Africa, the central bank governor has left rates unchanged, despite inflation and a sliding domestic currency.
The suspicion is that political threats from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have eroded the bank’s independence.
Due to the political theatre in Brazil, where President Dilma Rousseff now faces daily marches against her rule, the central bank’s independence has also been called into question.
At the start of the year, expectations were that the bank would raise rates because of inflation and to dispel suspicions that it had caved in to political pressure. It has left rates unchanged, which only bolsters the suspicions.
Is South Africa heading in the same direction? If there is no censure of the president — at the very least — then yes, we are.
If the Reserve Bank loses all credibility, what tools will South Africa Inc have to influence the rand, inflation, and perceptions of the country? We’d lose them all. It’s over to you, ANC, to release us from this interregnum.