Dominance and Decline

Susan Booysen

Description

As Jacob Zuma moves into the twilight years of his presidencies of both the African National Congress (ANC) and of South Africa, this book takes stock of the Zuma-led administration and its impact on the ANC. Dominance and Decline: The ANC in the Time of Zuma combines hard-hitting arguments with astute analysis. Susan Booysen shows how the ANC has become centred on the personage of Zuma, and that its defence of his extremely flawed leadership undermines the party’s capacity to govern competently, and to protect its long term future. Following on from her first book, The African National Congress and the Regeneration of Power (2011), Booysen delves deeper into the four faces of power that characterise the ANC. Her principal argument is that the state is failing as the president’s interests increasingly supersede those of party and state. Organisationally, the ANC has become a hegemon riven by factions, as the internal blocs battle for core positions of power and control. Meanwhile, the Zuma-controlled ANC has witnessed the implosion of the tripartite alliance and decimation of its youth, women’s and veterans’ leagues. Electorally, the leading party has been ceding ground to increasingly assertive opposition parties. And on the policy front, it is faltering through poor implementation and a regurgitation of old ideas. As Zuma’s replacements start competing and succession politics take shape, Booysen considers whether the ANC will recover from the damage wrought under Zuma’s reign and attain its former glory. Ultimately, she believes that while the damage is irrevocable, the electorate may still reward the ANC for transcending the Zuma years. This is a must-have reference book on the development of the modern ANC. With rigour and incisiveness, Booysen offers scholars and researchers a coherent framework for considering future patterns in the ANC and its hold on political power.

Sujets

• Political Science
• HISTORY
• África
• General officer
• History of Africa
• General
• Africa

Informations

• Publié par: WITS University Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781868148851
• Langue: English

Extrait

DOMINANCE AND DECLINE
THE ANC IN THE TIME OF ZUMA
SUSAN BOOYSEN
Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg, 2001
www.witspress.co.za
Copyright Susan Booysen 2015
Published edition Wits University Press 2015
First published 2015
978-1-86814-884-4 (print)
978-1-86814-885-1 (digital)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
Edited by Monica Seeber
Proofread by Lisa Compton
Index by Sanet le Roux
Original cover concept by Susan Booysen
Cover design by Hybrid Creative, South Africa
Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India
Printed and bound by Paarl Media
CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES vii PREFACE ix INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1: The ANC s fused party-state 27 CHAPTER 2: Configuring Zuma s presidency 57 CHAPTER 3: Constructing the ANC s compliant state 93 CHAPTER 4: Desperately seeking radical policy 126 CHAPTER 5: The wake-up calls of Election 2014 163 CHAPTER 6: The DA s encroaching march 192 CHAPTER 7: EFF and the left claiming ANC turf 221 CHAPTER 8: ANC in the cauldron of protest 261 CHAPTER 9: Conclusion - The ANC is in trouble 292 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 311 INDEX 313
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1.1: Trends in ANC power into the current conjuncture: Interpretation of empirical data 14 Figure 3.1: Perceptions of incidence of state corruption 119 Table 1.1: ANC top elected officials, 1991-2014, highlighting Zuma s rise and staying power 39 Table 1.2: Branch delegate allocations at the ANC s Polokwane and Mangaung conferences 41 Table 1.3: ANC membership figures, 2007-2012 45 Table 1.4: Polokwane and Mangaung election results for the top-six-official slates, 2007 and 2012 46 Table 2.1: Growth of the Presidency in the time of Zuma 64 Table 2.2: President Jacob Zuma s approval ratings, 2009-2015, in metropolitan areas 79 Table 3.1: The South African state and the weakened state of governance 96 Table 3.2: Size and salary budget of the South African civil service, 1998-2013 106 Table 3.3: Citizen perceptions of South Africa s representative institutions and politicians - focus group findings 117 Table 4.1: Poverty rate and poverty gap, comparison of 1993 and 2013 153 Table 5.1: National election results: Proportional party support in nine national and local elections, 1994-2014 177 Table 5.2: ANC result relative to voting population, 1994-2014 179 Table 5.3: ANC provincial election results over five elections, 1994-2014 182 Table 5.4: ANC decline in four metropolitan municipalities, 2009-2014 185 Table 6.1: Biggest parties in three elections, 2004-2014: National and provincial 201 Table 7.1: Cosatu s Numsa moment - unions lining up pro- and anti-Numsa 250 Table 8.1: Rising incidence of protest action in South Africa - counts from monitors 264 Table 8.2: Trajectories for the explanation of community protest 272
PREFACE
As President Jacob Zuma starts his exit from formal state and party power, I realised that it was time to take stock of what has been happening to the African National Congress (ANC) as well as the government and people of South Africa in the time of Zuma . Capturing trends meant taking aim at a moving target. Even if the analysis followed a fairly predictable track, it was going to be, in ANC language, a challenging task to capture the infamous epoch. Events unfolded as my research and writing took shape. Projects accumulated to build Zuma s legacy, explain or reinterpret the consequences of the period, and there was fervour from within for the post-Zuma era to resemble the Zuma era. Despite new developments, the fundamentals of the era had been cast; the trends presented themselves for capture into a book, this book.
Dominance and Decline follows in the footsteps of my earlier book, The African National Congress and the Regeneration of Political Power . Dominance and Decline is not a doomsday analysis - it recognises the ANC s strengths and accomplishments amidst the havoc sown by the Zuma-ist ANC, which has also become the ANC of the time. The central questions the book answers are: How much damage has been wreaked and how permanent is it likely to be? My analysis also casts light on the question: What kind of ANC after Zuma?
The time of Zuma has turned out to be one of many turning points - away from unambiguous moral high ground, from idealised leaders, from the hope that policies brought by the extensive and expensive state will anchor continuous liberation. The time of Zuma has been one of persistent ANC dominance yet also of appalling decline. It is the entanglement of glory and irony. There is little doubt that South Africa - perhaps also the ANC - will glance back and contemplate what went awry, at what exact point in time, amidst what pieces of countervailing information. This book is intended to take stock and analyse, to map and interpret the unfolding trends.
It was never going to be easy to execute a study of this period. While the analysis gives credit where credit is due, it is also consistently critical of the party-movement that has epitomised much of South Africa s liberation struggle. The task is particularly precarious given that the organisation has immersed itself in the project of recreating patriotism and nationalist understandings of the infancy of the economic and political struggle. Publicly it expects ongoing recognition that the liberation struggle is only just beginning. The researcher or analyst dissecting the contradictions is but a small spoke in the wheel of history, but a guaranteed large thorn in the ANC s flesh. The most tangible indicator of this climate is the frequent question, when I get stopped in public places, Are you not afraid to say what you do? So far, my answer is No , largely because my critiques are widely shared. I know this from my research interviews, including many that come from the heart of the ANC.
The idea for a follow-up book to Regeneration first came from Wits University Press s publisher, Veronica Klipp, at the 2013 African Studies Association meeting in Baltimore. When I started planning my 2014-2015 sabbatical, a second edition of Regeneration quickly metamorphosed into a sequel: a study of a remarkable period in South African and ANC history - one in which the enigma of Zuma and the contradictions of an ANC that selected and stayed with a tragic president (who brought some gains yet also damaged the ANC) were on graphic display. This book profiles an ANC that has remained strong but could ill afford the Zuma imprint at a time when the liberation stamp has started to fade.
I wish I had a research team to thank. Instead, I draw on my extensive personal research, ongoing since the Regeneration ink went dry. Wits University sponsored segments of my research. A selection of cited, albeit often not by name, research informants helped me draw the contours of the Zuma landscape: my thanks to those in the core of the movement and of state power who made the time to talk to me; news media that extended my observations to where I could not be personally; the anonymous reviewers who said Publish! ; David Moore, who read my first draft and gave valuable comments; Monica Seeber, who understood my project and used her great editing skills to fine-tune my copy; many friends who supported me through the process; and, above all, to the Wits University Press team who brought the project to fruition.
Susan Booysen
September 2015
INTRODUCTION
As the African National Congress (ANC) enters South Africa s third decade of democracy, it is strong but flawed, and increasingly frayed. It is far from defeated, but is toiling to prevent itself from falling below the waterline that separates exceptionalism from ordinariness. It is on the borderline where famed-liberation-movement-turned-political-party could become an ordinary contestant in a multiparty democracy or - worse - a predatory strongman. 1 The ANC leads with substantial margins over its political rivals. It is in charge of a state that holds powerful apparatuses. This is still the time of ANC dominance and hegemony, 2 although symptoms of declining power speak of a tumultuous twenty years in government that have gone well for the party but hardly as well as expected. Hegemony is being eroded. The liberation movement that had moved into democratic state power is making space for a new, reinvented, modern ANC. Its moral leadership is questioned, often.
It is a time of major contradictions for the ANC. The contemporary ANC has the inner organs and the nostalgic aura of the former liberation movement; it has the framework of a constitutional state and multiparty democracy, and lifeblood that blends high morality with corruption and self-humiliation - it wears the coat of a developmental state mired in patronage. It is hard work for this transformed ANC to build and maintain its power, and its methods do not always do justice to the lore of the former liberation movement. But the ANC does what it takes to defend its edge - within the parameters of its own rules and the political system in the time of President Jacob Zuma. The ANC of 2015-2016 is forging its way into continuous power, but is not regenerating at replacement levels.
Twenty-five years ago the enemy was external and the contest easily defined. Now, the ANC mostly battles enemies within. Many citizens still identify deeply with the ANC, but they also see the avarice and attempted delusion perpetrated by leaders. This dissonance fuels opposition parties and adds to citizens disappointment with transformation. The state malfunctions and underperforms, and at times the ANC barely controls it. The state is in courtship-partnership with black business and in tolerant coexistence with white bu