SA’s Bolsonaro lies in wait

VOTERS NOT DOING A BRAZIL: IF IT DOES HAPPEN, IT WILL BE LED BY ZUMA-STYLE CLIQUE

Whether calls come from inside or outside the ruling party remains to be seen.

SA will see higher levels of protest and class tension

Presently the indications are that South African voters are not gearing up to “do a Brazil” in the face of a mounting economic crisis and high levels of corruption in the ruling party. Polls indicate that they are unlikely to totally abandon the ANC for existing political alternatives.

The reasons are familiar. Although the ANC has lost prestige, ground and voter loyalty, many South Africans continue to cleave to their memories of its past virtues and hope for it to return to better ways. Furthermore, President Cyril Ramaphosa will make copious and not unconvincing promises of tackling corruption.

Meanwhile, although almost a decade of misrule by former president Jacob Zuma should have rebounded to the major advantage of the Democratic Alliance (DA), the leading opposition party has failed to convince.

And, the long-running fight with its mayor for Cape Town, Patricia de Lille, has made it look divided, poorly-led and tainted by racism. It’s unlikely to go far forward, even if it is unlikely it will go backwards.

So, that effectively leaves the radical but smaller Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). But the red berets continue to look more like a party of protest than a party seriously preparing to govern. And while its leader Julius Malema’s populist charisma may appeal to a minority, especially black youth, he frightens many. End-of-term report: continues to improve but should be doing better.

It wasn’t so long ago there were predictions that the 2019 elections would result in the formation of a coalition. That continues to be a possibility, although the ANC’s experience at running an electoral campaign will more probably edge it above 50%. But if that is so, it only delays dealing with its problems, and South Africans are left to speculate about future possibilities.

One option is that, following an election victory, Ramaphosa will dispense with the Zuma hacks still in his Cabinet and appoint an honest and capable team to tackle corruption and put the economy back on track. It’s a scenario which the overwhelming mass of the population will support, and if he were to meet anything resembling a success, the ANC will reap the benefit.

However, the obstacles in this path are formidable. Ramaphosa is already battling concerted fight-back by the Zuma crowd, and this is only the beginning. The looters, from the heights of the parastatals Eskom and Transnet to the depths of the most miserable municipality in the country, will fight hard and dirty to hang on to newly acquired wealth.

And there are enough crooked lawyers to help them do it (in the name of black economic empowerment).

Increasingly the ANC has come to function as an extended patronage, jobs and cash machine. Hopefully, Ramaphosa and his team will prove capable of cleansing the upper reaches of the state. But, carrying the fight downwards, into the provinces and local government, will simultaneously mean reforming the ANC.

That may well prove beyond the bounds of practical politics, especially given that Ramaphosa himself will need to maintain his support base for an attempt at a second term as president.

A more likely second option, therefore, is that even if Ramaphosa does a reasonably decent job, the economy will at best enjoy only slow rates of growth and improvement.

Overall, it will do little more than limp along if not actually decline. Even with the best will and efforts, turning the economy around to make a serious dent in inequality, unemployment and poverty is going to be a massive job. And it’s probably beyond a political party which, for all the appalling legacy of apartheid, itself bears heavy responsibility for the mess SA is in.

So, in coming years, the probability is high that SA will experience even higher levels of popular protest and class tension than at the moment.

How politicians respond, and how it’s handled, matters hugely.

On the one hand, it will offer opportunities for genuine renewal. On the other, it will offer opportunities for cynical exploitation of frustrations by tellers of untruths and sellers of snake-oil, wrapped up in radical language.

Whether latter-type calls come from within or outside the ANC is yet to be seen. But they will probably be made by appealing to the impoverished masses in rhetoric which obscures the greedy interests of a frustrated, kleptocratic, Zuma-style bourgeoisie.

It is then that South Africans will have to face down the risk of a local Jair Bolsonaro. Brazil’s new president is threatening a lurch to political authoritarianism of the most brutal kind.