South African Monitor

Assessing and Promoting Civil and Minority Rights in South Africa

Report IX
End 2018 & Beginning 2019

The ANC’s “toxic legacy”,

factional struggles and a
renewed hybrid regime
 South African Monitor
Assessing and Promoting Civil and Minority Rights in South Africa

RReport IX – End 2018 & Beginning 2019

The ANC’s “toxic legacy”, factional struggles and a renewed hybrid regime

Report researched and compiled by

Dr Heinrich Matthee

Commissioned by South African Monitor

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South African Monitor aims to assess and promote civil rights in general and minority rights in particular
in South Africa. It provides reliable information on relevant events, analyses significant developments and
signals new emerging trends.

Focus areas include:

• Key dynamics of the executive;

• Democracy and the legislature;
• Order, the judiciary and the rule of law;
• Group relations and group rights;
• Freedom of expression, privacy and the media;
• Socio-economic rights and obligations;
• The political risks to business.

Reports, of which this is the ninth edition, portray the current state of civil and minority rights in South
Africa. All reports can be downloaded free of charge from the website, www.sa-monitor.com.

The website also provides you with an opportunity to subscribe to future updates, as well as download
auxiliary documents and articles relevant to the above-mentioned focus areas.

South African Monitor

www.sa-monitor.com
admin@sa-monitor.com

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Table of Contents
List of abbreviations....................................................................................................................................... 8
Executive summary.........................................................................................................................................11
— Key dimensions of the current order.................................................................................................................. 13
— Hybrid regime..................................................................................................................................................... 15
— Some consequences........................................................................................................................................... 16

Part I: “Toxic legacy taints ANC”..................................................................................................................... 19

— A major change in foreign media reporting on the ANC..................................................................................... 19
— “Time to ditch Mandela’s party”: The Zuma era................................................................................................ 21
— Ideas have consequences................................................................................................................................... 22
— New paradigms needed to understand the ANC’s hybrid regime....................................................................... 22

Part II: Violent crime, partisan protection and food insecurity...............................................................................24

— Weak fulfilment of the government’s security function..................................................................................... 25
— Fearful citizens in a putative democracy............................................................................................................. 26
— The impact of major crime on business.............................................................................................................. 27
— Nativism and violent expropriation.................................................................................................................... 27
— Farm murders: Violent crime and rural terrorism............................................................................................... 29
— Strangling rural stability and economies............................................................................................................. 30
— Weakening rural economies............................................................................................................................... 31
— Farm murders lead to a serious loss of job opportunities.................................................................................. 31
— Farm murders damage rural socio-economic orders.......................................................................................... 32
— Farm murders weaken the multiplier effect....................................................................................................... 32
— Farm murders hasten the onset of food insecurity............................................................................................ 33
— The political refusal of protection....................................................................................................................... 33

Part III: A shrinking social contract and a multipolar field of authority..................................................................35

— Partisan privileging............................................................................................................................................. 35
— Racial nationalism and the ANC.......................................................................................................................... 36
— Ethnic politics in the ANC.................................................................................................................................... 37
— New prominent sources of symbolic legitimation.............................................................................................. 38
— Coalitions with traditional authorities and local strongmen.............................................................................. 39
— A shrinking social contract and indigenous cultural groups................................................................................ 40
— New forms of political racism?........................................................................................................................... 41
— ANC breaking the negotiated settlement of 1994.............................................................................................. 42
— A new social contract excluding some citizens................................................................................................... 43
— Middle-class emigration and brain drain............................................................................................................ 44
— An increase in self-help initiatives and authority migration............................................................................... 45
— A multipolar future order................................................................................................................................... 47

Part IV: The shift to a hybrid regime.................................................................................................................48

— From a flawed democracy to a hybrid regime.................................................................................................... 48
— Drivers of a hybrid regime.................................................................................................................................. 49
— ANC intolerance of dissenting views................................................................................................................... 50
— ANC politics “eats the state”............................................................................................................................... 52
— Neopatrimonial factions competing for spoils.................................................................................................... 53
— Party-state separation, cadre deployment and patronage................................................................................. 54
— Patronage politics............................................................................................................................................... 55
— Reshaping markets and the democratic playing field......................................................................................... 55
— Smears of racism against political opponents or economic rivals...................................................................... 56

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Part V: Factional struggles and Ramaphosa’s challenges......................................................................................58

— Intertwined legal and illegal domains................................................................................................................. 58
— Presidentialism and the executive...................................................................................................................... 59
— A deal to elect Ramaphosa?............................................................................................................................... 60
— Political mirrors and the circulation of elites...................................................................................................... 61
— Security agencies to reposition themselves........................................................................................................ 62
— Partisan law enforcement actions?..................................................................................................................... 62
— A fluid transition................................................................................................................................................. 64
— Weakened democratic institutions..................................................................................................................... 65

Part VI: The legislature, elections and violent politics ........................................................................................ 67

— A one-party dominant state................................................................................................................................ 67
— A political culture of impunity............................................................................................................................ 68
— The non-alternation of power in a hybrid regime............................................................................................... 68
— The national elections of 2014........................................................................................................................... 69
— A hybrid regime resting on 35% of eligible voters?............................................................................................ 71
— Local elections.................................................................................................................................................... 71
— ANC to remain in power beyond 2019................................................................................................................ 72
— Political assassinations in a hybrid regime.......................................................................................................... 73
— A climate of fear.................................................................................................................................................. 74
— Threats to provincial and national politicians too............................................................................................... 74

Part VII: The role of politicized security services................................................................................................. 76

— Securitizing politics............................................................................................................................................. 77
— Using state security against civil society watchdogs........................................................................................... 78
— ANC cadre deployment and parallel security networks...................................................................................... 79
— Securocrats to remain powerful......................................................................................................................... 80

Part VIII: The justice system and the judiciary.................................................................................................... 82
— Legal command and rent extraction by ANC cadres........................................................................................... 83
— A politically constrained judiciary?..................................................................................................................... 84
— The judiciary’s agency......................................................................................................................................... 85

Part IX: Universities, the media and attempts at ANC control.................................................................................86

— Pressures on the autonomy of universities......................................................................................................... 86
— Rebellious constituencies................................................................................................................................... 88
— Failed education policies..................................................................................................................................... 89
— Media freedom under pressure.......................................................................................................................... 91
— Strained relations between the ANC and critical journalists.............................................................................. 93

Part X: ANC policies and economic value destruction.............................................................................................95

— Economic value destruction................................................................................................................................ 95
— Political intervention and selective patronage.................................................................................................... 96
— State-owned enterprises (SOEs)......................................................................................................................... 98
— Staggering unemployment and budget pressures.............................................................................................. 99
— Bad business perceptions of the ANC government............................................................................................ 99
— EU businesses concerned about ANC policies.................................................................................................. 100
— Domestic business: Increased distrust and divestment.................................................................................... 101
— Ramaphosa’s limping policy reach.................................................................................................................... 102
— The need to tread carefully............................................................................................................................... 103

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Part XI: The threat to property and investor rights.............................................................................................105

— ANC weakened European investor protection.................................................................................................. 105
— Weakened property rights................................................................................................................................ 107
— Constitutional Court neutralized property rights clause in Constitution..........................................................108
— Disempowered international and South African property owners...................................................................108
— Creeping state ownership in the mining and energy sectors............................................................................ 109
— Increased state ownership and control of the lucrative security industry........................................................111

Part XII: Expropriation without compensation and weaker civil rights..................................................................... 112
— The ANC turns to expropriation without compensation................................................................................... 112
— Racial populism to divert attention from ANC failures..................................................................................... 113
— How will European policymakers and foreign investors respond?...................................................................114
— Economic risks and food insecurity................................................................................................................... 115
— Future scenarios point to lower capital formation........................................................................................... 116
— Infringing civil rights and strengthening the hybrid regime.............................................................................. 116

Part XIII: Foreign patrons, factional struggles and anti-Western rhetoric.............................................................. 118
— Greater reliance on non-Western patrons........................................................................................................ 119
— Looking to China for symbolic and economic leadership.................................................................................. 119
— Voting against human rights measures at the UN............................................................................................ 120
— Choosing Russia against “US sponsored destabilisation”................................................................................. 121
— Anti-Western bias and paranoia....................................................................................................................... 122
— A new Cold War in Africa?................................................................................................................................ 123
— Leaving the International Criminal Court (ICC)................................................................................................. 124
— Anti-Western reflexes?..................................................................................................................................... 126

Part XIV: The political risks to business in the next two years...............................................................................127

Part XV: Rebuilding the private sector and sustainable communities.......................................................................130

About the author..........................................................................................................................................135

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List of Abbreviations

AA - Affirmative Action
ACMS - African Centre for Migration and Society
AFRICOM - United States Africa Command
AG - Auditor General
ANC - African National Congress
AU - African Union
AZAPO - Azanian People’s Organisation
BASA - Banking Association of South Africa
BBBEE - Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment
BEE - Black Economic Empowerment
BITS - Bilateral Investment Treaties
BLF - Black First Land First
BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa
CASE - Community Agency for Social Enquiry
CEO - Chief Executive Officer
CERD - United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
CIA - Central Intelligence Agency (US)
CID - Crime Intelligence Division
COPE - Congress of the People
COSATU - Congress of South African Trade Unions
CR - Cyril Ramaphosa
DA - Democratic Alliance
DDR - German Democratic Republic
DTI - Department of Trade and Industry
ED(S) - Editor(s)
EFF - Economic Freedom Fighters
EOSA - Enterprise Observatory of South Africa
ESKOM - Electricity Supply Commission
EU - European Union
FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation (US)
FDI - Foreign Direct Income
FIFA - International Federation of Association Football
FSVTS - Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation
GATS - General Agreement on Trade in Services
GCI - Global Competitiveness Index
GDP - Gross Domestic Product
GDR - German Democratic Republic
GIBS - Gordon Institute of Business Science
GIGA - German Institute of Global and Area Studies
HSRC - Human Sciences Research Council
ICASA - Independent Communication Authority of South Africa
ICC - International Criminal Court
IDASA - Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa
IEC - Independent Electoral Commission
IFC - International Finance Corporation
IFP - Inkatha Freedom Party
IMF - International Monetary Fund
IRR - Institute for Race Relations (formerly known as the SAIRR)

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ISS - Institute for Security Studies

JSC - Judicial Services Commission
KGB - Committee for State Security (Russia)
MEC - Member of the Executive Council
MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MK - Umkhonto we Sizwe
MP - Member of Parliament
MPLA - The People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola
MPRDA - Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, 2002
NDC - National Deployment Committee
NDP - National Development Plan
NDR - National Democratic Revolution
NEC - National Executive Committee
NGC - National General Council
NGO - Non-Governmental Organization
NIA - National Intelligence Agency
NIDS - National Income Dynamics Study
NP - National Party
NPA - National Prosecuting Authority
NWC - National Working Committee
PAC - Pan Africanist Congress of Azania
PIRLS - Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study
PPIB - Promotion and Protection of Investment Bill, 2013
PRCA - Public Relations and Communications Association (UK)
R2K - Right2Know Campaign
RSF - Reporters Without Borders
SA - South Africa
SAA - South African Airways
SABC - South African Broadcasting Corporation
SACCI - South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry
SACP - South African Communist Party
SADC - Southern Africa Development Council
SADTU - South African Democratic Teachers Union
SAFRI - Southern Africa Initiative of German Business
SAHRC - South African Human Rights Commission
SAIRR - South African Institute for Race Relations (now known as the IRR)
SANEF - South African National Editors’ Forum
SANDF - South African National Defence Force
SANRAL - South African National Roads Agency
SAPS - South African Police Service
SARS - South African Revenue Service
SC - Senior Counsel
SIA - Security Industry Alliance
SOE - South African State-Owned Enterprise
SONA - State of the Nation Address
SSA - State Security Agency
STATS SA - Statistics South Africa
SWAPO - South West African People’s Organisation
TIMMS - Trends in International Maths and Science Study
UCT - University of Cape Town
UDF - United Democratic Front
UK - United Kingdom
UKZN - University of KwaZulu-Natal

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UN - United Nations
US / USA - United States of America
WTO - World Trade Organisation
ZANU-PF - Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front

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The ANC’s “toxic
legacy”, factional
struggles and a
renewed hybrid regime
Executive summary
Ramaphosa’s limited reach: This report covers
the main dynamics during the period 2014-2018,
but with attention to Cyril Ramaphosa’s first year
as president in 2018.
The replacement of President Jacob Zuma (2009-
2018) by Cyril Ramaphosa initially resulted in
overoptimistic expectations among some media.
This report shows that Ramaphosa’s ability to
move beyond rhetoric to actual longer-term
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political and economic reforms, will remain heavily
constrained in the next few years.
There are three major constraints: first, there is a
limited state capability that would take years to
rebuild, due to the longer-term impact of a decade
of economic value destruction and institutional
decay under the African National Congress (ANC),
and as the population has grown by 20% since the
ANC had taken over power in 1994. Secondly, a
new symbolic and political order in the shape of a
hybrid regime will drive the incentive systems and
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rules of the game within which even Ramaphosa
will have to operate. Thirdly, the ANC on which
power rests, is deeply factionalized and likely to
remain so.
Ramaphosa a co-founder of the hybrid regime:
In the past decade, several key forces and drivers
have reached a critical mass and have combined to
form a new political order in South Africa, namely
a hybrid regime. Under the presidency of Zuma,
Cyril Ramaphosa was deputy president (2014-
2018) during the period of worst power abuse
and corruption. During Zuma’s presidency, the
locus of politics finally shifted from accountable
democratic institutions to a field of power in which
weak democratic institutions and non-democratic
institutions interact.
This new hybrid regime has effectively replaced
the liberal democratic constitutional order, built
on the consensus between the ANC of Nelson
Mandela, business and the National Party (NP) of
F.W. de Klerk in the mid-1990s. As Zuma’s deputy
president, Ramaphosa did not actively oppose
this shift to a hybrid regime and in fact played an
important role in implementing it.
Ramaphosa has been a member of the ANC’s
National Executive Committee (NEC) since 2007,
and from 2014 to 2018 had also been in charge
of the important ANC National Deployment
Committee (NDC). The committee implemented
the ANC’s cadre deployment, its penetration of
many domains of the civil service and its weakening
of the separation of powers, constitutional checks
and balances, as well as the rule of law. He bears
co-responsibility for the years of institutional and
economic value destruction by ANC policies.
As the Zuma era demonstrated, the weakened
democratic elements in the hybrid regime are
now subject to the whims of the powerful
presidency and entrenched one-party dominant
rule. Fortunately, there now are several foreign
and domestic incentives for Ramaphosa, already
a rich businessman, to try and combat the worst
corruption and abuses of the Zuma era.
A divided and factionalized ANC power base:
Ramaphosa will aim to increase the regime’s
support and reach, and his style and rhetoric will
be different. As a successor to the most corrupt
ANC leader in office to date, it should be possible
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for Ramaphosa to curb some of the worst abuses
and cases of corruption. He may even be able
implement moderate economic reforms.
However, Ramaphosa will be leading an ANC
deeply divided and factionalized, with resistance
to his incumbency and with his opponents inside
the ANC enjoying Zuma’s support and strong
local support bases. Under him, reforms and
anti-corruption measures may periodically aim
to strengthen the position and opportunities
of Ramaphosa’s faction, or to weaken those of
political opponents, rather than advancing more
general interests.
The current ANC NEC, Ramaphosa’s own support
network, his government’s cabinet and the
dominant forces in the civil and security forces are
also still strongly permeated by non-accountable,
non-pluralist and neopatrimonial dynamics. This
state of affairs is reflected in Ramaphosa himself
being willing to publicly embrace Zuma as part of
the ANC and the ANC’s election campaign in 2019,
despite Zuma’s record of incredible power abuse
and corruption.
Unexpected shifts and high political risk: As
predicted in the South African Monitor reports
of the past four years, business in South Africa
remains exposed to significant political risks
and uncertain or unpleasant economic policies.
Factional struggles within the ANC and between
the ANC and opposition groups will continue to
generate political turbulence in the next few years.
The risk of local flashpoints of intergroup tensions,
mediatized and abused for political agitation, has
risen in many towns and townships in a context
of ANC misgovernance, a struggling economy and
scapegoat politics.
Unexpected major shifts and unforeseen high-
impact events are possible, as has already happened
in various forms: the Ramaphosa government’s
decision in 2018 to promote expropriation without
compensation, the electricity and water crises due
to government mismanagement, political protests
and assassinations linked to elections, xenophobic
attacks, destructive student unrest, and actions
by the Zuma government that triggered negative
responses by international financial markets
during the period 2015-2017.
International business, cultural and education
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actors, as well as NGOs are advised to take three
steps: first, to institute rigorous and robust risk
mitigation measures in South Africa; secondly,
to review the timing, form and extent of planned
new investments and activities in South Africa;
thirdly, to also consider alternative opportunities
outside South Africa. If considering activities in
South Africa, such actors should pay renewed
attention to two important generators of stability
and prosperity: the private business sector and
institutions for sustainable communities in South
Africa.
New paradigm needed to understand the
future: Many media and analysts have clung to
assessments that underestimated the impact of
non-democratic, factional and neopatrimonial
dynamics in post-1994 South Africa. As a result,
serious risks to business, citizens and communities
have been ignored, rationalized away, or
minimized. In contrast, the framework of analysis
here has provided accurate early warning for
several years about the crises currently emerging,
the underlying dynamics, as well as the political
opportunities and risks to business.
Key dimensions of the current order
Shift to a hybrid regime: The first key dimension
of the new order has been a shift to a hybrid
regime under Jacob Zuma’s ANC since 2009. The
locus of politics has shifted from accountable
democratic institutions to a field of power in
which weak democratic institutions and non-
democratic institutions interact. It is unlikely that
these dynamics will significantly change during
the first term of president Cyril Ramaphosa
(2018-present), whose sources of potential
power remains a heavily factionalized ANC and
a bureaucracy permeated by corruption and
shrunken capabilities.
Oligopoly of violence: The second key dimension
is an oligopoly of violence instead of the state’s
monopoly of violence. South Africa’s violent
crime and murder rate now approximates those
of conflict zones. After 25 years of one-party
dominant rule, the ANC government clearly does
not consider a restoration of the security of citizens
and businesses to be a state priority. Elections still
occur. However, intimidation, threats of violence,
rehearsals for violence, violent protests, and even
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political assassinations also form part of the new
rules of the game, the incentive systems and the
positioning of actors in dealing with political claims,
counter-claims and contestation. It is unlikely
that President Ramaphosa, with weakened state
capabilities, will be able to significantly change
these dynamics.
State rests on new coalitions: The third key
dimension is a new, more volatile and fragmented
basis of the state’s authority and power. The
bureaucracy’s capacity remains limited and
becomes less efficient in service delivery to a
diverse and 20% larger population than in 1994. In
an effort to maintain or regain some control, the
ANC government and its factions are reshaping the
political order around different local strongmen
and deals, relationships and settlements. Also
under Ramaphosa, the ANC government’s active
realignment with traditional authorities and
adoption of some radical socialist policies of the
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a breakaway
from the ANC, are especially noticeable.
Shrinking social contract: The fourth key
dimension is that the new political order also
promotes a shrinking social contract. The ANC,
sometimes in conjunction with breakaway groups
like the EFF, or new parties based on former ANC
factions, is driving a stratified and exclusivist
project of nation-building. This project privileges
some groups of citizens above others, diverging
from Mandela’s stated goal of neither white
nor black domination in a population of eleven
cultural groups.
Ironically, the period of this exclusivist project has
also been the one in which the institutional capital
for a prosperous multicultural democracy and a
successful model of African liberation has been
squandered. State corruption and unemployment
skyrocketed and the reliance on foreign patrons
grew. The previously strong economy was
downgraded to junk status or just above junk
status, and professionals from all communities
started emigrating at a previously unheard-of rate.
Both the scope and the nature of the relationship
between the governing party and the diverse
population have changed. Links and mutual
obligations between some groups and those in
power, as well as patron-client relationships,
dominate their understanding of rights and
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entitlements. They also dominate their
understanding of the South African state, which
is no longer seen as first of all being rooted in
citizenship, in impartial service delivery, in the
Constitution, and in loyalty to other citizens.
Under Zuma, the relationship eventually
included re-racialized politics and authoritarian
and ethnic dynamics in the ANC. Ramaphosa
has unfortunately reinforced this approach by
focusing land expropriation policies on white
farmers, although farmers from other groups
would also be affected, and by indicating that
government policies would privilege the political
constituencies supporting the ANC.
Non-pluralist exclusion of opponents and
minorities: The fifth key feature is a limited
responsiveness as far as the claims or needs of
political opposition groups and some smaller
ethnic groups are concerned. This relationship
with the diverse population differs from the
inclusive non-racialism of the Mandela era. It also
serves to legitimize government actions and to
divert attention from failures in service delivery
and government performance by scapegoat
politics.
The ANC government presents its approach as
the sole approach to African liberation in South
Africa, excluding or silencing other more inclusive,
democratic, federal and social enterprise-based
models of African liberation. Its shrinking social
contract reinforces the limited and partisan
protection of citizens. It also legitimizes scapegoat
politics by government and non-government
actors. During the Zuma presidency, Deputy
President Ramaphosa did not actively oppose this
trend, and it remains to be seen whether he will
significantly change this approach.
Symbolic de-Westernization: The sixth key
dimension is the peaceful or violent promotion
of de-Westernization in the symbolic domain,
political institutions, as well as in academic
institutions. Ironically, the discourses of symbolic
de-Westernization and post-colonialism often
aim at gaining control over Western material
structures and assets, often generated by citizens
who are political opponents. Nativist identity
discourses and new combinations of Christianity
and indigenous African religion are increasingly
prominent in the domestic symbolic domain.
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However, as is visible in the xenophobic tensions
and attacks, and ANC responses to it since 2008,
the nativist discourse excludes not only indigenous
Western and Asian Africans, but also foreign
Africans and Asians.
During the Zuma presidency, Deputy President
Ramaphosa did not actively oppose this trend.
Since he has come to power, Angie Moshekga,
the minister of Basic Education, has confirmed
that such symbolic de-Westernization continues
to be a mainstay of education policies. It serves
as a mobilizing tool and to divert attention from
the largely defective South African education
system after 25 years of ANC rule, which has been
unable to prepare huge numbers of citizens for
the demands of a sophisticated and challenging
job market and world economy.
Resource appropriation: The seventh key
dimension of the new political order is a different
conception of property rights and the conditions
of wealth, which often clashes with the existing
liberal Constitution. The selective economic
empowerment of politically-connected actors,
mismanagement and widespread unproductive
“politics of the belly” have hollowed out state
capabilities and resulted in a weakening of key
economic capabilities. The ability of the economy
to ensure a successful model of African liberation
or African modernity for all citizens has been
significantly weakened, as Ramaphosa himself
admitted.
Policies increasingly aim at gaining access to and
control over the socio-economic formations of
some indigenous and foreign minority cultural
groups. The nativist symbolic discourse interacts
with this process and sometimes serves as its
legitimization. Both greed and grievance interact.
This dynamic, identified in South African Monitor
for several years already, has now become
manifest in the ANC’s policy of expropriation
without compensation.
Pro-Chinese foreign policy: The eighth key
dimension is a foreign policy that clearly privileged
China and Russia during the Zuma presidency,
while being neutral or less favourable to Western
powers. In addition, an interventionist and
developmental state and ANC-aligned business
actors are much more evident in economic
diplomacy and various forms of protectionism.
4/11/2019 3:22:21 PM

Under Ramaphosa, it is expected that China,
rather than Russia, may be privileged, at least
initially. Domestic short-term political priorities
will probably often be prioritized above Western
foreign direct investment.
Self-help initiatives and authority migration:
The ninth key feature is the limited, but robust
evolution of capacity and self-help initiatives
within cities, communities, and the private sector.
This feature will involve authority migration and
shape the new political order.
Between a modular and a mediated state:
The new political order already constitutes an
asymmetric modular state. Organizations and
institutions that do not form part of the central
state fulfil several state functions in different ways
in some areas or communities. Although the ANC
government theoretically has the capacity to fulfil
at least some of these functions, it accepts this
modular state as part of its governance model.
In some areas of South Africa, the dynamics of
self-help initiatives and authority migration may in
time evolve into a mediated state. In such zones,
“rule of the intermediaries” will act as substitute
for the rule of the central state. The government
will accept this situation and try to align with these
actors, not voluntarily, but based on necessity.
Hybrid regime
This report finds that during President Jacob
Zuma’s rule (2009-2018), South Africa moved
from a flawed democracy to a hybrid regime. This
transformation is partly reflected in a major shift
in the international media’s reportage on ANC rule
since 1994. Current President Cyril Ramaphosa
did not actively oppose this shift during his time
as vice-president under Zuma (2014-2018). It is
possible that he will be able to institute limited
reform to prevent the worst abuses of such a
system from occurring, but it is considered highly
unlikely that he would be able to fundamentally
change the hybrid system as such.
New locus of politics: In South Africa’s hybrid
regime, the incentive systems and the rules of
the political game have changed. The locus of
politics is not in the legislature or elections. The
locus of politics has moved to a field of power
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where democratic and non-accountable actors
and processes interact. This hybrid regime could
remain in place for years, irrespective of whether
Zuma, Ramaphosa, or another ANC president is in
power.
One-party dominance and state capture: One
non-accountable factor is the ANC as a ruling party
after 25 years in a one-party dominant state. It has
a non-pluralist political culture. Through its policy
of cadre deployment, it has captured most state
institutions and watered down the separation
of powers. State institutions are now largely
politically partisan, and the arena of factional
struggles.
Uneven electoral and economic playing fields: The
ANC’s capture of the state has allowed the party
to become as important a gatekeeper to power as
elections, if not more important. It has expanded
its hold on key constituencies and the market, also
through selective patronage and crony capitalism.
Both the electoral and the economic playing fields
have been made uneven.
Limited participation: In elections there has
been a marked decline in the registration and
participation of eligible voters since 1994. In the
2014 national elections, the ANC only attracted
an estimated 35% of eligible voters’ support,
compared to 54% in 1994. The participation rate
of eligible voters in the local elections of 2016
was approximately 42%. High levels of emigration
by skilled professionals, managers, upper and
middle-class families from all communities at
least partly reflect ANC misgovernance and the
lack of responsiveness to citizens by the existing
institutions. A high number of protests constitute
forms of political competition aimed at gaining
access to power and wealth outside elections.
Unaccountable presidentialism: Another
driver of the hybrid regime is an unaccountable
presidentialism that has exceeded the
constitutional bounds of the office. For years,
President Jacob Zuma had been held accountable
by neither his party, nor Parliament in a one-
party dominant state. The media and institutions
like the public protector were unable to identify
and admonish examples hereof. However, the
democratic checks and balances were unable to
restrain the executive. Ramaphosa has further
increased his political room for manoeuvring by
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promoting a change to the Constitution regarding democratic decline in the next few years: they
property rights. It seems unlikely at present that are intensified factional competition in the run-
he will replicate Zuma’s abuses, but the checks up to the national elections in 2019, a rise in
and balances of the system will remain too weak protest politics and intra-ANC positioning; the
to keep the executive president completely further politicization of the security forces and
accountable. securitization of politics to prop up presidential
rule; as well as the weak and highly inequal
The securitization of politics: The securitization of economy and more limited state resources, while
politics has become a trend in the hybrid regime. the fast-growing population does not experience
A long-standing non-pluralist political culture the solid education or job opportunities needed
in the ANC, combined with increased factional for stabilization.
struggles over positions, access to resources and
opportunities within the ANC and its allies, will
reinforce this development. While Ramaphosa Some consequences
is not a securocrat like Zuma, suspicion and fear
Continued factional struggles: The hybrid regime
will continue to set the tone in the inner circles of
could remain relatively stable. However, factional
power in the near term. This will not necessarily
struggles inside the ANC already increased in the
be visible to the thousands of tourists and
run-up to the 2017 ANC leadership alternation
businesspeople visiting South Africa.
and will continue to play a role at local, provincial
and national politics in the run-up to the 2019
Protests and assassinations: Politics in the hybrid
national elections and thereafter. Unexpected
regime has also acquired a non-democratic tenor,
major political shifts and unforeseen high-impact
often involving limited respect for civil rights,
events resulting from these struggles remain
intimidation and violence. Widespread protests,
possible.
often violent, have been used by communities
and segments of the citizenry as part of intra-
Uncertain or unpleasant economic policies:
ANC struggles over spoils and to gain government
Economic policy swings and delays due to the
benefits. Political protests and assassinations
infighting between different factions will continue
have become an institutionalised part of local
in the next few years. Policy uncertainty will be
political alternation, again illustrated by twenty
experienced most by companies in sectors most
political killings before, during and after the local
exposed to the government’s political priorities
elections of 2016. However, the risk of political
or regulatory and licensing power. Minerals,
assassinations now clearly extends to provincial
energy, security, agriculture, telecoms and
and national politicians, as well as bureaucrats.
pharmaceuticals would be among these sectors.
Opaque decision-making: Opaque decision-
More state interventionism: The ANC has
making, linked to patron-client relations, now
proceeded with several regulations, policy
permeate the executive and bureaucracy. The
initiatives, bills and laws regarding investor
judiciary and media remain spaces of freedom,
protection, expropriation, mining and energy,
but are under pressure.
the security industry, affirmative action and
empowerment issues, land, intellectual property
Democratic decline: The interaction of the above-
and patents, as well as foreign investors in general.
mentioned forces has created a distinctive hybrid
The common underlying policy in all of these is the
regime. They have resulted in democratic decline
same: they greatly increase the ANC government’s
and transformed the political rules of the game,
interventionist powers in the economy and
institutions and incentive systems in South Africa.
provide potential sources for patronage.
The beautiful landscapes, vibrant communities
and business opportunities of South Africa are still
Weaker property rights: Planned and actual
present, but these dynamics will dominate daily
measures will weaken property rights and reduce
politics in the near and medium term.
private-sector autonomy, which would strengthen
the position of crony capitalists with links to ANC
Three drivers: Unfortunately, three drivers will
factions, compared to other businesses. The ANC
reinforce the dynamics of a hybrid regime and

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policy of expropriation without compensation
will affect urban and rural property rights and
will strengthen the discretionary power of ANC
leaders and officials. Attempted land grabs, illegal
occupations and rent-payer boycotts are also likely
to remain a phenomenon, depending on the area.
Looking for new resources: The high levels of
state debt and the needs of the ANC’s patronage
networks will drive efforts to look for new sources
of income, both domestically and internationally.
The value of some state-run corporations, but also
other assets or opportunities of which it should
be the public custodian, could be capitalized or
mortgaged. Beneficiation requirements may also
be emphasized. Sometimes this will have a knock-
on impact on existing government undertakings
towards business.
International ANC fundraising: The search for new
sources of income will coincide with an increased
effort at economic diplomacy, both formally and
informally. The diplomacy will be couched in the
rhetoric of branding, using South Africa’s many
and unquestioned opportunities. However, the
actual results would at least partially strengthen
the presidential and partisan ANC networks in
the hybrid regime, rather than the South African
state, communities and citizens as a whole.
Integrity and reputational risks: Factional
struggles for scarce resources will drive efforts to
increase state income through these measures
and others, which may be more indirect and
informal. Unaccountable presidentialism, local big
men and patron-client networks will play a role
in this regard. There are different business and
legal codes of conduct in different jurisdictions;
international business is advised to heed best
practices regarding integrity and reputational risk.
Favouritism to some foreign patrons: The
factional search for more resources in the hybrid
regime will result in an increased dependency on
foreign patrons like China, Russia or other political
and business actors. Foreign patrons may also
become involved in intra-ANC factional struggles.
The field of competitors and the importance of
specific competitive advantages of business may
change suddenly.
Uneven service delivery: The levels of visible
state mismanagement and operational risk are
SA Monitor2018 .indd 17
SAMonitor
likely to remain high or sometimes even rise.
This state of affairs will continue to have an effect
in many areas of service delivery, such as the
security of citizens and farmers, electricity supply,
water management, waste management, roads,
education and postal services, and others that
may arise. The impact will differ per province and
locality, with pockets of adequate or good service
delivery in provinces and local areas.
Labour unrest: Factions within trade unions and
trade unions will compete intensely with each
other for members, networks, power, status and
resources. As a result, labour unrest will be a
major risk during the next few years. Due to the
context in which it will be occurring, the potential
politicization of disputes could occur fast and
could assume militant forms.
Local flashpoints: The risk of local flashpoints of
intergroup tensions, mediatized and abused for
political agitation, has risen in many towns and
townships in a context of ANC misgovernance, a
struggling economy and scapegoat politics. They
may have an unforeseen impact on business
people, assets and operations.
Opportunity cost: Many attractive business
opportunities remain in South Africa. Businesses
and NGOs with a high risk appetite will remain
involved or become active in South Africa.
However, due to the increased political risk of the
hybrid regime, some actors will also consider the
opportunity cost when comparing South Africa to
other markets.
Entrepreneurship training a priority: Under the
ANC government, parts of the education sector
have become among the worst in the world,
while the autonomy of others is threatened.
International business may find it worthwhile to
conduct corporate social responsibility projects
that focus on entrepreneurship training and
business education. If the projects involve
cooperation between foreign and South African
institutions of public education, strict criteria and
monitoring to reinforce the remaining spaces of
academic freedom are recommended in policy-
relevant education and research. However, it is
recommended that business and NGOs focus
on projects involving private and community
education institutions.
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There is a limited but robust evolution of capacity

and self-help initiatives within cities, communities,
and the private sector. This trend will involve an
authority migration over time which will shape
the new political order. Business and NGOs are
advised to identify potential partners and to use
the opportunities involved.

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“Toxic legacy taints ANC”
A major change in foreign media
reporting on the ANC
This report covers the main dynamics during
the period 2014-2018, during which time Jacob
Zuma was president and Cyril Ramaphosa his
deputy president. However, it pays attention to
Ramaphosa’s first year as president (2018). There
has been a major change in the tenor of media
SA Monitor2018 .indd 19
SAMonitor
Part I
reports on ANC rule during the period covered. In
1994, foreign media praised the coming to power
of the ANC under Nelson Mandela. During the
past few years, however, mainstream media in
Europe and the United States (US) have become
much more critical.
The New York Times published an opinion piece
on 12 December 2017, entitled “Jacob Zuma and
the Theft of South Africa”, in which Ivor Chipkin
writes:
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A decade of President Jacob Zuma’s leadership
has seen Africa’s oldest liberation movement
become a caricature of corruption and
factionalism.1
The Wall Street Journal of 15 December 2017
had a report “Killings Shake South Africa’s Ruling
Party Ahead of Leadership Contest: At least 40
ANC politicians have died violently since last year,
raising questions about the party of Mandela’s
future; ‘like a pig that is eating its own piglets’.”2
The New York Times of 30 September 2018
published a report headed “Hit Men and Power:
South Africa’s Leaders Are Killing One Another”,
and stating that
the recent increase in killings inside the
ANC is a potent reminder of how far the
party has strayed from creating, in the
ashes of apartheid, a political order
based on the rule of law.
Thomson Reuters published an interview on 14
November 2018 headed “South Africa’s land
expropriation unnerves investors – World Bank
executive”.4 On 1 January 2019, after almost a year
of the Ramaphosa presidency, The Guardian ran
an article by Africa correspondent Jason Burke,
headed “Toxic legacy taints ANC as it nears 25-
year rule in South Africa”.5
The British Financial Times stated on 4 December
2017:
There is an understandable relief at the end of the
Zuma era and the victory of Cyril Ramaphosa at the
ANC leadership election conference in December
2017. However, Gareth van Onselen, political
analyst at the liberal Institute for Race Relations
(IRR), rightly remarks, in an article headed “The
greatest trick the ANC ever pulled”:
The ANC has mesmerised its supporters to
forget the horrors it has wrought on South
Africa, and see only the new leader with his
promises.7
In many media commentaries, Ramaphosa’s own
contribution to the current state of affairs as
deputy president and senior ANC decision maker
remains under-analyzed or ignored. However, his
current performance is being watched closely. The
New York Times of 23 January 2019 reported:
For now, several political allies of Mr Zuma who
3
have long been accused of corruption serve in
his cabinet or at the highest levels of the party.
And Mr Ramaphosa’s own government has
been tainted by allegations of the same sort of
self-dealing that led to the ouster of Mr Zuma.
Most prominently, his deputy, David Mabuza,
was a longtime leader of a small province
where corruption was endemic. Mr Mabuza
has been accused of siphoning money meant
for education and other services to finance his
meteoric rise in national politics – and deliver
the votes that gave Mr Ramaphosa a slim
victory in party elections in December 2017…

Prince Mashele, co-author of The Fall of the ANC
– a best-selling book that one commentator
calls a political obituary – says the party is
“rotten in its entirety”. But most argue that Mr
Ramaphosa could curb the worse excess of the
Zuma years if only by returning to the milder
corruption of the pre-Zuma years.6
In recent years, the ANC, which once inspired
people across Africa and the world, has come
to symbolize deep-rooted corruption. Party
leaders have stolen tens of billions of dollars
meant to lift up poor black South Africans.
They have gutted key government institutions
like the tax agency, to gain better access to

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/opinion/jacob-zuma-gupta-corruption.html.
2. https://www.wsj.com/articles/killings-shake-south-africas-ruling-party-ahead-of-leadership-contest-1513333801.
3. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/world/africa/south-africa-anc-killings.html.
4. http://news.trust.org/item/20181114111607-hsjrq/.
5. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/01/toxic-legacy-taints-anc-nears-25-year-rule-south-africa.
6. https://www.ft.com/content/1f9e7a32-d5db-11e7-8c9a-d9c0a5c8d5c9.
7. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/columnists/2018-01-31-gareth-van-onselen-the-greatest-trick-the-anc-
ever-pulled/.

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government accounts. They have even taken to On 16 December 2015, The Economist’s report on
eliminating rivals, in Mafia-like assassinations.8 South Africa was entitled “The hollow state”:

Two decades after South Africa’s transition

“Time to ditch Mandela’s party”:
The Zuma era
It was during the Zuma era that some Western
media pivoted away from its over-optimistic
reporting on the ANC. Before the May 2014
national elections, on 3 May 2014, The Economist
published a report entitled: “Time to ditch
Mandela’s party”.
On 12 October 2013, The Economist had already
written:
The continent’s biggest democracies, South
Africa and Nigeria, have not lately been a
compelling advertisement for representative
government. South Africa, ruled by the African
National Congress since 1994, is in danger of
becoming a de facto one-party state.9
The Canadian Globe and Mail of 21 February
2014 stated at the end of President Jacob Zuma’s
first term in office: “After Mandela, South Africa
has fallen into a leadership vacuum”.10 The new
trend continued in 2014 and 2015 during Zuma’s
second term, when Cyril Ramaphosa served as
his deputy president. “The political crisis in South
Africa: Country without leadership”, reported Der
Tagesspiegel on 5 June 2015.11
to non-racial democracy, its institutions are
being sorely tested by President Jacob Zuma.
Can they hold? A fierce battle is now being
fought for the survival of that democracy …
Yet, after more than two decades in charge, the
ANC’s wariness of untrammelled state power
has turned into frustration at the checks on
it. The party is now undermining some of the
democratic institutions that it fought so hard to
establish …
The distinction between the ruling party and
the state has been eroded. The executive arm
of government (and its state-owned firms) is
being corroded into incompetence by corruption
and cronyism. Independent bodies meant to
safeguard democracy are being subordinated
... The challenge for democrats will be to
protect the independence of the courts and
what remains of other institutions. Mr Zuma
has shown an inclination to wreck them. Unless
checked, the danger is that when he goes he will
leave only the husk of a democracy behind.12
“Ein toxischer Präsident” (“A toxic president”) was
the heading in a report in Tagesanzeiger on 19
January 2016.13 On 3 November 2016, its headline
was “South Africa’s bought government”.14
However, the ANC as a party, which accepted
Zuma’s leadership for many years, was also

8. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/world/africa/south-africa-corruption.html.
9. https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21587787-too-many-dinosaurs?fsrc=rss.
10. https://www.wsj.com/articles/south-africas-ruling-anc-loses-its-luster-1378507776; https://www.theglobeandmail.
com/globe-debate/south-africas-post-mandela-malaise/article17008078/. Also see http://www.sz-online.
de/nachrichten/wenig-hoffnung-am-kap-2867042.html; http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article129386266/
Suedafrikas-weisse-Elefanten-sind-Brasiliens-Horror.html; http://www.ipg-journal.de/kommentar/artikel/20-jahre-
demokratie-in-suedafrika-ein-land-in-der-krise-369/; http://www.fr-online.de/politik/suedafrika-nach-mandela-
ende-der-euphorie,1472596,26950770.html; http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/ausland/naher-osten-und-afrika/Am-Kap-
der-unerfuellten-Hoffnungen/story/16237015; http://www.kas.de/suedafrika/de/publications/37569/.
11. https://www.ft.com/content/e6e63754-d964-11e4-8ed9-00144feab7de; “Die politische Krise in Südafrika: Land
ohne Führung”, Der Tagesspiegel, 5 Juni 2015.
12. http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21684146-two-decades-after-south-africas-transition-
non-racial-democracy-its.
13. http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/ausland/naher-osten-und-afrika/ein-toxischer-praesident/story/22710192.
14. https://www.nzz.ch/international/aktuelle-themen/korruptionsskandal-um-praesident-zuma-suedafrikas-gekaufte-
regierung-ld.126230.

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criticized. The heading of Financial Times on
5 December 2017 was “The Zuma years: the
fall from grace of South Africa’s ANC”.15 On 16
February 2019 its headline stated: “Jacob Zuma’s
exit gives ANC a final chance in South Africa: Now
Cyril Ramaphosa must show the ruling party has
the capacity to tackle corruption and reduce
inequality”.16
Ideas have consequences
The international media, European business
people, some diplomats and some policy think
tanks already acknowledge the new dynamics
of a hybrid regime in South Africa. However,
disincentives to acknowledging democratic
decline still exist in some circles. Stephen Brown
states that most sub-Saharan African countries are
neither liberal democracies, nor fully authoritarian.
Officials from Western governments that provide
assistance to these hybrid regimes often become
apologists for their lack of democracy. Rather than
cogently enquiring why democracy promotion
activities should not be a priority, such donor
officials frequently claim either that their host
country is more democratic than it actually is, or
that it could not be any more democratic for the
time being.17
Some international media have previously clung
to frameworks of understanding that completely
underestimated the impact of non-democratic,
factional and neopatrimonial dynamics in post-
1994 South Africa. New signals and inflection
points under President Zuma were squeezed
into frameworks anchored in the Mandela era,
which ended already more than eighteen years
ago. As a result, serious risks to business, citizens
and communities were ignored, sugar coated
or denied. The costs thereof are borne by those
who believed and acted on overly partisan and
sometimes very outdated analyses.
Many of the best international media were unable
to sufficiently understand political dynamics in
2016 to foresee the possibility of a Brexit in the
United Kingdom (UK) or a Trump presidency in the
USA. It is to be hoped that such clouded vision will
not be the case in South Africa too. After all, it is
further away from the main international power
centres and also of less concern to many Western
and Asian policymakers and public audiences.
The position of citizens and communities in
African countries is much more vulnerable than
that of policymakers in far-away and largely
sheltered neighbourhoods. To what degree will
foreign policymakers and international business
– and academic analysts – acknowledge the new
dynamics of the ANC’s hybrid regime in South
Africa?
New paradigms needed to
understand the ANC’s hybrid regime
The framework of a hybrid regime here has
provided accurate early warning for several years
about the crises that emerged and the political
risks to business. Without a paradigm shift away
from the anchoring biases of the past, foreign
business, NGO and policy-making actors will
be unable to understand events. They will also
continue to be shocked and caught unprepared by
the political and economic volatility that continues
in South Africa.18
In December 2017, the hybrid regime in South
Africa was acknowledged in a study by Jason
Sumich of the German Institute of Global and
Area Studies (GIGA):
Namibia’s South West African People’s
Organisation (SWAPO) and, especially, South
Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) were
once symbols of the triumph of democracy

15. https://www.ft.com/content/1f9e7a32-d5db-11e7-8c9a-d9c0a5c8d5c9.
16. https://www.ft.com/content/b4d39db6-1308-11e8-940e-08320fc2a277.
17. Stephen Brown, “‘Well, what can you expect?’: Donor officials’ apologetics for hybrid regimes in Africa”,
Democratization, 18(2), 2011. Also see https://2010sdafrika.wordpress.com/2018/12/10/gtai-analysepapier-zu-
suedafrika/.
18. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/columnists/2018-01-18-hilary-joffe-overseas-firms-treading-sas-
minefield-need-to-know-what-the-bombs-look-like/.

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against racist oppression, with the ANC’s former The hybrid regime analysed in this report has
leader, Nelson Mandela, attaining the status its roots in the presidency of Thabo Mbeki
of a secular saint. Over the last two decades, and had become entrenched during the two
though, the ANC and SWAPO seem to have presidential terms of Jacob Zuma. The report
joined Frelimo, the MPLA, and the Zimbabwe proposes, especially in Part V, that Ramaphosa
African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU- may introduce some reforms and curtail some of
PF) as examples of “hybrid regimes”, where the hybrid regime’s worst excesses. However, he
governments combine authoritarian rule with will be unable to bring significant change to the
regular elections. While the political lustre of dynamics of the system.
many dominant-party regimes has become
somewhat tarnished, most, with the exception
of Zimbabwe, have experienced prolonged
periods of economic growth. South Africa,
however, did so at a substantially lower rate
than some others; though, the fall of apartheid
allowed it to consolidate its position as the
regional hegemon.19

19. https://www.giga-hamburg.de/de/publikation/der-langsame-niedergang-der-dominant-party-regimes-im-
suedlichen-afrika.

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Violent crime, partisan
protection and food
insecurity
The replacement of President Jacob Zuma (2009-
2018) by Cyril Ramaphosa initially resulted in
overoptimistic expectations among some media.
However, Ramaphosa’s ability to move beyond
rhetoric to actual longer-term political and
economic reforms will remain heavily constrained
in the next few years.
There are three major constraints: First, there is
a limited state capability that would take years to
24
SA Monitor2018 .indd 24
Part II
rebuild, due to the longer-term impact of a decade
of economic value destruction and institutional
decay under the ANC, and since the population
has grown by 20% after the ANC had taken over
power in 1994. Secondly, a new symbolic and
political order in the shape of a hybrid regime
will drive the incentive systems and rules of the
game within which even Ramaphosa will have to
operate. Thirdly, the ANC on which power rests, is
deeply factionalized and likely to remain so. The
4/11/2019 3:22:23 PM
 SAMonitor

ANC’s government inability and unwillingness
to provide better security to its citizens and
communities reflects all three constraints.
Weak fulfilment of the
government’s security function
According to thinkers from Hobbes to Alan
Whaites, the provision of security is one of the
state’s survival functions, if not the key one. Yet,
Zuma did not consider the above state of insecurity
sufficiently important to address it in depth in his
2015, 2016, or 2017 State of the Nation Address
(SONA), nor did Ramaphosa in 2018. The low
government responsiveness to citizen demands
regarding this issue is another dimension of the
current political order.
According to Human Rights Watch,
Violent crime has shaped the new democracy and
is also shaping the current hybrid regime. Since
1994, more than 400  000 people have died due
to violent crime and hundreds of thousands have
been raped in South Africa. The statistics of crime
of Interpol have often been much higher than
the statistics of the South African Police Service
(SAPS). Police statistics are widely regarded as
underestimating the situation. Security researcher
David Bruce concludes:
The implication is that the non-recording of
crime is widespread within the SAPS and that
this non-recording is responsible for much of
the reduction in violent crime that has been
reported in statistics over recent years. The
implication of this, in turn, is that current crime
statistics cannot be regarded as a reliable
indicator of trends in crime, particularly in
violent crime.22

… in 2018, South Africa’s record on respect for
human rights and the rule of law remained
poor under new president, Matamela Cyril
Ramaphosa, who took office in February
following Jacob Zuma’s resignation. Corruption,
poverty, high unemployment, and violent
crime significantly restricted South Africans’
enjoyment of their rights.20
While the government enjoys external sovereignty
in the international world, its monopoly of violence
and ability to protect the population has shrunk
markedly since 1994. Professor Susan Booysen
stated after xenophobic attacks in 2015:
The government has lost authority
over vast tracks of South Africa, over
the underworld where xenophobia,
21
looting and parading mobs rule.
The police have lost their grip on serious violent
crime in South Africa, despite a budget increased
by almost 50% since 2011-2012. According to
the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), “[o]ngoing
political interference at all levels of the SAPS
has severely weakened the organisation”.23 The
attempted recovery under Ramaphosa started
with the permanent appointments of Lieutenant-
General Khehla Sitole as national police
commissioner in November 2017, Major-General
Peter Jacobs in charge of crime intelligence in
March 2018 and, two months later, of Lieutenant-
General and Advocate Godfrey Lebeya in charge
of the Hawks (South Africa’s Directorate for
Priority Crime Investigation). However, the impact
of years of instability, political pliancy and the
SAPS’s internecine battles will be felt for quite
some time.24

20. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/south-africa.
21. http://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/xenophobia-a-conundrum-for-sa-1.1847245#.VTOqrZUcTIV.
22. David Bruce, Tackling armed violence: Key findings and recommendations of the study on the violent nature of crime
in South Africa (The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation and The Department of Safety and Security,
2010), pp 5-6, 15.
23. https://issafrica.org/about-us/press-releases/police-not-coping-with-serious-violent-crime.
24. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-09-11-crime-stats-from-hell-brought-to-you-by-years-of-instability-
political-pliancy-and-the-sapss-internecine-battles/.

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Crime statistics released by the government
show there were more than 20 000 murders in
2017, a 7% increase over the previous year. In the
past ten years, more than 175  000 people have
been murdered in South Africa. These numbers
are higher than the total number of deaths in
the Afghanistan War, the Vietnam War, or the
bombing of Hiroshima.25 Almost the same number
of attempted murders were reported to the police.
On average, 109 men and women were raped
each day, and a total of 22 343 incidents of house
robbery were recorded, amounting to an average
of 61.2 per day.26
Police Minister Bheki Cele said a surge in murders
to 57 murders per day has turned South Africa
into a place that “borders on a war zone”. In
the last five years there has been an increase in
murders after more than a decade of decline. Last
year in South Africa, there had been 35.8 murders
per 100 000 people. In a putative democracy, this
is too close for comfort to the actual numbers in
armed conflicts: in Somalia, where government
troops backed by the African Union (AU) are
fighting al-Shabab militants, the ISS recorded
5  500 conflict-related deaths in 2017, which is a
rate of 38.4 per 100 000 people. For Afghanistan,
there were 14 000 deaths in the conflict between
insurgent groups and pro-government forces, a
rate of 40.4, and in Iraq, 15  000 conflict-related
deaths – a rate of 40.3.27
Fearful citizens in a putative
democracy
When assessing the impact of violent crime on
South Africa’s citizens, it is of major importance
to take note of the psychological impact of fear.
As noted by foreign psychologists visiting South
Africa, in some parts of the country a continuous
fear of violent crime is prevalent. It is of a nature
that usually only emerges in areas of armed
conflict. The reason is that a violent incident can
occur anywhere, and at any time, in a completely
arbitrary, but brutal manner.28
In this regard, the fear of violent crime against
oneself and loved ones in private spaces like
homes plays an important role. Armed house
robbery involves hold-ups of a home’s inhabitants,
often entailing threats or actions involving assault,
rape, torture and murder of children, the elderly,
the disabled or women.
The SAPS crime statistics of 2018 indicated
that incidents of many categories of crime have
increased in frequency. Statistics South Africa’s
(Stats SA) Victims of Crime Survey stated that half
of the victims do not report their trauma to the
police, and in some cases such as house breaking,
less than a fifth of the incidents are reported. The
difference between the estimates of Stats SA and
crimes recorded by the SAPS might be explained
by the public’s declining trust in the criminal justice
system. Over 42% of people believe violent crime
has increased, up from 39% the previous year, and
only 79% of people feel safe during the day, down
from 87%. Only 32% of people feel safe when it’s
dark, down from 35%. Levels of satisfaction with
the police and the courts have continued to fall
since 2013/2014. The survey found that “last year
54% of people were satisfied with how police deal
with criminals and 41% are satisfied with the how
courts deal with crime”.29
South Africans are also becoming more scared
to walk on their own in their areas of residence:
“The feeling of safety when walking alone has
been declining,” says Stats SA. Around a third of
households surveyed do not go to open spaces or
parks due to the fear of crime, while just less than
a quarter would not allow children to play outside
for the same reason.30

25. https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-09-11-crimestats-ten-years-of-murder-in-south-africa-in-one-
terrifying-graphic/; https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0341/P03412016.pdf.
26. https://www.fin24.com/Finweek/Opinion/the-cost-of-crime-20180815.
27. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-45547975.
28. See the report by Fred de Vries, correspondent for the Dutch newspaper Trouw and author of Rigtingbedonnerd, an
acclaimed book on South Africa at http://www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/4324/Nieuws/article/detail/1354583/2007/01/12/De-
Johannesburgziekte.dhtml and http://soulsafari.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/afrikaners-rigtingbedonnerd-exclusive-
interview-with-fred-de-vries/.
29. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-10-11-crime-is-increasing-and-were-more-fearful/.
30. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-02-14-analysis-south-africa-a-country-of-fear-say-latest-crime-
perception-stats/#.WmpC-6jibIW.

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Citizens have been forced to look after their own
security, including private home-based measures,
neighbourhood watches, community patrols and
private security companies. However, government
responses to fulfil its protective function have
remained unable to deal with violent crime against
citizens and communities.
The impact of major crime on
business
Service delivery and student protests have become
a key concern for business owners as protestors
often resort to malicious damage to property,
which can result in business interruption. In 2018,
a record high of 1 444 protests were documented,
with incidents of property vandalism, the burning
of vehicles and sometimes violently prohibiting
others from accessing the products/services
offered by organisations continuing to rise. The
level of hijacking/theft by force had also risen
sharply. The 2017/2018 National Crime Statistics
Report released by the SAPS revealed a 56.6%
increase in cash-in-transit heists and an alarming
escalation of more than 333% in bank robberies.31
The economist, Mike Schüssler, gave an incisive
overview:
The damage that crime does is of course not
just an economic question but does increase
the cost of living and the cost of doing business.
This is my area of expertise and, sticking to my
knitting, I think it is important that some points
are made. Starting at the cost of government
corruption: this was put at about R240 billion
a year in 2015 due to tenders for the state and
its companies being at least 40% overpriced.
Moreover, this excludes irregular expenditure
which has amounted to more than R100 billion
in the last few years.
Bribes in everyday life, for anything from getting
out of a traffic fine to securing a teaching post,
are rife. Bribes for jobs are not even measured in
31. https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/273971/big-increase-in-hijackings-and-other-crimes-targeting-businesses-
in-south-africa/.
32. https://www.moneyweb.co.za/moneyweb-opinion/soapbox/crime-pays-more-than-honesty-in-
sa/?utm_source=Moneyweb&utm_campaign=b61f1100df-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_10_19_03_47&utm_
medium=email&utm_term=0_b106a40770-b61f1100df-213156865&mc_cid=b61f1100df&mc_eid=31a093eb05.
SA Monitor2018 .indd 27
SAMonitor
any crime report but one hears of it frequently
from a range of sectors.
This cost is not measurable, but is immense ‒
and almost all of these “promotions” are never
reported. This comes at a cost of pupil’s careers
and possibilities while allowing politicians to
continue to blame the old order for the current
inequality.
Train commuters pay about five times more to
use taxis and many lose their ability to work
as they cannot afford taxi fees. Suburbia ends
up paying more for insurance of vehicles,
household contents and of course security
services. This money could have been spent
more productively on other items such as cars
or gardens. The newly built power stations cost
more than in other regions, resulting in higher
electricity prices. The massive debt accrued
is causing higher interests for government
debt as well as downgrades for the country.
Additionally, cable theft causes outages in
suburbs, trains don’t run and the internet goes
down. 32
Nativism and violent expropriation
South Africa is a young state, just over a hundred
years old, with shifting political group identities
and territorial borders. It is currently experiencing
its fourth political order since 1910. Its current nine
provinces, with their distinctive landscapes and
dynamics, are often grafted on previous political
orders: African and European settler societies,
Asian and Khoisan structures, the indigenous
chiefdoms, Afrikaner republics, and Matabele and
Zulu empires of more than five hundred years of
history.
The position of different groups in this population
is currently being recast. The social contract
between the government and the diverse
population is shrinking and becoming stratified. In
the symbolic domain, the influence of a nativist
mythology that creates new boundaries of the
“nation” is quite high, compared to two decades
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4/11/2019 3:22:24 PM
 SAMonitor

ago.33 The formal democratic institutions, the
neopatrimonial networks and the autocratic
processes and practices of the hybrid regime are
now combined in racially-focused and exclusivist
nation-building projects.
These projects differ from the inclusive non-
racialism of the Mandela era. They are also
employed to legitimize government actions and
to divert attention from failures in service delivery
and government performance. In the ANC’s
competition for support, they also interact with
and respond to the Afro-radicalism and economic
nationalism promoted by the EFF political party of
Julius Malema.34
Often these symbolic politics interact with the
politics of the belly and the politics of patronage:
nativist mythology is used to legitimize efforts
to gain access and break up the socio-economic
formations of some indigenous and foreign
minority cultural groups.
Afrobarometer’s surveys show that a vast
majority of South African citizens distrusts (black)
foreigners, wishing to restrict their residence
rights and prohibit their eventual acquisition of
citizenship.35 The ANC reinforced or responded
to some of these demands. Gwede Mantashe,
then the ANC’s secretary general, announced on
12 April 2014 that the government would restrict
small foreign-owned businesses from being
opened in the country’s townships and rural areas,
so as to create opportunities for South Africans.36
In January 2015, the minister of Small Business
Development, Lindiwe Zulu, said that foreign
business owners should share their business
practices with locals if they wanted to live and
trade in South Africa without fear of disturbance
or violence.37 In March 2016, Supra Mahumapelo,
in his capacity as North West Premier, stated that
foreign nationals who own spaza shops in the
province should look for alternative places to do
business.38
Widespread attacks targeting foreigners had
previously taken place in May 2008, killing 62
people and making international headlines.
Virtually no one has been convicted over past
outbreaks of xenophobic violence. Another wave
of violence occurred in April 2015, leading to an
outcry across Africa and the recall of the Nigerian
ambassador. These were not attacks caused
by small bands of provocateurs or criminals;
evidence suggested widespread participation
in, and support for, the violence in the affected
communities.39
During 2018 there were numerous incidents
involving threats and violence against refugees,
asylum-seekers and migrants, with looting or
destruction of their small businesses and homes.
According to the 2019 report of Human Rights
Watch,
African foreign nationals in South Africa,
including refugees and asylum-seekers,
continued to face xenophobic violence and
threats of violence in 2018 … In August, at least
four people died when xenophobic violence
erupted in Soweto, south of Johannesburg.
Mobs of protesting locals beat foreign
nationals, mostly Somalis, and looted their
shops. The protesters accused foreign nationals
of selling fake and expired food products. A
few days after the Soweto violence, a new
anti-foreigner political group marched in
Johannesburg, demanding the deportation of
all undocumented foreigners in South Africa by
the end of the year.40

33. Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Africa for Africans or Africa for ‘Natives’ only? ‘New nationalism’ and nativism in
Zimbabwe and South Africa”, Africa Spectrum, 64(1), 2009, pp 76-78.
34. http://africasacountry.com/a-malignant-nativism-threatens-post-apartheid-democracy-in-south-africa/.
35. http://mg.co.za/article/2015-05-06-violence-sets-sa-xenophobia-apart. Also see Loren Landau, “Urbanization,
nativism, and the rule of law in South Africa’s ‘forbidden’ cities”, paper delivered at a workshop, “The promise of
freedom and its practice: Global perspectives on South Africa’s decade of democracy”, Wits Institute for Social and
Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 17 May 2004.
36. http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/133623/s-africas-anc-to-restrict-small-foreign-businesses.
37. http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/small-business-minister-wants-spaza-shop-trade-secrets/.
38. “North West premier not doing SA any favours”, Business Day, 23 March 2016.
39. http://afrobarometer.org/publications/wp173-explaining-south-african-xenophobia.
40. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/south-africa.

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Professor Loren Landau, director of the African

Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) at the
University of the Witwatersrand, explained the
political dynamics involved:
Faced with perennial shortfalls of services,
dwellings and jobs, local leadership has
allowed and abetted the scapegoating and
appropriation of foreign-owned shops, houses
or goods. With new resources to distribute and
a demon to blame, they come out winners.41
In January 2018, Shenilla Mohamed, executive
director of Amnesty International South Africa
stated:
There is a lack of political will on the part of
the government to deal with issues of violence
and xenophobia in a sustainable way, and the
consequence of this inertia has resulted in
continuing sporadic bursts of violence which
often end in deaths, injuries and damage to
property … nothing concrete has been done
to combat impunity for xenophobic violence
and other related longstanding human rights
violations.42
After 25 years of underperforming one-party
dominant rule, there is an undercurrent of heated
rhetoric and volatile scapegoat politics in South
Africa. Foreign Africans are excluded, marginalized
or not recognized in the nativist discourse. So are
indigenous Western Africans and Asian Africans.
Farm murders: violent crime and
rural terrorism
A particularly serious category of crime, is attacks on
the small community of about 30 000 commercial
farmers in South Africa. More than 4 900 farm
attacks have been recorded in the period 1990
to 2017, with a conservatively estimated 1  980
farmers and farm workers being killed.43 These
attacks are being perpetrated against members
of all groups, including both farm workers and
farm owners. Most of the victims of such attacks
are Afrikaner farmers and their families, but black
victims constitute a third of the overall numbers.
Many permanent and temporary workers and
their families also lose their source of livelihood
as a result of a farmer’s death.44
Farm attacks and brutal farm murders threaten
local citizens and foreigners, as well as food
security in South Africa. In February 2017, British
national Sue Howarth, 64, and her husband,
Robert Lynn, 66, were asleep when they were
attacked in their farmhouse near the South African
town, Dullstroom. During the attack, the robbers
burnt her with a blowtorch before shooting her
and stuffing a plastic bag down her throat.45 In
April 2017, Dutch citizen Peet van Es was killed by
five attackers on his farm after being tortured for
five hours.46
Doctor Danny Titus of the South African Human
Rights Commission (SAHRC) stated on 26 August

41. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/05/11/political-rhetoric-and-institutions-fuel-
xenophobic-violence-in-south-africa/.
42. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/01/south-africa-government-must-show-political-will-to-end-
xenophobic-violence/; http://dailypost.ng/2018/01/11/nigerian-owned-guest-houses-burnt-south-africa/.
43. Dirk Hermann, Chris van Zyl and Ilze Nieuwoudt, Treurgrond [Land of sorrow] (Kraal, Pretoria, 2013); http://www.
issafrica.org/iss-today/farm-attacks-and-farm-murders-remain-a-concern; figures provided by crime analyst Lorraine
Claasen, February 2018; AfriForum media statement dated 29 January 2019. These figures are the result of statistics
kept and verified by the Transvaal Agricultural Union and the civil rights organisation AfriForum, also compared to
police statistics. Not all incidents are reported to the police however, and some are excluded because of differing
interpretations of the definition of a farm attck or murder.
44. “Widow pours out her heart”, The Witness, 23 October 2014; “Ixopo farm attackers jailed for life”, Media 24, 31
October 2014.
45. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/23/british-woman-killed-south-africa-robbers-torture-blow-torch/;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/28/husband-woman-tortured-south-africa-robbery-speaks-horrific/.
46. https://www.elsevierweekblad.nl/nederland/achtergrond/2017/04/nederlandse-boer-in-zuid-afrika-vermoord-na-
uren-marteling-488961/.

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2016 to Parliament that the criminal justice system
did not provide any deterrent to crime. “When we
observe the brutality of the killings it is clear that
there is no respect for life and that perpetrators
operate with impunity,” he said. Titus told the
committee that the perception that violent farm
crimes only affected white farmers was not true.
Black farmers were equally affected, he said.47
Farm attackers strike in groups that vary from
one to as many as thirteen attackers per incident.
Attacks are planned in detail and a disturbing
trend is the increasing use of technology by farm
attackers.48 Few of these incidents involve large-
scale theft. Usually arms, vehicles, mobile phones
and cash are stolen, but combined with high levels
of brutality, violence and even torture. Eileen de
Jager and Roelien Schutte, two sisters who clean
up crime scenes nationally, say that they have
seen a definite increase in extreme violence in
farm attacks. They are of the opinion that if the
public were to realise what actually happens
during such attacks, it would serve as a wake-up
call that would mobilise communities. De Jager
states:
Victims are often tortured before
being dragged behind cars, or they are
mutilated with boiling water. It is
49
beyond insane.
Food security has dropped in the past five years
to include less than 50% of the population, which
emphasizes the need to give priority attention to
these key economic actors and this vulnerable
community.50 Public outrage against the inability of
the ANC government to protect farmers and other
citizens against violent crime led to nationwide
protests on 30 October 2017. On that date, tens of
thousands of people protested peacefully in what
became known as “Black Monday”, blockading
roads in many parts of South Africa. The Black
Monday protests were sparked by the murder of
farmer Joubert Conradie, the married father of
two children, on the farm in the Western Cape
where he was born.51. However, despite these and
other protests, the government has not responded
effectively to the concerns of farmers.52
Strangling rural stability and
economies
Then President Nelson Mandela stated at the
Summit on Rural Safety in 1998: “Beyond the
immediate human suffering, lack of security and
stability in our rural and farming community
causes serious disruption to our economy.”53
International policymakers and business analysts
consider agriculture and agribusiness as key
sectors in the socio-economic development of
many countries of Africa.54 However, its capacity
is often underdeveloped, resulting in it being the
recipient of development aid.
In the case of South Africa, a unique agricultural
sector has been developed in one of Africa’s
often arid and more challenging countries to
farm. The unique value of this historical exception
to the economy has in recent years often been
overlooked due to domestic political agendas and
campaigns.
For years, the ANC government has been unable
to make a committed effort to provide security

47. http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/farm-murders-on-the-decrease-parliament-told-20160826.
48. https://www.afriforum.co.za/figures-announced-today-farm-murders-farm-attacks-rise-2016/.
49. http://news.iafrica.com/sa/829892.html.
50. http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Food-security-in-SA-declining-study-20130806.
51. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-10-31-groundup-protesters-march-through-cape-town-against-farm-
murders/#.Wn840kxuLIU; http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2017/10/30/genoeg-is-genoeg-farmers-unite-in-black-
monday-protest_a_23260231/.
52. https://www.afriforum.co.za/thousands-march-union-building-farm-murders/.
53. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-03-01-rural-safety-are-farm-murders-being-underplayed-for-
politics/#.WvAo_4iFPIU.
54. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2016/01/22/foresight-africa-2016-banking-on-agriculture-for-
africas-future/.

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to the valuable farming communities. However,
reports by Western media55 and responses by
senior Australian decision makers condemning
the dire situation of farmers in South Africa,
indicate that international consciousness about
the problem can no longer be prevented.56
The ANC’s policy of expropriation of farmers’
land without compensation has reinforced wider
concerns about a further weakening of property
rights in South Africa, also in urban areas. However,
there are many ways in which farm murders have
a negative effect too, not only on the victims and
their families and close communities, but also on
the broader economy.
Weakening rural economies 57
goods. The sector has strong linkages with the
rural non-farm economy, which helps to restabilize
the sometimes depopulating or stagnating smaller
towns in the vast areas of South Africa.
Productivity linkages represent the non-market
linkages between the agricultural and non-
farm economy. Examples include the positive
effect of lower food prices, which impacts on
worker nutrition and productivity. Food security
and political stability, the beneficial effects of
knowledge flows that accelerate productivity
growth in both agriculture and non-farm
production, and the beneficial effects of the
agricultural sector on the rural non-farm economy
are also included.

The South African agricultural sector does not

The contribution of agriculture and agribusiness
to the national economy has been almost 2.5% of
GDP for years. Examples of agribusinesses would
include farming operations, input manufacturers,
input suppliers and co-operatives, food processors,
distributors, traders and others. Agricultural
linkages can be divided into four main groups,
namely production, consumption, productivity
and factor market linkages.
In terms of national production linkages, the
agricultural sector and the sectors with which it
has the strongest linkages represent around 7% of
the total economy. Production linkages represent
the backward and forward linkages between the
agricultural sector and rest of the economy. The
backward linkages arise through the inputs bought
by the agricultural sector from the primary and
manufacturing sectors, and the forward linkages
through the agricultural products supplied to the
manufacturing sector for further processing.
play a growth-leading or initiating role in the
economy, due to its relative size. As a result, the
growth impact of agricultural exports and linkages
with the rest of the economy on a national level
is significant, but limited. However, the sector
plays a growth enabling role, by supplying food
to consumers at the lowest possible price by
either producing it domestically or affording food
imports with the exchange earned in the export of
agricultural produce.
Farm murders lead to a serious
loss of job opportunities
Factor market linkages represent the impact of
agricultural income on the rest of the economy.
This includes the investment of farm income in
non-farm investments, and other factor flows,
such the flow of capital and labour to the rest of
the economy.

Consumption linkages represent the spending Statistics on agricultural employment differ

of farm families on locally produced consumer according to definition and source, but it is safe

55. https://www.stern.de/politik/ausland/kriminalitaet-in-suedafrika---weisse-farmer-im--feindesland--7617322.
html; https://www.daserste.de/information/politik-weltgeschehen/weltspiegel/videos/suedafrika-weisse-Farmer-
video-100.html; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5610567/South-African-farmers-wife-reveals-thug-shot-
husband-dead-children.html.
56. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/dutton-considering-several-white-south-african-farmer-visa-applications; http://
www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/thank-you-australia-hundreds-rally-in-brisbane-to-
highlight-the-plight-of-south-african-farmers/news-story/80c20ce7015e12e4de4cf8e49a105d0e; https://www.
thesouthafrican.com/australian-ag-sa-farmers-refugee-status/.
57. This section is based on https://agbiz.co.za/uploads/documents/careers/13_04-thesis_jan_c_greyling_published.pdf.

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 SAMonitor
to say that the sector employs around 700 000
workers. The agricultural sector is also labour-
intensive, compared to other sectors, because it
employs about 4.6% of the total labour force. The
mining and manufacturing sectors, in comparison,
represent 8.5% and 12.5% of the economy, whilst
employing only 2.3% and 11.8% of the labour force
respectively. The agricultural sector therefore
uses two units of labour per unit of value added,
whilst the ratio is 0.3 and 0.94 for the mining and
manufacturing sectors.
This makes the sector one of the biggest
employers in the economy. During a period of
high unemployment and underemployment of
about 27% in South Africa, including more than
60% youth unemployment, the stabilizing role of
agriculture in providing jobs cannot be emphasized
sufficiently.
Farm murders damage rural socio-
economic orders
In some provinces, the impact of farm murders on
employment, social capital and the local economy
is particularly significant. More than 18% of job
opportunities in the Western Cape province are
in agriculture or agribusiness.58 The Western
Cape accounts for about 60% of South Africa’s
agricultural exports. The local manufacturing
sector obtains up to 70% of its inputs from
agriculture or agribusiness.
Dimensions related to agriculture also reinforce
the context of local and international tourism. Tens
of thousands of German, French, Dutch, British
and other citizens reside in the Western Cape and
elsewhere in South Africa, many of them also as
farm-owners.
The high levels of social capital reflected in the
agricultural sector of the Western Cape played a
major role in the fast mobilization of provincial
urban and rural communities to protest against
58. https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/why-western-cape-agriculture-matters-to-sa-economy-10007415.
59. https://derstandard.at/2000068573136/Debatte-ueber-Morde-an-Weissen-reisst-Suedafrikas-Wunden-auf.
60. This section is based on http://www.grainsa.co.za/a-look-at-the-contribution-of-the-agricultural-sector-to-the-south-
african-economy.
32
SA Monitor2018 .indd 32
the brutal murder of the above-mentioned
Western Cape farmer, Joubert Conradie, on 24
October 2017. The protests constituted some of
the largest multiracial protests in South Africa
against farm murders and violent crime since
1994, and included blockades of roads in many
parts of South Africa.59
Farm murders also seriously rupture the social
capital and economies of families and small
communities in several rural areas in the
northern provinces of South Africa, where
underdevelopment and stagnant small towns
already present challenges.
Farm murders weaken the
multiplier effect 60
The above-mentioned approach of linkages,
though correct, is limited, because it simply looks
at the direct contribution of the sector to GDP. One
could also use multipliers to estimate the indirect
impact of changes in the sector on the rest of
the economy. These multipliers, calculated from
national statistics, show that primary agriculture
has a backward linkage of 2,14. This constitutes
the fifth highest result in a grouping of twenty
sectors of the economy.
Thus, a R1  million increase in demand for
agricultural output will increase the combined
output of the other production sectors in the
economy by R2.14 million (inclusive of the original
R1 million of the agricultural sector output).
The closely related food, beverage and tobacco
industry, is calculated at 2.3, in the third position.
The calculated forward linkage of the sector is
1.81. If there is a R1 million increase in the cost
of value added in the agricultural sector, then the
combined value of output of the other sectors in
the economy will increase by R1.81 million as a
result of price increases.
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Agriculture was the best performer across the

first three quarters of 2017 and was the largest The political refusal of protection
contributor to the country’s two percent GDP
Several factors politicize the issue of farm murders:
growth in the third quarter.61
the ANC’s National Democratic Revolution
(NDR) policy, also regarding land possession and
Farm murders hasten the onset of ownership; its cadre deployment, also in the
police; its focus on own patronage rather than on
food insecurity 62

service delivery; its decreasing accountability to

citizens and communities; ANC factions that want
In general, food security is defined as having
the land of many farmers to be transferred to ANC
reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable,
cadres; and the fact that many farmers support
nutritious food. According to Stats SA, the typical
political opposition parties.
South African household spends more than 70%
of its food budget on four main food groups: Meat
Farming communities, like many urban
(25%), bread and cereals (26%), milk, cheese and
neighbourhoods, have had to accept that their
eggs (9%), and vegetables (10%).
tax money is spent by the government, but that as
taxpayers and citizens they remain without good
An analysis of the combined net trade (net export
police protection. The Austrian newspaper Der
tons less the net import tons) of the main items in
Standard reported on 28 November 2017 that up
each of the four groups provides a good indication
to 30% of the victims may be black, but the ANC
of the country’s food self-sufficiency status. The
still did not give attention to these killings:
trend is downward over time. South Africa is
currently not self-sufficient in terms of the main
food items consumed since the mid-1990s. A Many politicians of the ruling African
2014 nationally representative survey revealed
that there were 7 million individuals who reported National Congress find it difficult
experiencing feeling hungry.63 to name the acts of violence and to
South Africa’s population has grown by more than
condemn them as such. And not only on
20% since 1994 to an estimated 57 million people. the edges of the former black liberation
It is set to grow much further still in coming years movement does one find those who try
and decades.64 Food security and affordable food
produced by the agricultural sector are already with barely concealed agreement try
under threat. The ANC government’s refusal to to create an atmosphere where such
ensure proper rural protection or to properly 65

assist farming communities in strengthening violence is accepted.

their security will only reinforce the risk of food The Africanist, Professor Patrick Chabal, noted in
insecurity in South Africa. some cases elsewhere in Africa that rulers have

61. https://www.farmonline.com.au/story/5247948/south-african-farmland-grab-could-ruin-economic-stability/.
62. This section is based on http://www.grainsa.co.za/a-look-at-the-contribution-of-the-agricultural-sector-to-the-south-
african-economy.
63. https://www.health24.com/Diet-and-nutrition/Food-security/Food-insecurity-is-a-reality-for-millions-of-South-
Africans-living-in-informal-settlements-20151019; https://africacheck.org/reports/are-there-13-14-or-15-million-
hungry-people-in-south-africa/.
64. https://www.populationpyramid.net/south-africa/2050/.
65. https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000068573136/debatte-ueber-morde-an-weissen-reisst-suedafrikas-wunden-
auf.

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allowed violent crime to restructure the political In the case of farm murders, as well as in the case
environment in its favour.66 Local “big men” have of urban violent crime and xenophobic killings,
often played a role in this regard, sometimes the life stories of the victims, taxpayers and
with tacit support from national leaders. Gareth citizens often get lost in the bigger maelstrom of
Newham assessed the police in South Africa: politics and predation.68 Few foreign governments
and NGOs also show a significant interest in their
infringed civil rights.
The system for a professional ethos
has collapsed and lower level officials
are excluded because they aren’t
politically-aligned. If people are not
seen as a part of the ruling factions
and they are killed, there is little
chance of an investigation. 67

66. Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, Africa works: Disorder as political instrument (International African Institute,
London, 1999).
67. http://allafrica.com/stories/201310220779.html?page=3.
68. Carla van der Spuy, Farm killings: Victims tell their own stories (Bargain Books, Cape Town, 2014) is an introduction
to the life stories of the first category of victims. To date, newspaper reports are the best sources of information on
victims in the other two categories, but more comprehensive studies are necessary. See also Ernst Roets, Kill the
Boer (Kraal Publishers, Pretoria, 2017).

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PART III
A shrinking social
contract and a
multipolar field of
authority
these vast differences in histories and wealth
Partisan privileging are compressed in a single political order of an
estimated 57 million people.
At present, the economy of South Africa has diverse
socio-economic formations and wealth inequalities
Among them, an estimated 6 million people of all
resembling France and the Francophone region
population groups pay 99% of all personal income
in Africa combined, or the region of Mexico, the
tax. Many, if not most of them, support opposition
Caribbean islands, the United States, and French
parties.69 The social welfare system they help to
and Anglophone Canada combined. However,
fund, supports an estimated 17 million people.

69. Fanie Joubert and Jannie Rossouw, “Lewenstandaard: ʼn ekonomiese perspektief op lewenstandaard in Suid-Afrika”,
Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe, 53(1), Maart 2013, pp 89-103 (on pp 96-97). For lower estimates of the actual
number of taxpayers, see Paul Joubert, “How many taxpayers are there”, Politicsweb, 30 March 2012 and Piet le
Roux, “Taxpayers are getting fed up”, Politicsweb, 19 November 2013.

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The growing informal economy also constitutes a
part of the arena of political competition.
The considerable value destruction of the ANC’s
economic policies and corruption under Zuma and
the struggling economy, covered in later chapters,
have intensified resource struggles and intra-ANC
factionalism. In this context, various forms of both
peaceful and more vicious identity, urban, rural,
regional and class politics have emerged.
In the case of South Africa, the public resources
structure rests on a complex set of relationships
between the ANC-controlled state, as well as
emerging black elites in the ANC establishment
and large private sector corporations. This set of
relationships supports the ANC’s use of a number
of policy levers.70
The policy of Black Economic Empowerment
(BEE), under Zuma also reconfigured as Broad-
based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE), is
often represented as if it constitutes an advance
for all members of one racial group. However, it
has become a partisan political programme. In its
execution in the hybrid regime, it is closely linked
to the political friends and relatives of one political
organization among others of the racial group,
namely the ANC. BEE also provides a disincentive
to members of the elite to defect and form an
electoral alternative in the hybrid regime.
According to Moeletsi Mbeki, a prominent
economist and the brother of former President
Thabo Mbeki, BEE has not benefited black business
people, but in fact has inflicted them a fatal blow.
He states that those who have benefited are a
small group of unproductive black capitalists
with enormous political influence. Other black
businesspeople have almost had no chance.71 This
process, which started in the previous political
order, will continue in the current hybrid regime.
One of the results, admitted by Ramaphosa himself
in January 2019, is that “things like corruption
become a way of life”.72
Racial nationalism and the ANC
Historically, the ANC experienced tensions between
professed non-racialism and racial nationalist
convictions among its leaders and members.73
During its pre-1994 struggle, its international
supporters often referred to its non-racial ideals
and credentials. However, after 1994, the ANC
also retained the racial classification system of the
population used during the apartheid system to
impose a new racial order. Ineke van Kessel states:
An exclusive brand of African nationalism, also
labelled “nativism”, seems set to become the
new hegemonic discourse … Black nationalism
may indeed provide the glue in securing the
loyalty of the ANC’s main constituency, but
in the process another cherished principle of
the liberation struggle, – non-racialism – is
increasingly under pressure … The demise of
the rainbow ideology that guided the UDF is
much regretted by coloured, white, and Indian
former activists, but is hardly problematized by
my African interviewees.74
“There is an increasing fervour for racial nationalism
in the ANC’s policies”, the political scientist Nicola
de Jager notes.75 The racial identity politics serves
as a potential unifying discourse among South
Africa’s nine major black ethnic groups. It also
serves as a potential unifying discourse between
an emerging middle class and millions of poor
citizens. This form of racial identity politics often
tends to racialize and regionalize African identity:
it marginalizes or even denies the African identities
and contributions of Western and Asian citizens

70. Roger Tangri and Roger Southall, “The politics of Black Economic Empowerment in South Africa”, Journal of Southern
African Studies, 34(3), 2008, pp 699-716 (on p 710) and http://mg.co.za/article/2013-10-25-00-gold-fields-link-to-
duduzile-zuma.
71. http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaftspolitik/suedafrika-schwarze-buerger-werden-gezielt-bevorzugt-12911281.
html.
72. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/world/africa/south-africa-corruption.html.
73. Stephen Ellis, External mission: The ANC in exile, 1960-1990 (Hurst, London, 2012), pp 214-219.
74. Ineke van Kessel, “The changing meaning of change: The legacy of the United Democratic Front in South Africa”,
paper delivered at the Fourth European Conference in African Studies, Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden, 15-
18 June 2011, p 6.
75. http://mg.co.za/article/2015-11-03-sa-is-in-danger-of-becoming-a-radicalised-society-again.

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in South Africa. Implicitly, it also marginalizes or that special measures should not take the shape
denies the African identities of Berber and Arab of reverse racism.77
North Africans.

John Kane Berman of the IRR has commented Ethnic politics in the ANC
that the victims of the new racially-discriminatory
Zuma’s presidency has clearly reinforced ethnic
legislation include
politics in the ANC. In the case of South Africa, no
single ethnic group dominates numerically in the
… members of minority groups leveraged out
population of more than 57 million. The broader
of jobs because they exceed the relevant racial
population has at least eleven major identity
quota, or denied appointment or promotion on
groups, all of whom are numerical minorities.78
racial grounds. Increasing numbers of these are
“born frees” with no experience of the apartheid
All of these groups have distinctive cultures and
era. Other victims are members of the coloured
languages, sometimes core areas of residence and
and Indian minorities, who were also on the
concentration, and often histories of struggles
receiving end of apartheid discrimination.
against domination by other groups. Each group’s
However, the victims also include people,
members have a spectrum of iterated and
most of them black, heavily dependent on the
negotiated identities and socio-economic class
services of state agencies that don’t function
positions. Many of them also draw from cultural
properly because many of their appointees
repertoires of fervent individualism, ruses and
have been put there for reasons of race or
social mobility, based on the specific dynamics
political allegiance ... In the end the victims of
of their group and locality.79 Compared to some
the ANC’s racial policies are more numerous
other identities available to citizens, the South
than the beneficiaries.76
African identity itself has often been a thin, fluid
and contested national identity for purposes of
In August 2016, the Solidarity Trade Union, after
political mobilization.
widely consulting with civil society actors over time,
made a presentation regarding the government’s
For many years before the ANC came to power
policy of race quotas to the United Nations (UN)
in 1994, Nelson Mandela, an ethnic Xhosa, was
Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of
the leader of the ANC. The ANC always stressed
Racial Discrimination (CERD). Marc Bossuyt, one
its “non-tribalism”. However, Mbeki expanded the
of the committee members and a former judge
number of Xhosas in his cabinet during his tenure
at the Belgian Constitutional Court, stated on 10
as president.80 During this time, most members of
August 2016 that the government’s affirmative
the ANC executive were Xhosas and Zulus speaking
action policy is rigid and its implementation in the
Nguni languages. Zuma was the highest-ranking
private sector, the economy and sport is absurd.
Zulu in the ANC. In 2006, Archbishop Emeritus
In response to the South African government’s
Desmond Tutu warned about a potential “Nguni-
representative, he stated that the use of race
ocracy” in the ANC.81
comes down to old apartheid and is not in line
with the Convention on Human Rights. He stated

76. John Kane Berman, “Race and racism”, Moneyweb, 25 January 2016.
77. http://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/solidarity-lodges-complaint-over-sas-race-quotas-w; https://
solidariteit.co.za/en/sparks-fly-united-nations-solidarity/.
78. See Census 2011 at http://www.statssa.gov.za.
79. Jean-Francois Bayart, “The ‘social capital’ of the felonious state – or the ruses of political intelligence”, in Jean-
Francois Bayart, Stephen Ellis and Beatrice Hibou, The criminalization of the state in Africa (James Currey, Oxford,
1999), pp 34-42.
80. http://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2016-10-19-ethnic-nationalism-zumas-style-of/.
81. Yonatan Fessha, Ethnic diversity and federalism: Constitution-making in South Africa and Ethiopia (Ashgate:
Burlington, 2010), p 132; Danielle Resnick, Urban poverty and party populism in African democracies (Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 2014), pp 200-209.

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Zulus constitute the largest minority, at about

22% of the population, with their core historical
areas and kingdoms in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal
province. Zuma is an ethnic Zulu who also upholds
some Zulu cultural traditions. As a result of Zuma’s
skills as a mobilizer since 1994, Zulus have come
to form the strongest component (almost 25%) of
the ANC’s increased membership.82
Anthony Butler of the University of Cape Town (UCT)
indicated the “skewed composition of the Cabinet,
the KwaZulu-Natal-dominated ANC parliamentary
list, the growing nonrepresentativity of important
directors-general and their deputies, and the
composition of parastatal boards and managers”
during Zuma’s presidency. These appointments,
he argued, indicate “a big shift in the control of
resources and power towards people of amaZulu
descent”. “When a minister comes from a certain
region, so will the officials in that department,”
former President Thabo Mbeki said in 2014.83
New prominent sources of symbolic
legitimation
Recourse to both Christian and indigenous African
religions, which also enjoy support among urban
constituencies and leaders, have been used as
additional sources to legitimize the ANC’s hold on
power. On 5 May 2008, Zuma declared to an ANC
rally in Khayelitsha:
God expects us to rule this country because we
are the only organisation which was blessed by
pastors when it was formed. It is even blessed
in Heaven. That is why we will rule until Jesus
comes back. We should not allow anyone to
govern our city [Cape Town] when we are ruling
the country.86
He made similar statements in 2004, 2006, 2009,
2012, 2014 and 2016.87

Ramaphosa, a Venda with a more personalist
power base, has already reached out to the Zulu
king84. He will try and prevent a major fissure
between the ANC and its Zulu constituencies,
also since they are Zuma’s main power base and
no one from KwaZulu Natal is on the new NEC.
Vast sums of tenderpreneurship winnings are at
stake in state procurement contracts to the value
of more than $45 billion annually.85 Given the
strong divisions in the ANC, factional politics and
balances of power dominate Ramaphosa’s current
selection of people for important positions.
However, regional, ethnic and neopatrimonial
dynamics and support networks form a key part
of ANC factional politics.
Previously, he had said that “only those with ANC
membership will go to heaven”.88 In May 2011 he
told voters before municipal elections that those
who turn their backs on the ANC will face the
wrath of the ancestors, a force considered by many
citizens to be powerful and actively intervening in
daily life:
I’ve been telling people that if you once
belonged to the ANC and you leave, the
ancestors of the ANC will turn their
backs on you and you’ll have continuous
89
bad luck.

82. Also see William Gumede, “Zuma and Zulu nationalism” (2012) at http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category/
features/85841/print.
83. http://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2016-10-19-ethnic-nationalism-zumas-style-of/.
84. https://www.enca.com/south-africa/watch-ramaphosa-dances-with-king-zwelithini.
85. https://monthlyreview.org/2019/01/01/south-africa-suffers-capitalist-crisis-deja-vu/.
86. http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/anc-to-rule-until-jesus-comes-back-1.398843?ot=inmsa.ArticlePrint PageLayout.
ot.
87. http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/ en/page71639?oid=326899&sn=Detail&pid=71639;
http://www.news24.com/elections/news/anc-will-rule-until-jesus-comes-zuma-says-again-20160705.
88. http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article895148.ece/God-is-on-the-ANCs-side-Zuma-tells-crowd.
89. http://mg.co.za/article/2011-05-14-zuma-vote-anc-or-face-ancestral-wrath.

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In September 2017, Zuma blamed witchcraft

for the ANC’s failure to beat the DA at polls in
the Western Cape. “I don’t know‚ [maybe] it’s
because of witchcraft; witches practise their craft
in different ways‚” Zuma said. He added that
nowadays witches even used electricity. “In the
last elections I was satisfied that we are taking the
Western Cape‚ I even said so. What went wrong? I
too can’t tell you. It’s witchcraft – you never know.
Maybe even ghosts are voting.”90
Adam Ashforth, Stephen Ellis and Gerrie ter Haar
all identify a potential legitimacy gap if many
citizens who adhere to Christian or indigenous
African religious views do not see the state
acknowledging and protecting them against the
profound threat posed by evil spirits.91
Coalitions with traditional
authorities and local strongmen
The effective power of the state bureaucracy
has decreased under the ANC government. The
population has expanded by more than 20%,
while the hybrid regime, cadre deployment
and selective patronage have “eaten the state”
and its capabilities. In addition, labour union
allies have become weaker. Up to a third of
South Africa’s population lives in areas where
traditional authorities are influential. The political
settlements of 25 years ago are now superseded
by a conscious ANC effort to create new deals
and coalitions that incorporate potential allies like
traditional chiefs and urban strongmen.

Zuma has been able to have recourse to this
repertoire and that of the NDR to align with
different constituencies. In this way, he could
also gain access to some of the moral authority
of traditional authorities, increase the political
order’s responsiveness to such constituencies,
and strengthen the symbolic legitimacy of the
hybrid regime.92
Ramaphosa took care to align with this discourse
of legitimation in January 2018 during an ANC
birthday rally. He stated that he had appealed
to higher powers in the previous week during a
“revolutionary pilgrimage” to the graves of former
ANC presidents. He said that they had been
“shaking the bones of our forebears so their spirits
and their flesh can rejuvenate the ANC to what it
was”.93 Other discourses are also present, but the
search for an African modernity and a selective
de-Westernization now dominates the symbolic
domain.
There are several traditional kings and more than
eight hundred senior traditional leaders and more
than five thousand chiefs in the country who get
salaries from the state.94 In the case of traditional
authorities, the ANC and especially former
President Zuma potentially benefited in several
ways. Zuma gained access to some of the moral
authority of these leaders, while also extending
the power of the ANC over them where possible.
He increased the political order’s responsiveness
to rural constituencies in order to offset the loss
of support in some urban and middle-class black
constituencies. He also strengthened the symbolic
legitimacy of the hybrid regime in areas where the
state’s actual penetration, and especially its actual
service delivery may be weak.95
It is noticeable that after his election as ANC
leader, Ramaphosa specifically visited the Zulu
king, Goodwill Zwelithini, and Xhosa traditional

90. http://www.heraldlive.co.za/politics/2017/09/08/maybe-witchcraft-made-us-lose-poll-western-cape-says-zuma/.
91. Stephen Ellis and Gerrie ter Haar, Worlds of power: Religious thought and political practice in Africa (Oxford
University Press, New York, 2004), pp 153-154; Adam Ashforth, Witchcraft, violence, and democracy in South Africa
(University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2005); also see http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=10591.
92. http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2014/01/09/jz-drops-poll-bomb1.
93. https://www.iol.co.za/saturday-star/going-back-to-our-roots-12747604; https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/
article/2018-01-12-ancs-106th-at-the-last-supper-before-the-big-speech-ramaphosa-preaches-unity-in-diversity/#.
WnWV_KjibIU.
94. Zuma attended the recent coronation of the new Xhosa king. http://news.yahoo.com/lion-skins-dancing-xhosa-king-
coronation-africa-181027012.html; https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/218081/how-much-south-africas-
kings-and-queens-will-be-paid-in-2018/.
95. http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2014/01/09/jz-drops-poll-bomb1.

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leaders, among others.96 Wilmien Wicomb, an
attorney in the Constitutional Unit of the Legal
Resources Centre, commented:
The effect of the current legislative framework is
that traditional leaders have almost unfettered
power to make, enforce and adjudicate law
within those communities ... vast areas of the
homeland territories turned out to be rich with
resources … The stakes are very high.97
As the capabilities of the central government
recedes, the importance of local strongmen in the
alliances of rulers will increase. At present, the
active realignment with traditional authorities is
especially noticeable. Currently or in future, these
alignments may also involve
... gang leaders in townships and squatter
settlements, vigilante-type organisations,
ethnically-based protection rackets, millenarian
religious movements, transnational networks
of extended family relations, organised crime
or new forms of tribalism … They have the
capacity to exert violence on a large scale
against outsiders and the capacity to control
violence within their respective strongholds.98
A shrinking social contract and
indigenous cultural groups
The current political order consists of several
numerical minority groups. After the xenophobic
attacks of 2015, sociologists Heribert Adam and
Kogila Moodley wrote:
Sensitive scholars such as Francis Nyamnjoh
have already hinted that the “bizarre nativity
game of exclusionary violence” could easily
expand from “outsiders within” to longtime
insiders, such as Indian South Africans,
coloureds and whites. Retribalisation has been
relatively successfully contained by the ANC
and its ally, the South African Communist Party,
in public discourse, but it nevertheless simmers
under the surface.99
The editorial of the Mail and Guardian on 17 April
2015 also noted:
It would not take much for the groundswell
against foreigners to be translated into
violence against the Indian community,
particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, where there is a
long and dishonourable tradition of sectarian
hatred. There is now an attempt to paint South
Africans of Indian origin as “co-conspirators”,
by suggesting that foreigners are using their
warehouses or that “they are working together
against us, the Zulu majority”.100
In August 2017, KwaZulu-Natal economic
development member of the executive council
(MEC), Sihle Zikalala sent a proposal to the National
Treasury to exclude Asians and brown people
from the advantages of BEE. Zikalala’s proposal
purportedly aims to “benefit black Africans”.101
On 27 April 2015, the political economist Ismail
Lagardien wrote on the ANC’s return to ethnic and
racial politics:
In consultations over the past year or so, and
visits to the province, I have found that there
has been a significant anti-Indian sentiment,
on the back of calls for the largest indigenous
community, the Zulus, to take greater control of
KwaZulu-Natal. In the provincial bureaucracy,

96. https://www.enca.com/south-africa/watch-ramaphosa-dances-with-king-zwelithini; https://www.timeslive.co.za/

politics/2018-01-07-ancs-top-leadership-pay-homage-to-zulu-monarch/.
97. http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-01-13-a-royal-conundrum-king-dalindyebo-and-the-traditional-
leaders-hot-potato/#.WDl-ZoWcHui. Also see http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/frustrated-south-africans-
lashing-out-at-each-other-irr-20160105.
98. Volker Boege, Anne Brown, Kevin Clements and Anna Nolan, “On hybrid political orders and emerging states”,
Berghof Handbook Dialogue, 8, 2008.
99. http://mg.co.za/article/2015-05-06-violence-sets-sa-xenophobia-apart.
100. https://mg.co.za/article/2015-04-16-editorial-our-hate-grows-shame-on-us-all.
101. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2017-10-16-mandla-mandela-condemns-call-to-exclude-indians-and-
coloureds-from-bee/.

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“coloured” people are stripped of authority,
and increasingly find themselves marginalised;
if not formally and physically, they are ignored
and their work is shoved aside.102
In December 2018, Mangosuthu Buthelezi,
the leader of the predominantly Zulu Inkatha
Freedom Party (IFP), felt compelled to condemn
anti-Indian sentiment and expressed concerns
about politicians who paint Indians as settlers
and “as racist and less deserving of the fruits of
democracy”.103 Professor Brij Maharaj from the
University of KwaZulu Natal (UKZN) wrote in 2018,
referring to several examples:
Several Afrikaner-led organizations saw Zuma’s
remarks on history as a delegitimization of the
position of the Afrikaners, also because of his
silence about their contributions. Their ancestors,
as in the case of America, came from European
countries in the seventeenth century, settled in
a region with several competing political orders,
created Western republics, and have come to
regard themselves as a people rooted in Africa.105
Many of them and other whites will be forced to
leave the country under the current government’s
policies, former President F.W. de Klerk said on 26
August 2016:

It is disturbing that racist outbursts are

beginning to permeate government We have to face the unpalatable fact
institutions. A good example would be the case that our present government has
of the Durban Metro. Over the years, it would
appear that an incipient institutional bias has adopted policies that are consciously
been emerging within the higher echelons of directed toward harming the core
the metro that stereotypes and targets South
Africans of Indian descent.104
interests of a section of the South
African population according to their
106
New forms of political racism? race.
On 23 January 2019, De Klerk stated that South
As new political trends and actors emerged in black
Africa was again becoming “a society in which the
politics, Zuma eventually turned to exclusionary
prospects of individuals are once again increasingly
identity politics to maintain and build his support
determined by the colour of their skin rather than
base. “You must remember that a man called Jan
the content of their character”.
van Riebeeck arrived here on 6 April 1652, and
that was the start of the trouble in this country,” Our government has virtually abandoned
he told guests at a fundraising dinner in February the great tradition of promoting racial
2015. “What followed were numerous struggles reconciliation that was exemplified by Nelson
and wars and deaths and the seizure of land Mandela. Instead it now consistently pumps
and the deprivation of the indigenous peoples’ out negative stereotypes of specifically white
political and economic power.” Van Riebeeck’s South Africans, whom it labels with the original
arrival “disrupted South Africa’s social cohesion, sin, whom in some statements it evidently does
repressed people and caused wars”, he said. Zuma not regard as a part of “our people”, whom it
later claimed that the new settlers had stolen the says are not the rightful owners of the land to
land of other resident groups. which they hold legal title, whom it blames for

102. http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2015-04-27-the-re-racialising-and-tribalisation-of-politics-where-will-
we-end-up/#.VXmAcmPALmQ.
103. https://www.iol.co.za/sunday-tribune/news/mangosuthu-buthelezi-gives-land-expropriation-warning-18438760.
Also see https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2015-04-07-a-volatile-case-of-afrikan-vs.-indian-in-kwazulu-
natal/#.VSe7w5UcTIW.
104. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-09-10-corrupt-cs-anti-indian-prejudice-in-the-durban-metro/.
105. See Hermann Giliomee, The Afrikaners: Biography of a people (Tafelberg, Cape Town, 2003).
106. https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/many-whites-will-be-forced-to-leave-the-country-fw-de-
klerk-20160826.

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all the continuing problems of the country and
to whom it refers to as colonialists, as aliens
who do not really belong in South Africa.
It is extremely dangerous when
governments and political leaders
in multicultural societies begin
to propagate such stereotypes,
particularly when such propagators
often believe them with incandescent
fervour.
There was “a disturbing escalation of aggressive
racial rhetoric punctuated by ugly incidents”, De
Klerk said, adding that there “is no balance in the
manner in which racist remarks and incidents are
judged. Foolish and unacceptable racist remarks …
not intended for public dissemination are treated
far more harshly than incendiary remarks made in
public by political leaders openly calling for racial
violence.” According to him, it was imperative to
end South Africa’s slide into “new forms or racism”.
De Klerk spoke after the ANC acted against anti-
black comments made by private individuals on
social media,108 while it did not pursue comments
of anti-white racism extolled by Julius Malema,
leader of the EFF. The EFF is a radical socialist ANC
breakaway party in Parliament whose policies on
expropriation without compensation and free
education have been adopted by the ANC. In June
2018, Malema stated in an interview: “I’m saying
to you, we’ve not called for the killing of white
people ... at least, for now. I can’t guarantee the
future”.109 In July 2018, he supported calls for anti-
white violence made by Louis Farrakhan.110
In August 2018, Malema’s allegation that “Jews”
are training right-wing snipers to kill black people,
was dismissed by the South African Jewish Board
of Deputies. In 2017 and 2018, he also made anti-
Asian remarks directed towards former Finance
Minister Pravin Gordhan.111 Earlier, he had stated
that the party would topple the DA opposition
mayor in Port Elizabeth based on his race. “They
will be touched – don’t worry,” Mr Malema told a
rally. “We are starting with this whiteness – we are
cutting the throat of whiteness.”112 At a rally on
8 December 2018, Andile Mngxitana, the leader
of the Black First Land First (BLF) movement told
107
the audience that they will kill white people. He
stated that “we will kill their women, we will kill
their children, we will kill their dogs, we will kill
their cats, we kill anything that comes for us”.113
ANC breaking the negotiated
settlement of 1994
The negotiated settlement of the 1990s in South
Africa intended to stop decade-long struggles
between groups trying to avoid domination by
each other. It also tried to reflect the sentiment
expressed by Nelson Mandela, namely that
he opposed both white domination and
black domination in the diverse country. The
Constitution of 1996 that emerged from the
settlement, recognized and tried to protect the
rights and equality of all citizens and all cultural
groups. It also provided for fair redistributionist
measures, but with protected property rights.
One of the key policy decisions at the ANC
conference in December 2017 was on expropriation
of land without compensation. The policy was
previously advocated mainly by the radical

107. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-01-24-fw-de-klerk-claiming-space-in-sas-democratic-history-while-
criticising-new-forms-of-racism/.
108. https://city-press.news24.com/News/racism-penny-sparrow-fined-r150k-community-service-for-
theunissen-20160610.
109. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrrlLQFbVOs.
110. https://www.thesouthafrican.com/violence-against-whites-julius-malema-tweets-in-agreement/.
111. https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1999850/malema-faces-backlash-for-anti-semitic-rant/; https://
monthlyreview.org/2019/01/01/south-africa-suffers-capitalist-crisis-deja-vu/.
112. https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/we-are-cutting-the-throat-of-whiteness-malema-on-plans-to-remove-
trollip-20180304.
113. https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/news/human-rights-commission-probes-mngxitamas-anti-white-rant-18479839.

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socialist EFF.114 The ANC announced in February
2018 that it planned to expropriate mostly white-
owned farms without compensation. President
Ramaphosa announced on 31 July 2018 that the
ANC would even try to change the Constitution to
support such expropriation without compensation.
On 22 August 2018, Ramaphosa confirmed that
urban land would also be covered by the ANC’s
expropriation policies.115
Former President Thabo Mbeki’s foundation
stated in a leaked internal paper that the ANC has
abandoned its historical values on non-racialism
through its framing of the land-reform debate as
one of black versus white.116 Political economist
Moeletsi Mbeki also said in this regard:
This is not about land. It is about the loss of votes
by the ANC. And the ANC and its little son, the
EFF, they think they can bring back the voters
who are abandoning the ANC by attacking the
white population … Its solution is to attack the
white population. Malema is leading the ANC’s
election campaign by attacking the white
population.117
In the Afrikaans media, F.W. de Klerk referred to
the negotiations of 1994 in which Ramaphosa
participated and that resulted in a negotiated
transfer of power to the ANC to achieve inter-
group peace after decades of guerrilla war, as
follows:
De Klerk has stated that it has been clear from
2012 onwards that it has never been the ANC’s
intention to maintain all the rights contained in
the Constitution, including the protection of all
cultural groups and languages. He went on to say:
I have come to the conclusion that the future of
the Afrikaner people and all minorities is once
again in our own hands – just as it was so many
times in our turbulent past.118
The breaking of the negotiated settlement by the
ANC may in time again fuel radicalization among
members of the newly-marginalized citizens and
communities, and also new conflicts. A statement
in July 2018 by Goodwill Zwelithini, the king of the
Zulus, which constitute about 22% of the diverse
population of South Africa, encapsulated this risk.
According to the news reports, he stated that the
ANC government “should not even think about
taking away land under the Ingonyama Trust or
else face a war with the Zulu nation ...” It was a
rallying call by the king who continuously warned
government not to provoke the Zulu nation. He
called on all his subjects to think deeply about how
this land should be protected and admonished
them always to remember that wherever they
are, they are Zulu first, irrespective of whatever
profession they may be in. He again threatened
that KwaZulu-Natal is prepared to become its own
state if government were to continue ignoring
their opinion.119

It is now clear with hindsight that the

ANC negotiators deliberately misled not
only Afrikaners – but also all non-
ANC parties – with regards to their
intentions over the medium and long
term.
A new social contract excluding
some citizens
When President Ramaphosa announced the ANC’s
policy of expropriation without compensation in
the SONA of 2018, and amending the Constitution
based on the negotiated settlement of 1994, he
referred to giving the land back to “our people”.

114. Susan Booysen, Dominance and decline: The ANC in the time of Zuma (Wits University Press, Johannesburg, 2015), p
229.
115. https://www.enca.com/news/urban-land-will-be-expropriated-ramaphosa.
116. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2018-09-25-thabo-mbeki-decries-divisive-anc-land-approach/.
117. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2018/05/15/experts-how-land-expropriation-could-go-very-very-
wrong_a_23435358/.
118. https://www.netwerk24.com/Stemme/Aktueel/fw-hof-versaak-minderhede-20180121.
119. https://ewn.co.za/2018/07/05/leave-our-land-or-face-a-war-with-the-zulu-nation.

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This statement was interpreted as excluding
citizens from non-black minorities. Mosiuoa
Lekota, a former ANC minister of defence and
leader of the political party, Congress of the
People (COPE), asked in Parliament:
Are you going to take the properties of the
great grandchildren of the Indian indentured
labourers who came here? Are you going to
take the properties of the French Hugenots
and German refugees who came here, running
away from religious wars in Europe? Is it going
to be the property of great-grandchildren of
slaves who came from the Malay peninsula and
Philippines islands?
In answer to this, the EFF benches and some ANC
MPs shouted: “Yes!” EFF leader Julius Malema
rose on a point of order and added: “The answer
is yes.”120
Under Zuma and Ramaphosa, in the context
of factional struggles, politics include new and
selective claims for belonging and entitlement
versus exclusion under the rubric of “autochthony”.
Given the history and pattern of socio-economic
formations in South Africa, they increased the
risk of a “sons of the soil” contestation between
citizens, similar to such politics in some parts of
Africa and Asia.121
by the government, while it marginalizes and
delegitimizes the position of others. At least as
pervasively, inside the ANC and the bureaucracy
stratification and privileging based on political
allegiance to factions or a history in the exile
movement have become a reality too.122 It is
possible that the new symbolic domain could
eventually also stratify black ethnic groups and
result in new claims-making and contestation.123
International business and NGOs would ignore the
stratified, ethnicized and racialized understandings
of citizenship, property rights and entitlements
at their peril. Linked to the hybrid regime, they
reflect a new symbolic and political domain that
is far removed from that expressed in the formal
liberal democratic Constitution of South Africa.124
Middle-class emigration and brain
drain
Middle-class dissatisfaction remains high with
the government’s lack of proper protection and
meagre service delivery amid pervasive corruption
and mismanagement. Robert Vivian, professor of
Finance and Insurance at the University of the
Witwatersrand, described the hidden tax imposed
on tax-payers in exchange for few good services
as follows:

Asians, Afrikaners and South Africa’s Jewish
community have all been targeted by hostile
rhetoric and actions from leaders and officials
from ANC-aligned and ANC breakaway groups.
The social contract between the government and
the population is shrinking, and the identified
population is also becoming stratified: citizens
from certain groups are now clearly privileged
South Africa has a strange situation. Most
middle-class taxpayers pay high taxes,
but receive virtually no benefit. They end
up attempting to purchase the very same
services that should have been provided
out of their taxes. Examples include private
security services, education, and healthcare.
It is on some of these services that the hidden

120. https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/whose-land-will-you-take-who-is-not-our-people-lekota-20180219.
121. See Jacques Bertrand and André Laliberté (eds), Multination States in Asia: Accommodation or Resistance
(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010); Isabelle Cóté and Matthew I. Mitchell, “Elections and ‘sons of the
soil’ conflict dynamics in Africa and Asia”, Democratization, April 2015; http://criticalasianstudies.org/issues/vol41/
no4/we-are-sons-of-this-soil.html.
122. http://www.elsevier.nl/Buitenland/achtergrond/2015/5/Anti-blanke-en-anti-Joodse-sentimenten-onder-zwarte-
studenten-1762677W/; http://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/article/view/id/21806; http://www.haaretz.com/
jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.646235; http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Standing-against-anti-Semitism-in-
South-Africa-380583.
123. http://www.rdm.co.za/politics/2015/04/24/ethnic-cleansing-sure-to-follow-xenophobia.
124. http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-1.

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Masakhane tax appears … Those who do not
pay for services are funded by the group that
does pay. One group of private individuals is
forced to subsidise another. The Masakhane
tax falls outside the control and oversight of
Parliament. It is taxation without consent,
appropriation or oversight. As such, it is
manifestly unconstitutional.125
In some cases, the economic and political turmoil
has fueled emigration by skilled professionals from
all groups. According to Pew Research, almost
900 000 South Africans, many of them well-skilled,
were living outside South Africa in 2017.126 Over the
past three years, there has been a consistent year-
on-year increase in the number of professionals
who would consider leaving the country, according
to Advaita Naidoo, chief operations officer at
executive search firm Jack Hammer. In 2018,
86% of top South African executives polled in the
latest Jack Hammer Executive Report indicated
that they would consider an offer to move abroad
seriously. The results show that the percentage
of executives willing to relocate abroad has
significantly jumped from 47% in 2016 and 78% in
2017. Of those interested in relocating, 49% were
black respondents.127
The trend of senior professionals from all
backgrounds willing to consider a future outside
of the country, is likely to persist in coming years.
According to property economist Edwin Rode,
South Africa “is heading for an extended period
of social upheaval. Apart from the brain drain,
the country is running out of entrepreneurs who
can create jobs”.128 The Enterprise Observatory of
South Africa (EOSA) also recently noted that for
every professional immigrating to South Africa,
eight professionals are emigrating.129
An increase in self-help initiatives
and authority migration
Emigration and migration inside South Africa to
regions not controlled by the ANC, has become
a significant response by dissatisfied citizens,
taxpayers and members of communities.130
Another response has included a limited but
robust evolution of capacity within communities
and subsystems of the state. It occurred in
response to ANC misgovernance, weak protection
of citizens, weak responsiveness to taxpayers, and
the shrinking social contract. Sometimes these
capacities are linked to organizations located in
specific local governments, resulting also in some
authority migration to such actors. Cities like Cape
Town, for example, exhibit an own foreign policy
and governance.131
At times these capacities are linked to
organizations located in communities. Also in
this case, authority migration occurs. Community
courts and policing occur in several richer and
poorer pro-ANC townships, also in the Western
Cape.132 Among Cape Muslims, own institutions
and even neighbourhood watches have played
an important role since the 1990s. Traditional
institutions remain powerful in much of rural
South Africa and even beyond.
Some sections among the Afrikaners have already
responded to the increased pressure of non-
performing state institutions or targeting by the

125. “The hidden, unconstitutional tax”, Business Day, 25 February 2016.

126. https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/293908/heres-how-many-south-africans-are-leaving-for-new-zealand-
australia-and-the-uk/.
127. https://www.fin24.com/Economy/brain-drain-86-of-top-sa-executives-would-move-abroad-survey-20181228.
128. https://www.fin24.com/Economy/sa-macro-economic-outlook-bleak-amid-brain-drain-land-reform-
worries-20180911.
129. https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/293526/top-talent-in-south-africa-is-now-shrinking-expert/.
130. https://city-press.news24.com/News/sharp-rise-in-number-of-south-africans-leaving-the-country-20190117; https://
businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/293908/heres-how-many-south-africans-are-leaving-for-new-zealand-australia-
and-the-uk/.
131. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2015/06/10/cape-town-a-different-universe.
132. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/vigilante-killings-on-the-field-of-death-in-south-african-township/
article17052460/; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3054070/Murderers-rounded-burned-alive-vigilante-
mob-South-Africa-beaten-man-death-streets.html; http://news.sky.com/story/1163607/south-africa-gang-
members-lynched-by-vigilantes.

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hybrid regime. The predominantly Afrikaner-
led Solidarity Movement has mobilized almost
500 000 members, especially in northern areas of
South Africa. As a movement, it includes eighteen
organizations initiating self-help initiatives. The
movement positions itself as a centre-right
Christian democratic organization favouring forms
of community federalism for the eleven cultural
groups in South Africa.133
The movement’s member organizations include
one of the fastest-growing civil rights groups in
South Africa – AfriForum, founded in 2006. It had
reached a membership of more than 215 000
by the end of 2018. It conducts court cases on
constitutional, cultural and municipal issues of
interest to its members or citizens in general and
manages campaigns where members help local
municipalities to provide better services to all
citizens and communities.134 The movement has
also created a technical training facility, a private
university based on a broader philosophy of
lifelong learning, a community radio station and a
social welfare service.135
These initiatives sometimes complement, and at
other times substitute state structures. In January
2018, Flip Buys, the leader of the Solidarity
Movement, stated:
Various events during 2017 highlighted
the fact that the shared vision around the
[understanding] and interpretation of the
historic settlement of 1994, as recorded in the
Constitution, has come to an end … This time,
the ruling ideology of radical transformation
and the “national democratic revolution”,
jeopardise constitutional spaces and target the
Afrikaans language, culture, and institutions.
For Afrikaners, it constitutes a breach of the
1994 settlement, but for the ruling power elite,
it is the implementation of that agreement …
For Afrikaners, the only way out of this cul-de-
sac of radical transformation is to establish
extensive cultural self-management through
strong community institutions.136
In response to the ANC’s land expropriation
policies, King Goodwill Zwelithini also called on
Zulus to defend their culture and tribal lands.137
Similarly, Khoisan communities are pursuing
ways of increasing their authority over their own
cultural affairs.138 Peter Marais, former Cape
Town mayor and former premier of the Western
Cape province, currently the leader of the Brown
Empowerment Movement, has indicated that
he would promote a campaign for the greater
autonomy or independence of the Western Cape
from ANC-ruled South Africa.139
Sometimes, the non-state capacities are linked to
actors in the private sector or certain rural areas,
suburban neighbourhoods or towns. This trend is
visible in the plethora of private security companies,
used by an estimated 11% of households who
are taxpayers, but without receiving proper state
protection. According to Gareth Newham of the
ISS, the growth of the industry has been as a
result of the crime situation, but also of people
not believing that they can rely on the police. The
2018 Victims of Crime Survey showed that public
satisfaction with SAPS has decreased by 8% over
the past six years, to its current level of 54%.140
In poorer communities, vigilante movements
have emerged.141 In addition, homeschooling and
private education initiatives, healthcare services,

133. https://solidariteit.co.za/en/.
134. https://www.afriforum.co.za/home/.
135. http://akademia.ac.za/; https://helpendehand.co.za/; http://www.sol-tech.co.za/.
136. http://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/transformation-ber-alles.
137. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2018/07/02/king-goodwill-zwelithini-zulus-will-not-sit-by-while-their-land-is-
debated_a_23472427/.
138. https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/chief-khoisan-sa-rejects-traditional-and-khoisan-leadership-bill-18785276.
139. https://mg.co.za/article/2019-01-22-marais-makes-comeback-as-ff-western-cape-premier-candidate.
140. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-01-15-as-sa-policing-fails-private-security-steps-in-but-at-a-cost/.
141. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/29/south-africans-are-taking-the-law-into-their-own-hands-vigilantism-
extralegal-justice-police-apartheid-anc-private-security/.

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as well as energy production and distribution Southern Africa continue, while the capacity of
services have expanded considerably in past years. the central state has been hollowed out after 25
years of ANC rule.
Given the empowerment of individuals by
communication and information technology,142 The dynamics of capacity building and authority
as well as trends towards prosumers in the migration will influence the incentives and
renewable energy sectors of other countries,143 preferences of citizens and communities. The
these trends are likely to continue. They will also political dynamics in different neighborhoods,
provide opportunities for considerable innovation zones and regions in South Africa will be very
by business, but also by other organizations, divergent in future. International business and
communities, neighbourhoods and cities. NGOs are advised to pay close attention to the
different regional and local dimensions of political
and economic developments.
A multipolar future order
In some areas of South Africa, the dynamics of
A multipolar field of authority has emerged in
self-help initiatives and authority migration may
South Africa. Diverse and competing authority
in time evolve into a mediated state. In these
structures, sets of rules, and claims to power co-
zones, “rule of the intermediaries” will substitute
exist, overlap, and intertwine.144 Resilient and
the rule of the central state. The government will
fragile processes of state-reformation co-exist in
accept this situation and try to align with these
the new order.145 Organizations and institutions
actors, not voluntary, but based on necessity.146
that do not form part of the central state fulfil
several state functions in different ways in
Overall, the impact of the ANC-ruled hybrid regime
some areas or communities. Although the ANC
on many citizens and communities has often
government theoretically has the capacity to fulfil
become negative. Attempts by diverse actors to
at least some of these functions, it accepts this
achieve greater decentralization and forms of
modular state as part of its governance model.
greater non-territorial and territorial autonomy
within the region of Southern Africa are likely in
During the past 500 years, there have been many
the medium and long term.
political orders in parts of the region currently
designated as South Africa. South Africa as one
political order is almost 120 years old. The current
territory of South Africa is huge, with space for all
of its many political actors, class formations and
cultural groups. Interactions with other actors in

142. On the global rise in individual empowerment, see National Intelligence Council, Global trends 2030: Alternative
worlds (National Intelligence Council, Washington, D.C., 2012).
143. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421512003473.
144. See Tobias Hagmann and Markus Hoehne, “Failures of the State Failure Debate: Evidence from the Somali
Territories”, Journal of International Development, 21, 2009, pp 42-57.
145. Alan Whaites, States in development: Understanding state-building (Department for International Development,
London, 2008), p 14.
146. Trutz von Trotha, “Der Aufstieg des Lokalen”, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 28-29, 2005, pp 32-38. See also Ken
Menkhaus, “Governance in the hinterland of Africa’s weak states: Toward a theory of the mediated state”, paper
presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, US, 2006.

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Part IV
The shift to a
hybrid regime
Peter Fabricius has stated that solidarity among
From a flawed democracy to a Africa’s former liberation movements bolsters an
hybrid regime undemocratic ethos:

Roger Southall compares the record of the
liberation movements of Southern Africa after
coming to power in Zimbabwe, Namibia and
South Africa. He concludes that even with the
difficult legacies they inherited, their performance
in power has been deeply disappointing. While
they will survive organizationally, Southall states
that their essence as progressive forces is dying.147
It perpetuates and reinforces the sense of
entitlement that these liberation movements-
cum-parties all seem to have: the belief that
they are destined to govern forever. On that
basic premise, any democratic opposition or
criticism is easy to dismiss as manifesting a
sinister “regime change” agenda.148

147. See Roger Southall, Liberation movements in power: Party and state in Southern Africa (James Currey, Suffolk, 2013).
148. https://issafrica.org/iss-today/when-democracy-becomes-regime-change.

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Samuel Issacharoff, Reiss professor of
Constitutional Law at the New York University
School of Law, also stated in 2013:
As the founding generation moved off the
historic stage, however, and as less-broad-
minded functionaries took the reins of power,
the heroic ANC emerged as the head of an
increasingly one-party state, with all the
attendant capacity for antidemocratic abuse.
South African democracy entered a period of
what is termed “dominant party” democracy,
a term that may simply connote the imminent
collapse of real democratic contestation.149
Drivers of a hybrid regime
In 1994, high hopes existed internationally for
the new multiparty political order, with Nelson
Mandela as its first president and Thabo Mbeki
and F.W. de Klerk as its vice-presidents. By 2014,
after six years of rule by President Jacob Zuma and
twenty years of ANC rule, the one-party dominant
state had transformed into a hybrid regime.150
In political science, a political regime is the
particular set of institutions that govern a
country, constitute the incentive systems and
establish both the formal and informal rules of
a political game.151 A hybrid regime can be many
variants of institutional arrangements, due to the
presence of both democratic and non-democratic
processes and institutions. In hybrid regimes, the
locus of political power is not the legislature and
elections, and democratic checks and balances on
the executive are weak. The locus of politics shifts
from accountable democratic institutions to a field
of power in which weak democratic institutions
and non-democratic institutions interact.
In the case of the ANC, the following non-
democratic dynamics are active: the non-pluralist
political culture of the ANC and the capture of
state institutions by cadre deployment; the ruling
party of a one-party dominant state becoming
the gatekeeper to power; a weaker separation
of powers; personalised and unaccountable
presidentialism; weak or neutralized checks on the
executive and the uneven implementation of the
rule of law to the president; selective patronage
and corruption; and the increased securitization
of politics.
Electoral politics still matter in South Africa,
but they do so in a subservient role to the new
institutional arrangement of the order that
provides the electoral opportunities. In the case
of South Africa, political patronage, intimidation
and violence also form an active dimension of
elections.152 Away from the daily lives of most
citizens, these dynamics represent a distinctive
political order: a hybrid regime. The political
incentive systems, the rules of the game, and the
field of power differ from that of democracies.
President Zuma no longer makes an effort to
disguise his approach in the one party dominant
state. On 7 November 2015, he stated at an ANC
conference in Durban:
I argued one time with someone who
said the country comes first and I said
as much as I understand that, I think
my organisation, the ANC, comes first.
Because those people, if they are not
part of the ANC and there was no ANC
they could be misled. They could be
153
under ... oppression forever.

149. Samuel Issacharoff, “The democratic risk to democratic transitions” at http://constitutionaltransitions.org/wp-

content/uploads/2013/09/Issacharoff-Democratic-Risk-to-Democratic-Transitions.pdf, pp 8-9.
150. Also see Oda van Cranenburgh, “Democracy promotion in Africa: the institutional context”, Democratization, 18(2),
2011, pp 443-461.
151. For a major overview of the work on hybrid regimes, see Andrea Cassani, “Hybrid what? The contemporary debate
on hybrid regimes and the identity question”, XXVI Convegno SISP Università Roma Tre – Facoltà di Scienze Politiche
Roma, Roma, Italia, 13-15 Settembre 2012.
152. See Part VI.
153. http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/politics/2015/11/08/the-anc-comes-first-not-the-country-says-zuma?cx_tag=bcuf.

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President Cyril Ramaphosa’s first State of the
Nation Address was an attempt to reassert
and augment the hegemonic hold the ANC has
exerted over South African politics for the last two
decades. It was, thus, heavy on rhetoric and low
on hard, quantifiable objectives and outcomes.
He spoke of a “new dawn”, but acknowledged
none of the contemporary forces that brought
about his election – the judiciary, the media,
civil society, public advocacy and the opposition.
Rather, he drew on the ANC’s history of old, and
so, by omission, created the impression that the
cause of the country’s decay and decline – the
ANC – was, simultaneously, the cure.154
Three drivers will reinforce the dynamics of a
hybrid regime and democratic decline in the next
few years. The first driver is intensified factional
competition for positions and access to state
resources. The resources are scarcer due to
years of unproductive and profligate spending,
pervasive self-enrichment and patronage politics.
With Ramaphosa elected as president and ANC
leader, factional tensions in the ruling alliance
have increased and politicians are re-positioning
themselves.
The second driver is the increased securitization
of politics: intimidation, protests and political
assassinations increasingly form part of local
intra-ANC struggles and opposition politics.
However, there are clear signs that the risk of
political killings now also extends to provincial and
national politicians, which increases the paranoia
among incumbent ANC politicians at all levels.155
This state of affairs also continuously draws in the
security cluster and politicized top of the security
forces. The institutions that could restrain the
executive are weaker than in 1994.
The third driver is the economy, which is struggling.
In previous years, the strength of the economy
and built-up infrastructure provided a cushion
for the ANC not to face the consequences of
neopatrimonial policies. However, the neopatri­
154. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-02-17-op-ed-ramaphosas-state-of-the-nation-address-a-weak-speech-
that-follows-more-than-it-leads/.
155. See Mark Shaw, Hitmen for hire: Exposing South Africa’s underworld (Jonathan Ball, Cape Town, 2017) for a good
analytical study.
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SA Monitor2018 .indd 50
monial politics of the elites has “devoured” much
of the state and its resources. Government-driven
neopatrimonial politics in the public and private
sector are set to continue and even intensify
during times of greater scarcity.
The extra reserves that would be needed to change
the system again, this time into a truly democratic
regime, are exhausted. A restructuring around new
alliances and new emphases has already occurred
since Ramaphosa has become the ANC leader. This
process will continue if Ramaphosa were to remain
the state president after the general elections of
2019. At best, some democratic institutions may
become more influential relative to the non-
democratic ones on some issues. However, as
argued in Part V, Ramaphosa will have to operate
within the dominant dynamics of a hybrid regime.
ANC intolerance of dissenting views
The Tripartite Alliance comprising the ANC,
the much smaller South African Communist
Party (SACP) and the trade union federation,
the Congress of South African Trade Unions
(COSATU) have won in five national elections in
South Africa between 1994 and 2014. While the
ANC participated in elections, its leadership’s
rootedness in an armed struggle still permeated
its political culture.
As The Economist concludes in its review of the
study of the ANC in exile by the prominent scholar
in African Studies, Professor Stephen Ellis:
The real message of Stephen Ellis’ history of
the African National Congress (ANC) in exile
– painfully and palpably obvious between the
lines – is how the conspiratorial past affects
the ruling party to the present day. It makes
uncomfortable reading, for it goes some way
towards explaining why President Jacob Zuma,
a former head of the ANC’s intelligence service
in exile, and his comrades now running South
Africa find it so hard to embrace the notion that
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a diversity of opinion and tolerance of dissent
must be at the heart of any functioning, decent
democracy.156
William Gumede, Oppenheimer fellow at St
Antony’s College, Oxford, and the biographer of
former President Thabo Mbeki and Archbishop
Emeritus Desmond Tutu, already noticed during
Mbeki’s rule that the ANC’s political style in exile
has become the dominant pattern of the ANC
in government. The ANC’s approach was one of
centralised decision-making, unquestioned loyalty,
sycophancy, and no public criticism, as opposed
to the open debate of a dynamic democracy.157
Padraig O’Malley has indicated how ANC leaders
in exile have continued to use the paradigm of
exile while being in power, immune to external
criticisms and responsive only to themselves.158
and a “communist society”. Consistent with
this statement, was the council’s adoption of a
declaration reaffirming the party’s commitment
to a NDR.160
Anthea Jeffery of the IRR, a liberal think tank, is one
of the foremost experts on the NDR. According to
her, as a result of the NDR framework, the ANC
sees itself as a national liberation movement
responsible for implementing the NDR and
uniquely entitled to rule.161 This approach is
clear in ANC discourse.162 It often marginalizes or
denies the contributions of the multiracial United
Democratic Front (UDF),163 the predominantly
Zulu IFP,164 liberals and reformists from all
ethnic groups,165 and the Black Consciousness
Movement166 to the struggle against different
dimensions of minority rule.

The ANC has repeatedly recommitted itself to a
National Democratic Revolution (NDR) in South
Africa. This has been the case at its national
conferences at Mafikeng (1997), Stellenbosch
(2002), Polokwane (2007) and Mangaung (2012).
So has former President Zuma.159 At the Fourth
National General Council of the party in Midrand
in October 2015, Zuma repeated that the ANC and
the “vanguard” SACP were partners facing in the
“same direction” towards a “socialist revolution”
A political scientist at the University of Stellenbosch
in South Africa, Nicola de Jager, writes:
If you are critical of the ANC-led government or
its officials, then you will be branded as disloyal
to South Africa and the future of South Africa ...
Consequently, there is little room for the voices
of opposition parties, since they are portrayed as
“forces opposed to transformation”. Opposition

156. http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21569372-how-conspiratorial-past-affects-present-day-good-
guys-were-often-bad and External mission: The ANC in exile, 1960-1990 (Hurst, London, 2012) by Stephen Ellis,
former Desmond Tutu professor in the Social Sciences at the Free University Amsterdam.
157. William Mervin Gumede, Thabo Mbeki and the battle for the soul of the ANC (Zebra Press, Cape Town, 2005), pp
292-301.
158. Padraig O’Malley, Shades of Difference – Mac Maharaj and the struggle for South Africa (Viking, New York, 2007).
159. http://politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71654?oid=365935&sn=Detail& pid=71654.
160. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2015/10/19/wrong-to-ignore-implications-of-ancs-revolutionary-
ideology.
161. http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today-1/research-and-policy-brief-the-national-democratic-revolution-ndr-its-origins-
and-implications-31st-may-2012.
162. http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page72308?oid= 150911&sn=Marketingweb%20
detail.
163. Ineke van Kessel, “Beyond our wildest dreams”: The United Democratic Front and the transformation of South Africa
(University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 2000).
164. Nigel Worden, The making of modern South Africa: Conquest, apartheid, democracy (Wiley-Blackwell, West Sussex,
2012); Hermann Giliomee and Bernard Mbenga, New history of South Africa (Tafelberg Publishers, Cape Town,
2007).
165. Hermann Giliomee, The last Afrikaner leaders: A supreme test of power (University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville,
2013); Mohamed Adhikari, Burdened by race: Coloured identities in Southern Africa (University of Cape Town Press,
Cape Town, 2009).
166. Thomas G. Karis and Gail M. Gerhart, From protest to challenge: Nadir and resurgence, 1964-1979 (V): A
documentary history of African politics in South Africa 1882-1990 (Unisa Press, Pretoria, 1997); Daniel R. Magaziner,
The law and the prophets: Black consciousness in South Africa, 1968-1977 (Ohio University Press, Athens, 2010).

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is further constrained by the very real threat of and property rights.170 After several years, this
being branded as disloyal to South Africa if one political culture and approach have transformed
is critical of the ANC-led government.167 the multiparty democracy into a hybrid regime.

This reflects the historical institutional dynamics

of the party. The Dutch historian Ineke van Kessel
states:
As in the 1980s, in my interviews over 2006-
2008 I often encountered a profound distrust
in pluralism. ANC officials and representatives
often do not see a distinction between party
and state and perceive the ANC as the sole
legitimate locus of power … It is alright to have
the Democratic Alliance in Cape Town, which is
perceived as “a thing for whites”, in spite of the
DA’s substantial Coloured support. However, in
one’s own district, municipality or constituency,
rival political parties such as the PAC and
AZAPO ought to be silenced, side-lined or even
“crushed”. The distinct historical traditions in
different parts of South Africa have produced
different understandings of the concept of
democracy.168
The ANC, as Jeffery identifies, does not regard
itself to be bound by the Constitution of 1996.169
It considers the Constitution to be a tactical
compromise to be changed as the balance
of power shifts in favour of the ANC. Various
constitutional provisions have in practice simply
been disregarded. These include Parliament’s
duty to hold the executive to account, the need
for a new electoral system after 1999, and the
prohibition of cadre deployment.
The NDR also means that the ANC has no principled
commitment to key constitutional safeguards,
including press freedom, an independent judiciary
ANC politics “eats the state”
The ANC is already widely in control of the state
institutions, after a deliberate policy of cadre
deployment in all centres of power. The party has
captured state institutions, which have on many
levels become partisan, rather than the impartial
bureaucratic organizations of a democracy.
Patrimonial and legal-bureaucratic elements now
co-exist in a neopatrimonial political system.171
Through its control thereof, the ANC is a source
of jobs and careers. The ANC also mobilises and
uses state resources, as well as access to business
opportunities. As a result, it remains the best-
funded political party and can counter electoral
initiatives by opposition parties.
A hybrid regime also constitutes a different way
of elite management. The ANC can use its capture
of state institutions and state-based patronage
to reward allies and punish opponents. It can
reinforce intra-elite unity, and contain potential
defectors that may form viable opposition
groups.172
One-party dominance, instrumental individual
patron-client relations and more socially-based
norms and practices of patronage permeate
the captured state. They reproduce uncertainty
about the role and behaviour of state agents.173
Neopatrimonial political dynamics also play a
major role in Russia, the Balkans and several Asian
and Latin-American states. However, particular
African and South African historical drivers shape

167. http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_10560-1522-2-30.pdf?070328103113, pp 15, 25.

168. Ineke van Kessel, The changing meaning of change: The legacy of the United Democratic Front in South Africa,
Fourth European Conference in African Studies, Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden, 15-18 June 2011, p 8.
169. See the text at http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/constitution.htm.
170. http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today-1/research-and-policy-brief-the-national-democratic-revolution-ndr-its-origins-
and-implications-31st-may-2012.
171. In its use of the concept of neopatrimonialism, the report follows the approach of Gero Erdmann and Ulf Engel,
“Neopatrimonialism revisited – beyond a catch-all concept”, GIGA Research, 16, February 2006, pp 10, 14.
172. See Susan Booysen, The African National Congress and the regeneration of political power, 1994-2011 (Wits
University Press, Johannesburg, 2011); http://mg.co.za/article/2014-10-16-inside-the-ancs-pyramid-scheme.
173. For a good overview, see Jean-Francois Bayart, The state in Africa. The politics of the belly (Longman, London, 1993).

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neopatrimonial politics in the ANC’s hybrid regime.
According to Tom Lodge, the ANC historian and
political scientist, neopatrimonial practices have a
long history within the ANC. They were restricted
during its years in exile and began to resurface once
the armed struggle was over. The party’s historical
ties to criminal networks, pressures arising from
the transition to majority rule, and contemporary
electoral politics played a role. Neopatrimonialism
also reflected broader tendencies within South
African political and economic life.174
The government’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs)
such as ESKOM, South African Airways (SAA)
and the South African National Roads Agency
(SANRAL) provide a mainstay of ANC patronage.
The parastatals, with their billions in lucrative
procurement budgets and responsible for huge
losses, have become an important arena of battles
over state capture. Questionable, dubious and
very expensive deals have been done at many
parastatals for years.177

Susan Booysen, a political scientist at the

University of the Witwatersrand, concludes that
the ANC-in-government is the custodian of high
levels of visible mismanagement and exploitation
of state resources for personal benefit. Activities
in the “dubious but legal” category are tolerated
and emulated. There is little hesitation to pursue
business interests through the state.175 The ANC
used political power to gain economic clout,
which its patrons and networks converted into
more political power. That power was used to gain
even more clout in the market.
It is well-resourced and ensures that it stays
that way, if necessary through leveraging
state resources and the movement acting as a
business operative, often dressed in patriotism
and empowerment. The ANC was the best-
resourced party in South Africa. It seamlessly
leveraged state power for financial deals – with
the state and by the ANC benefactors. The
ANC’s Chancellor House business operations,
largely veiled from public scrutiny, dealt in
mega-scoring business deals with the state.
Chancellor House would help guarantee the
ANC the resources to counter opposition
advances, including electoral initiatives.176
Neopatrimonial factions competing
for spoils
Approximately 20 million individuals were
registered to pay income tax in 2016. However,
individuals who are paid less than R350 000 a
year by a single employer, with no other sources
of income and no deductions, need not submit a
tax return. Thus, only 6 367 627 individuals were
required to submit tax returns for the 2016 tax
year.178 Many of these taxpayers who are paying
an estimated 99% of personal tax in South Africa
voted for opposition parties or abstained from
voting. Still, the ANC also used their money to
rebuild an uneven electoral playing field in the
hybrid regime.
Especially since about 2011, the ANC has
increasingly had to rely on its control of
government and state institutions for support. This
was due to the combined effect of the so-called
liberation dividend becoming thin, compared to
the lack of service delivery, more internal factional
competition for power and positions, as well as
many new young voters becoming disgruntled
and supporting opposition parties.
Alexander Beresford, a specialist in African politics

174. Tom Lodge, “Neopatrimonial politics in the ANC”, African Affairs, 450, 2014, pp 1-23.
175. Susan Booysen, The African National Congress and the regeneration of political power, 1994-2011 (Wits University
Press, Johannesburg, 2011), p 5; Conference, One hundred years of the ANC: Debating liberation histories and
democracy today, 20-24 September 2011 at http://www.sahistory.org.za.
176. http://www.iol.co.za/business/news/sa-slips-down-corruption-index-1.1616304#.VGwZdpUcTIU. Also see Paul
Holden, “Ensuring reproduction: The ANC and its models of party funding”, in Martin Plaut and Paul Holden (eds),
Who rules South Africa? Pulling the strings of power (Jonathan Ball: Johannesburg, 2012), pp 193-202; Roger
Southall, “The ANC for sale? Money, morality & business in South Africa”, Review of African Political Economy, 35
(116), June 2008, pp 281-299.
177. http://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2015-212.html; http://mg.co.za/tag/parastatals; http://mg.co.za/
article/2016-09-02-00-treasurys-bids-to-end-corruption-are-peeling-back-a-curiously-connected-gravy-trail.
178. https://businesstech.co.za/news/finance/218815/this-is-who-is-paying-south-africas-personal-income-tax/.

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at the University of Leeds School of Politics and
International Studies, talked to former cabinet
ministers of the Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki
administrations, and current members of the
party’s NEC. He points towards what he prefers to
call “gatekeeper politics”:179
The interplay between money and power is
complex, with each feeding the other, but
Beresford told UJ students that ANC patronage
has two core elements: the distribution of
the spoils of power, such as control over
developmental project jobs wielded by ANC
councillors, and the phenomenon of crony
capitalism, where closeness to the ANC provides
access to market opportunities and tenders.
In both cases that makes those
who guard the gates, whether to
government money or to those in power,
important – and makes the contest for
the position fierce. “This allows us to
understand the factional politics,” he
said. “The struggle for who controls
180
the gates is extremely intense.”
Former President Thabo Mbeki has criticized Zuma,
but acknowledged that self-enriching ANC cadres
had already been prominent during his own term
in office.181 Former President Kgalema Motlanthe
has stated that the ANC’s internal democracy is
impaired, and that the ANC is currently made up
mostly of members and leaders devoid of the kind
of political ability and consciousness required to
maintain a united and non-racial society.182
There are members and supporters who deplore
these dynamics, but they have limited influence.
As predicted, factional struggles in the ruling
alliance have increased during the local elections
179. http://mg.co.za/article/2014-10-16-inside-the-ancs-pyramid-scheme.
180. http://mg.co.za/article/2014-10-16-inside-the-ancs-pyramid-scheme.
181. “Mbeki blasts Zuma’s leadership”, Times Live, 21 October 2014.
182. http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2015/11/02/tripartite-alliance-is-dead-says-motlanthe.
183. William Mervin Gumede, Thabo Mbeki and the battle for the soul of the ANC (Zebra Press, Cape Town, 2005), p 305.
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SA Monitor2018 .indd 54
and in the run-up to the election of an ANC leader
in 2017 and the national elections in 2019. The
split in the ANC-aligned COSATU and the resulting
competition between trade unions, as well as
pressure from key potential constituencies like
the urban middle class, will reinforce factional
tensions and struggles, sometimes in the form of
violent group struggles or political assassinations.
They will also reinforce the dynamics of a hybrid
regime in a new symbolic and political order.
Party-state separation, cadre
deployment and patronage
The ANC has adopted “democratic centralism” as
a central policy: this means that the making of all
policy decisions is concentrated in the NEC, the
ANC’s highest decision-making body. This policy is
not only indifferent to the federal structure and
multiple centres of policy-making envisaged by
the South African Constitution. In its execution, it
is corroding the democratic checks and balances
built into the Constitution.183
The ANC pursues democratic centralism by a policy
of cadre deployment. This policy entails placing
party loyalists in “key centres” of power. The ANC
conference in 1997 identified these centres of
power as “the army, the police, the bureaucracy,
intelligence structures, the judiciary, parastatals,
and agencies such as regulatory bodies, the public
broadcaster, the central bank and so on”. The
2007 ANC Polokwane conference, during which
Jacob Zuma was elected as president of the ANC,
added the “private sector”.
Cadre deployment has been used to quell dissent
and to co-opt potential internal opposition from
the ANC’s parliamentary caucus. In addition, the
ANC and bureaucratic structures are permeated
by informal, patron-client relationships that
often stem from the struggle period, family and
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ethnic networks, spiritual advisers, and new
business partnerships.184 Patronage has turned
cadre deployment into a policy that does not
only ensure control on the party’s behalf, but has
also morphed into a means to ensure the power
of the presidency. 185 From 2013 to 2017, Cyril
Ramaphosa was both Zuma’s deputy president
and the chair of the ANC’s NDC in charge of cade
deployment.186
Patronage politics
In practice, patronage politics has resulted in the
number of civil servants ballooning. Salaries have
also exceeded the inflation rate. In essence, the
taxpayers are funding the ANC’s growing cadre-
led patronage machine.187
In some areas that may affect political support
in the short term, the ANC does provide good
services, which also serves as a form of patronage.
Housing for the poor has meant that one in five
now lives in a state-provided house. Based on
support from the financial services sector, and
the redistribution of tax money from a small base
of taxpayers, the state delivers pensions, child-
support grants and disability payments to more
than seventeen million people per month.188
Van Kessel states that when it comes to social
grants, the South African state functions as a
bureaucratic state, dispensing its services to those
who qualify and not only to ANC loyalists. When it
comes to the allocation of housing, contracts and
certainly recruitment for jobs, there is ample room
for favouritism, but the social grants system seems
largely immune from political interference.189
According to the World Bank, such an approach,
combined with a redistributional tax system,
has lifted 3.6 million people out of poverty in
the recent past.190 However, the government has
proved unable to ensure or facilitate a strong
education system. The grants, as Steinberg
remarks, symbolizes the failure of sufficient job
creation.
The current model has a political effect: it
reinforces citizens’ dependence on the ANC-ruled
state. It is also increasingly difficult to sustain, due
to the minority of about 6.3 million taxpayers in
a population of more than 56 million people and
rising state debt.191
Reshaping markets and the
democratic playing field
As the political scientist Kenneth Greene has
demonstrated, where there has been a one-
party dominant system for several terms in
office, the dominant party tends to politicize
the government’s public resources. The party
then uses them for partisan purposes. There
is no external constraint in the form of possible

184. Stephen Ellis, External mission: The ANC in exile, 1960-1990 (Hurst, London, 2012); Tom Lodge, “Neopatrimonial
politics in the ANC”, African Affairs, 450, 2014; http://mg.co.za/article/2014-10-16-inside-the-ancs-pyramid-scheme.
185. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2015/11/02/zumas-control-over-top-salaries-buys-him-loyalty. Also see
http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2014/11/12/state-of-the-anc-the-big-picture-with-jacob-zuma-in-the-
centre; http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-10-20-anc-membership-numbers-what-is-the-significance/#.
VkZSk5qBfmR.
186. https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/cadre-deployment-ber-alles.
187. “The reason for our lack of delivery” (editorial), Financial Mail, 31 October 2014; http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/
columnists/2014/10/20/the-disintegration-of-cadre-deployment-under-zuma. Also see http://www.bdlive.co.za/
opinion/columnists/2013/09/08/this-is-the-business-an-orgy-of-jobs-for-bureaucratic-pals.
188. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2013/05/31/anc-will-deliver-just-enough-to-stay-in-power; https://businesstech.
co.za/news/business/180503/there-are-officially-more-south-africans-on-social-grants-than-people-who-work-irr/;
https://city-press.news24.com/News/57-million-social-grants-to-be-paid-directly-from-april-1-sassa-20180308.
189. Ineke van Kessel, “The changing meaning of change: The legacy of the United Democratic Front in South Africa”,
Fourth European Conference in African Studies, Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden, 15-18 June 2011, p 14.
190. http://businesstech.co.za/news/international/72934/south-africa-among-the-most-unequal-countries/ and http://
www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty.
191. See Part X on South Africa’s approaching fiscal cliff; https://businesstech.co.za/news/finance/218815/this-is-who-is-
paying-south-africas-personal-income-tax/.

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alternation, and no internal constraint either.
The bureaucracy is politically controlled through
non-merit-based hiring, dismissal, demotion and
promotion. This monopoly also reinforces the
political dominance of the party. As the scholar of
Latin American democracy, Guillermo O’Donnell,
puts it, executives have submitted to the vertical
accountability of electorates but not to the
horizontal accountability of other government
agencies.192
According to Greene, public resources can be
used for partisan purposes by appointing party
supporters to senior positions in publicly-owned
corporations. In various ways, public resources
are transferred to the party: through politicized
appointments in the bureaucracy to reward
party supporters and punish party opponents; by
privileging party-aligned businesses to contract
with the state and publicly-owned corporations;
by contracts for public works contracts and other
forms of tenders, subsidies, advertising revenue
and tax breaks to such entities.193 The tools of
repression and electoral fraud need not be relied
on in a hybrid regime. People and enterprises
soon learn that their prospects depend on their
political connections.194
Smears of racism against political
opponents or economic rivals
As South African Monitor predicted in past years,
when under pressure over bad governance or
during tough negotiations, the ANC could easily
resort to conspiracy theories or to smearing
opponents as “imperialists”, “racists”, “fascists” or
“colonialists”.
This may involve different forms of pressure and
intimidation. Loane Sharp, an economist, states:
Behind closed doors, the Department of Trade
and Industry (DTI) is secretly strong-arming
South Africa’s finest companies to adopt new
BEE regulations under the threat of damage
to their reputations. The proposed fines and
mandatory prison sentences are one thing;
damage to a firm’s good name is something
else entirely. In this hostile milieu, no business
dares to be accused of racism, whatever the
facts. But the government now consumes 32%
of national income each year. As such, too many
businesses are connected to the government’s
sphere of economic influence to be able to
ignore its directives.195
International business will periodically encounter
similar dilemmas.
Under attack for having too much influence over
Zuma’s decision making, the three Gupta brothers
wanted the help of public relations company
Bell Pottinger, a major player in the global public
relations industry. Bell Pottinger was persuaded
by Zuma’s son Duduzane and the prospect of high
fees to run a campaign targeting businesses citical
of ANC misgovernance.
According to leaked documents, Duduzane said the
campaign should be “along the lines of economic
emancipation of whatever” with a “narrative that
grabs the attention of the grassroots population
who must identify with it, connect with it and feel
united by it”. A campaign ensued that eventually
included the mainstream news outlets, The New
Age and ANN7, as well as social media, generating
tens of thousands of tweets and hundreds of
Facebook posts since 2016. Its campaign targeted
wealthy white South African business rivals to
allegedly deflect attention from the Guptas’ close
links to President Zuma.

192. See also Guillermo O’Donnell, Horizontal accountability and new polyarchies, Kellogg Institute, 1998 at https://
kellogg.nd.edu/publications/workingpapers/WPS/253.pdf.
193. See Kenneth Greene, Why dominant parties lose: Mexico’s democratization in comparative perspective (Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 2007); “The political economy of authoritarian single-party dominance” at http://
kgreene.webhost.utexas.edu/ greene%20pol%20econ%20auth%201p%20dom.pdf; http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/
article/2012-12-05-the-ancs-deadly-trinity-politics-power-patronage/#. UnK9675gXzA.
194. https://www.businesslive.co.za/rdm/politics/2017-01-04-politics-live-brace-yourself-an-angry-populist-zuma-
in-2017/; https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/inside-the-gupta-heist-20180121-2.
195. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2015/04/20/why-new-bee-codes-will-pull-the-rug-from-under-business.

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In November 2016, Johann Rupert, chief executive
officer (CEO) of Richemont, announced that Bell
Pottinger was behind a campaign that was making
personal attacks on him and that included the
phrase “white monopoly capital”. Bell Pottinger
denied the allegations.196 An investigation by
law firm Herbert Smith Freehills found that Bell
Pottinger’s work included material that was
“potentially racially divisive and/or potentially
offensive”. Francis Ingham, director of the UK
industry’s regulator, the Public Relations and
Communications Association (PRCA), called it the
most unethical public relations work he had seen
in a decade. After investigation, the PRCA expelled
Bell Pottinger from the PRCA in response to the
accusations that it had stirred up racial tensions,
and the company collapsed as a result of the
scandal.197
Local businesses also experienced direct
government pressure. Standard Bank in December
2017 filed an affidavit in the High Court in Pretoria,
appealing for protection against extensive political
pressure it had come under from the ANC, cabinet
ministers and the Gupta-linked Oakbay after it
had closed the company’s accounts. Standard
Bank was asked to meet both the ANC, as well as
the cabinet’s inter-ministerial committee, in an
attempt to exert political pressure on it to reverse
its decision. The meeting with the ANC, which
took place at Luthuli House on 21 April 2017,
included the then ANC secretary-general and
Ramaphosa confidante, Gwede Mantashe, Jessie
Duarte, currently the deputy secretary general
of the ANC, and the head of the ANC’s economic
transformation committee, Enoch Godongwana.
In the meeting Standard Bank CEO, Sim Tshabalala,
was asked to respond to the accusation “that it
was colluding with monopoly capital to oppress a
black-owned business”.
In addition to the meetings, it has also been
revealed that Oakbay had lobbied an international
shareholder of Standard Bank, claiming that it had
illegally colluded with other banks and saying
that its motivations in closing the accounts had
been racist. This was done without informing
Standard Bank.198 The risk of similar campaigns
against recalcitrant negotiating parties, business
competitors and political opponents will remain
considerable.

196. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/sep/05/bell-pottingersouth-africa-pr-firm.
197. https://www.biznews.com/undictated/2018/01/08/best-2017-bell-pottingers-gupta-work-unethical-ive-ever-seen-
prca-dg/; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/09/04/report-slams-bell-pottinger-race-hate-south-africa-
campaign/.
198. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/politics/2016-12-15-breaking-news-standard-bank-files-explosive-affidavit-
seeking-protection-from-political-interference/.

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Part V
Factional struggles and
Ramaphosa’s challenges
security agencies. As in countries like Mexico and
Intertwined legal and illegal Colombia, these two domains co-exist in the same
domains 199 political system.200 Historically, the legal and illegal
domains are also interlinked in South Africa.201 In
South Africa has a formal conventional economy, the case of the ruling ANC, partnerships of some
which has become strongly entangled with the cadres with drugs and smuggling crime syndicates
ANC political elites. However, there also is an during the years of the political underground and
informal economy, part of which is dominated exile have continued after 1994.202
by crime syndicates with links to politicians and

199. For an analysis of this dimension during the Zuma presidency, see South African Monitor, (8), February 2018, part VII
at https://sa-monitor.com/south-african-monitor-report-8-february-2018/.
200. Jean-François Bayart, Stephen Ellis and Béatrice Hibou, The criminalization of the state in Africa (James Currey,
Oxford, 1999).
201. R.W. Johnson, How long will South Africa survive? The looming crisis (Jonathan Ball Publishers, Cape Town, 2015), pp
18-49.
202. Stephen Ellis, External mission: The ANC in exile 1960-1990 (Hurst, London, 2012), pp 168-170, 273-274. Also see
South African Monitor, (8), February 2018 at https://sa-monitor.com/south-african-monitor-report-8-february-2018/.

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According to R.W. Johnson, the Zuma presidency
(2009-2018) has brought about the widespread
further criminalisation of the state.203 Ramaphosa
served as the vice-president from 2014-2018. A
series of billion-dollar arms trade scandals, referred
to as the “Arms Deal”, reach to the inner core of
the ANC and the foundation of the new political
order. It allegedly involved the then minister of
Defence Joe Modise and later Presidents Thabo
Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. All the details of the Arms
Deal have not been unearthed yet, but much is
already available in the public domain.204
The main political and legal issues at stake in
the arms scandal, including Zuma’s alleged
involvement, have not been resolved.205 The High
Court ruled on 29 April 2016 that Zuma should
face corruption charges over a 1999 arms deal.
The charges were dropped just weeks before
the 2009 election which led to Zuma becoming
president. The judge said the decision to drop
the charges was “irrational”. It remains to be seen
whether the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA)
will effectively reinstate the charges.206
Presidentialism and the executive
Unaccountable presidentialism constitutes a key
force in the ANC’s hybrid regime. The ANC under
Zuma used a big cabinet with frequent reshuffles
to ensure the support of key constituencies and
networks.207 The ANC’s top six officials were
influential in President Zuma’s political decisions.
The importance of top security officials and
ministers,208 as well as trusted internal ANC
operators was also clear.209
Over time evidence emerged of the influential role
played by one business network, that of the Indian
Gupta family. By the middle of 2013, the South
African Revenue Service (SARS) was investigating
the Guptas for possible tax evasion. In 2014, Zuma
appointed Thomas Moyane as commissioner of
SARS. His predecessor, Oupa Magashula, resigned,
owing to alleged involvement in nepotism.
Moyane’s assignment was to restructure
SARS, whose independence and efficiency had
threatened the Guptas and some of Zuma’s allies.
Media campaigns formed part of this campaign.
Many cases were put on ice. Especially a few very
competent officials were targeted by Moyane.210
Investigative journalist Jacques Pauw documented
the campaign by State Security Agency (SSA)
officers against SARS officials that could threaten
the corrupt business interests of Zuma allies and
also of some SSA senior officials.211
The so-called State Capture project of the Gupta
brothers during the Zuma presidency included
their influence on cabinet appointments and state
contracts.212 Thousands of personal e-mails from
the Gupta family and their associates were released
in 2017 in what became known as #Guptaleaks. It
exposed Duduzane Zuma, President Zuma’s son,
as the key middleman for the Guptas. In exchange
for being appointed as director of several Gupta
companies and numerous material benefist, he
ensured that the Guptas’ choice of ministers,
parastatal CEOs and top officials were appointed

203. R.W. Johnson, How long will South Africa survive? The looming crisis (Jonathan Ball Publishers, Cape Town, 2015),
p 45.
204. http://mg.co.za/article/2011-12-02-arms-deal-bell-was-deaf-to-bribes-and-lost-out; http://mg.co.za/specialreport/
the-arms-deal; http://www.armsdeal-vpo.co.za/articles04/told_you_so.html; Paul Holden and Hennie van Vuuren,
The devil in the detail: How the Arms Deal changed everything (Jonathan Ball, Johannesburg, 2011); Andrew
Feinstein, After the party: Corruption, the ANC and South Africa’s uncertain future (Verso, London, 2009).
205. http://mg.co.za/article/2015-07-02-judge-seriti-has-left-the-building.
206. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36169594.
207. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2015/11/02/zumas-control-over-top-salaries-buys-him-loyalty. Also see
http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2014/11/12/state-of-the-anc-the-big-picture-with-jacob-zuma-in-the-
centre.
208. See Part VII.
209. Susan Booysen, Dominance and decline: The ANC in the time of Zuma (Witwatersrand University Press,
Johannesburg, 2015), pp 69-72. Also see http://mg.co.za/article/2014-05-22-kitchen-cabinet-helps-jz-to-rule.
210. Jacques Pauw, The President’s keepers: Those keeping Zuma in power and out of prison (Tafelberg, Cape Town, 2017),
pp 84-85;123-157.
211. Jacques Pauw, The President’s keepers: Those keeping Zuma in power and out of prison (Tafelberg, Cape Town, 2017),
p 49.
212. http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-11-02-analysis-thulis-final-game-changer/#.WCjKuoWcFOx.

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to divert lucrative contracts to some of their
companies.213 The Guptas denied any wrongdoing.
Zuma’s faction has tried for years, also by using
the security services, to prevent the Treasury and
Ministry of Finance from opposing their efforts
to gain more access to patronage via lucrative
deals and SOEs.214 Since becoming president,
Ramaphosa and those supporting him have
removed several corrupt pro-Zuma ministers
and high-profile officials. However, Ramaphosa’s
power base in the factionalized ANC has limits, and
he has not yet succeeded in completely stamping
his authority on the ANC.
A deal to elect Ramaphosa?
In the months before the ANC leadership election
of December 2017, its two main factions were
locked in a stalemate.215 On 18 December 2017,
Zuma’s deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa was
elected as leader of the ANC at the party’s fifty-
fourth elective conference. He narrowly defeated
his rival, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, ex-wife of
President Zuma and supported by Zuma, by 2 440
to 2 261 votes. This did not compare favourable
with Zuma’s 60-40 win over Mbeki in 2008.
Ramaphosa, often referred to as CR in public
discourse, was elected in 2012 as deputy leader of
the ANC and appointed as deputy president under
Zuma from 2014. Since 2014, he had also been the
head of the National Planning Commission and of
the ANC National Deployment Committee.
The election of the ANC’s top decision-making
body, the NEC, resulted in it again being divided
down the middle, as it had been under Zuma.216
Three of the six new NEC members are Zuma
supporters. Ramaphosa will have to turn a blind
213. Jacques Pauw, The President’s keepers: Those keeping Zuma in power and out of prison (Tafelberg, Cape Town, 2017),
pp 270-271.
214. “Zuma’s empire strikes back hard”, Business Day, 12 October 2016.
215. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/columnists/2017-12-20-steven-friedman-the-post-conference-anc--
same-party-with-new-wrinkles/.
216. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/columnists/2017-12-19-carol-paton-different-leader-and-different-faces-
-but-same-top-six-split/.
217. https://mg.co.za/article/2017-12-15-south-africa-needs-electoral-reform-but-presidents-powers-need-watching.
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SA Monitor2018 .indd 60
eye to the business activities and relationships of
the key power brokers in the NEC.
Among them are the treasurer-general, Paul
Mashatile, and the deputy president, David
Mabuza, respectively the provincial ANC leaders
of Gauteng and Mpumalanga. Both have been
very close to private business interests. The ANC
chairman, Gwede Mantashe, has been named in
tender-related scandals, which have been linked
to procurement transactions for his wife and
son. The secretary-general’s office is headed by
two Gupta associates, Ace Magashule and Jesse
Duarte.
According to Roger Southall, professor in
sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand,
ANC electoral procedures are deeply corrupted
by money changing hands, personal ambition
and factionalism.217 Richard Poplak described the
process that resulted in this outcome in more
graphic language:
Extra-democratically, out of sight of the 5 000
or so comrades lolling about the Nasrec
grounds, the steering committee decided that
only 17 of the missing votes would be counted
and that Ace (Magashule), we learned, would
stay on as Secretary General. Regardless of the
eventual justifications, this is the very essence
of corruption. The palace intrigue has become
boring – the gruesome quid-pro-quos of this
deal will eventually be laid out in a bestselling
book, and good luck to the author. The point,
however, is that inside a committee run by
Gwede Mantashe, (the ANC’s new national
chairperson), Cyril Ramaphosa and his new
team agreed that it was better to keep Ace as
Secretary General than it was to collapse the
conference and re-pantomime democracy.
4/11/2019 3:22:28 PM

Deals, deals, deals and deals. The final
alignment of the Top Six and the NEC
was the result of deal-making, not an
elections process. We spent five days in
Nasrec watching an elaborate farce,
a giant R6-million-a-day confidence
game. What the fuck was the point of
any of this? Why not just work it out
over Blue Label and cigars in Luthuli
House, and save us all the trouble?
The ANC Electoral Conference was a scam.
The policies that result from it – whether neo-
liberal or radical – are scams. The Ramaphosa
era will be defined by scammers colluding with
scammers in order to further scam the people
of South Africa – and whether those scammers
happen to be Cyril’s business buddies in
Stellenbosch or Mabuza’s gangster pals in
Dubai hardly matters anymore. Some good
may come to the people of South Africa purely
by accident, and that must be welcomed. But
can this divided, deal-drunk ANC really pull us
from the mire?218
Politics of mirrors and the
circulation of elites
International media responses have been
positive and many observers are more hopeful.
The German business newspaper Handelsblatt
commented:
South Africa has until now been seen as being
in steady decline. The financial markets are
now relying on the new leader of the African
National Congress, Cyril Ramaphosa. However,
to see him as a magic healer would be naïve.219
218. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-12-21-trainspotter-the-ancs-54th-electoral-scamathon-is-finally-
finally-over-and-the-fix-is-in/#.WmzEnbpFxjp.
219. http://www.handelsblatt.com/my/meinung/kommentare/hoffnungstraeger-bei-der-anc-suedafrika-braucht-den-
neuanfang/20740012.html?ticket=ST-1526424-vgiP3HNpZccp9c4kVcKv-ap1.
220. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/politics/2017-02-28-analysts-put-their-money-on-cyril-ramaphosa-winning-anc-
leadership-battle/.
221. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-01-23-south-africas-complex-2018-transition-and-the-zumaist-
occupation/#.WmyATKjibIV.
SA Monitor2018 .indd 61
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Ramaphosa is expected to be better than Zuma in
practicing a politics of mirrors, using rhetoric to
tell the international business and policymaking
constituencies what they want to hear, without
necessarily being able to fulfil his promises. Control
Risks analyst Seamus Duggan rightly cautions:
The current succession politics are being
portrayed as Cyril Ramaphosa and reformists
versus Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and
traditionalists. The reality is the nature of
this succession battle is far more messy. The
implications for business are not going to
be as clear-cut as portrayed … While under
Ramaphosa we are likely to see a more pro-
business approach from the ANC‚ he’s going to
struggle to implement this across his divided
party.220
In addition, Zuma’s misgovernance and the theft
he sanctioned have created a series of crises and
political volatility that could take years to stabilize.
As stated by Susan Booysen:
The “Cyril factor” is a useful addition to the
mix – but effective action is all that will count
at term’s end. Talk-talk has run out of steam
for the ANC, both internationally and with
the South African electorate. More talk-plus-
walk will be the benchmark after 25 years of
potholed ANC rule. The Ramaphosa regime will
be held to account substantively on its promise
to “deepen transformation”.221
In fact, the ANC conference in December 2017
announced a raft of quite radical policy decisions
which seemed to favour the Dlamini-Zuma faction,
rather than the more moderate Ramaphosa side.
It included changing the Constitution to legalise
expropriation of land from whites to be given
to blacks without compensation, nationalising
the South African Reserve Bank (now nominally
owned by private shareholders), and providing
free higher education to the poor.
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For the time being, Ramaphosa will face a deeply
divided party and deeply entrenched patronage
networks. He has started to clean out certain
ministries, agencies and state enterprises,
removing key allies of Zuma. However, his support
inside the ANC remains uncertain and he has
struggled to unite the party behind him.
Many of those in a Ramaphosa cabinet have been
complicit in or quiet about the excesses of Zuma’s
time in office. This holds true even for Ramaphosa,
who as deputy president only very belatedly
criticized the nature and extent of corruption
around Zuma.222 Retread politicians, previously
complicit in neopatrimonial politics under Mbeki
or Zuma, will become part of new rounds of a
circulation of the elites. “Different leader, different
vision … same broken ANC merry-go-round” was
the heading of Carol Paton’s analysis after the ANC
conference.223
In January 2018, the twenty elected members
of the ANC’s National Working Committee
(NWC) were announced. The NWC reflected the
composition of the NEC, with a similar mix of
Zuma and Ramaphosa loyalists, favouring the new
president. Some Zuma loyalists, such as Nomvula
Mokonyane, Edna Molewa and Bathabile Dlamini,
also won seats on the NWC. Indeed, the defeated
presidential contender, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma,
won the biggest vote on the committee.
Security agencies to reposition
themselves
A key challenge for Ramaphosa will be the role
of the security agencies during his rule. Zuma
as former intelligence head of the ANC had a
particular preference for and competence in using
the security agencies. They actively helped him
in the past decade to maintain his grip on the
factionalizing ANC, to contain domestic political
opponents, to weaken the institutional checks
and balances that hindered his accumulation
222. https://mg.co.za/article/2019-01-14-the-state-capture-spectacle-is-back.
223. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/columnists/2017-12-21-carol-paton-different-leader-different-vision--
same-broken-anc-merry-go-round/.
224. Michael Bratton and Nicholas van der Walle, Democratic experiments in Africa (Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1997), p 62.
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SA Monitor2018 .indd 62
of resources, and to prevent law enforcement
investigations and court cases against his interests,
allies and partners.
A new government will have to contain the
factional struggle within the security agencies.
Different factions among the securocrats will
try to find ways to make themselves equally
indispensable to a Ramaphosa government. They
will be aided by the fact that Ramaphosa would
have to deal with a rise in political unrest and
protest, internal opponents from the Zuma camp
in ANC and state structures, as well as strong
challenges by opposition parties in the run-up to
the 2019 elections.
Ramaphosa would have to implement rigorous
changes in the SSA and military to remove
staunch Zuma loyalists. However, some of the
securocrats are likely to try and use Ramaphosa’s
selective anti-corruption campaigns to neutralize
both Ramaphosa’s political rivals and their own
bureaucratic rivals.
Ramaphosa, who did not very actively oppose it
in the past, will be unable to substantially reverse
the politicization of the security agencies in future.
As Michael Bratton and Nicholas van der Walle
states, in neopatrimonial orders, parallel and
unofficial structures may well hold more power
and authority than the formal administration.224
In the case of the ANC’s hybrid regime, such
structures are now involved in the turbulent
factional struggles.
Partisan law enforcement actions?
As the political scientist Dirk Kotze notes:
Over the past 10 years the country’s
criminal justice system has been
exploited by the government to deal
mainly with internal ANC factional
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As Richard Calland states, this situation presents

dynamics. The country’s Revenue
Service, which also has investigative
and semi-judicial powers, has also been
225
drawn into these dynamics.
However, in January 2018, some of the political
brakes on investigations and prosecutions against
the political allies and business partners of
President Zuma and his family were removed.
According to insiders, this was the result of Cyril
Ramaphosa’s victory at the ANC conference in
December 2017. Unfortunately, these events
also confirmed to what extent the ANC as a party
dominates the formal structures of the state in
the one party dominant system.
Carol Paton, deputy editor of Business Day,
comments:
Then comes the most damaging repeat of the
dynamic that has shaped ANC politics since
2005 – the use of the justice system to settle
scores among one another. Magashule will
probably be criminally implicated through
the judicial commission of inquiry into state
capture. While this will not amount to abuse
of the justice system in the way Zuma used it
against Pravin Gordhan, it is very similar to
the attempts to prosecute Zuma for corruption
while Thabo Mbeki was president.
Mbeki may well have been politically complicit
behind the scenes in urging the prosecution of
Zuma. Ramaphosa might not be playing the
same political game. Assuming he allows the
law to take its course, the ANC will once again
be in the thick of a conflict, with top officials
on opposite sides of the justice system. Just
like the other problems it has – factionalism,
entrenched patronage and corruption – there
will be no avoiding the internecine conflict that
the state-capture inquiry will bring.226
Ramaphosa with an acute political dilemma, since
he has pledged to “rebuild unity” in the ANC:
Hence, we are likely to see a very high level and
multifaceted blame game. But any attempt
to restore its credibility will probably prove
counter-productive unless the party accepts
that some of its biggest fish must be prosecuted
too.227
Ramaphosa is also experiencing resistance and
counter-measures by his political opponents or
embarassing developments. In her evidence to
the Zondo Commission into State Capture under
Zuma, the former Public Enterprises Minister
Barbara Hogan said that the ANC’s policy of cadre
deployment, whereby appointments were made
according to ANC membership, was counter-
productive.228 As deputy president and head of
the ANC’s deployment committee, Ramaphosa
was jointly responsible for those appointments.
Meanwhile, Khotso de Wee, the secretary of
the Zondo Commission into State Capture he
had appointed, has been put on leave pending
investigation into claims that he was one of the
recipients of cash payments related to a tender
assigned to a Bosasa subsidiary (Bosasa is a South
African company specialising in providing services
to government, controversial for its involvement
in corruption allegations).229
It is still up to investigative journalists to uncover
the routes by which Ramaphosa, armed with only
political and trade union connections, became one
of the richest men in South Africa upon leaving
politics in 1997. Ramaphosa has also agreed to
repay a donation of R500 000 (US$36 000) made
to his election campaign in December 2017. The
donation was made by a company which has been
the beneficiary of government projects. It also has
links to his son, Andile Ramaphosa.

225. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2018/01/27/is-south-africa-seeing-a-return-to-the-rule-of-law-more-evidence-is-
needed_a_23345213/.
226. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/columnists/2017-12-21-carol-paton-different-leader-different-vision--
same-broken-anc-merry-go-round/.
227. https://mg.co.za/article/2018-01-22-is-the-net-about-to-close-on-zuma-and-his-gupta-patronage-network.
228. https://ewn.co.za/2018/11/12/barbara-hogan-anc-often-interfered-in-appointing-executives-at-soes.
229. https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/breaking-zondo-commission-secretary-implicated-in-bosasa-
corruption-20190118; https://www.news24.com/Columnists/AdriaanBasson/is-this-why-bosasa-was-never-
prosecuted-20190121.

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Cyril Ramaphosa initially told Parliament, in reply
to a question by Democratic Alliance (DA) leader
Mmusi Maimane, that the money had been paid
into his son’s account, but later said that it had
been paid by a logistics company, Bosasa, now
known as African Global Operations. The payment
was made on behalf of former Bosasa CEO, Gavin
Watson. Correcting his earlier reply, Ramaphosa
said he had inadvertently misled Parliament due
to a lack of information about the payment. When
Maimane and EFF leader, Julius Malema, called
for a full investigation into all payments into his
election fund, Ramaphosa said he would repay
the money and investigate all payments into the
election fund account.
Professor Mark Swilling recently noted the
following about the anti-Ramaphosa campaign
inside the ANC:
First, there is a well-orchestrated campaign to
restore Zuma’s image as the “man of the people”
– including a pop song – who is prepared to
lead the populist charge against poverty and
oppression, namely, “white monopoly capital”.
Second, Zuma has returned to his KwaZulu-
Natal base where he knows how to use violence
and fear as a weapon to secure national power
positions – after all, this was why Nelson
Mandela brought him into the NEC, and why
Thabo Mbeki had to bring him in close as
deputy president.
When Zuma used that famous television
interview before he resigned to subtly threaten
increased violence if he was displaced, all
he did then was to voice publicly what he’d
always done within the secretive cloak-and-
dagger world of ANC leadership struggles. The
KwaZulu-Natal youngsters who were sent to
Moscow to be trained as assassins continue
to be very effective implementers of a low-
intensity reign of terror.
Third, in his capacity as ANC Secretary General,
Ace Magashule controls the election processes
230. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2019-01-21-the-zuma-power-elite-is-alive-kicking-and-preparing-to-
replace-ramaphosa/.
231. http://businesstech.co.za/news/general/142598/how-zumas-faction-is-starting-to-unravel/.
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SA Monitor2018 .indd 64
for provincial executives. By all accounts,
he is systematically ensuring that provincial
executives are elected that will do the necessary
when the time comes to recall Ramaphosa after
the election.
Fourth, there is mounting evidence that key
power brokers within the ANC are encouraging
the growth of smaller parties to ensure that
the ANC’s electoral majority is less than it
achieved in the previous election when Zuma
was the leader. In the crazy world of shifting
opportunistic alliances, the EFF seems to
be playing ball – they consistently target
Ramaphosa and Pravin Gordhan with little
to say about their old “pay back the money”
enemy, Jacob Zuma.
If successful, a reduced majority would
allow Magashule’s ANC provincial executive
committees to argue that contrary to the hype,
Ramaphosa has not been able to reverse the
electoral losses experienced during the Zuma
years. The message will be simple: if the ANC is
in worse shape under Ramaphosa, why should
he remain the leader?
Fifth, there is sufficient anecdotal evidence
that the majority of ANC members do not
understand the true nature of State Capture.
Nor is there much grassroots support for the
Zondo Commission — many ANC members
would welcome its closure. Recent “leaks”
seem to be about discrediting the Zondo
Commission.230
A fluid transition
The anti-Zuma faction competing for access to
patronage and the faction against both Zuma and
the politics of patronage succeeded in electing
Ramaphosa as ANC leader in December 2017.231
However, one runs a risk in seeing the membership
of factions as being fixed instead of being fluid.
Opponents of a faction sometimes also use their
opposition to enforce new concessions and later
4/11/2019 3:22:28 PM

incorporation into the dominant faction. Some
members of factions may be pushed out of a
faction or to the side and have to bide their time
to return to the inner circles. This will now also be
the case for some people in the Zuma camp and
the EFF, as the Ramaphosa camp becomes more
powerful.
Selective anti-corruption campaigns under
Ramaphosa will continue, especially aimed at
removing the support bases of Zuma. Zuma-ist
networks, still intent on ensuring that Ramaphosa
has a one-term presidency, will be attempting to
limit Ramaphosa’s ability to stamp his authority
on the whole ANC.232 However, the interaction
between strong non-accountable forces and weak
democratic institutions will continue to shape
politics. The major political dynamics will continue
to be that of a flexible and possibly reformed
hybrid regime.
Weakened democratic institutions
Whoever becomes president after the 2019
election, will be governing a state that is a far
cry from the new political system in 1994. The
population has expanded by more than 20%, but
the capabilities of the state apparatus have not
kept up with their demands. During one-party-
dominance over decades, the locus of politics has
shifted from accountable democratic institutions
to a field of power in which weak democratic
institutions and non-democratic institutions
interact. Neopatrimonial dynamics dominate
much bigger parts of the state institutions. From
2013 to 2017, the high point of Zuma’s misrule
and corruption, Cyril Ramaphosa was both
Zuma’s deputy president and the chair of the
ANC’s NDC in charge of cadre deployment.233
Party cadre deployment and a non-pluralist
political culture now permeate state institutions.
Elections still occur and the ANC has learnt that
it can be vulnerable and lose its dominance, as it
232. Also see Susan Booysen, Dominance and decline: The ANC in the time of Zuma (Wits University Press, Johannesburg,
2015), p 37.
233. https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/cadre-deployment-ber-alles.
234. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2018/02/04/inside-the-transition-what-zumas-team-is-thinking_a_23352517/.
235. For a general overview, see Jacques Pauw, The President’s keepers: Those keeping Zuma in power and out of prison
(Tafelberg, Cape Town, 2017).
236. https://www.giga-hamburg.de/de/publication/ambivalent-attitudes-towards-democracy-among-south-africas-
middle-class.
SA Monitor2018 .indd 65
SAMonitor
did in three major metros in the local elections of
2016. However, intimidation, threats of violence,
rehearsals for violence, violent protests, and
even political assassinations form part of the
new rules of the game, the incentive systems and
the positioning of actors in dealing with political
claims, counter-claims and contestation. This
non-democratic tenor had even been noticeable
during the transition of leadership in the ANC,
when there had been talk of the risk of conflict
and civil war if the Zuma faction were not to have
been dealt with respectfully.234
The institutions established with a view
to a separation of powers and democratic
accountability have proven to be too weak to
prevent the massive plundering of state resources
by ANC networks and policies of patronage.235
Politics among the ANC’s core constituencies
have also clearly shifted towards more demands
for redistributionism and selective (non-material)
de-Westernization. Protest politics by poor
communities and militant youth politics have
become quite prominent. Simone Schotte of
GIGA found significant discrepancies in attitudes
towards democracy between the downwardly and
upwardly mobile strata of the black middle class,
which she terms the “anxious” and the “climbers,”
respectively.
On the one hand, the “climbers” show the
highest generic support for democracy as a
form of government, whereas the “anxious”
middle class displays feelings of resignation.
On the other hand, I find indicative evidence of
a status‐quo bias among the “climbers”. Rather
than assuming a more demanding or critical
stance in politics, they allow their political
priorities to be at least partly shaped by an
interest in securing and expanding attained
living standards; being upwardly mobile is
even associated with a higher tolerance for
government attempts to constrain freedom of
information, opinion, or expression.236
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At the end of July 2018, Cyril Ramaphosa addressed hearings and processes on the necessity of such
the nation as ANC president on state television in an amendment process remained under way. The
what is traditionally a slot reserved for the head moment captured the continuance of a one-party
of state, against the backdrop of two ANC flags. dominant hybrid regime.237
He announced that the ANC had decided that
there would be a constitutional amendment to
“clarify” expropriation without compensation and
that the party would finalize the amendment.
This occurred while the parliamentary public

237. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-08-01-political-brinkmanship-vs-governance-ramaphosas-move-to-
amend-sa-constitution-kickstarts-2019-elections-season/.

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Part VI
The legislature, elections
and violent politics
The ANC’s NEC has tremendous power over
A one-party dominant state elected MPs. The system of closed-list proportional
representation assigns legislative seats to
Strict enforcement of ANC party discipline against
candidates based on their relative position on a
ANC MPs has weakened national legislative
party list, and the NEC draws up the ANC’s party
oversight of the executive. Formally, legislative
list. Even elected MPs can be redeployed by the
authority is vested in Parliament, but in practice
ANC’s NEC and replaced by another ANC cadre.
its role has been reduced to approving bills drafted
The non-parliamentary wing of the ANC dominates
by the ANC-led executive. Behind the formal
the parliamentary wing.238
structures and processes, cadre deployment and
the party rule.

238. Soujit Choudry, “‘He had a mandate’: The South African Constitutional Court and the African National Congress in
a dominant party democracy” (2010), at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1651332, pp 17-18,
33-35.

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Unelected party functionaries thus set the national
government’s policy priorities. The public officials
subject to electoral accountability tend to be
subordinated to unelected party functionaries.239
Politics are pulled out of the elected legislature
into the party and into processes that lie outside of
Parliament. Politicians do not need to comply with
the same norms of transparency, participation
and accountability. During Zuma’s two terms,
ANC parliamentarians had clearly been unable
to provide effective legislative oversight of the
executive or the ANC. The overall situation is
unlikely to change during Ramaphosa’s rule in the
next few years.
A political culture of impunity
As explained above, specific ANC policies like
“democratic centralism” and cadre deployment
by the party to national and provincial executives
and legislatures have weakened the separation of
powers. During Zuma’s second term as president,
Ramaphosa himself chaired the ANC NDC (since
2014). The deployment of ANC officials that
participated in corrupt practices happened on his
watch.240
Also in Parliament, Ramaphosa never supported
the many opposition party attempts to hold
President Zuma accountable. In 2014 and
2015, critical opposition parliamentarians were
physically removed from parliamentary sessions
at the behest of the ANC leaders, whose MPs
formed the majority in Parliament. This lead
the liberal former editor of the Rand Daily Mail,
Allister Sparks, to comment: “This is outrageous.
This is no longer democracy”.241
The events in Parliament were one signal among
many that the ANC’s dominance during five
national elections had eroded the checks on
power created by the Constitution, as well as
Parliament’s oversight role. The securitization of
Parliament during the past few years aimed to
inhibit a vigorous questioning of President Zuma
by opposition parties.242
The 2016 to 2019 SONAs saw increased police
presence in the parliamentary precinct and a
larger contingent of the in-house security.243 On
29 September 2016, the South African Supreme
Court of Appeal ruled that the security forces’
jamming of cell phones and limiting of the
broadcasting of proceedings during the 2015
SONA in Parliament was unconstitutional and
unlawful.244 During the SONAs of 2018 and 2019,
delivered by Ramaphosa, however, such forms of
securitization was not apparent.
The non-alternation of power in a
hybrid regime
According to political scientists, democratic
consolidation entails not only compliance with
the framework of electoral democracy for political
competition, but also at least one electoral loss,
coupled with a transfer of power.245 Political
competition, including a viable opposition and the
credible possibility that an election may remove
a party from office, lowers the risk of a governing
party abusing its power.

239. William Mervin Gumede, Thabo Mbeki and the battle for the soul of the ANC (Zebra Press, Cape Town, 2005), p 272.
240. https://mg.co.za/article/2019-01-14-the-state-capture-spectacle-is-back.
241. “South African Parliament in Disarray as ANC Protects Zuma”, Bloomberg, 30 September 2014; “Chaos linked to
Zuma’s plan to flex ANC muscles in parliament”, Reuters, 16 November 2014; “Parliament Diary: Scenes of Shame”,
Daily Maverick, 14 November 2014.
242. http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-04-06-op-ed-party-loyalty-patronage-and-the-future-of-the-south-
african-parliament/#.VXbwE8sR672.
243. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-02-13-sonamustfall-dont-normalise-zumas-security-creep/#.Wmo-
uqjibIW; https://www.news24.com/Columnists/Pieter_du_Toit/barricades-alsatians-and-fences-sona-shows-up-a-
party-and-government-afraid-of-its-people-20190210.
244. http://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00046248.html.
245. Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, Jose Antonio Cheibub and Fernando Limongi, Democracy and development:
Political institutions and well-being in the world, 1950-1990 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000); Kenneth
Greene, Why dominant parties lose: Mexico’s democratization in comparative perspective (Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 2007).

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ANC statements and actions do not reflect an
appreciation that without the viable option of
alternation, a substantial democracy does not
exist. They rather project a sense of entitlement
to never-ending rule, based on the ANC’s history
of armed struggle against the previous political
order. This approach reflects the non-pluralist
political culture described.246
However, many voters from largely black and
poorer communities also feel excluded from
existing forms of ANC patronage. Many of
them turned to protests as a form of political
participation, often in conjunction with voting
support for the ANC. They vote for the ANC
during elections, while their protests constitute
political participation and competition between
elections over access to positions, resources
and opportunities.247 Sometimes, such protests
interlink with parallel systems of governance and
criminal networks.248
benefited least from the power transition in 1994
may continue to support the ANC in the hope that
the ANC will finally deliver to them. Those who
have benefited most, seem most likely to drive
political change.
His explanation is twofold: increases in service
delivery appear to heighten citizens’ awareness of,
and exposure to, corruption. Those places in which
there is the greatest improvement in services, are
also the places in which local politicians self-enrich
the most. Secondly, increases in service delivery
appear to change voter expectations, ratcheting
them upward. Once voters are provided with
basic services, they may alter their expectations
and demands of government, seeking out
alternative parties. This could occur either
through changing needs and desires, or through
revised understandings of government capacity.251
As such, they have become part of the politics of
a hybrid regime.

There had been more protests in 2018 than
in any other year since 2005. Municipal IQ‚ a
specialised local government data and intelligence
organisation‚ recorded 237 protests against
municipalities across the country in 2018. In 2014,
a general election year, protests were significantly
higher, and this may again be the case before
2019’s elections.249 While 50% of the lower
number of protests in 2007 involved violence,
more protests have since involved violence. The
policing of protests appears to add another layer
of violence between communities and authority
figures.250
Factional struggles within the ANC and between
the ANC and opposition groups will continue to
generate political turbulence in the next few years.
Urban and rural invasions and urban protests
due to overheated expectations are expected to
continue to remain prominent in the run-up to the
2019 elections.252 The risk of local flashpoints of
intergroup tensions, mediatized and abused for
political agitation, has also risen in many towns
and townships. Violent scapegoat politics during
such protests, aimed against African foreigners
or different indigenous cultural communities, will
remain real during the next few years.

The protests signal alternative ways of

empowerment, voicing disagreement and The national elections of 2014
bargaining. Evan Lieberman, professor in
Elections in South Africa have occurred within
African Politics at the Massachusetts Institute of
the context of a one-party dominant state for the
Technology (MIT), has found that those who have

246. Stephen Ellis, External mission: The ANC in exile, 1960-1990 (Hurst, London, 2012), pp 298-299, 301-302.
247. http://www.issafrica.org/crimehub/public-violence.
248. Susan Booysen, Dominance and decline: The ANC in the time of Zuma (Wits University Press, Johannesburg, 2015),
pp 267, 274.
249. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2019-01-16-more-protests-in-2018-than-in-the-last-13-years/.
250. http://www.municipaliq.co.za/publications/press/201710241012397864.pdf.
251. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/10/in-south-africa-voters-do-not-reward-good-
service/.
252. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-safrica-land-cities/south-africas-cities-hold-key-to-ramaphosas-land-plan-
idUSKCN1J0145; https://ewn.co.za/2018/07/25/reports-of-intimidation-threats-add-to-tensions-in-zwelihle.

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past 25 years. Furthermore, pockets of citizens
live comfortably, while the majority are relatively
poor and a large percentage of the population is
unemployed. Nicola de Jager, a political scientist
at the University of Stellenbosch, states:
In such an environment, the incumbent’s
ability to create jobs, issue tenders, pay for
advertisements, determine economic policy
and otherwise influence the movement of
resources is a pronounced advantage ... In South
Africa, the ANC gains an important advantage
between elections, as it has the lion’s share of
public funds, access to private funding through
party-owned businesses and reaps the rewards
of cadre deployment within government. In this
context, elections might be free, but declaring
them to be fair becomes problematic.253
Moreover, efforts to use a combination of
mobilization, patronage and intimidation usually
proceed long before election monitors take to the
field. The Western Cape and Gauteng are the only
two provinces in South Africa where more than
two-thirds of households earn salaries as their
main sources of income. In the rest of the country,
households rely significantly on grants to get
by.254 The Community Agency for Social Enquiry
(CASE) did field research into the voting of the
poor before the 2014 national elections. CASE’s
research points to the increasingly transactional
nature of voting in South Africa, where votes
become a transaction currency: a means of buying
goods and services from a political elite, and not
just an expression of confidence in the inherent
capabilities of a particular party or leader.255
According to Mohamed Motale, CASE’s director,
the ANC uses the economic needs and anxieties
of poor people to influence their voting patterns:
The only lifeline that poor households have,
are social security grants and the services
rendered to them by the Department of Social
Development in collaboration with other
departments, such as health and education. …
[R]ational behaviour under these perilous and
precarious conditions means that people hold
on to what they have and the best way of doing
that is keeping the ANC in power. In this way, the
ANC uses the economic needs and anxieties of
poor people to influence their voting patterns.
CASE’s research shows that the ANC uses
strategies that go beyond the charm offensive
when engaging with the poor electorate that
makes up its support base during campaigning
periods … It does this, in the short term,
by engaging in disinformation, such as
threatening to stop social security grants and
linking government social security delivery to
the provision of services by a political party.
Government services are delivered to the poor
in a manner that strengthens the ANC’s political
party support.
The ANC also displays its power and strength
in an intimidating manner using huge numbers
of its supporters to induce a sense of fear
and anxiety among the poor electorate.
This is apart from engaging in direct acts of
intimidation, such as controlling campaigning
venues and organising marches to disrupt
opposition political parties. These big brother
bullying tactics target opposing political party
supporters.256
In December 2015 the Constitutional Court ruled
that the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC)
had endorsed rigged local elections two years
earlier.257 According to the liberal IRR, during the
2014 elections there had been a 160% turnout for
those aged 80 and older.258 It remains to be seen
to what extent the ANC will use such approaches
during the national elections in May 2019.

253. Nicola de Jager, Why elections in Botswana and South Africa can be ‘free’ but not ‘fair’ at http://democracyinafrica.
org/elections-bostwana-south-africa-can-free-fair/.
254. http://www.fin24.com/Economy/only-gauteng-western-cape-dont-rely-on-grants-for-income-20160602.
255. http://allafrica.com/stories/201405010719.html.
256. http://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/opinion/why-the-poor-still-vote-anc-1.1680612#.U4iaRmeKDre. Also see http://www.
issafrica.org/iss-today/sa-elections-what-does-the-electoral-code-of-conduct-say-about-the-abuse-of-state-resources.
257. http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/8c142b804d21ca148856ea93fd523eaa/Opposition-parties-feel-vindicated-by-court-
judgment-20161406; https://www.enca.com/south-africa/concourt-finds-tlokwe-elections-were-not-free-and-fair.
258. R.W. Johnson, How long will South Africa survive? The looming crisis (Jonathan Ball Publishers, Cape Town, 2015), pp
144-145.

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for the ANC decreased to 35%, continuing the

A hybrid regime resting on 35% of steady decrease since its peak at 54% in 1994.261
eligible voters? 259

According to estimates, more than 750  000

The ANC gained the support of about 35% of the
eligible voters in the 2014 national elections. The
group who did not vote was the single biggest
group, namely 43%. The shrinking base of actual
voter support also reflects how the locus of politics
has shifted from democratic institutions to the
zone of interaction between democratic and non-
democratic institutions of a hybrid regime. The
elections now interact with the non-democratic
institutions of the hybrid regime.
Among the 57% of eligible voters that did vote
in 2014, the ANC won decisively with 62.2% of
the national vote.260 The largest opposition party,
the liberal DA, secured 22.2% of the vote. The
newcomer, the socialist EFF, established itself as
the third-largest political party nationally with
6.4% of the vote. The other 29 political parties
that contested the national elections shared the
remaining 9.2%.
Hertzberg comments:
black voters did not vote for the ANC, but for
the opposition DA.262 Most voters among ethnic
constituencies like the Asians, Afrikaners, English-
speaking whites and coloureds supported
opposition parties.
However, the ANC used political mobilization and
patronage in rural areas to compensate for some
losses in urban areas.263 During the campaign,
the KwaZulu-Natal MEC, Meshack Radebe, stated
that social grants are only for “ANC supporters”.264
Actual physical violence was not widespread
enough to have significantly influenced the
outcome of the national elections, but it made a
difference at local levels. In the six months leading
up to the election on 7 May 2014, 76 incidents
of election-related violence had taken place.
Of these, two-thirds turned violent. Where the
political affiliation of perpetrators was known,
the main perpetrating party was the ANC (52%),
followed by the EFF (26%).265

The turnout of registered voters in the 2014

elections was 73% … When the turnout is
examined as a proportion of the eligible voting-
age population turnout over 20 years, the
figures confirm a decline in participation from
86% in 1994 to 72% in 1999 and 58% in 2004.
Only in 2009 was there a slight rise to 60%,
but this was again followed by a drop to 57%
in the 2014 elections. It appears that there is
an increasing number of eligible South African
voters who do not cast a vote.
The ANC’s share of the vote declined from 70%
in 2004 to the lowest percentage yet … As a
result, the proportion of eligible voters voting
Local elections
The ANC engaged in a “black operations”
manoeuvre to influence public opinion during the
local elections of 2016. A covert operations room
was set up on behalf of the ANC with a planned
budget of R50-million to pay people to create
false narratives favouring the ANC and targeting
opposition parties. This included printing fake
opposition posters, which is in violation of the
Municipal Electoral Act and the Election Code of
Conduct. The story broke when public relations
consultant Sihle Bolani, who worked on this covert
campaign, brought a case against the ANC for non-
payment. Bolani had secretly recorded meetings
with ANC officials at the party headquarters in

259. http://www.issafrica.org/voter-participation-in-the-south-african-elections-of-2014.
260. By 2015, many supporters considered the ANC to be underperforming regarding crime, corruption and job-creation.
See http://mg.co.za/article/2015-05-21-even-anc-voters-say-the-ruling-party-is-performing-badly#.VWCZFCQrV0M.
261. http://www.issafrica.org/voter-participation-in-the-south-african-elections-of-2014.
262. “DA hails growth among black voters”, eNCA, 9 May 2014.
263. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/05/04/uk-safrica-election-zulus-idUKKBN0DK04P20140504.
264. http://www.issafrica.org/iss-today/sa-elections-what-does-the-electoral-code-of-conduct-say-about-the-abuse-of-
state-resources; http://www.issafrica.org/iss-today/taking-the-i-out-of-iec.
265. http://issafrica.org/iss-today/what-does-increasing-political-violence-mean-for-the-future-of-south-africas-
democracy.

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Albert Luthuli House. The recordings implicate

the ANC’s general manager Ignatius Jacobs in
directing the campaign to take a “dig at [the ANC’s]
opponents” and also confirmed that R50-million
was the targeted budget for the campaign.266
The results of the local or municipal elections of 3
August 2016 constituted the worst performance
by the ANC since 1994. The ANC obtained 53.9% of
the total vote, followed by the official opposition,
the DA, with 26.9% and EFF with 8.2%. The ANC lost
its majority in the capital, Pretoria, the industrial
hub of Johannesburg, and the southern port city
of Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth). The ANC
now has an absolute majority in just three of the
eight main metropolitan areas, down from seven
in 2011. The ANC’s percentage of support has
always been smaller in the demographically more
diverse metropolitan areas. The swing was due
to three factors: a small growth in DA support in
predominantly black wards; slightly larger but still
small growth in support for the EFF; and the large
number of traditional ANC voters in townships
who did not vote.
The ANC continues to dominate the 205 smaller
councils of towns and rural areas, where many
residents depend on government services and
grants. However, also in these areas, there was
some swing away from the ANC. It grew only in
KwaZulu-Natal and by a meagre 1% at that, but
24% of all of the ANC’s votes came from the
province. The IFP surged to 18.29% in the province.
Nationally, in the smaller cities and towns, a low
turnout combined with a stronger showing by
the EFF was mainly responsible for the ANC’s
decline. Still, as political analyst Johnny Steinberg
has stated, in provincial South Africa, there is only
one game in town – the public sector – and it is
controlled by the ANC.267
ANC to remain in power beyond 2019
About 3.3 million people who usually vote ANC
during national elections, chose neither to vote
for the DA nor the EFF – not even as protest
options. This suggest that they are available to the
ANC first. This trend of more votes during national
elections than during municipal elections has been
a constant in ANC election voting patterns. In 2004,
as in 2009, there were more than 3 million votes
not cast for the ANC in local elections, compared
to national elections. The ANC should be able to
safely win, even with a smaller majority, in the
national elections of 2019: the condition is that
the almost 3 million voters who did not vote in
the local elections do what they usually do during
national elections, namely to vote again.268
The results of the local elections in 2016 removed
major potential sources of patronage from ANC
control, including large portions of the R287
billion local government operating budget and
the R57 billion local government capital budget.
The ANC’s outright control of local government
operating budgets has declined from 82% in 2011
to just less than 42% in 2016. Its outright control
of local government capital budgets declined
from nearly 83% in 2011 to about 45% in 2016.269
After the local elections, Zuma continued to
focus on consolidating his power and patronage
machine, also among key provincial and rural
constituencies.270
The ANC is entering the national elections as the
firm favourite to win and to continue its one-party
dominance of the hybrid regime.271 As Professor
Susan Booysen commented in January 2019:
For the ANC to garner enough votes to get an
outright electoral majority, it needs to persuade
voters that it is a new ANC, which encapsulates

266. https://citizen.co.za/lifestyle/1411143/everything-need-know-war-room-whistleblower-sihle-bolani/.
267. http://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/columnists/2016-04-01-in-small-towns-survival-rests-on-ruling-party/.
268. http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2016-08-10-steven-sidley-this-is-what-the-numbers-actually-say/#.
V64XeZUw_IV.
269. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2016/08/17/big-money-is-at-stake-if-the-governance-of-metros-flounders.
270. http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-08-24-hazard-ahead-anc-wounded-zuma-unpredictable-gordhan-
targeted/#.V8G4vI9OJjq.
271. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-11-04-the-divided-and-fragmented-house-that-is-the-anc-as-it-
approaches-elections-2019/.

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“hope and renewal” (Ramaphosa’s manifest
phrase). Again, the evidence was spread thinly.
Voters see Zuma (no criminal convictions, but
with an unequalled record of circumventing
court appearances), along with a host of
corruption-implicated others, on campaign
stages and candidate lists, even on the list for
statesman presidential advisers, in the name of
“unity” … the sacrosanct mission in the 2017-
2019 quest to survive Elections 2019. To fuel
popular flames of disbelief Zuma proxy parties
are spewed out, while Zuma tweets beguilingly
– and sabotages crudely the hope-and-renewal
message.
These factors bear on leadership, and also cast
shadows on the ANC’s credibility in persuading
the electorate that this is a united, new ANC,
a party of reconstituted identity, worthy of
trust, able to renew and forge anti-corruption
in government. In the week of the campaign
launch, the electorate was watching from the
wings while senior ANC functionaries on the
ground worked to counter flare-ups of the anti-
Ramaphosa fires. Pro-Zuma chants and the
need for NEC members to sidestep obstructionist
regional structures in the province illustrated
the persistent obstacles.
The ANC manifesto gives reasonable evidence
of some progress in putting across a coherent
ideological and policy message. There is
concerted attention to rebuilding the economy,
in trying conditions, creating skills and
opportunities for a more inclusive economy
that is designed to take care of the poor and
marginalised (albeit in many cases in the long,
very long, term). Ambiguities leap off the pages,
but there is evidence that Ramaphosa’s vision
is being carried forward, largely, by the diverse
and factional National Executive Committee.
Thus, on the three fronts of policy-ideology, the
ANC organisationally, and the ANC in its ability
to govern, there are mixed messages that may
272. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2019-01-15-elections-the-anc-and-the-suspension-of-disbelief/.
273. http://mg.co.za/article/2016-08-05-00-whether-the-councillor-candidate-is-dead-or-alive-we-still-want-your-vote.
274. http://raymondsuttner.com/2013/08/18/raymond-suttner-government-and-tripartite-alliance-no-pitch-at-marikana-
memorial/.
275. http://www.issafrica.org/crimehub/policy-brief/political-killings-in-south-africa-the-ultimate-intimidation.
SA Monitor2018 .indd 73
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fall short of persuading a cynical electorate.
The electorate’s frequent blind belief in the
ANC’s liberation movement credentials (in this
organisation being virtuous party-politically)
has been countered both by the Zuma years
and the tepid Ramaphosa takeover. On grounds
of systematic, rational evaluation by the
electorate, the ANC is not tipping the scales.
Its hope lies in the electorate being persuaded,
again, to suspend disbelief. 272
Political assassinations in a hybrid
regime
National and provincial factionalism will permeate
the selection of candidates and the allocation of
pre-election patronage. Apart from patronage,
political intimidation also shape local and
provincial politics, sometimes in the form of
political assassinations. Before, during and after
the August 2016 local elections, at least twenty
political candidates had been assassinated.273
Already in August 2013, Raymond Suttner, a
lawyer and honorary professor at the University
of the Witwatersrand, as well as a former ANC
activist and political prisoner, stated:
(W)holesale assassinations have
become a regularised way of deciding on
leadership and access to wealth within
274
the ANC and its allies.
Motives for other political killings have included
the silencing of whistleblowers revealing
corruption in the ANC or civil service, the targeting
of political opponents, or competition for
positions in the ANC or civil service that provide
access to public funds and cash from firms eager
to buy political influence.275 The trend seems at
present to be largely concentrated in northern
provinces, especially KwaZulu-Natal, but also in
North West, Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape.
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Political killings have also occurred in Gauteng and
in the Western Cape provinces.
A climate of fear
A few provincial cabinet members and senior ANC
officials have been suspected of or involved in
such killings. Moss Phakoe, an ANC councillor and
whistleblower, was assassinated in March 2009. He
had tried to use ANC channels to report corruption
and after his death, a dossier with evidence he had
compiled mysteriously disappeared. When police
raided the home of Richard Mdluli, the former
head of Crime Intelligence, the dossier was found.
As Shaw states, this raises serious questions
about the connections between local-government
assassinations and the interests of provincial and
national government politicians.276
In 2016, Neo Moepi, previously the spokesperson
for Thandi Modise, the chairperson of the National
Council of Provinces, said that he had to watch his
back. “It’s not just me; everyone in this province
is scared”. David Mabuza, Mpumalanga province’s
premier, and the new ANC vice-president, himself
survived an alleged poisoning attempt in 2015.277
In July 2017, ANC presidential hopeful Mathews
Phosa warned that the vote of no confidence
against Zuma had the potential to endanger
the lives of some MPs who are suspected to be
preparing to vote against party wishes. Phosa said
there had already been ANC corpses due to the
power struggles and political killings in areas such
as KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, North West and,
more recently, the Eastern Cape.278
Analyst Gareth van Onselen commented earlier:
In response to one apparent assassination,
ANC general secretary Gwede Mantashe said:
“The reality is that selection of candidates for
council is always a life-and-death issue.” That
is a stunning admission. For all the pretence
the ANC regularly offers up of South Africa as a
modern, progressive constitutional democracy,
it is in truth a far more crude and violent affair.
The ANC, which is neither a revolutionary
movement nor a traditional political party,
remains caught between the world of armed
struggle and formal democracy. A culture
of assassination has inculcated itself into its
internal political dynamics. At local government
level, democratic choice and death often sit side
by side. That is not a picture well-illustrated by
the media. It is remarkable how little sustained
and meaningful attention this aspect of South
African politics receives.279
Threats to provincial and national
politicians too
To date, political assassinations have largely
affected local politicians, even if there may have
been involvement by politicians at a higher
level. However, in the past years, there had been
reports of provincial and national politicians
fearing attacks. Reports have emerged of one
of President Jacob Zuma’s four wives being
implicated in a plot to poison him in June 2014.280
Alleged assassination plots against former
North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo of the
ANC and SACP leader Blade Nzimande have
emerged.281 Allegations of involvement in political
assassinations also continue to dog Deputy
President David Mabuza.282
To date, the Ramaphosa presidency has not
changed this situation, nor is it expected that he
will be able to easily curb these trends among
a strongly-factionalised ANC in which historical
involvement, mindsets and practices involving
intimidation and violence in pursuing political

276. Mark Shaw, Hitmen for hire: Exposing South Africa’s underworld (Jonathan Ball, Cape Town, 2017), pp 167.
277. https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2016-01-27-i-was-poisoned-mpumalanga-premier-david-mabuza/.
278. https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/zuma-is-sas-worst-president-since-democracy-20170729.
279. Gareth van Onselen, “Corpses pile up in ANC power struggle”, Business Day, 29 February 2016.
280. http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2016/11/13/Dramatic-sequel-to-Zuma-poison-plot-as-Abrahams-
warns-MaNtuli-Youre-still-a-suspect.
281. http://ewn.co.za/2018/05/06/hawks-confirm-probe-into-supra-mahumapelo-assassination-plot; http://www.
sabcnews.com/sabcnews/sacp-alleges-blade-nzimandes-life-is-at-risk/.
282. https://www.enca.com/south-africa/who-is-david-mabuza.

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aims, still are prevalent at leadership and supporter
levels. In November 2018, Kimi Makwetu, the
auditor general (AG) warned Parliament to expect
an upsurge in violent crimes against members
of the AG team as they traverse the country
finalising local government audits. Past examples
included hijackings, death threats, hostage-
taking, threatening phone calls and actual attacks
on auditors’ cars and auditors.283
Factional infighting, sometimes involving
intimidation and political assassinations, will
intensify in the run-up to the national elections
in 2019. According to Mark Shaw, if assassination
has utility at the local level as a form of political
control, this may eventually also apply higher up
in the political system.284
The New York Times of 30 September 2018
published a report headed “Hit Men and Power:
South Africa’s Leaders Are Killing One Another”
and stating that “the recent increase in killings
inside the ANC is a potent reminder of how far the
party has strayed from creating, in the ashes of
apartheid, a political order based on the rule of
law”.285
Political analyst Protas Madlala commented:
The ANC should not look outside, because the
problem is within the party. They should not
blame anyone but themselves. The question we
should be asking is why this is not happening in
the DA. It is only happening in the ruling party.
The answer is there for everyone to see. The
people killed all had common denominator:
they were all against corruption.286
In order to get the support from key provinces,
Ramaphosa as new ANC leader and the state
president in 2019 will have to make deals with
provincial leaders who are corrupt, and perhaps
even are implicated in political killings in their
areas. The same dilemma will be faced by
international companies trying to conclude major
deals in South Africa.

283. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-11-29-mounting-violent-attacks-on-state-auditors-a-crime-against-
the-state/.
284. Mark Shaw, Hitmen for hire: Exposing South Africa’s underworld (Jonathan Ball, Cape Town, 2017), pp 175-176, 203-
204.
285. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/world/africa/south-africa-anc-killings.html.
286. https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/anc-has-itself-to-blame-for-political-killings-18631772.

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The role of politicized
security services
The dynamics of the South African security forces
can currently only be understood in the context
of a new hybrid system, not by reference to a full
multiparty democracy. In the one-party dominant
system, the ruling ANC, previously involved in a
guerrilla war (1960-1990), is still permeated by a
conspiratorial mind-set.287 There is a perception
among some analysts and NGOs that while
elections may occur every five years, politics have
acquired a non-democratic tenor. Henning Melber
of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation writes with
reference to the government in South Africa,
Part VII
but also in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and
Zimbabwe:
The form of democracy practised has been
unable to dislodge the liberation parties in any
of these countries. Instead, they have formed
dominant-party-systems based on a de facto
one-party rule. A key feature determining the
political culture in all these states in various
degrees is the consistent use of structural
violence to repress and disenfranchise political
opponents in order to retain power.288

287. See Stephen Ellis, External mission: The ANC in exile, 1960-1990 (Hurst, London, 2012).
288. Henning Melber, Liberation movements as governments: Democratic authoritarianism in former settler colonies of
Southern Africa (Basler Afrika Bibiographien, Basel, Working Paper 1, 2013), p 3.

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Melber sees a lack of checks and balances,
practices of exclusion and rule by law (as law of
the rulers) instead of rule of law, and control over
agencies supposedly tasked to act independently
from the governing bodies and political authorities,
as among the manifestations of structurally
embedded violence under these parties: “Their
equation that the party is the government and the
government is the state translates into a specific
form of authoritarian rule”.289
during a guerrilla struggle; the impact of cadre
deployment on the leadership of the security
forces; the increased prominence of the security
cluster in decision making; and the wave of
militant strikes and service delivery protests often
linked to factional politics.
Ronnie Kasrils, a founding member of Umkhonto
we Sizwe (MK) and former minister of Intelligence
(2004-2008), stated in 2011:

My experience as intelligence minister was that

Securitizing politics
Zuma spent most of his time in exile in the
ANC intelligence structures. He was the head
of counter-intelligence, but he also retained a
distinctive intelligence network in the ANC. This
network and other allies allowed him to outwit
Thabo Mbeki in the ANC leadership contest in
2007.290 According to Professor Jane Duncan,
following “a bruising succession battle” inside
the ruling ANC to replace President Thabo Mbeki
in 2008, “we saw the abuse of the intelligence
services in order to advantage one or the other
political faction”.291
The political heads of the security services were key
actors of Zuma’s administration.292 The minister of
Defence, the chief of the SAPS, the minister of State
Security and the head of National Intelligence, the
so-called “security cluster”, became difficult to call
to account by Parliament.293
Several factors have combined to securitize
politics and will continue to do so: some of these
are the ANC’s non-pluralist political culture; the
mind-set among many of its key leaders formed
the security and intelligence community were
hopelessly politicised. This was made worse
by a culture of secrecy, paranoia, conspiracy
theory and authoritarianism. The Protection
of Information legislation is an illustration of
this. My impression is that it has more to do
with concealing graft and corruption in high
places than with national security. Note its
obsession with threats that would emanate
from whistleblowers and the media with
exceptionally heavy sentences.294
In 2014, Kasrils already stated that the intelligence
service had become a tool for the ruling party, and
that officers were increasingly working for the ANC
rather than for the state. However, under Zuma,
the ANC executive did not act upon a report he
had tabled in 2008 to improve the state of affairs:
I blew the whistle and I figured out that there
were (intelligence) agents, that there were
officers who were not working for the state but
were doing ... (work) for Luthuli House … They
don’t want to know anything about that report
because they want the intelligence service to be
a tool of Luthuli House and of the president.295

289. Henning Melber, Liberation movements as governments: Democratic authoritarianism in former settler colonies of
Southern Africa (Basler Afrika Bibiographien, Basel, Working Paper 1, 2013), p 9.
290. Jacques Pauw, The President’s keepers: Those keeping Zuma in power and out of prison (Tafelberg, Cape Town, 2017),
pp 73-75.
291. http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/africa/2015/02/battle-intelligence-south-africa-ssa-spy-cables-guardian-
security-150224170928946.html. Also see http://mg.co.za/article/2015-05-14-rogue-sars-unit-spied-for-zuma.
292. http://mg.co.za/article/2011-12-02-arms-deal-bell-was-deaf-to-bribes-and-lost-out; http://mg.co.za/specialreport/
the-arms-deal; http://www.armsdeal-vpo.co.za/articles04/told_you_so.html; Paul Holden and Hennie van Vuuren,
The devil in the detail: How the arms deal changed everything (Jonathan Ball, Johannesburg, 2011); Andrew
Feinstein, After the party: Corruption, the ANC and South Africa’s uncertain future (Verso, London, 2009).
293. http://www.academia.edu/1798769/Voice_political_mobilisation_and_repression_under_Jacob _Zuma; http://
www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2011-06-16-jane-duncan-on-the-ever-increasing-menace-of-sas-security-cabal.
294. “Q&A with Ronnie Kasrils”, Amandla, 21 October 2011, pp 8-9.
295. http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/intelligence-service-an-anc-tool-kasrils-1.1676525#.U4id-GeKDrc.

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Before the April 2014 national elections, news
emerged about a group of former intelligence
officers working from the eleventh floor of
ANC Headquarters at Luthuli House to screen
ANC parliamentary and provincial candidates.
It was headed by Thabo Kubu, who worked in
the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). Before
1990, in exile, he worked in the ANC’s Mbokodo
Security Department, allegedly involved in the
torture of dissidents and detainees. Jacob Zuma
was Mbokodo’s deputy head from 1986 to 1993.
Some candidates feared that the screening
project, known as Project Veritas, was an attempt
by Zuma’s supporters to tighten his control over
the party’s caucus, and that the information
gleaned during the screening process could be
used against them.296
According to Nathan, the intelligence community
is involved in unlawful political activity, and some
members of the ANC are using the intelligence
services to gather intelligence for political
purposes. “Based on the evidence, they are
not interested in oversight of the intelligence
community,” Nathan said.
Using state security against civil
society watchdogs
Under the Zuma presidency, more frequently than
under the Mbeki presidency,299 several incidents
of threats, veiled threats and burglaries targeting
civil NGOs occurred.300 Amnesty International’s
report South Africa 2015/2016 states:

In 2015, Ronnie Kasrils again stated that the

SSA had “become totally immersed in the game
of politics and the power politics at play in this
country”.297 Laurie Nathan, the director of the
Centre for Mediation at the University of Pretoria,
saw the statement as proof that the intelligence
services had become more involved in domestic
politics than it had admitted to previously. Nathan,
one of three commissioners in the Mathews
Commission into the intelligence services, stated:
The trend has been growing for the
past 20 years. Previously we only knew
about it through leaks, but now they
are admitting it.
Harassment of human rights defenders and
organizations and undermining of oversight
bodies by ruling party and state officials
remained a major concern … Surveillance by
crime intelligence or state security officers
against human rights defenders, including
journalists and community activists, continued
to be reported.301
During 2015 to 2017, security officials and the then
State Security Minister David Mahlobo periodically
accused some parliamentary journalists and civil
society organisations of being “foreign agents”
with a “regime change” agenda.302 R2K responded:
298 The allegations are offered without evidence
or substantiation. No names are named. No

296. http://mg.co.za/article/2014-03-27-spooks-vet-anc-candidates.
297. http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/africa/2015/02/battle-intelligence-south-africa-ssa-spy-cables-guardian-
security-150224170928946.html.
298. http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2015/03/06/ssa-losing-sight-of-core-mandate-as-it-chases-its-own-tail-says-
kasrils.
299. For similar conduct under President Zuma’s predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, see William Mervin Gumede, Thabo Mbeki
and the battle for the soul of the ANC (Zebra Press, Cape Town, 2005), pp 298-299.
300. http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/sinister-cases-of-break-ins-document-theft-1419065; http://www.
dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-04-29-right2know-intelligence-agencies-harass-political-activists-and-civic-
organisations/#.VUC_nZUcTIW; http://www.netwerk24.com/Nuus/Politiek/meeste-mense-nog-in-sa-vanjaar-wettig-
afgeluister-20161216.
301. https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries//africa/south-africa/report-south-africa/.
302. http://amabhungane.co.za/article/2015-10-26-civil-society-urges-national-assembly-to-appoint-suitable-watchdog-
for-the-spies.

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charges have been laid before a court of law.

As a result, they could apply to nobody or
they could apply to anybody. They cannot be
verified or refuted. An emerging pattern of
paranoia and suspicion in South African politics
and public life makes it impossible to take
the Minister’s claims at face value. There is
growing evidence that intelligence structures
monitor and harass activist movements and
other civil society formations, as well as
investigative journalists. We have also seen
the anonymous leaking of bogus “intelligence
reports” to advantage or disadvantage certain
political causes and figures, speaking to a sorry
history of factionalisation of some sectors of
the intelligence agencies, who have abused
their powers unconstitutionally to get involved
in democratic politics.303
Journalists have provided indications of mysterious
break-ins into the home of opposition politician
Julius Malema’s lawyer and the offices of the
NGOs involved in litigation against Zuma allies,
like the Helen Suzman Foundation.304
Security agencies and networks have been closely
involved in the factional struggles during which
Zuma has tried to remove internal ANC opponents
and critical officials. Steven Friedman, director of
the Centre for the Study of Democracy, stated:
Zuma was head of ANC intelligence and so,
under his watch, the security cluster in general
and the spies in particular have much more
room to move – and so to meddle in national
politics, in this case on behalf of the shadowy
public-private networks that have also become
a key feature of our national life.305
ANC cadre deployment and parallel
security networks
Due to cadre deployment, key crime intelligence,
investigative and prosecutorial services had
for years been effectively unable to use their
constitutional powers against senior ANC
politicians allegedly involved in corruption,
including President Zuma. The formal democratic
checks on presidentialism in the hybrid regime
were successfully neutralized. This will remain
possible during the rule of President Ramaphosa
or his successor.
The activities of politicized and partisan crime
intelligence and state security officials were
noticed among officials.306 The Directorate of
Special Operations (known as the “Scorpions”),
was formed in 1999 under then President Thabo
Mbeki. With a staff of several hundreds, it
investigated Jacob Zuma and his allies on charges
of corruption before he became president. After
Zuma had become president, Richard Mdluli,
a Zuma supporter, was appointed as divisional
commissioner of the police’s Crime Intelligence
Division (CID) effective from 1 July 2009.
The appointment procedure occurred without the
regular vetting procedures. Mdluli faced criminal
prosecution for a myriad of crimes ranging from
murder to corruption.307 It is suspected that this
happened because of Mdluli’s alleged role in
providing Zuma’s lawyers with the so-called “spy
tapes”. These were used by then acting National
Director of Public Prosecutions, Mokotedi Mpshe,
to withdraw the 783 counts of corruption, fraud,
money laundering and racketeering against Jacob
Zuma, enabling him to become president of South
Africa.

303. http://www.r2k.org.za/2016/11/18/mahlobo-must-go-get-the-securocrats-out-of-democratic-spaces/; http://www.

capetalk.co.za/articles/233352/minister-mahlobo-caught-out-lying; Jacques Pauw, The President’s keepers: Those
keeping Zuma in power and out of prison (Tafelberg, Cape Town, 2017), pp 56-57.
304. https://martinplaut.wordpress.com/2016/03/22/south-africas-mysterious-burglaries/; http://www.dailymaverick.
co.za/article/2016-10-18-the-way-we-are-the-judge-the-opposition-leader-the-tax-settlement-and-the-mysterious-
break-ins/#.WAb7m5Uw_IU.
305. Steven Friedman, “Zuma as a former spy is important in understanding the Moyane-Gordhan battle”, Business Day, 2
March 2016. Also see https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-12-05-the-principal-agent-network-pan-dossier-
zuma-and-mahlobo-knew-about-arthur-frasers-rogue-intelligence-programme/#.WmzVTrpFxjq.
306. http://mg.co.za/article/2012-08-17-00-zuma-why-were-not-laughing-any-more.
307. Jacques Pauw, The President’s keepers: Those keeping Zuma in power and out of prison (Tafelberg, Cape Town, 2017),
pp 300-301.

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Despite being suspended on full pay since 2012,
and despite the fact that evidence implicating
Mdluli in corruption was successfully used to fire
his second in command, Solly Lazarus, in May
2014, the police seemed unable to fire Mdluli
during the Zuma presidency.308 Shortly after
Mdluli’s appointment, the Scorpions investigating
unit was formally disbanded. Advocate Vusi Pikoli,
former national director of Public Prosecutions,
alleged in his memoirs, My Second Initiation, that
the decision to disband the Scorpions was “aimed
at protecting corrupting politicians”.309
The official Directorate for Priority Crime
Investigations (known as the “Hawks”) replaced
the Scorpions. In 2011, the Constitutional Court
also found that it was “insufficiently insulated
from political influence in its structure and
functioning” to fulfil its functions as an anti-
corruption investigation agency.310 The Hawks is
vulnerable to political interference as there are
two processes by which its head can be removed:
one through the minister of Police and the second
by Parliament, but there is no clarification as to
which process is superior.311
The award-winning investigative journalist,
Jacques Pauw, documented in a book first
published in 2017 how networks within the Hawks,
Crime Intelligence and the SSA prepared an active
defense of Zuma. As recorded by Pauw, the Crime
Intelligence Division was plagued by infighting,
maladministration and division between the
Mdluli supporters and those who turned against
him. Some highly skilled policement were removed
because they posed a threat to the Mdluli side.
Several of the current top generals did not have
valid security clearances.312
Pauw recounts that, according to his sources,
police and the Hawks units, under the leadership
of Hawks General Berning Ntlemeza, had become
rogue units during Zuma’s rule. They were
implicated in dirty tricks like break-ins at state
institutions, illegal interceptions and intimidation.
They ensured that all sensitive dockets on Zuma
and his allies were stashed away by Ntlemeza.313
Ntlemeza has been found to be “dishonest” and
lacking “integrity and honour” by a High Court
judge for lying under oath.314
Mdluli was only relieved of his duties (and
retired with full benefits) in January 2018,
after Ramaphosa had won the ANC leadership
struggle.315 Likewise Ntelemeza was only then
retired with benefits.316 In the same week, a
major-general of Crime Intelligence involved in
electronic surveillance assignments was found
strangled in the back of his car.317 An analysis of
these cases reinforces the conclusion that under
the ANC’s one-party dominance, a hybrid regime
has emerged.
Securocrats to remain powerful
Factional struggles in and among the ANC, its allies
and breakaway factions are set to continue. This

308. https://www.issafrica.org/iss-today/why-saps-needs-better-crime-intelligence.
309. http://www.legalbrief.co.za/article.php?story=20131024121805632; 1.1594519#.UnKfeb5gXzB; Vusi Pikoli and
Mandy Wiener, My Second Initiation (Picador Africa, Johannesburg, 2013).
310. SAPA, “Hawks law sent back to parliament”, IOL News, 17 March 2011; Andrew Faull, Inside view: Police officials’
perceptions of corruption and integrity management at three Gauteng SAPS stations in 2009 (ISS, Pretoria, 2011);
Andrew Faull, Corruption in the South African Police Service: Civilian perceptions and experiences (ISS, Pretoria,
2011); Gareth Newman and Andrew Faull, Protector or predator? Tackling police corruption in South Africa (ISS,
Pretoria, 2011), pp 20-24.
311. http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2013/10/15/legislation-does-not-protect-hawks-from-political-interference;
http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2015/05/07/dirt-piles-up-in-the-polices-house.
312. Jacques Pauw, The President’s keepers: Those keeping Zuma in power and out of prison (Tafelberg, Cape Town, 2017),
pp 297-299.
313. Jacques Pauw, The President’s keepers: Those keeping Zuma in power and out of prison (Tafelberg, Cape Town, 2017),
pp 321-323.
314. http://www.issafrica.org/iss-today/institutions-in-crisis-continued.
315. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-01-17-analysis-the-rise-and-fall-of-richard-mdluli-a-man-who-
damaged-our-society/#.WmyQ_KjibIV.
316. https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-01-17-ntlemeza-mdluli-out-for-good-mbalula/.
317. https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/national/exclusive-crime-intelligence-major-general-found-dead-in-car/ar-
AAuOTUp.

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trend, combined with increased protest politics
and scarce resources in a struggling economy,
will reinforce the securitization of politics in a
hybrid regime. A key test period would emerge
in future if electoral or other developments were
to threaten to remove the national, provincial or
local hold on power of a dominant ANC faction
or the ANC as a whole.318 It is also indicative of
strong non-democratic dimensions in ANC politics
that insiders had alluded to the risk of conflict
and even civil war in the ANC if the leadership
transition was not handled well and the Zuma
camp was antagonized too much.319
Since Ramaphosa have come to power, the
rhetoric of securocrats alleging a risk of regime
change by opposition forces has disappeared. In
April 2018, Arthur Fraser, a Zuma loyalist, was
also redeployed as director-general from SSA
to Correctional Services. It happened when the
inspector-general for Intelligence, Setlhomamaru
Dintwe, turned to the courts after Fraser had
withdrawn his security clearance. Fraser was
implicated in the alleged mismanagement of state
security funds in The President’s keepers, the book
referred to above by Jacques Pauw.320 In May
2018, Ramaphosa also appointed a committee to
review the SSA.321 Crime Intelligence and Defence
Intelligence have thus far been excluded from
review, although Peter Jacobs was appointed to
head Crime Intelligence.322
However, at least since the Mbeki era, the
politicization of the security services has
continued. It is unlikely that the culture of
secrecy and corruption of the past decade, or
vulnerability to domestic political factionalism,
will be changed soon under Ramaphosa.323 Zuma
has induced resignations and used redeployments
to maintain his control over the security agencies.
Ramaphosa has been trying to do the same to
remove Zuma loyalists or potential opponents.324
Due to factionalism and the undemocratic tenor
of current politics, Ramaphosa will continue to
strongly rely on the securocrats to stay in power
in the short and medium term.

318. http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-08-22-op-ed-does-the-anc-face-defeat-in-2019/#.V8HFIY9OJjp.
319. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2018/02/04/inside-the-transition-what-zumas-team-is-thinking_a_23352517/.
320. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2018-04-11-ssas-arthur-fraser-has-threatened-me-intelligence-
inspector-general-accuses/.
321. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-06-19-state-security-review-panel-will-need-the-wisdom-of-
solomon/#.WyoVbaczbIV; https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-05-20-after-the-abuse-of-zumas-years-
state-securitys-long-journey-to-recovery-starts-but-not-all-is-smooth/#.WwJ05EiFPIU.
322. https://issafrica.org/iss-today/south-africas-damaged-intelligence-system-is-at-a-crossroads.
323. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-05-20-after-the-abuse-of-zumas-years-state-securitys-long-journey-
to-recovery-starts-but-not-all-is-smooth/#.WwJ05EiFPIU.
324. Susan Booysen, Dominance and decline: The ANC in the time of Zuma (Wits University Press, Johannesburg, 2015),
pp 74-75, 309.

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The justice system and
the judiciary
Policy documents of the ANC state unambiguously
that the organization wants to deploy its cadres
in the judiciary too. The South African judiciary
is still generally seen as independent and free of
executive interference. However, this position is
vulnerable to political pressures.
Constitutional Law experts Issacharoff and Pildes
distinguish between first-order and second-order
approaches to constitutional judicial review. In
South Africa, the Constitutional Court has tended
to use a first-order approach that gives attention
to those consequences of the ANC’s domination
that manifests themselves as violations of
Part VIII
rights. A second-order approach to tackle the
background rules that structure and result from
ANC domination has been largely absent.325
At present, as argued by Constitutional Law expert
Sujit Choudry, the Constitutional Court lacks an
adequate understanding and the conceptual
tools to question the assumption of political
competition and alternation in South Africa’s
political order. The Constitutional Court judges do
not realize that it cannot rely on the risk of losing
power as a strong check on the ANC’s abuse of
power.326

325. Sujit Choudry, “‘He had a mandate’: The South African Constitutional Court and the African National Congress in a
dominant party democracy”, Constitutional Court Review, 2010.
326. Sujit Choudry, “‘He had a mandate’: The South African Constitutional Court and the African National Congress in a
dominant party democracy”, Constitutional Court Review, 2010, pp 5-6, 37-38.

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Under Jeff Radebe as the minister of Justice, new
legislation affecting the judiciary was introduced
in 2012. According to Loammi Wolf,327 a legal
academic, Radebe had been trained at Karl Marx
University in the judicial model of the former
German Democratic Republic (GDR/DDR), in the
early 1980s. According to the GDR model, the
Constitutional Court would be the apex of the
court system. Legislation also reconstituted the
Constitutional Court in this way.
In the East German model, subordinate courts
would not be bound by precedent, but also had
to adjudicate according to the directives issued by
the most senior court, which in turn had to reflect
political and socio-economic policies in the state.
Judicial review of legislation or executive action
was not permitted, as this reflected a “Western”
notion of the separation of powers. The chief
justice would become directly accountable to
the political elite. This model is more compatible
with a hybrid regime than a fully-functioning
democracy.328
As The Economist reported on 23 August 2014:
[C]ritics worry less about the qualifications and
abilities of those who have been appointed,
but rather express concern that some of the
country’s best lawyers have been blocked
from appointment … Those suspicions have
been buttressed in the few instances when
the Judicial Services Commission (JSC), which
recommends the nomination of judges, has
deigned to give reasons ...
A second avenue of attack is through a new
bill that would end self-regulation of the legal
profession. The bill, which has been passed
but not yet signed into law, would give the
government considerable influence over the
day-to-day running of the legal profession. The
327. Loammi Wolf, “Jeff Radebe, the judiciary and the East German model”, Politicsweb.co.za, 17 April 2012.
328. See the analysis of Anthea Jeffery at http://news.acts.co.za/blog/2013/10/judiciary-under-attack-from-the-ruling-
party-but-holding-firm.
329. http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21613352-silk-gowns-red-berets-and-struggle-
independent-court-battles. Also see Anthea Jeffrey at http://news.acts.co.za/blog/2013/10/judiciary-under-attack-
from-the-ruling-party-but-holding-firm.
330. Pierre Englebert, Africa: Unity, Sovereignty, and Sorrow (Lynne Rienner, Boulder, 2009), p 62.
SA Monitor2018 .indd 83
SAMonitor
government would gain the right to appoint
members of a new council that would oversee
lawyers. It would also be allowed to dissolve
the council, a power that could be used if its
members proved to be too headstrong.
Critics of the bill have included both Mr Bizos
[George Bizos, Nelson Mandela’s defender
before his incarceration] and – before he died
in 2012 – Mr Chaskalson, who served as chief
justice under Mandela. Mr Chaskalson wrote
that the new bill was “calculated to erode” the
independence of lawyers and indirectly that of
the judiciary.329
These ANC government initiatives point to a
hybrid regime, not a democracy.
Legal command and rent extraction
by ANC cadres
The international system confers a juridical
sovereignty on states that may in practice be less
absolute. Pierre Englebert states that regardless
of the state institutions’ actual capacity, juridical
sovereignty nevertheless confers legal command
to African states, defined as “the capacity to
control, dominate, extract or dictate through the
law”.330
Legal command offers opportunities for rent
seeking and patronage to the main power holders,
but also local and intermediary actors. Rather
than being an instrument for limiting the state’s
arbitrary power, it becomes a tool to exercise
power over others and extract rents, ranging from
official documents and citizenship to the right to
seize public resources. These authorities embody
the legitimacy of the state, defined in legal terms.
As a result, they can extract rents even in the
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absence of administrative efficiency, coercive Malan concludes that in cases on property

capacities or good public services.331 rights, land reform and affirmative action, the
embeddedness of the judiciary in a political
The emphasis in hybrid regimes shifts from elite and its dominant ideology became quite
“the rule of law” to “the rule by law”. Even if clear. In 2013 in Agri South Africa v Minister of
the hybrid regime impinges significantly on Minerals and Energy (AfriForum and others as
the civil and business rights protected by the amici curiae),334 the Constitutional Court upheld
existing Constitution, ANC actors are likely to use legislative provisions335 that terminated the
justifications based on legal command. mineral rights of mineral rights holders without
proper compensation to such holders. In 2014
in the judgment in South African Police Service
A politically constrained judiciary? v Solidarity abo Barnard336 the Court once again
sided itself with one of the kingpins of the
According to Professor Koos Malan, an expert on
dominant elite’s ideological doctrines, namely the
Constitutional and Public Law at the University of
principle of representivity. Similarly, in December
Pretoria, the judiciary is in fact inherently weak
2017, a Constitutional Court decision on the
and dependent on the support of the political
University of the Free State’s language policy did
branches. It is appointed and financed by the
not implement the language and cultural rights
political branches, devoid of its own resources and
of minorities enshrined in the Constitution. Chief
dependent upon the goodwill and cooperation of
Justice Mogoeng with the majority effectively
the legislature, executive, state administration and
ruled that cultural minority rights were subject to
the public in general to give effect to its rulings. It
the political goal of transformation.337
is also integrated into the ruling elite with whom
they share the same ideological assumptions
In 2016 the Constitutional Court gave judgment in
without any inclination to oppose them. Hence,
the case of Economic Freedom Fighters v Speaker
the impartiality of the courts, when it comes to
of the National Assembly and Others; Democratic
politically sensitive issues, is politically relative
Alliance v Speaker of the National Assembly and
and ideologically conditioned:332
Others (the so-called Nkandla-case).338 The case
emanated from findings and directives in a report
On the one hand – because of its weakness –
of the public protector regarding illegitimate
it will be incapable, and on the other hand –
public expenses on the private homestead of
because it is imbedded in a common power elite
President Jacob Zuma in Nkandla in Kwazulu-Natal.
– it will usually be unwilling to pass judgments
The judgment amounted to a heavy rebuke of the
that would disrupt the basic ideology or derail
president and of the caucus of the ruling ANC in
the core goals of the dominant elite. It can
Parliament. Parliament, and more specifically the
make corrections within the framework of the
parliamentary caucus of the ANC, failed to heed
ideological assumptions and policy goals of
to these findings and directives and usurped for
the dominant elite, but it cannot and will not
itself the powers to review and eventually reject
disrupt or frustrate the framework as such.333
the public protector’s report, thus protecting

331. Giulia Piccolini, “Ultranationalism, democracy and the law: insights from Cote d’Ivoire”, Journal of Modern African
Studies, 52(1), 2014, pp 45-68. Also see http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2014/10/17/sa-has-turned-into-a-
predatory-state.
332. Koos Malan, “Reassessing judicial independence and impartiality against the backdrop of judicial appointments in
South Africa”, Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal, 17(5), 2014.
333. Koos Malan, “Reassessing judicial independence and impartiality against the backdrop of judicial appointments in
South Africa”, Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal, 17(5), 2014, especially pp 1989, 1992.
334. 2013 (7) BCLR 727 (KH).
335. The Mineral Land Petroleum Resources Development Act, Act 28 of 2002.
336. 2014 (1) BCLR 1195 (KH).
337. http://www.fwdeklerk.org/index.php/en/latest/news/726-article-subjectivity-and-fallacious-arguments-in-the-
majority-ruling-on-the-ufs-language-policy.
338. 2016 (5) BCLR 618 (CC).

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its own leader and the party itself. The court, cases like those asking for Mdluli’s suspension and
among other things, ruled this conduct to be the removal from the roll of advocates of senior
unconstitutional and rebuked the parliamentary officials in the NPA protecting Mdluli and Zuma,
ANC in sharp terms. the courts have stepped in to decide on issues
usually prevented by good governance or solved
by political and bureaucratic decision makers in a
The judiciary’s agency democracy.340
According to Malan, the impression that the
The different courts and judges are thus able to
court acted here from outside the dominant
recast the field of interaction between democratic
elite and gave a verdict against the elite is in fact
and non-democratic forces and actors in the hybrid
mistaken.339 None of the ruling elite’s ideological
regime. They are only able to do so conservatively
convictions were at stake. The Nkandla-case
and retrospectively, with limited effect due to the
involved a dispute within the dominant elite, that
broader field of power. They do not do so in a
is split about Zuma, about some of his actions,
politically decisive way, but in ways not predictable
and about the protection that he received from
or controllable by one political faction. Ramaphosa
the ANC caucus.
has felt comfortable to wait for the courts to
decide on the fate of some Zuma loyalists in the
This is a correct conclusion. However, the role of
system. The judiciary remains constrained by the
the judiciary does indicate the spaces of freedom
broader ideological and political constellation of
left within the hybrid regime, the current state of
power. Simultaneously, the judiciary has its own
political dynamics, as well as the extent of its own
agency within the hybrid regime and remains an
agency. Even the dominant ANC faction under
important actor co-shaping the symbolic order,
Zuma has been unable to directly or consistently
boundaries and political options of the hybrid
suborn the courts, who have been able to uphold
regime.
some of the values and norms of the rule of law. In

339. Koos Malan, “Dié Hof se visie is dieselfde as die ANC“, Rapport Weekliks, 1 Mei 2016 by http://www.netwerk24.
com/Stemme/Aktueel/die-hof-se-visie-is-dieselfde-as-die-anc-20160501.
340. https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/npa-to-consider-options-after-nomgcobo-jiba-lawrence-mrwebi-
struck-off-advocates-roll-20160915; http://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/politics/2016-11-17-political-firestorm-is-
raging-in-sas-criminal-justice-system/.

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Universities, the media and
attempts at ANC control
Pressures on the autonomy of
universities
The non-pluralist political culture of the ANC,
which does not differentiate between party and
state, is unlikely to respect the autonomy of
universities and academic dissenting views. In
September 2014, then President Zuma spoke at
the Progressive Professionals Forum and called on
South Africa’s universities to become incubators
Part IX
for “patriotic citizens”.341 As indicated by the
political scientist Nicola de Jager, “patriotism” has
become a code word to inhibit criticism of the
ANC, while critics are often smeared as being non-
patriotic. 342
The former minister for Higher Education and
Training, Blade Nzimande, also is the leader of
the SACP and had been so at the time he served
as education minister. History is very present
in Nzimande’s speeches. In a speech in 2007,

341. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2014/09/08/zuma-patriotism-and-the-nationalist-threat-to-
independent-thought.
342. http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_10560-1522-2-30.pdf?070328103113, pp 15, 25.

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he referred to “The pessimists, those who lost
their will to struggle with the collapse of the
Berlin Wall”. His conclusion was different: “It is
possible (and imperative) to press ahead with the
socialist-oriented transformation in the present
right now”.343 It is not clear whether the ANC
government sent congratulations to the German
government during the twenty-fifth anniversary
celebrations of German re-unification on 9
November 2014.344
The ANC government has created a legal base for
extending the ANC’s capture of state institutions
to universities. In 1999, the minister was given
the power to appoint administrators under his
direct authority to replace university councils
and vice-chancellors for a period of two years. In
2000, he was given the power to veto agreements
entered into by universities. In 2002, he was given
the power to amend the institutional statute of a
university in certain circumstances; and in 2012,
he was given the power to appoint an assessor,
instead of or even as well as, an administrator,
with extensive powers over universities.
In 2016, Cabinet and Parliament approved the
Higher Education Amendment Draft Bill. This new
law increased the powers of the minister of Higher
Education to intervene in university matters of
various kinds.345 Existing education legislation
already enables the minister to issue legally
binding “directives” to universities and appoint
administrators to take over their management.
However, to do this, she is required to provide
proof, for example through audit reports, that the
university has problems to warrant suspending its
independence.
The new legislation allows the minister to change
processes and mandates of universities and other
higher education institutions and also empowers
the minister to withhold funding. According to
one clause, the minister would need only to have
“reason to believe”, rather than concrete proof,
that intervention is necessary. Years of creeping
control by the state could well endanger the
existence of an independent public university
sector.346
Universities whose students come from
communities that largely support opposition
parties will face the greatest threat to autonomy
in the next few years. There has been a focused
effort, for example, to weaken the position of
Afrikaans and Afrikaans speakers at certain
schools. Similar political pressures, combined
with economic pressures, have resulted in new
university language policies since 2015. These
policies weakened or removed Afrikaans as a
medium of instruction – despite its officially equal
constitutional position and significant numbers
of students demanding Afrikaans instruction – at
the University of South Africa, the University of
Pretoria, the University of the Free State, and the
University of Stellenbosch.
There are also efforts to increase the ANC
government’s control over these institutions
and their discourses. This campaign has been
noticeable, since many of these schools and
universities were working well, while the
government did not really undertake a concerted
effort to also improve the majority of other less
functional schools and universities in the country
where education is in crisis.347
Instead, ideological initiatives are expected to
receive more attention. For example, Angie
Motshekga, the minister of Basic Education, has
renewed efforts to promote the decolonisation
of education, using the lack of clear definitions
to privilege pro-ANC perspectives, rather than a
broad, critical curricula improving South Africa’s
underdeveloped scientific and mathematical

343. Blade Nzimande, “Dual power – The living legacy of the Great October Revolution” at https://www.
amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com.
344. On the current frosty relations with Britain, see “Zuma’s smoke and mirrors are his own worst enemy”, Rand Daily
Mail, 3 November 2014; Dennis Worrall, “President Zuma, you have to do better”, Polity, 3 November 2014.
345. Also see Department of Education and Training, “Higher Education Act, 1997: Publication of explanatory summary of
the Higher Education Amendment Bill, 2015”, Government Gazette, 605(39384), 9 November 2015.
346. “Bill giving state more say over varsities passed”, Business Day, 25 May 2016; http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/
controversial-higher-education-amendment-bill-passed-2025767.
347. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-11-16-ucts-law-programme-under-existential-threat/#.WoEL6UxuLIU.

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skills.348 Ironically, African mother-language The surface reasons were clear. The ANC
education, which used to be promoted under government had invested much more generously
white rule, now is again being promoted as part in secondary than in tertiary education over the
of decolonisation. Simultaneously, based on the past two decades. About 12% of the education
selective politics and social contract of the hybrid budget had gone to tertiary institutions, compared
regime, Afrikaans, the one African language in to 20% elsewhere in Africa. The government
which world-class scientific outputs have been allowed university numbers to double in less than
produced, is being marginalized in institutions of twenty years, while underfunding the sector. As a
higher education.349 result, real per capita funding of tertiary education
has dropped by 30%. The cost of servicing tertiary
institutions thus shifted incrementally towards
Rebellious constituencies those trying to get into them in the form of rising
student fees.
The biggest student protests to hit South Africa
since 1994 erupted in October 2015. The students
However, some analysts see a political logic behind
had rejected an earlier government offer to cap the
this government policy. Investment in secondary
increase of study fees at 6%, down from the 10% to
education is an investment in political loyalty; it
12% proposed by the management of universities.
keeps influential organisations such as the South
The demonstrations, often involving intimidation
African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU)
and violence, closed some of the country’s top
supportive of the ANC. In contrast, investment in
universities. Protest songs were sung, placards
the tertiary sector seems an investment in critical
raised and entrances to campuses barricaded
and independent opposition voices among the
with burning tyres.350 Protests at Parliament in
black urban middle class.
Cape Town turned violent and subsequently the
police used stun grenades and water cannons to
The political order, with its increase in service
stop a group of students breaking into the Union
delivery protests, is becoming more, rather than
Buildings, the seat of government in Pretoria.351
less polarized among the young urban middle
Vandalism and arson destroyed buildings and
class. The ANC leadership is increasingly being
facilities, creating millions of rand in damage. After
discredited by scandals and corruption, selective
an arson incident at the University of KwaZulu-
patronage is obvious, and the economy is unable
Natal in September 2016, firefighters managed to
to improve youth unemployment. Discursive
bring the fire under control‚ but the faculty had
shifts towards assertive black identity politics and
lost priceless material, including rare books dating
radical economic restructuring have occurred
back to the foundations of modern-day South
among black middle-class youth.
African law in the seventeenth century.352

348. https://allafrica.com/stories/201812190202.html; https://mg.co.za/article/2017-03-24-00-baby-steps-to-decolonise-

schools.
349. https://www.litnet.co.za/afrikaans-is-a-major-african-asset-dele-olojede-the-more-we-eliminate-this-diversity-the-
lesser-we-become-says-africas-first-pulitzer-prize-winner/.
350. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34618724; http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-
africa/21677252-anc-faces-perhaps-its-biggest-challenge-yet-boiling-over; http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/
world/south-african-police-use-stun-grenades-as-students-protesting-tuition-hikes/article26901219/; http://www.
theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/21/riot-police-tear-gas-student-protest-south-africa-university-fees-cape-town;
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/27/africa/fees-must-fall-student-protest-south-africa-explainer/; http://sa-monitor.
com/south-africa-barriers-entry-financial-times-25-october-2015/#more-5095.
351. http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/education/2015/10/23/police-fire-stun-grenades-as-tensions-run-high-at-union-
buildings; http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34618724.
352. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/ukzn-south-africa-university-protests-nazi-style-library-book-
burning-rape-brutality-a7230296.html.

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They blame small group actors in a narrative that not impose unnecessary burdens on the national
portrays the latter to be big and powerful. “This is budget,” the World Bank said.355
just the tip of the iceberg,” says Sinabo Mnqonoiwa,
a 27-year-old postgraduate student at the
University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
Failed education policies
“There’s no Rainbow Nation – it’s on paper,
Stats SA’s research paints a bleak picture of failing
we are all free on paper”.353 While scapegoat
policy interventions, particularly in education
politics and resentment surfaces, they ignore the
and youth employment. The percentage of black
agency of the ANC to improve conditions and the
African professional, managerial and technical
ANC’s accountability for corrupt and ineffective
workers aged 25 to 34, has dropped by 2% over
governance.
the past twenty years, leaving this generation less
skilled than their parents – and less skilled than
Both top-down and bottom-up political forces will
every other race and age group, according to Stats
increase pressure on the autonomy of universities
SA. “When parents are better equipped than the
in the near and medium term. As predicted, the
children, it’s a sign of regression,” said former
ANC has tried to instrumentalize the waves of
Statistician-General Pali Lehohla.356
student protests in its effort to strengthen its hold
on universities. Zuma announced free higher-
Despite pockets of excellence, the quality and work
education for students from poor households in
ethic of too many South Africans are pretty poor.
December 2017. This ignored the views of the
All attempts to improve the standards at schools
Treasury, the recommendations of the Zuma-
are countered by SADTU, which is allied to the
appointed Heher Commission and of the Davis Tax
ANC. It has been behind “widespread” corruption
Committee. Free education previously had been a
and abuse. This included teachers paying union
plank in the EFF party programme.354
officials for plum jobs, and positions being sold for
sex, stock or money. The government has done
Since coming to power, Ramaphosa has not
little in response. Perhaps this is unsurprising;
reversed Zuma’s new policy. The ANC’s plan to
most of the senior civil servants running education
spend more funds subsidising higher education
are SADTU members.357
is fiscally unsustainable and is unlikely to supply
more skills to the economy, the World Bank stated
The Economist commented:
on 22 January 2019. The cost of post-school
education and training will more than double to
Government procurement at all levels is now
R172.2 billion ($12 billion) by 2022, or 2.5% of the
riddled with graft. Start with schools. Corruption
GDP, from R65.4 billion in 2017.
Watch, an NGO, says it has received more than
1 000 reports over the past few years relating
The programme’s high cost would likely make the
to crooked school principals, many of whom
target of doubling enrolments by 2030 “elusive,”
have been stealing cash from their school’s
according to the World Bank. “In a fiscally
bank accounts or looting funds intended to feed
constrained environment, it will be critical that
hungry children. Their jobs are now so lucrative
the government’s higher-education policy does
that they are worth killing for. In 2015 one head

353. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2015/10/30/pushing-university-funding-not-in-anc-interest; http://

www.timeslive.co.za/local/2015/10/24/Sanef-concerned-about-intimidation-of-journalists-during-FeesMustFall;
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-12-05-op-ed-the-politics-of-spectacle-reflections-on-the-2016-
student-protests/#.WmO1IqjibIW.
354. Susan Booysen, Dominance and decline: The ANC in the time of Zuma (Wits University Press, Johannesburg, 2015), p
229.
355. https://www.biznews.com/sa-investing/2019/01/22/zuma-free-education-blows-hole-growth-world-bank.
356. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-04-18-the-great-reversal-stats-sa-claims-black-youth-are-less-skilled-
than-their-parents/#.WFeu3o9OLIU.
357. https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21713858-why-it-bottom-class-south-africa-has-one-
worlds-worst-education; “Nzimande’s power grab”, Business Day, 12 May 2016.

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teacher was hacked to death and another was
shot after they refused to make way for people
who had “bought” their posts. Officials of the
teachers’ union have also been implicated in
selling posts.358
Judith February, previously executive director
of the Democracy and Governance Unit of the
Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and also
head of the Institute for a Democratic Alternative
for South Africa (Idasa) South African Governance
Division stated in 2018 that:
South African pupils have done abysmally in
global rankings for the Trends in International
Maths and Science Study (TIMMS), and even
more distressing is that our Grade 4 pupils
are unable to ‘read for meaning’. South Africa
scored the lowest of 50 countries in the Progress
in International Reading and Literacy Study
(PIRLS). For any other government committed
to the wellbeing of its citizens and economic
growth, this would have been a crisis. For the
Zuma government it was business as usual …359
About 6% of South Africa’s GDP is spent on
education, compared to the average of 4.8% in
EU countries. In 2017, South Africa allocated R240
billion, at 17.5%, the largest single portion of its
budget, to basic education. Yet in January 2017,
The Economist contended, “South Africa has one
of the world’s worst education systems.”
ANC decision makers in northern provinces of
South Africa have now started using access to
schools to respond to other popular frustrations
with non-delivery and as a red herring to divert
attention from its bad educational policies. In the
process, especially middle-class and Afrikaans
schools, whose parents do not constitute a key
constituency for the ANC, are being targeted.
Frans Cronje, president of the liberal thinktank,
the IRR, has stated:
358. “The hollow state”, The Economist, 20 December 2015.
359. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-01-09-on-freedom-fact-and-falsehood/#.WmOb16jibIV.
360. https://www.news24.com/Columnists/GuestColumn/gauteng-education-departments-master-class-in-
delusion-20180123.
361. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-06-15-time-for-south-africa-to-invest-in-its-youth/.
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SA Monitor2018 .indd 90
Denying a child the chance of a bright future
will drive any parent to extreme levels of anger.
Politicians who, with good reason, are afraid
of the consequences, especially in a politically
vulnerable province like Gauteng, would
rather that parents did not come to focus on
things like below 50% pass rates in maths.
Hence the effort made to focus public anger
on other issues such as racism and Afrikaans.
The political formula is easy: make some
outrageous allegation based on a sliver of truth
and appeal to the media’s bent for the pitiful
drama put into motion when the most reptilian
of politicians conspire through half-truths and
populist incitement to turn two fundamentally
decent but equally desperate racial or ethnic
communities against each other and threaten
violent disorder. Ferry in a crowd of protesters,
make sure some wet-behind-the-ears click-bait
focused junior journalist fresh out of media
school is there with his or her cellphone to
draw the voyeuristic public into the wretched
scenes of the desperate parents fighting for the
chance that their children might go to a good
school. Then bring out the riot police, and you
are assured of another week of not having to
answer tough questions about the schools your
department runs.360
It is expected that populist agitation against some
middle-class and Afrikaans schools will continue.
This may result in serious flashpoints in the few
next years. Many in the ANC will try to benefit
from it politically.
The ANC’s defective education policies signal its
inability, more broadly, to master the challenge
of population growth of 20% in the past decades,
including a youth bulge. In 2016, Stats SA estimated
the size of the country’s youthful population (14
to 35 years old) to be 20.1-million, or 36% of the
total population.361
Such a youth bulge, according to Gunnar Heinsohn,
combined with high expectations, can easily
4/11/2019 3:22:31 PM

result in pressures on the existing institutions and
resource struggles that can be solved through
peaceful or less peaceful politics.362 In educational
institutions, but also elsewhere in society, the
youth bulge and high unemployment in South
Africa are likely to strengthen the forces of political
volatility in the next decade.
Media freedom under pressure
In post-1994 South Africa, press freedom is
guaranteed by Section 16 of the Bill of Rights.
Together with parts of the judiciary, the media has
been considered to be one the most important
remaining checks on the power of the ruling party,
since the ANC government has largely neutralized
other potentially independent watchdog
institutions through its policy of cadre deployment
and other measures such as intimidation. Freedom
House stated in its 2018 report:
In 2017, the media played a crucial role in
exposing the corruption linked to the Gupta
family and the involvement of British public
relations firm Bell Pottinger in stirring up racial
tensions in the country. Nonetheless, concerns
about press freedom have grown in recent
years amid increasing government pressure on
both state-run and independent outlets.363
However, it is important also to scrutinise the de
facto realities of media freedom in South Africa.364
The South African Broadcasting Corporation
(SABC) is the country’s public broadcaster.365 It
controls most television and radio broadcasting in
South Africa.
The ANC has used cadre deployment to align the
state broadcaster with the ruling party. During
362. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/effects-youth-bulge-civil-conflicts.
363. https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2018/south-africa.
364. http://www.r2k.org.za/; http://fxi.org.za/home/.
365. http://www.sabc.co.za/wps/portal/SABC/SABCARTICLE?id=5c5fc9804c9afedb8cbcff39f3bc9014& page_from=CSI.
366. http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2014/04/22/sabc-bans-eff-advert---video; http://www.timeslive.co.za/
politics/2014/04/30/da-cries-political-censorship-as-sabc-refuses-to-air-second-advert.
367. http://paperroom.ipsa.org/papers/paper_10054.pdf.
SA Monitor2018 .indd 91
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the 2014 elections, the SABC was criticised for
refusing to air the campaign adverts of two main
opposition parties, namely the DA and the EFF.366
As stated by Nicola de Jager, political scientist at
the University of Stellenbosch:
Reporters, analysts and others within
the public broadcaster who are
considered to operate out of line are
slowly moved out, examples include
367
Eusebius McKaiser and John Perlman.
The 2017 Freedom House report concluded:
Nonetheless, concerns about press freedom
have grown in recent years amid increasing
government pressure on both state-run and
independent outlets. A number of recent
incidents have compromised the credibility and
independence of the SABC, the outlet with the
largest reach in the country. The most high-
profile incident came in May (2016), when
the SABC banned the broadcast of violent
protests taking place across the country. The
broadcaster’s controversial chief operating
officer, Hlaudi Motsoeneng – a political ally
of Zuma – said it was the role of the SABC to
“educate the citizens”, and that coverage of
the unrest could encourage further violence.
Critics of the ban alleged that the broadcaster
had enacted it in order to avoid unflattering
coverage for the ANC in the run-up to the
August local elections. Amid protests against
the ban from journalists, civil society, and the
opposition, the Independent Communications
Authority of South Africa (ICASA) ordered its
reversal in July.
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Seven SABC journalists and one contracted
freelance journalist were fired by the SABC
in July after criticizing the protest ban policy.
The journalists were reinstated later in the
month following a ruling by the Labour
Court in Johannesburg. In June, Motsoeneng
reportedly directed SABC staff not to engage
in tough questioning of Zuma or to cover him
negatively.368
There’s a great deal of evidence from SABC
journalists who’ve spoken out and say they
have been very, very greatly intimidated by
the leadership in the corporation, and even
by people in government who have told them
directly: Don’t antagonise the president or
don’t write about this. Don’t broadcast about
that. And so there were plenty of reasons for
him [Zuma] to feel intimidated ...372

Witnesses testifying in December 2016 before
Parliament’s ad hoc committee investigating the
SABC, painted a picture of intimidation, death
threats, ministerial interference, secret meetings,
as well as a cult-like worship that surrounded
Motsoeneng.369 SABC news had become tainted,
with politicians, including the former minister of
Communications, Faith Muthambi, constantly
dictating how journalists should cover certain
stories, according to Thandeka Gqubule, one
of the eight above-mentioned fired journalists,
known as the “SABC eight”.370 The SSA played a
role in what was described as a climate of fear
and intimidation at the SABC. Top SABC finance
officials testified how Motsoeneng secretly used
SSA officials to find incriminating evidence on his
opponents so that he could dismiss them from
the SABC.371 Journalists stated that during the
2014 elections, they were told that 70% of their
coverage of the government had to be positive.
John Matisonn, author of God, Lies & Spies, notes:
Private newspapers and magazines are often
critical of powerful figures and institutions and
remain a crucial check on the government.
However, government allies own a growing
share of independent media. In August 2013,
Independent News and Media was bought by
Sekunjalo, a company which belongs to the pro-
ANC Iqbal Survé. Money for the deal came from
the state-run civil service pension fund, 25%
directly, and almost 45% in the form of a loan to
Survé. Two Chinese state-run companies provided
20% of the remaining funding.373
Due to cadre deployment to the regulatory body,
ICASA, it has failed to ensure the non-partisan
nature of the SABC.374 Allegations have emerged
about ANC attempts to also influence the
commercial eTV television service.375 In February
2015 a SABC memorandum of incorporation
emerged that gave the minister of Communications
the power to discipline and remove executive
managers and board members at the SABC.
Before the emergence of the memorandum, SABC

368. https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2017/south-africa.
369. “SABC inquiry: Who’s Hlaudi’s Godfather, members ask witnesses”, Daily Maverick, 11 December 2016; http://
www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/how-hlaudi-sold-the-sabc-20161211-3; http://www.businesslive.co.za/rdm/
politics/2016-12-10-politics-live-wherever-there-is--zumas-corporate-hatchet-man/; http://www.businesslive.co.za/
bd/national/media/2016-12-09-faith-muthambi-forced-hlaudi-on-sabc/.
370. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-12-12-sabcmotsoeneng-coup-ad-hoc-committee-wants-minister-of-
state-security/#.WE-X5eZ97IV; https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/media/2016-12-13-sabc-eight-detail-
hlaudi-motsoenengs-reign-of-terror/.
371. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/media/2016-12-23-secret-purge-hlaudi-motsoenengs-dirty-war-at-
sabc/.
372. http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2017/02/state-media-zuma-south-africa-170218113247808.
html.
373. R.W. Johnson, How long will South Africa survive? The looming crisis (Jonathan Ball Publishers, Cape Town, 2015), pp
132-135.
374. Prinola Govenden, “Toothless regulator?” A critical analysis of ICASA’s regulation of the SABC so that it functions as a
public service broadcaster (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2009).
375. http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-10-30-op-ed-minister-patel-and-encas-feel-good-documentaries/#.
VFkHgst0y71.

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board members could be removed through a
parliamentary process only.376
Strained relations between the ANC
and critical journalists
Although no serious incidents regarding
government authorisation to actively target
journalists have been reported, the ANC’s
relationship with the media is generally strained.
Van Onselen distinguishes between several
phases in the relations. After coming to power in
1994, the ideals of a free and independent press
were championed and celebrated. However, the
dynamics of governance, mismanagement and
corruption resulted in deterioration of media
relations and the proposal of a media tribunal.
Through the state and pro-ANC private capital, a
series of existing and new media were remodelled
and established, generally to be more “positive”
about and “supportive” of the government of the
day.377
Communications Minister Faith Muthambi told
MPs in April 2015 that they needed to take further
action on the issue of a regulatory system for
the print media so that they could achieve the
meaningful transformation agenda of the country.
ANC spokesperson Zizi Kodwa confirmed in 2015
that the ANC was sticking to its 2007 resolution to
call for a state-controlled media appeals tribunal
to regulate the media.378 At the ANC conference
in December 2017, during which Ramaphosa
was chosen as ANC leader, the governing party
resolved that its “parliamentarians must have
enquired whether a media appeals tribunal is
feasible”.379
Direct attacks on journalists have continued,
including the police harassment of reporters across
the country. They have been subject to wrongful
or illegal arrest, forced to delete photographs
or barred from entering particular spaces. In
February 2015, the SSA confirmed handing David
Mabuza, the Mpumalanga premier and current
deputy president of South Africa intelligence
reports on the lives and movements of journalists
in the province.380 In November 2018, Reporters
Without Borders (RSF) deplored the use of threats
and insults by EFF leader Julius Malema against
journalists and media outlets covering his party’s
alleged involvement in an embezzlement scandal,
and called on the authorities to condemn his
attempts to intimidate the press.381
In 2017, the South African National Editors’ Forum
(Sanef) expressed alarm at moves by police
to investigative journalists Jacques Pauw and
Pieter-Louis Myburgh, who have both reported
extensively on President Zuma’s alleged corrupt
dealings. Media Monitoring Africa’s William Bird
said the reports indicated the politicization of the
police, especially being used by certain people
for their own agendas. Bird said it was a clear
and present threat to media freedom, but also a
clear attempt to undermine the credibility of the
journalists.382
Lizette Rabie, professor of Journalism at the
University of Stellenbosch, has indicated that the
alarm bells are ringing.383 Threats against media
freedom are already so severe that a comparison
could be drawn between the media (un)freedom
under NP government during a period of internal
conflict and that under a peacetime ANC
government.384

376. http://sa-monitor.com/minister-defends-sabc-secrecy-times-live-18-march-2015/#more-3351.
377. http://sa-monitor.com/devolution-ancs-trust-media-bdlive-21-september-2016/.
378. http://www.news24.com/Archives/City-Press/Government-moots-return-of-dreaded-media-tribunal-20150429;
http://www.enca.com/south-africa/zuma-takes-swipe-media-over-xenophobia-covera.
379. https://mg.co.za/article/2018-01-10-what-to-expect-in-parliament-in-2018.
380. http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-04-28-op-ed-world-press-freedom-day-2015-sa-edition/#.
VUDBT5UcTIX. Also see http://sa-monitor.com/south-africas-rica-process-much-open-abuse-htxt-africa-29-april-
2015/#more-3720.
381. https://rsf.org/en/news/rsf-decries-south-african-politicians-invective-against-reporters.
382. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-12-06-editors-forum-concerned-over-threats-to-arrest-jacques-pauw-
and-news24-journalist/#.Wi92i0qWbIV.
383. See L. Rabie, “Media freedom in South Africa: A luta continua?”, South African Monitor, (5), November 2015, pp 97-
102.
384. P.J. Fourie, “’n Terugkeer na die onderdrukking van vryheid van spraak? Ooreenkomste tussen die apartheidsregering(s)
en die ANC se optrede teen die media”, Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe, 49(1), 2009, pp 62-84.

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According to the 2018 World Press Index by the
international non-governmental RSF, media
independence in South Africa is seen as fragile.
In a global ranking of 180 countries, South Africa
was ranked twenty-eigth, with Norway taking first
place as the most media free country in the world.
Regarding South Africa however, RSF also noted:
Journalists are harassed and subjected to
intimidation campaigns if they try to cover
certain subjects involving the ruling ANC,
government finances, the redistribution of land
to the black population or the #Guptaleaks
affair, all which are either off limits or provoke
a hostile reaction from the authorities.385
Still, the media and various actors from civil society
have played an important role in maintaining the
constitutional space for freedom of the media
and expression against ANC pressure. It is clear
that the ruling party will continue to be suspicious
385. https://rsf.org/en/south-africa.
386. Also see Susan Booysen, Dominance and decline: The ANC in the time of Zuma (Wits University Press, Johannesburg,
2015), p 309.
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when it comes to media entities that do not align
themselves with ANC objectives and policies.386
The space for freedom of the media will continue
to be under pressure in the hybrid regime.
Both self-censorship and more independent
investigative journalism by citizens and business
may be the result.
The impact of the media on changing political
dynamics should however not be overestimated. If
the media uncovers questionable conduct by ANC
politicians, it depends firstly on the ANC and its
factions how it would respond to the revelations.
The ANC’s support of Zuma over years, even in
the face of considerable scandals reported in
the media, indicates how strong a role the fear
of losing jobs and access to resources can play.
These dynamics limit the impact of the media and
reinforce the hybrid regime.
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Part X
ANC policies and economic
value destruction
pace with its emerging market peers over the past
Economic value destruction decade.388 Doctor John Purchase, Agbiz’s CEO,
has stated that poor ANC governance has already
In the past decade, the ANC has been a prime
made South Africans 25% poorer in the past seven
destroyer of institutional capital and economic
years.389
value in South Africa.387 A report by the Bureau
for Economic Research found that South Africa’s
South Africa slid into recession in the first half of
economy could have been up to 30% larger and
2018 for the first time in nearly a decade despite
created 2.5-million more jobs, had it had kept
strong global growth. Already, the GDP has

387. See https://sa-monitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/SAM-8-February-2018.pdf.

388. https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2018-10-17-politics-wreaked-havoc-on-sa-economy-gareth-ackerman/.
389. https://www.farmersweekly.co.za/agri-news/south-africa/sa-lost-r1-trillion-economic-growth-past-seven-years/.

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shrunk to the worst in the past nine years and
the biggest budget deficit since 2004 remains.390
Unemployment has increased to 27.2%, from
21.5% in 2008. The National Income Dynamics
Study (NIDS) release a report in November 2018
which showed that, in the past two years, the
middle class has shrunk from 20% to 18%.391
Especially since late 2015, according to the
perceptions of investors and international credit
rating agencies, political and economic risks in
South Africa have increased.392 In April 2017
both S&P Global and Fitch Ratings downgraded
South Africa’s long-term foreign currency rating
to sub-investment grade. The third of the big
global agencies, Moody’s, has however kept the
country’s rating above investment grade.
Moody’s has historically been the most generous
of the three ratings agencies when it comes to
South Africa. It raised the country’s credit rating
sooner and higher at the start of the century,
and was slower to cut it through the disastrous
Zuma presidency. While Ramaphosa may be
committed to domestic reform, the political
space and capabilities for implementation will be
constrained by strong forces: ANC factionalism,
the need for fiscal restraint, tight monetary policy,
ongoing global market volatility and a struggling
economy.393
The IMF in its World Economic Outlook has
adjusted its low estimate of 1.5% economic
growth in South Africa in 2018 further downwards
to 0.8%.394 The consequence is that the country is
now in its longest downward business cycle phase
since 1945.395 According to the IMF, South Africa’s
capital inflows may become scarcer, costlier and
more volatile in future. This situation would
pose risks to South Africa’s external financing: “A
potential pull out of foreign investors, divesting
their existing holdings of local assets, also poses
risks.”396
Political intervention and selective
patronage
In August 2012, the Zuma government adopted
the National Development Plan (NDP) as South
Africa’s policy blueprint until 2030. The ANC’s
national conference in Mangaung (Bloemfontein)
in December 2012 endorsed the plan, which
aimed at boosting the economic growth rate to
5.4% of the GDP and generating eleven million
jobs. These objectives have never been reached,
but the ANC did proceed with several statutes
and bills that greatly increased the government’s
interventionist powers. They clearly prioritized the
redistribution of the existing economic pie, rather
than its expansion.397 The main NDP megaprojects
were vehicles for corporate collusion and price-
fixing in construction, but also Gupta or ANC-
related kickbacks.398
In a report on all business-related legislation since
2013, the IRR concluded that a common thread
through all the bills is that “they weaken property
rights, reduce private-sector autonomy, threaten
business with draconian penalties, and undermine

390. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/south-africa-s-july-budget-gap-is-biggest-in-at-least-14-
years.
391. https://mg.co.za/article/2018-10-05-00-the-future-of-the-middle-class-is-bleak.
392. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-07/riots-signal-what-is-going-wrong-with-south-africa-s-
economy.
393. https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/economy/is-a-credit-downgrade-inevitable.
394. http://m.engineeringnews.co.za/article/imf-lowers-south-africas-economic-growth-forecasts-urges-
reforms-2018-10-09.
395. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-26/south-africa-business-cycle-in-longest-slump-since-1945-
chart.
396. IMF, South Africa: Selected Issues, 16 June 2016, pp 14-16 at https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2016/
cr16218.pdf; Balance of payments manual (BPM5), (International Monetary Fund, Washington, D.C., 1993).
397. Anthea Jeffery, “The ANC govt’s war on economic rationality”, 27 March 2014 at http://www.politicsweb.co.za/
politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=579465&sn=Detail&pid=71616; http://www.economist.com/
blogs/baobab/2014/03/property-rights-south-africa.
398. https://monthlyreview.org/2019/01/01/south-africa-suffers-capitalist-crisis-deja-vu/.

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investor confidence”.399 Examples during the
Zuma presidency include new regulations, policy
initiatives and legislation regarding investment,
expropriation, mining and energy, the security
industry, affirmative action, black empowerment
and land. President Ramaphosa’s support in
2019 for the policy of expropriation without
compensation continues this trend.
During their implementation, these laws are
especially likely to enhance the opportunities
for political and bureaucratic decision makers to
gain access to lucrative positions, or to engage in
selective patronage. The prominent economist,
Moeletsi Mbeki, stated that the only agenda
of the ANC currently is “it is our turn to eat”.400
However, after 25 years of one-party dominant
rule, the state sources to satisfy important actors
and constituencies have declined.
The ANC’s policies have included the overuse and
abuse of civil service employment and SOEs, in
conjunction with profligate spending, corruption
and extreme consumption. Over the past decade
the number of civil servants has increased by
about 25%. One in five working people, roughly 2.7
million people, now works for the government.401
About 35% of South Africa’s R1.67 trillion budget
or 14% of the GDP goes towards paying the
salaries of public sector workers.402 The post-
2000 period has generated a new labour elite in
the labour market, namely the unionised public
sector employee.403
Under Zuma’s administration, public sector
wages, debt interest payments and welfare
grants started accounting for roughly 60% of the
budget.404 Currently, it accounts for about 70%
of the budget.405 In addition, according to South
African chief procurement officer, Kenneth Brown,
as much as 40% of the country’s R600 billion
budget for goods and services is being eaten up
by inflated prices from suppliers and fraud.406
Without sufficient new wealth-generating
activities, investment, savings and productivity, a
risk of insufficient state income is looming.
Professor Jannie Rossouw, head of the University
of the Witwatersrand’s School of Economics and
Business Sciences, with co-researchers Adele
Breytenbach and Fanie Joubert referred to an
approaching fiscal cliff, “the danger that the South
African government might run out of income
to cover growing government expenditure”.407
Social grants, debt interest repayments and state
jobs together would account for all government
revenue by 2026 – assuming a high average annual
revenue growth of between 9.7% and 9.9%. It is
currently at 1% per year. Even sharp increases in
personal tax, company tax, fuel levies and excise
duties would merely defer the fiscal cliff for two
or three years.
Political pressures to raise extra income for the
ANC, its cadre networks in the state structures
and key constituencies will also increase in the
next few years.408 Intense factional competition
in the ANC and its allies, and between the ANC

399. http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=579465&sn= Detail&pid=71616.

400. Andrew England, “Power failure”, Financial Times, 13 May 2015, p 7.
401. “The hollow state”, The Economist, 20 December 2015.
402. https://www.thesouthafrican.com/public-servants-pay-south-africa/.
403. https://theconversation.com/south-africas-civil-servants-are-the-countrys-new-labour-elite-54269.
404. R.W. Johnson, How long will South Africa survive? The looming crisis (Jonathan Ball Publishers, Cape Town, 2015), p
124.
405. https://ewn.co.za/2018/10/24/sa-govt-warned-over-huge-debt-burden.
406. http://businesstech.co.za/news/government/139193/shocking-levels-of-fraud-and-inflated-prices-cost-south-africa-
r233-billion/.
407. Jannie Rossouw, “South Africa’s fiscal cliff: A different meaning to a well-know concept”, ERSA, 16-17 May 2013; “SA
is headed for a financial cliff”, Financial Mail, 14 October 2014.
408. See for example http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/mining/2015/05/18/chamber-of-mines-comes-to-members-
defence.

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and breakaway political or politicized opponents
like the EFF and some trade unions, will reinforce
these dynamics.409
State-owned enterprises (SOEs)
SOEs with their billions in lucrative procurement
budgets, are already at the heart of the ANC
government’s economic policies and political
patronage. Eight SOEs, including ESKOM, Transnet,
Denel and SAA have massive debts, funding
restraints, risks, rent extraction and governance
issues. Especially ESKOM, but also other SOEs,
came to play a central role in serving as a conduit
to transfer government resources to well-
connected and corrupt individuals and families.410
Questionable, dubious and very expensive deals
were being done at many parastatals.411
As a result, the SOEs have become an extreme
liability on the Treasury and one of the chief
obstacles to the aims of stabilising national debt
and government finances.412 Companies like
ESKOM and SAA claim that they are working to
be less of a burden. However, prominent financial
analysts like Nomura’s Peter Attard Montalto
believe that the implicit exposure of these
companies to the country’s sovereign is much
higher than stated.413
The ANC government did not invest enough in
expanding its power generation capacity and
neglected maintenance. It also did not respond
after earlier crises. ESKOM, which supplies
about 95% of the nation’s electricity, has since
2015 been rationing its supply, because its aging
plants cannot keep up with the demand. ESKOM
implements blackouts when it struggles to meet
the demand. These measures have had a huge
impact on productivity and also on business
morale in South Africa.414
The sectors using the most electricity are also the
foreign exchange earners, namely non-ferrous
metals; basic iron and steel; non-metallic minerals;
mining; paper and paper products; and chemicals.
According to Peter Montalto:
The problem is not its technical ability, but
the external political and ideological pressure
that has slowed the process … As ever, the
government seems to have too much time.
The knowledge to solve the ESKOM problem
is already within the government. Remove the
politics, the tenderpreneurship and the cadre
deployment.415
Similarly, water supplies and water management
have become major issues, with water crises
emerging in Cape Town and elsewhere in the
country.416 According to a visiting professor at the
University of the Witwatersrand, Mike Muller,
“the shenanigans in the water sector have little
to do with radical economic transformation. They
are more about the ongoing enrichment of a new
elite”.417
Anthony Turton, professor of Environmental
Management at the University of the Free State,
says that South Africa had the necessary water
skills, providing that institutions remained well-
funded and robust. However, there has been
a systemic failure across the board. “What is
happening in the water sector now as a system is
almost a mirror of the energy sector failures”.418

409. http://today.moneyweb.co.za/article?id=466373&acid= Z254vWXulCUeZeuwhd4cWQ%3D%3D&adid=CxgRuNO6fqM

eZeuwhd4cWQ%3D%3D&date=2015-04-22#.VXbCkssR673; http://sa-monitor.com/anc-youth-league-nationalisation-
call-plunge-mining-deep-pit-bdlive-11-october-2016/.
410. https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-02-04-eskom-the-power-giant-at-the-core-of-south-africas-
state-rot/.
411. http://mg.co.za/tag/parastatals; http://mg.co.za/article/2016-09-02-00-treasurys-bids-to-end-corruption-are-
peeling-back-a-curiously-connected-gravy-trail.
412. http://mg.co.za/article/2016-10-28-00-fiscal-risk-beware-the-parastatals.
413. https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/189946/south-africa-likely-to-be-fully-junked-by-march-2018-analyst/.
414. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2015/04/14/eskom-lies-will-continue-over-ideology.
415. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2015/04/14/government-knows-eskom-solution-but-lacks-resolve.
416. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-01-22-analysis-a-drought-of-nature-compounded-by-a-drought-in-
leadership/#.WmyJ4KjibIV.
417. https://mg.co.za/article/2016-12-05-south-africas-water-sector-a-case-study-in-state-capture.
418. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-01-22-analysis-a-drought-of-nature-compounded-by-a-drought-in-
leadership/; https://mg.co.za/article/2018-02-02-00-capes-water-crisis-to-have-ripple-effect.

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The inability to provide basic electricity and water
services will have a major deterrent effect on
many foreign investors.
Congested railways and ports controlled by SOEs
have constrained exports. According to The
Economist, this situation removed an estimated
percentage point from South Africa’s low annual
growth. Ramaphosa has promised to clean up
this state of affairs. However, several drivers
will reinforce economic interventionism by ANC
policy-makers in the next few years. These include
economic stagnation and shrinking resources,
the loss of access to sources of patronage after
the ANC’s local election losses, related risks and
opportunities for current systems of patronage,
and factional struggles over fewer spoils. The role
of the one-party dominated state in the economy
is bound to remain strong.
Staggering unemployment and
budget pressures
In the first quarter of 2018, Stats SA calculated
unemployment at more than 38%.419 Earlier in
2017, Stanlib Chief Economist Kevin Lings stated
in a company note:
and political implications. Fundamentally, this
reflects the lack of fixed investment spending
by the private sector, as well as the sustained
low business confidence.420
Ramaphosa’s election as ANC president initially
provided a boost to local business confidence in
the first quarter of 2018, which then dropped in
the rest of 2018.421 Unless there are real structural
improvements, South Africa will not be more
attractive to investors in the real economy and
sufficient job creation will not occur.422
Bad business perceptions of the ANC
government
During the ANC rule of 25 years, extensive
de-industrialization has occurred. In 1994,
manufacturing accounted for 23% of GDP, which
is now at about 11%. High wage rates, high strike
rates, a steep decline in labour productivity
and policies discouraging foreign and domestic
investment all played a role. R.W. Johnson, liberal
analyst, now contends that South Africa can
choose to have an ANC government or a modern
industrial economy, but not both.423 Ramaphosa
has indicated that he wants to reverse this trend.

In addition, the unemployment rate for the
youth younger than 25, using the expanded
definition, is a shockingly high 67.4%. Clearly,
the rate of youth unemployed has become a
national crisis, with significant social, economic
This state of affairs is already reflected in foreign
business perceptions. The World Economic
Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) for
2017 to 2018 reflects the perceptions of domestic
and international business.424 In terms of the

419. https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/economy/wef2019-addressing-youth-unemployment-high-on-sas-
agenda-18907651.
420. http://www.fin24.com/Economy/youth-unemployment-in-sa-a-national-crisis-economists-20170807.
421. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/economy/2019-01-24-consumer-confidence-remains-flat-but-things-might-be-
looking-up/.
422. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/editorials/2018-01-12-editorial-south-africas-challenges-are-now-even-
greater/.
423. R.W. Johnson, How long will South Africa survive? The looming crisis (Jonathan Ball Publishers, Cape Town, 2015), p
158.
424. Klaus Schwab and Xavier Sala-i-Martin (eds), “The Global Competitiveness Report, 2017-2018”, World Economic
Forum, https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2017-2018, pp. 268-269. Compare
Klaus Schwab (ed), “The Global Competitiveness Report, 2009-2010”, World Economic Forum 2010, p 283 at http://
www.weforum.org/reports/global-competitiveness-report-2009-2010 and Klaus Schwab and Xavier Sala-i-Martin
(eds), “The Global Competitiveness Report, 2016-2017”, World Economic Forum, pp 324-325.

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overall GCI, South Africa ranks quite well, namely
in position 61 out of 137 countries measured.
However, it was a drop in the position from being
in position 56 in 2016 to 2017. The GCI measure
of South Africa’s competitiveness is also distorted
favourably by its spectacular performance in a
number of the GCI’s sub-components. These
include aspects strongly shaped by the private
sector, like auditing standards, efficacy of
corporate boards and the availability of financial
services.
In GCI sub-indices that measure business
perceptions of the government, South Africa fares
very poorly. For four years in a row, South Africa
has had low scores for the diversion of public
funds (position 109), with a major drop in the past
year. This is also true pertaining to the perceived
wastefulness of government spending (position
103). In terms of organised crime, it dropped
significantly to position 122 out of 137 countries.
For “business costs for crime and violence”, it is
again in position 133. In terms of the reliability
of the police, it is in position 118, a further drop
from being in position 102 in 2015. South Africa
ranks in position 114 in terms of “public trust in
politicians”, a further drop after already being
in position 65 in 2009. It also is in position 89 in
terms of “the burden of government regulation”.
In terms of “favouritism in the decisions of
government officials”, South Africa dropped to
being in position 127, a huge decline from being
in position 69 in 2009.425
International media reports revealing self-
enrichment and selective patronage by President
Zuma and his entourage have reinforced these
perceptions. However, given the hybrid regime
dynamics, foreign business and local business not
aligned to the ruling ANC are reluctant to publicly
oppose harmful policies and practices. They are
unwilling to jeopardize the government licences
they require to operate.426 Nevertheless, both
local and international business have adapted
the forms and extent of their investment in South
Africa accordingly. Foreign direct income (FDI)
projects in South Africa plunged by 31% in 2018 to
reach its lowest level in a decade.427
EU businesses concerned about ANC
policies
The Business Climate Survey 2016: EU Trade and
Investment in South Africa was published in 2017.
This survey highlights several common concerns
within the EU investor community. The outlook
for South Africa as an investment destination is
rather negative: twice as many firms reported that
they were dissatisfied rather than satisfied. This is
a sharp drop in comparison to the results of the
2012 survey and a continuing trend with the 2014
results.428
The 2016 survey asked the respondents to identify
the three biggest challenges for investment in
South Africa. In addition to expressing an overall
declining investor confidence in the country, the
key challenges that emerged were rising prices,
government corruption, and lack of skilled
labour combined with BBBEE legislation. Investor
confidence in South Africa is further undermined
by inadequately functioning government
institutions. The respondents specifically pointed
to the lack of transparency, inconsistent policies,
as well as corruption.
Transformation emerged as the most negatively
perceived factor affecting South Africa’s
business climate. The cost and administration of
compliance with the BBBEE codes (the second
biggest barrier to EU investment identified in the
2014 survey) is still expected to continue having
a negative impact on foreign investment. EU

425. Klaus Schwab and Xavier Sala-i-Martin (eds), “The Global Competitiveness Report, 2017-2018”, World Economic
Forum, https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2017-2018, pp. 268-269. Compare
Klaus Schwab (ed), “The Global Competitiveness Report, 2009-2010”, World Economic Forum 2010, p 283 at http://
www.weforum.org/reports/global-competitiveness-report-2009-2010 and Klaus Schwab and Xavier Sala-i-Martin
(eds), “The Global Competitiveness Report, 2016-2017”, World Economic Forum, pp 324-325.
426. http://www.biznews.com/thought-leaders/2014/11/07/nomuras-peter-montalto-was-concerned-ahead-of-sa-
research-visit-left-gloomier.
427. https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/economy/foreign-direct-investment-in-sa-at-decade-low-18460483.
428. See “Business climate survey 2016: EU trade and investment in Southern Africa” at http://www.euchamber.co.za/
surveys/.

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investors questioned the BBBEE’s overriding focus

on ownership instead of the supply chain or skills
development. In addition, the shortage of skilled
labour in South Africa made compliance with the
BBBEE management-related rules dificult.429
“In this respect, members of the EU Chamber have
reported that an increasing number of tenders by
the SOEs in SA include a requirement of 51% black
ownership for their suppliers,” Stefan Sakoschek,
the chamber’s national executive director said.
He said the chamber had been informed that
“such a discretionary measure lacked sound legal
basis” as it would require pre-approval from the
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), based on
appropriate studies examining the skills level and
other market dynamics in respective commercial
sectors. European companies were now faced
“with surprising new rules” in relation to crucial
tender procedures. “This has already caused
investments to be put on hold or downscaled”.430
The emphasis of both Zuma and Ramaphosa
on radical economic transformation may thus
reinforce the negative outlook of EU investors
over time. Two-thirds of respondents expected
a further deterioration in corruption within
the government and regulatory authorities.
Respondents have difficulties with the
government responsiveness and accessibility to
government oficials. The respondents have largely
mixed perceptions about issues of investment
protection and taxation with the highest degree
of uncertainty around investment protection and
local intellectual property rules.431 It remains to be
seen whether Ramaphosa will be able to overturn
these negative perceptions.
In spite of the worsening investment outlook,
many EU investors in South Africa have increased
their turnovers and created jobs in the past
three years. South Africa continues to present
certain advantages in comparison to other African
countries and therefore remains a destination of
choice for regional headquarters and sales offices
of many EU companies with operations in Sub-
Saharan Africa.432
Domestic business: Increased
distrust and divestment
The relations between local business and the
ANC government deteriorated during Zuma’s
presidency. In April 2016, Ann Bernstein confirmed
that
… a dysfunctional relationship between business
and government that manifests failings on both
sides, but has its roots in deep suspicion about
business and markets, flourishes in and around
the governing party. South Africa cannot hope
to achieve growth while simultaneously being
anti-business. The slide into crony capitalism
makes matters considerably worse.433
The balance between high taxes and an
appreciation of the benefits that this brings, is not
evident to wealthier South Africans.434 Meanwhile,
the degree of capital flight among short-term
portfolio investors has resulted in Central Bank
warnings.435 Andrew Rissik, the managing director
of foreign currency trading at Sable Group, a
London-based money manager, has linked the

429. See “Business climate survey 2016: EU trade and investment in Southern Africa”, p 30 at http://www.euchamber.
co.za/surveys/.
430. https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/features/2017-04-21-eu-to-bee-or-not-to-bee/.
431. “Business climate survey 2016: EU trade and investment in Southern Africa”, pp 28-29 at http://www.euchamber.
co.za/surveys/.
432. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/business-and-economy/2017-03-24-surprising-new-rules-on-empowerment-are-
holding-investors-back-says-eu-chamber/.
433. Ann Bernstein, “Harsh choices await if we continue down the low road”, Business Day, 7 April 2016; http://www.
biznews.com/thought-leaders/2014/11/07/nomuras-peter-montalto-was-concerned-ahead-of-sa-research-visit-left-
gloomier/.
434. https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/218475/taxing-south-africas-rich-will-only-chase-them-away/.
435. “South Africa’s central bank warns of capital flight risk” at http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB100014240527023
04518704579520901590608912.

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trend to increasing political risk: “Poor decisions
by (Mr) Zuma and the ruling party triggered a
widespread urge to move assets abroad”.436
Since 2016 to 2018, for the first time in many
decades, the value of South African-owned assets
outside of the country had exceeded the annual
flow of funds into it. Many of its own citizens
preferred to send their money out of the country,
rather than to invest locally.437
policy is not working and that the process of de-
industrialization of past years is continuing.443
The economist Mike Schüssler also commented:
One top firm after another is chasing
opportunity elsewhere. Our top 60 companies
now earn 70% of their turnover outside of
South African borders. In effect, they have left
and South Africa is just another market.444

The University of Johannesburg’s Centre

for Competition, Regulation and Economic
Ramaphosa’s limping policy reach
Development estimates that the top 50 companies
President Ramaphosa’s limited control over the
listed on the Johannesburg stock market are
factionalized ANC will remain the case until at least
sitting on 1.4 trillion rand ($105 billion) of cash
after the general elections of 2019, and probably
– nearly six times the amount in 2005, as the
beyond.445 The limits to his control will also impact
abstention from investment continues.438 Since
negatively on his ability to control the negative
2013, business confidence has been on a declining
fallout, more factional and radical demands, and
trend from above 50 to the current level below 35
land invasions as a result of weaker property rights
in 2017.439
and expropropiation without compensation.
The ANC has either underestimated the degree
As Roger Southall, professor of Sociology,
to which companies have opportunities to go
University of the Witwatersrand, has remarked,
elsewhere than South Africa, or it does not care
the obstacles in the way of Ramaphosa’s path are
too much.440 For many companies, the best
formidable.
opportunities in mining and manufacturing no
longer are in South Africa.441 Major companies
have already considered hiving off their South Ramaphosa is already battling concerted fight-
African assets, or have actually done so.442 Even back by the Zuma crowd, and this is only the
senior government officials have admitted that, beginning … In any case, increasingly the ANC
with some exceptions, South Africa’s industrial has come to function as an extended patronage,

436. “Politics pushes more money out of SA”, Business Day, 13 April 2016.
437. http://www.biznews.com/sa-investing/2016/01/06/capital-flight-plunging-rand-more-sa-owned-assets-abroad-
than-flowing-in/; http://derstandard.at/2000027849282/Praesident-Zuma-als-Belastungsprobe-fuer-Suedafrikas-
Wirtschaft. On the major net outflows of capital since 2014, also see http://unctad.org/Sections/dite_dir/docs/
WIR2017/wir17_fs_za_en.pdf.
438. https://www.ft.com/content/12b8a5d8-78f0-11e7-90c0-90a9d1bc9691.
439. https://mg.co.za/article/2018-01-24-shaking-up-eskom-matters-for-south-africas-economy.
440. Also see http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/trade/2015/05/07/bee-code-change-shocks-industry; http://www.bdlive.
co.za/opinion/2015/04/20/why-new-bee-codes-will-pull-the-rug-from-under-business.
441. http://www.biznews.com/video/2014/07/29/must-watch-invicta-holdings-arnold-goldstone-true-impact-numsas-
strike/.
442. http://www.biznews.com/video/2014/09/11/what-crisis-rob-davies-shrugs-off-sa-corporate-flight-says-foreigners-
investing/. On the issue of company actions to reduce their risk, also see http://www.miningweekly.com/article/
major-south-african-assets-fail-to-make-the-cut-in-bhp-billiton-portfolio-remake-2014-08-15; http://www.reuters.
com/article/2013/02/08/safrica-goldfields-idUSL5N0B86R420130208; http://www.miningmx.com/page/opinion/
columnists/1474694-Selling-SA-gold-mines-is-strategy-of-last-resort.
443. http://m.engineeringnews.co.za/article/south-africa-continues-on-path-of-deindustrialisation-2017-10-05/rep_
id:4433.
444. http://www.moneyweb.co.za/moneyweb-opinion/welcome-to-the-decline-south-africa/#.VkLfDu9ILUc.facebook.
445. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-11-05-anc-necs-major-indecision-and-authority-problem/.

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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.446
Ramaphosa has tried to restore business
confidence with a drive to gain investment, a
In November 2018, rating agency Moody’s warned
that South Africa faced heightened risks due to
weak institutions, unpredictable domestic politics
and geopolitical risk. Alastair Wilson, Moody’s
managing director for global sovereign risk,
said South Africa also had below-trend growth
prospects:
South Africa’s vulnerability similarly
reflects high reliance on external
capital (though mainly denominated in
local currency), set against a context
of a moribund economy, high inequality
and political stasis ahead of the 2019
presidential elections. 448

stimulus package and an economic recovery plan

designed to reignite economic growth. However,
the wheels of South Africa’s economy are not
turning and there is simply no money to fund new,
The need to tread carefully
productive investments to stimulate growth. The
Political pressures to raise extra income for the
money markets have not ended the South African
ANC, its cadre networks in the state structures
rand’s slide by 20% in value against the dollar in
and key constituencies will remain high in the next
2018, and economists have remained sceptical:
few years. Factional struggles, political uncertainty
“The true test will be how much of the stimulus
and shrinking resources will reinforce economic
package Ramaphosa will be able to implement,
interventionist measures by ANC policymakers.
how quickly it can be implemented and whether
Under budget pressures, the ANC government
we can get economic growth from it,” according to
will try to raise extra income in the form of taxes,
Citibank economist, Gina Schoeman.
licence fees and other means. Unorthodox actions
and rules of the game may also emerge as a result.
Daniel Silke, director of the Political Futures
Consultancy, has stated that any implementation
Policy incoherence and unexpected twists will
of a stimulus package hinges on whether the
often reflect phases in factional competition and
government is able to run itself. “What is the state
newly-bargained advantages and alignments,
of the bureaucracy? Are there officials within the
rather than ideological vacillation. Policy swings
state that are patronage-focused, rather than
and uncertainty will be experienced most by
performance-focused? How do you clean out that
companies in those sectors most exposed to the
philosophy of patronage to make the state more
government’s political priorities or regulatory
effective? There are still big question marks that
and licensing power. Minerals, energy, security,
remain before talking about a stimulus.” Tanya
agriculture, telecoms and pharmaceuticals would
Cohen, CEO of Business Unity South Africa, has
be among these sectors.
stated that business does not expect the stimulus
package to be a panacea for the country’s
economic shortfalls.447

446. https://ewn.co.za/2018/11/07/opinion-can-the-centre-hold-or-will-south-africa-get-its-own-bolsonaro.
447. https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/why-markets-snubbed-ramaphosas-stimulus-plan/?utm_
source=Moneyweb&utm_campaign=96a6825dcc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_09_25_04_10&utm_
medium=email&utm_term=0_b106a40770-96a6825dcc-213156865&mc_cid=96a6825dcc&mc_eid=31a093eb05.
448. https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/economy/moodys-sounds-warning-alarm-for-sa-emerging-market-
peers-17797452.

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The Gupta scandals have gone global.449 The FBI
has begun a probe into US ties to alleged corrupt
transactions involving the Gupta brothers. In the
UK, the Financial Conduct Authority, the Serious
Fraud Office and the National Crime Agency are all
investigating allegations that HSBC and Standard
Chartered handled illicit funds. The scandal has
entangled some of the biggest multinational
companies, damaging the reputation of, amongst
others, McKinsey, KPMG and SAP.450
Business will often have difficulty in establishing
whether extra state revenue is actually spent on
improving the infrastructure or conditions of all
citizens, or on subsidizing the ANC’s patronage
and reinforcing its one-party dominance in
a hybrid regime … There are different codes
of conduct in different jurisdictions, and
international business would need to heed
best practices regarding integrity risk and
reputational risk.451

South African Monitor reports have given clear This advice will remain valid in the years to come.
advice to international business since 2014:

449. https://www.ft.com/content/707c5560-d49a-11e7-8c9a-d9c0a5c8d5c9.
450. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/columnists/2018-01-18-hilary-joffe-overseas-firms-treading-sas-
minefield-need-to-know-what-the-bombs-look-like/; http://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/dienstleister/
korruptionsverdacht-suedafrika-fordert-millionen-von-mckinsey-zurueck/20856860.html.
451. See South African Monitor, (3), 2014, pp 47-49 and South African Monitor reports of 2015 and 2016.

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Part XI
The threat to property
and investor rights
investment”. Foreign diplomats, usually reserved,
ANC weakened European investor have started to voice their concerns in private and
protection in public.452

Since 2013, several ANC-directed business bills
and acts have increased distrust and concern in
foreign and domestic business circles. A headline
in The Economist of 27 March 2014 was clear:
“Bashing business for votes: New legislation may
save the ANC votes but will chase away foreign
Carol O’Brien, executive director of the American
Chamber of Commerce in South Africa, stated
in February 2015 that the plethora of legislation
coming out of South Africa is causing “jitters”
in US businesses with operations based in the
country.453 The chamber represents almost 40% of

452. http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2014/03/property-rights-south-africa; http://online.wsj.com/news/

articles/SB10001424052702303948104579537802749237362; http://www.polity.org.za/article/businesses-brace-
for-transformation-pressures-as-elections-loom-2014-04-08; http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-14/anc-
adopts-laws-before-vote-that-may-hurt-south-african-business.html; http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/2014/03/09/
diplomats-break-silence-on-investment-bill.
453. http://www.bdlive.co.za/economy/2015/02/20/barrage-of-new-laws-alarms-us-firms-in-sa.

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the six hundred US companies with operations in
South Africa. She said that the stream of legislation
did not send a message that foreign investment
was welcome in South Africa. The Southern Africa
Initiative of German Business (SAFRI), one of the
main German business associations looking at the
interests of about six hundred German businesses
in South Africa, has expressed dismay over the
direction of economic policy.454
Following costly arbitration claims brought
against South Africa by European investors, the
Zuma administration decided in 2010 to stop
signing bilateral investment treaties (BITs). The
Department of Trade and Industry has, since
2012, undertaken a targeted termination of all 13
treaties with European states, replacing them with
the Promotion and Protection of Investment Bill
(PPIB). The department has not terminated the
equally restrictive treaties that protect Chinese
and Russian investors in South Africa.455
Where treaties are terminated, the foreign
investors currently protected by them may have
no remedy against damaging policy changes. They
are also likely to receive less than the “prompt,
adequate and effective” compensation promised
by the treaties.456
The new Investment Bill or PPIB was approved by
Parliament and signed into law by President Zuma
at the end of 2015. In terms of this law, the rights
of foreign and domestic property owners have
been much reduced. The PPIB is supposed to apply
equally to foreign and domestic investors. “This
bill is part of a worrying trend that South Africa’s
protection of private property is weakening,”
stated Carol O’Brien in 2015.457
South Africa is Germany’s most important trading
partner on the African continent. The response
of SAFRI to the cancellation encapsulates the key
objections of European business to the policy:
1. Compared to the terminated BIT, the
Promotion and Protection of Investment
Bill (PPIB) does not provide a guarantee for
the fair and equitable treatment of foreign
investment. Changes in the legal framework
conditions to the disadvantage of investors
are possible at any time and might have the
effect that both the investment protection
and possible claims for compensation are
cancelled.
2. According to the wording of the bill the legal
protection of investments only comprises such
cases in which there is a direct expropriation.
Measures having an equivalent effect to
expropriation are, however, not comprised,
so that in such cases – contrary to the BIT – a
claim for compensation is not provided for.
3. In contrast to the BIT, compensation
payments in cases of expropriations can be
below market value, as the basis for any
decision is the general provision of fair and
equitable compensation, which reflects the
consideration of both public interests and
the interests of the parties concerned, and
not the market value.
4. The PPIB envisages the recourse to national
arbitral jurisdiction and arbitral tribunals,
whereas the access to international
arbitral tribunals is neither explicitly
mentioned nor allowed. However, for
international investors, the objective and
neutral settlement of disputes according to
international law is an important element in
investment decisions.458
Foreign companies may in fact receive zero
compensation if a taking of property by the state is
not recognised as an “act of expropriation” under

454. http://www.dw.de/german-corporate-unease-in-south-africa/a-18078269; http://www.badische-zeitung.de/

ausland-1/steinmeiers-vergebliche-visite-am-kap--95122906.html.
455. Ben Winks, “Investors pawns in political power play”, Business Day, 19 April 2016.
456. http://mg.co.za/article/2013-11-01-swiss-govt-reacts-to-termination-of-bilateral-investment-treaty-with-sa; http://
www.bdlive.co.za/business/2014/03/09/diplomats-break-silence-on-investment-bill.
457. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-17/south-african-lawmakers-approve-foreign-investment-bill.
458. Southern Africa Initiative of German Business, South Africa: New Legal Framework for Direct Investments, 2014, pp
1-2 at www.safri.de.

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the PPIB. According to Matthias Boddenberg, According to him, several will have a major impact
CEO of the South African-German Chamber of and there is concern over the ambiguous nature
Commerce and Industry, the PPIB would raise the of the legislation.462
investment risk of German companies, as well as
the risk insurance premiums they would need to
pay.459 German exports for the past decade show
Weakened property rights 463

an upward curve. However, German investment

Under the PPIB, signed by President Zuma into
in South Africa remains subdued, largely caused
law in December 2016, expropriated owners will
by the political uncertainties and the general
receive less than market value and will have no right
economic situation.
to damages for consequential loss. One danger in
the law is that domestic property owners will be
Stefan Sakoschek, the executive director of
confined to “just and equitable” compensation
the EU Chamber of Commerce in South Africa,
falling somewhat short of market value. An even
told parliamentarians during public hearings in
greater danger is that such property owners will
September 2015:
receive no compensation at all.
We are aware of a number of projects that
According to analyses of Senior Advocate Martin
are pending due to the degree of uncertainty
Brassey and policy analyst Doctor Anthea
related to the investment framework … The
Jeffery,464 this danger stems from a key clause in
withdrawal of SA’s (bilateral treaties) with EU
the legislation stating that various actions “do
member states has sent an alarming message
not amount to acts of expropriation”. There will
to the EU business community regarding the
thus be no expropriation where the state’s actions
standard of protection of investments. The new
result “in the deprivation of property”, but “the
bill does not sufficiently allay those concerns.460
state does not acquire ownership” and “there is
no permanent destruction of the economic value
In May 2016, Sakoschek stated that the conditions
of the investment”.465
for investing and doing business in South Africa
were “very different”, compared to the period
This situation could arise, for example, where the
when bilateral treaties still protected businesses.
state takes commercial farmland under claim as
According to Sakoschek, political instability and
“custodian” for land claimants, and then invites
regulatory uncertainty was forcing European firms
them to apply to it for licences to use portions
to reconsider investing in the country. The rules for
of this land for specified periods. In these
investing in South Africa appear to be changing too
circumstances, commercial farmers would be
quickly and too drastically.461 In September 2017,
deprived of their property, but the state would
Sakoschek again expressed deep concern over the
acquire it as custodian, rather than as owner –
large number of bills affecting foreign business.

459. http://www.marktundmittelstand.de/zukunftsmaerkte/ppib-deutsche-firmen-fuerchten-um-standort-
suedafrika-1233191/.
460. http://www.bdlive.co.za/economy/2015/09/10/investment-bill-may-cause-investor-flight-eu-firms-warn.
461. “Rules for investing in SA changing too drastically and too quickly”, Moneyweb, 31 May 2016.
462. http://www.ftwonline.co.za/article/126293/Pending-legislation-unsettles-EU-business/66.
463. The analysis of the PPIB’s contents is heavily indebted to the analyses of Doctor Anthea Jeffery of the SAIRR
and Advocate Martin Brassey, SC, as reflected in the sources quoted. Also see http://www.bdlive.co.za/
opinion/2013/06/10/bills-threaten-the-property-rights-of-all-south-africans; http://www.politicsweb.co.za/
politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71639/page71619?oid=579465&sn=Detail&pid=71619.
464. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2013/06/10/bills-threaten-the-property-rights-of-all-south-africans; http://www.
politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71639/page71619?oid=579465&sn=Detail&pid=71619.
Also see “Concourt ruling, new Investment Bill could give government sweeping powers to take property without
compensation”, Polity, 19 May 2014; Martin Brassey, “The ANC govt’s property rights grab”, Politicsweb, 22 July
2014.
465. http://www.sabinetlaw.co.za/economic-affairs/legislation/promotion-and-protection-investment; http://www.saiia.
org.za/opinion-analysis/draft-investment-bill-requires-amendment; http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2013/06/10/
bills-threaten-the-property-rights-of-all-south-africans.

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and there would be “no permanent destruction
of the economic value” of the land, which would
continue to be farmed by others. This means
there would be no “act of expropriation” under
the principles established by the PPIB. As a result,
no compensation would be payable.
Constitutional Court neutralized
property rights clause in
Constitution
The wording of this provision can be traced back
to a majority judgment of the Constitutional Court
in April 2013. This ruling was made by Chief Justice
Mogoeng Mogoeng, an appointee of President
Jacob Zuma.466 The ruling was concerned with
whether expropriation had occurred when an
unused and unconverted private mining right
“ceased to exist” under the Mineral and Petroleum
Resources Development Act (MPRDA) of 2002.
Judge Mogoeng found that Sebenza Property
Limited, which used to own the coal mining right
in issue, had suffered a “compulsory deprivation”
of its right under the MPRDA. In addition, “the
custodianship” of this resource was now “vested in
the state on behalf of the people of South Africa”.
However, the state had not acquired ownership
of the mining right. Instead, it was simply a
“custodian” or “conduit” through which “broader
and equitable access to mineral resources could
be realised”.467
The chief justice ruled that since the deprivation
of ownership from Sebenza had not been matched
by the acquisition of ownership by the state, no
expropriation had taken place. It followed that no
compensation was payable. Echoing this judgment,
a key provision in the PPIB states that various
actions “do not amount to acts of expropriation”.
Among the actions it lists, are “measures which
result in the deprivation of property, but where
the state does not acquire ownership of such
property”.
When Chief Justice Mogoeng handed down the
ruling on Sebenza’s rights, two judges of the
Constitutional Court, Johan Froneman and Johann
van der Westhuizen, disagreed with the majority’s
conclusion that no expropriation had taken place.
They also cautioned against the implications of
Judge Mogoeng’s ruling. According to the judges,
the ruling could lead to “the abolition of the private
ownership of … all property” without the payment
of any compensation. “Any legislative transfer of
property from existing property holders” would no
longer be “recognised as expropriation” if it was
“done by the state as custodian of the country’s
resources”, they said.468
Disempowered international and
South African property owners
Government could use the PPIB’s rules to take
further measures to vest all mining land, mining
equipment and other mining assets in the
state as the custodian of the nation’s mineral
resources. Simultaneously, it could invite black-
owned businesses in particular to apply to the
Department of Mineral Resources for a licence to
use a portion of these assets for a specified period.
If past experience is any guide, the businesses that
benefit, would usually be tied to supporters of the
ANC, and not to political opponents thereof.
Similar measures, intended to generate a similar
outcome, could be taken as regards all other
“investments” covered by the PPIB. These are
broadly defined to include companies; equities;
land; movables; and intellectual property;
along with mining rights and similar “licences,
authorisations, or permits … to carry out
economic and commercial activities”. Moreover,
the PPIB applies equally to domestic and foreign
investors, for the need to ensure equal treatment
for both categories of investor is a key theme of
the measure.469

466. http://mg.co.za/article/2011-08-16-zuma-picks-mogoeng-as-chief-justice.
467. Anthea Jeffery, “The ANC govt’s plan for expropriation on the sly”, Politicsweb, 25 February 2014; Martin Brassey,
“The ANC govt’s property rights grab”, Politicsweb, 22 July 2014.
468. Anthea Jeffery, “The ANC govt’s plan for expropriation on the sly”, Politicsweb, 25 February 2014; Martin Brassey,
“The ANC govt’s property rights grab”, Politicsweb, 22 July 2014.
469. Anthea Jeffery, “The ANC govt’s plan for expropriation on the sly”, Politicsweb, 25 February 2014; Martin Brassey,
“The ANC govt’s property rights grab”, Politicsweb, 22 July 2014.

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The PPIB’s reference to “investors” is also
misleading, for it suggests that the new law will
apply solely to companies and other commercial
enterprises. In fact, the law will apply to everyone,
including “natural persons” and “regardless of
nationality”.470 The law gives the state the power
to take measures to acquire property of virtually
any kind as “custodian” for the poor, and without
the need to pay any compensation.
The Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Act
came into force in July 2014, reopening the land
claims window and causing uncertainty about
investment in agriculture. In May 2016, Parliament
approved the Land Expropriation Bill, which
indicate the requirements for the state to lay
claim to land for public purposes or in the public
interest without the owner’s consent. The term
“property” in the Bill was not defined as referring
to land only, meaning it was open to interpretation
and could lead to movable property like shares
and intellectual property being expropriated. The
Bill will now be sent to the president to be signed
into law.471
(especially if those who design the scheme
are not catastrophically incompetent and/or
dumb)… If the executive was crafty enough,
and if it was well versed with the Constitutional
Court jurisprudence (neither of which one
can assume to be the case), it might well
devise a scheme that would have the effect
of diminishing the actual pension benefits of
salaried employees, without falling foul of
section 25(1).473
Creeping state ownership in the
mining and energy sectors
According to a survey published by the Chamber
of Mines in December 2017, based on 16 member
companies, the uncertain policy and regulatory
environment had caused the mining industry to
freeze investment on new projects. The estimated
planned capital spending of R145 billion in mining
could increase by R122 billion or 84% in a more
stable and conducive environment, the survey
found.474

The ANC is promising that if it is re-elected, the
government will investigate the possibility of
passing legislation that would require financial
institutions that invest the pension money of
most salaried workers, to invest part of the funds
in “prescribed assets”, presumably government-
controlled assets. If the government would force
retirement funds to “invest” 50% of all retirement
money in failing and corrupt SOEs,472 the question
arises whether a constitutional challenge to such
a move would be successful.
Constitutional Law expert Pierre de Vos stated:
The short answer is that it might not be that
easy to succeed with a constitutional challenge
Among the changes has been the amended
Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development
Amendment Bill of 2013 (the Mining Bill), which
was approved by the National Assembly on
1 November 2016.475 The Mining Bill also applies to
offshore oil and gas exploration and production.476
The law gives the minister of Mineral Resources
unprecedented discretionary powers in many
spheres. It gives the state a 20% “free carried
interest” (or free stake) in all new ventures of this
kind. It “entitles the state to a further participation
interest” of an unspecified percentage, to be
attained either via “acquisition at an agreed price”
or through a “production sharing agreement”
obliging the petroleum company in question to

470. “A new Expropriation Bill by another name”, Liberty, 25 February 2014, p 5; http://www.miningweekly.com/article/
top-lawyers-warn-of-mining-bills-devastating-consequences-2013-09-13.
471. http://mg.co.za/article/2016-05-26-parliament-approves-land-expropriation-bill.
472. For the section on SOEs, see Part X.
473. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2019-01-17-is-the-government-coming-for-your-pension-and-would-
this-be-unconstitutional/.
474. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/economy/2018-01-16-mining-output-accelerated-more-than-expected-in-
november-2017/.
475. http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=e4cc1739-49a3-41e1-98e0-5d97cb86d704; http://allafrica.com/
stories/201612050901.html.
476. http://www.miningweekly.com/article/local-mining-industry-still-in-doldrums-economists-2016-12-08/rep_id:3650.

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“share ... the extracted resource” with the state.
An earlier version of the bill put this additional
interest at 30% and expressly limited the state’s
potential stake to a maximum of “50% per
petroleum operation”. Now, the state can demand
as much as an 80% additional share, over and
above its 20% free share.
Oil and gas companies will find it difficult to
negotiate an accurate price. They will be required
to pay 100% of the costs of developing new
projects, but will receive only 80% of the profits.
This means that only projects that can fund the
government’s 20% free ride will be developed.477
Business Day, the premier business publication in
South Africa, previously commented:
(T)he Mineral and Petroleum Resources
Development Amendment Bill allows
government to “cherry-pick”, forcing producers
to sell all of their most profitable projects
to the government. They must do this at an
“agreed price” rather than a market price.
This means companies can never recoup the
costs of exploration or of unprofitable projects.
The consequences are obvious. Under such
conditions companies will not explore in South
Africa. Nor will they develop projects they know
the government will nationalise.478
In April 2016, the Department of Mineral Resources
released a revised mining charter that demands a
perpetual minimum of 26% black ownership per
mining right. The charter was drawn up without
consultation with the industry. Many companies
have complied with this requirement, but BEE
partners have exited, taking their profits, or the
previous BEE partner has transferred shares to a
non-BEE company. The charter now states that all
BEE targets stipulated in the mining charter shall
be applicable throughout the lifespan of mines.
The charter increased the level of capital goods
procurement from BEE-compliant companies to
60% from 40%.479
The new Mining Charter III published in 2017
increased the uncertainty in the sector. It
proposed an increase in black ownership targets
to 30%; the creation of more onerous ownership
requirements for suppliers to the industry;
and demands that research and development
should be focused locally, ideally at previously
disadvantaged universities.480 The Mining Charter
agreed on in late 2018 indicated a continued
emphasis on black economic empowerment. For
existing mines however, the minimum of black
ownership now stays at 26% for the duration of
existing mine rights. New mining right holders will
need 30%. There now is no required increase in
the final draft if it has met the previous metrics laid
out in the 2010 Mining Charter. A mining project
that was launched following the publication of the
2018 version must meet new, higher standards.
The option of paying “equity-equivalent” benefits
to local communities has been added.481
Mining Charter III’s acceptance by the government
in late 2018 was the culmination of months of
intensive engagements with stakeholders in the
industry, including mining companies, investors,
mining communities, labour, financial institutions,
as well as the legal fraternity. The withdrawal of
the MPRDA Amendment Bill and the ongoing
development of a separate regime for oil and gas
resources, demonstrated that extensive lobbying
by business may still improve policy certainty
and create an environment that is conducive to
investment.482

477. http://mg.co.za/article/2013-09-13-experts-stakeholders-grill-proposed-changes-to-mining-laws.
478. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2014/03/31/a-hard-ask-for-business-to-criticise-government.
479. “Department blindsides miners with new charter”, Business Day, 15 April 2016.
480. https://www.moneyweb.co.za/moneyweb-opinion/soapbox/mining-industry-hopes-that-the-new-broom-sweeps-
clean/.
481. https://www.mining-technology.com/features/the-final-shape-of-south-africas-new-mining-charter/; https://www.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-02/south-africa-s-latest-mining-charter-what-s-new-and-who-wins.
482. http://www.miningweekly.com/article/policy-certainty-lifts-sentiment-safety-slips-and-a-challenging-2019-
forecast-2018-12-14.

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However, it remains to be seen whether a new ANC
government will be able to provide the longer-
term policy certainty that the mining industry
requires for its projects of long-term investment.
The investment actions by mining companies
reflect that many are doubtful whether current
political dynamics favour such policy certainty.
Increased state ownership and
control of the lucrative security
industry
ANC attempts at other forms of creeping
expropriation can be expected in the hybrid
regime in the next decade. The Private Security
Regulation Amendment Bill of 2013 (alias the
Security Bill) was adopted by Parliament in
February 2014 and is to be signed into law. A
provision reintroduced in the closing stages of
the parliamentary process requires that “at least
51% of the ownership and control” of security
companies must be “exercised by South African
citizens”. Foreign-owned companies will be forced
to sell 51% of their shares to South Africans.
The clause on expropriation speaks of a minimum
of 51% local ownership, but leaves it up to the
minister of Police to decide on a higher figure.
Both the South African Chamber of Commerce
and Industry (SACCI) and the Security Industry
Alliance (SIA) have requested Zuma not to sign this
bill.483 There are concerns that the bill is focused
less on legislating the companies and more on
regulating them as businesses. This would mean
that the sector would be subject to government’s
“transformation” strategies and discouraging
foreign investment in favour of South African
ownership.484 These clauses would be in violation
of South Africa’s commitments under the General
Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the
World Trade Organisation (WTO).
According to Stefan Sakoschek, the director of
the EU Chamber of Commerce and Inustry in
Southern Africa, the Private Security Industry
Regulation Amendment Bill currently is a priority
concern. “Our concern is that it introduces the
topic of nationalisation again. The legislation gives
power to the minister of Police to expropriate up
to 100% of a foreign-owned security company.
The bill also allows for foreign ownership of local
private security companies to be limited.” He
said in terms of the legislation the definition of a
security company was extremely broad in the bill.
“We have many companies that manufacture and
import security products into South Africa and
this bill could impact on them negatively.”485
It remains to be seen how Ramaphosa’s ANC
government deals with this issue. However, as in
the other sectors covered in this report, the ANC
is likely to promote extensive local ownership in
the security industry, which will also maintain or
create opportunities for its politics of patronage.

483. http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2014/06/19/business-groups-urge-zuma-not-to-sign-disputed-bill-on-private-
security; http://www.issafrica.org/iss-today/are-foreign-owned-private-security-companies-a-threat-to-south-
africas-national-security; http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/06/prweb11907317.htm.
484. https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/175651/new-laws-could-mean-the-end-of-private-security-as-we-
know-it-in-sa-report/; http://city-press.news24.com/Business/Private-security-amendment-bill-the-enemy-of-SA-
economy-20151009.
485. http://www.ftwonline.co.za/article/126293/Pending-legislation-unsettles-EU-business/66.

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Part XII
Expropriation without
compensation and weaker
civil rights
sub-committee head of economic transformation,
The ANC turns to expropriation Enoch Godongwana, said the conference agreed
without compensation that the Constitution should be amended to
achieve expropriation without compensation. The
One of the key policy decisions at the ANC National Water Act of 1998 had already made
conference in December 2017 was on the ANC government the “public trustee of the
expropriation of land without compensation. The nation’s water resources”.486 However, the policy

486. https://www.dwa.gov.za/Documents/Publications/NWAguide/part1.pdf.

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had previously been advocated mainly by the

radical socialist EFF, an ANC breakaway party.487
The ANC announced in February 2018 that it plans
to expropriate mostly white-owned farms without
compensation. President Ramaphosa announced
on 31 July 2018 that the ANC will even try to change
the Constitution to support such expropriation
without compensation. On 22 August 2018,
Ramaphosa confirmed that urban land would also
be covered by the ANC’s expropriation policies.488
On 15 November 2018, Parliament’s Joint
Constitutional Review Committee adopted a report
that recommends that the wording of Section
25 of the Constitution be changed to explicitly
allow for expropriation without compensation.
President Ramaphosa made the announcement
re the amend of the Constitution even before the
public participation process about expropriation
without compensation had been finalised.489 A
defective consultation process in the run-up to
the report means that any amendments could
be challenged in court.490 However, this step also
reflected the dynamics of one-party dominant
rule and a hybrid regime.
The report of the parliamentary committee will
now be referred to the National Assembly for
approval, which is likely, given the ANC majority
and support from the socialist EFF. Parliament
must establish the mechanism for the drafting of
the constitutional amendment, be that a special
ad hoc committee, or an existing one, in a process
that would entail further public hearings. It is as
yet uncertain whether this will occur before the
national elections scheduled for 8 May 2019.491
Racial populism to divert attention
from ANC failures
Former President Thabo Mbeki’s foundation
stated in a leaked internal paper that the ANC has
abandoned its historical values on non-racialism
through its framing of the land reform debate as
one of black versus white. The paper points to
comments by former President Jacob Zuma in
Parliament in February 2018 when he called on
“black parties” to unite to obtain a two-thirds
majority to amend the Constitution to allow for
land expropriation without compensation.
Jacob Zuma was advancing a
perspective about the “resolution of the
national question” radically different
from the long-established and historic
position of the ANC … as part of this
he [Zuma] also made bold to change the
very nature of the ANC, characterising
it as a “black party”.
The current position expressed by some leaders
of the ANC on land expropriation without
compensation shows that they have “accepted”
to be led by the EFF on the matter.492
Political economist Moeletsi Mbeki said in this
regard:

487. Susan Booysen, Dominance and decline: The ANC in the time of Zuma (Wits University Press, Johannesburg, 2015), p
229.
488. https://www.enca.com/news/urban-land-will-be-expropriated-ramaphosa.
489. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-07-02-the-farce-of-public-consultation-on-land-expropriation-
without-compensation/; https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/land-the-people-speak-tensions-simmer-
in-pietermaritzburg-20180720; https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/land-the-people-speak-we-are-all-
africans-rustenburg-residents-told-20180719.
490. https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/284258/south-africas-land-seizure-debate-what-farmers-banks-and-
citizens-have-to-say/.
491. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-11-13-expropriation-without-compensation-is-a-done-deal-all-thats-
left-is-the-formalities/.
492. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2018-09-25-thabo-mbeki-decries-divisive-anc-land-approach/.

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This is not about land. It is about the loss of votes of European businesses and tens of thousands
by the ANC. And the ANC and its little son, the of European citizens in South Africa. Already in
EFF, they think they can bring back the voters September 2017, Stefan Sakoschek, regional
who are abandoning the ANC by attacking the director of the EU Chamber of Commerce and
white population … Its solution is to attack the Industry in South Africa, expressed the Chamber’s
white population. Malema is leading the ANC’s concern over land reform that had also still been
election campaign by attacking the white pending at that stage:
population.493
Again the definitions in the legislation are very
Racial nationalist discourses by the factionalized
broad and if accepted it will have major impact
ANC and the EFF blaming Afrikaners and whites in
on foreigners operating in South Africa. There
general have started to overshadow the non-racialist
are concerns that the bill is aimed at keeping
approach of the Mandela years. However, a senior
foreigners out, but there are worries about the
government panel chaired by former President
expropriation potential that is created.496
Kgalema Motlanthe had already concluded that
the fact that land reform has not succeeded so
In April 2018, members of the European Parliament
far, is neither the fault of the Constitution, nor of
correctly stressed during their meeting with South
white farmers, but of government incompetence
African counterparts that any expropriation should
in dealing with thousands of still outstanding
meet the agreement of the owners in question
claims, four thousand state farms not being used
and that fair compensation should be provided.
for distribution, corruption, misguided policies, an
insufficient 1% of the budget being allocated to
The ANC’s support for expropriation without
the issue, and inefficient government systems, as
compensation has already served as a red light
elsewhere in the economy and security services.494
to many foreign investors. From 2013 to 2017,
FDI inflows into the country had already declined
In fact, according to an Afrobarometer survey in
from US$ 8.3 billion to US$ 1.3 billion.497 On 31 July
November 2018, a “slim majority” of 53% said
2018, the IMF warned in its annual Article IV report
government should maintain the “willing seller,
that the ongoing debate on expropriation without
willing buyer” policy, rather than expropriation
compensation is creating policy uncertainty on
without compensation, with only 26% totally
property rights and discrediting South Africa’s
disagreeing. Half of black South Africans and
stated need for foreign investment.498
51% of ANC supporters supported this principle,
compared to 62% of coloured citizens, 68% of
The South African Reserve Bank stated in
Indians and 73% of white South Africans.495
November 2018 that it foresees a high risk of
lower domestic economic growth in 2019. It
How will European policymakers mentioned uncertainty about land expropriation,
which raised uncertainty about property rights
and foreign investors respond? and could could affect investor sentiment, as
one of the factors causing this.499 “If you create
It remains to be seen how European policymakers
uncertainty of some aspects of your environment,
ensure the protection of the interests of thousands

493. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2018/05/15/experts-how-land-expropriation-could-go-very-very-
wrong_a_23435358/.
494. https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1933899/anc-admits-land-reform-failure-recommends-security-of-
tenure/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBkzjji9mkQ; https://irr.org.za/reports/freefacts/files/freefacts-
june-2018-22-06-2018.pdf; https://irr.org.za/reports/occasional-reports/files/irr-in-britain-notes-tc-11-07-18.pdf.
495. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-11-13-expropriation-without-compensation-is-a-done-deal-all-thats-
left-is-the-formalities/.
496. http://www.ftwonline.co.za/article/126293/Pending-legislation-unsettles-EU-business/66.
497. http://www.mondaq.com/uk/x/731134/agriculture+land+law/Expropriation+Of+Land+Without+Compensation+In+S
outh+Africa+May+Breach+International+Law.
498. https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/imf-warns-about-damaging-effects-of-land-policy-16332203.
499. https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/282816/4-things-expected-to-hit-south-africas-financial-stability-in-the-
next-year-according-to-the-reserve-bank/.

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and land tenure is one of them, that is one aspect
that investors will be looking at,” Sérgio Pimenta,
the vice president for the Middle East and Africa
at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the
World Bank’s private investment arm, also stated
on 14 November 2018.500
Companies and individuals in South Africa may
find it harder to insure their properties in future,
as the risk of expropriation without compensation
is becoming a real threat for insurers. The latter
normally cover the risk of expropriation if it
occurs through a series of cumulative acts by the
government that eventually diminish the value of
a person’s property. However, they mostly do not
cover legal expropriation done in accordance with
a country’s laws.501
Economic risks and food insecurity
Serious disruption of the already challenged
agricultural sector can have major negative
implications for food security in South Africa, as
it has done in Zimbabwe since 2000. Electorates
in Western countries are unlikely to be keen to
support development aid after such deliberate
high-risk policies in South Africa.
According to the Banking Association of South
Africa (BASA), there has been a decline in
the number of farm transactions and in land
prices processed by South African banks since
the proposal to amend the constitution. The
farming community has adopted “a wait-and-
see approach”. BASA also observed a decrease
in capital investment into agricultural properties.
It warned that “prolonged uncertainty” would
significantly reduce property values, although
banks continue to view agriculture as an attractive
sector.502
According to BASA’s Cas Coovadia, banks have
lent an estimated 10 billion Euro or more to the
agricultural sector based on land as collateral.
Several banks and the entire financial system in
South Africa could be put at risk if that security
were to be threatened. BASA had stated
previously that the Constitution already makes
sufficient provision for expropriation. When
the parliamentary committee stated that it had
agreed to an amendment to the Constitution,
BASA responded:503
An amendment that leaves all property or
specific classes of property – homes, assets,
intellectual property, productive agricultural
property, among others – vulnerable to
expropriation without compensation, would be
a real risk to banks and the country’s ability to
attract both local and international investment,
grow an inclusive economy and create jobs.504
According to the chairman of the Land and
Agricultural Development Bank, Arthur Moloto,
expropriation without compensation could could
trigger wide defaults that would translate to a loss
of 41 billion rand to the government if the bank’s
right as a creditor were not to be protected.505
Land is not sufficient for successful farming in arid
South Africa. Experience and entrepreneurship,
working capital, know-how, machinery, labour,
fuel, electricity, seed, chemicals, feed for livestock,
security, and water are all essential. Many of the
people to whom land has been transferred, have
little knowledge of agriculture, with insufficient

500. http://news.trust.org/item/20181114111607-hsjrq/.
501. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2018-09-28-property-insurance-under-threat-in-harsh-land-
expropriation-climate/.
502. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2018-10-18-fewer-farm-deals-as-farmers-adopt-wait-and-see-
approach/; https://www.thesouthafrican.com/land-expropriation-bosa-concern/.
503. https://www.iol.co.za/ios/news/banks-call-for-clarity-on-expropriation-without-compensation-18134092.
504. https://www.iol.co.za/ios/news/banks-call-for-clarity-on-expropriation-without-compensation-18134092. Also see
https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/economy/banks-weigh-in-on-land-debate-16824559.
505. https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/sas-land-bank-warns-expropriation-could-trigger-default/; https://
www.businesslive.co.za/bt/business-and-economy/2018-08-25-land-bank-boss-tshokolo-nchocho-on-the-dire-
consequences-of-expropriation/.

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development of black commercial farming by the
ANC.
Future scenarios point to lower
capital formation
A macroeconomic impact assessment of the policy
of land expropriation without compensation has
been undertaken by University of Pretoria Gordon
Institute of Business Science (GIBS) academic,
Roelof Botha, and University of Johannesburg
professor, Ilse Botha. They compared countries
that have pursued policies similar to expropriation
without compensation, including Portugal, Spain,
Romania, Vietnam, Venezuela, Ethiopia and
Zimbabwe.
The researchers have found that the ratio
of capital formation/GDP in these countries
declined annually by an average 13.9% after the
implementation of such policies. They noted
that the public debate about land expropriation
without compensation in South Africa had already
precipitated a decline in real terms of capital
formation by more than 7% over the past eleven
quarters.
They describe two scenarios based on
conservatively estimated declines in capital
formation of 5% and 10% a year respectively. In
both scenarios, economic recession, escalating
financing requirements for government, higher
money market and capital market interest rates
and a higher cost of servicing public debt will
result. This will “crowd-out” the government’s
ability to spend funds on poverty alleviation and
basic services such as education, health and the
maintenance of infrastructure.
Against the background of the current high level
of socio-political unrest in SA, the combination
of a prolonged recession, higher interest
506. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2018-11-12-land-expropriation-without-compensation-spells-economic-
disaster/.
507. https://irr.org.za/reports/occasional-reports/files/empowering-the-state-impoverishing-the-people.pdf.
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SA Monitor2018 .indd 116
rates and significantly higher unemployment
will tend to aggravate the security situation
in the country in general. An escalation of
criminal activity can also be expected, which
will encourage the emigration of highly
skilled people, further eroding the country’s
international competitiveness.506
Infringing civil rights and
strengthening the hybrid regime
In the run-up to the 2019 national elections
and beyond, investors and policymakers will
encounter major ANC propaganda campaigns to
promote the essentially non-democratic notion
of expropriation without compensation. These
campaigns will periodicially focus on scapegoats,
like cultural minorities, and use racial nationalism
to divert attention from the ANC’s governance
failures while ruling a one-party dominant
order.507 It will present the policy drive as one
of restoring historical injustice, even though it
would involve expropriating the legally acquired
and paid property of citizens and communities no
longer seen as being within the ANC’s shrunken
social contract.
Compensation has historically been the most
important and most substantive brake on abusive
government confiscations. Compensation also is
a means of recognising the prior ownership and
dignity of the victim of expropriation. As legal
researcher, Martin van Staden, wrote:
Without being required to pay compensation,
the process of expropriation for government will
become significantly easier and opportunities
for abuse will be magnified tenfold.
Up to now, constitutional property rights
consisted of two dimensions: (1) securing
existing property rights, and (2) expanding
4/11/2019 3:22:35 PM
 SAMonitor

property rights to those who were denied

it during Apartheid. Expropriation without
compensation is an aberration and fits into
neither of these two dimensions. It de-secures
existing property rights, which as a result
means any expropriated property transferred
to previously disadvantaged South Africans
will be similarly insecure. After the Constitution
is amended, we will therefore be justified in
asking: Is the Constitution now dedicated to
helping citizens protect their property rights, or
to enabling government to violate them?508

The process of expropriation without compensation

as it relates to land, like the broader trend to state
intervention covered in Parts X and XI, aims at
diluting investor and property rights more broadly.
This would allow the one-party dominant rulers
to seize or extract wealth wherever it is found.509
In the process, it also increases the leverage of
political rulers over citizens and communities,
constraining the development of opposition
politics in a hybrid regime.

508. https://www.iafrica.com/right-to-compensation-central-to-protecting-human-rights/.
509. https://www.news24.com/Columnists/GuestColumn/the-threat-of-expropriation-without-compensation-is-closer-
than-you-think-20190123.

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Foreign patrons, factional
struggles and anti-
Western rhetoric
Strong factions in the ANC feel closer to China,
Russia, Zimbabwe and Venezuela’s Maduro
government510 than to the Western powers
responsible for 75% of South Africa’s foreign trade.
Their outlook is strongly influenced by political
ties, entrenched ideological roots and geopolitical
positioning.
This outlook was again demonstrated by a
diplomatic incident at the beginning of 2019.
The semi-boycott of investment by disillusioned
foreign businesspeople had been noted for
years by foreign diplomats too. In early 2019, a
discussion document from mid-2018 was leaked in
Part XIII
which the diplomats of Germany, the USA, the UK,
the Netherlands and Switzerland had listed some
of the reasons for this somber business mood.
The reasons included concerns about property
rights and insufficient investor protection after
the ANC government’s unilateral cancellation
of bilaterial investment treaties. It also included
concerns about the rule of law and regulatory
predictability.511
The ANC responded with claims that the Western
powers were latter-day colonialists and promoting
regime change.512 Wolfgang Drechsler, a foremost
African expert and journalist, wrote:

510. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-03-01-south-africa-stands-firm-behind-maduro/.
511. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-02-04-investor-countries-june-2018-memo-to-pretoria-sparks-
february-2019-diplomatic-incident/; https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-02-05-the-investors-memo-
anatomy-of-self-inflicted-damage/.
512. https://ewn.co.za/2019/02/05/anc-accuses-5-western-countries-of-pushing-for-regime-change-in-sa.

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How deep the economic and political
dogmatism is entrenched in the ANC, can be
seen in the official response to the initiative
of the five embassies. Instead of seriously
testing the recommendations to improve the
investment climate, the ANC labelled them as
unacceptable “meddling by former colonialists”
and an imperialist “pretext to the country’s
recolonization”.513
Foreign actors may also play a role in intra-ANC
factional struggles. Russian decision makers,
actively trying to expand Russia’s influence in
Africa, may find it easier at present to align with
strong Zuma-aligned networks that they have
dealt with in the past decade. Russia has been
conspicuously absent from the list of countries
pledging support for Ramaphosa during his drive
for foreign investment in 2018.516

Greater reliance on non-Western Looking to China for symbolic and

patrons
Due to political factionalism and economic policy
failures, the ANC has become more reliant on
foreign patrons. South Africa’s foreign policy has
clearly pivoted to China and Russia during the
Zuma presidency, when Ramaphosa served as
vice-president. This policy differs dramatically
from the more balanced multipolar approach
under Nelson Mandela’s presidency.
economic leadership
The ANC leadership has come to view China’s
Communist rulers as their example. According
to John Matisonn, confidential sources indicated
that Zuma had told his cabinet members in 2012
already to go to China for political training.517
A Better Africa, the above-mentioned ANC policy
discussion document, concludes:

A Better Africa in a Better and Just World, a
discussion document of the ruling ANC of 2015,
reflected this shift.514 It formed the basis for
foreign policy discussions at the ANC’s policy-
making National General Council in mid-October
2015. Such discussion documents are often an
early indication of ANC policy directions in the
following five years.515
At this stage, Ramaphosa is likely to continue the
ANC’s strong leaning towards China. It remains to
be seen how he will deal with the USA’s renewed
engagement in Africa during the Trump presidency.
The post-Zuma period and divisions in the EU may
allow him to repair relations with some European
actors.
China [sic] economic development trajectory
remains a leading example of the triumph of
humanity over adversity. The exemplary role
of the collective leadership of the Communist
Party of China in this regard should be a guiding
lodestar of our own struggle.518
China now is South Africa’s top trade partner.519
China is also using strategic debt to expand its
influence. In mid-2018, ESKOM received another
$3.5 billion in loans from the China Development
Bank to finish the $15-billion Kusile power plant,
also with Hitachi/ANC boilers.520 The bank’s prior
major loan to South Africa was to Transnet ($5
billion) for China South Rail’s and Shanghai Zenhua
Heavy Industries’ corruption-riddled locomotives

513. https://www.fuw.ch/article/aufgefallen-in-suedafrika-ex-kolonie-der-schweiz/.
514. African National Congress NGC 2015 Discussion Documents can be viewed at http://www.anc.org.za/docs/
umrabulo/2015/ngc_disc_docsy.pdf. Chapter 7 of the document, pp 157-193, is entitled “International Relations”.
515. The ANC held its mid-term National General Council (NGC) in October 2015. The NGC is the ANC’s highest
policymaking body in between the quinquennial meetings of its National Conference. Ahead of the NGC meeting,
various subcommittees of the National Executive body released discussion documents.
516. Africa Confidential, 59(20), 12 October 2018, pp 1-3.
517. John Matisonn, God, spies and lies (Missing Ink, Vlaeberg, 2016), p 417.
518. African National Congress NGC 2015 Discussion Documents at http://www.anc.org.za/docs/umrabulo/2015/ngc_
disc_docsy.pdf, p 161.
519. http://www.moneyweb.co.za/news-fast-news/chinas-jinping-pledges-60bn-to-africa-development/.
520. https://monthlyreview.org/2019/01/01/south-africa-suffers-capitalist-crisis-deja-vu/.

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and Durban-crane procurement via the Gupta
family empire. According to Mills Soko,521 political
economist at the University of Cape Town’s
Graduate School of Business, the ANC government
is treating China as a unique strategic partner:
The government’s refusal to raise
tariffs on cheap steel imports from
China suggests that it will prioritise
its relationship with China at the
expense of domestic interests.
Doctor Jakkie Cilliers, chairperson of the ISS Board
of Trustees in Pretoria, commented:
In exchange for its membership of the BRICS,
South Africa appears to have also given China
a licence to de-industrialise the country despite
the fact that the EU, as a bloc, is South Africa’s
major trading partner.522
Thus, South Africa’s foreign policy shift reflects a
geopolitical and domestic political reorientation.
The ANC persists in seeing Chinese state capitalism
as its model for a developmental state. This
remains the case despite South Africa’s strong
private sector and despite bad governance of its
parastatal companies weakening the economy
even further at this stage. In some cases, Chinese
parastatals and other companies are likely to
enjoy a politically-based advantage over Western
companies.523
Political and security cooperation have become
closer. The education of higher-level executives at
South African SOEs and senior ANC party cadres
is conducted in cooperation with the Communist
Party of China.524 The ANC government has also
already signed a deal with the Chinese government
on cooperation related to internet infrastructure
and cyber-security.525
Voting against human rights
measures at the UN
How will these events impact on South Africa’s
political system? They occurred while Western
powers widely criticized the Chinese record on
political pluralism and its limiting of citizens’ access
to “undesirable” news from the outside and social
media.526 After protests in the Ukraine, Turkey and
Venezuela, the UN Human Rights Council brought
a resolution in 2014 to safeguard the right to
peaceful protest. In March 2014, South Africa led
a group including China, Russia and Saudi Arabia
in proposing several amendments to water down
the resolution, which prompted criticism from the
UK representative in Geneva and from Human
Rights Watch.527
In November 2015, South Africa voted with Russia
and China against a UN resolution that would
recognise threats against defenders of human
rights. In July 2016, South Africa joined China
and Russia in voting against a UN resolution on
the “promotion, protection and enjoyment of
human rights on the internet”. The resolution
was however adopted by most other member
states and will be used by the UN Human Rights
Council. The resolution tried to ensure political
commitment from member states to protect
freedom of expression and privacy online, and to
refrain from shutting down the internet during key
times such as elections or terror attacks.528
Conditions for good democracy or criticisms of
ANC policies formulated by Western powers,
Western media or domestic opposition groups are
increasingly being portrayed as neo-colonialist.

521. http://mg.co.za/article/2015-08-22-sa-and-china-a-love-founded-on-state-control.
522. https://issafrica.org/iss-today/selling-our-future-for-a-bric-time-to-rethink-south-africas-foreign-policy.
523. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/editorials/2018-01-15-editorial-why-the-sinopec-deal-is-intriguing/.
524. http://mg.co.za/article/2015-08-22-sa-and-china-a-love-founded-on-state-control; http://www.cnbc.
com/2016/08/24/will-closer-ties-to-china-rescue-south-africas-government.html.
525. http://www.cpifinancial.net/news/post/31624/south-africa-and-china-sign-ict-plan.
526. http://www.giga-hamburg.de/de/publication/zivilgesellschaft-unter-druck-globaler-widerstand-gegen-demokratie-
wächst; http://www.giga-hamburg.de/de/news/media-made-in-china.
527. http://blog.unwatch.org/index.php/2014/04/01/shaky-road-to-important-peaceful-protest-resolution/.
528. http://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2016-11-08-states-double-dealing-a-threat-to-rights-in-sa/.

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Some NGOs claim that the Chinese government
and the ANC government assist each other in
obstructing or delaying the requests of critical
NGOs to gain observer status at some UN structures
for NGOs. These NGOs include Freedom Now, a
US-based group supporting political prisoners of
conscience, and AfriForum, a South African-based
group supporting minority and civil rights.529
It remains to be seen to what extent South Africa
under Ramaphosa uses its non-permanent seat on
the UN Security Council during 2019 to promote
human rights selectively or with geopolitical trade-
offs. Its freedom of action will be constrained by
the ANC’s internal factionalism, the struggling
economy and socio-political challenges, including
the land reform policy.530
Choosing Russia against “US-
sponsored destabilisation”
to enhance its position in Africa and extend its
influence in South Africa.533 As Prof Mark Swilling
noticed:
Putin signed a decree in 2007 that provided
for the consolidation of all nuclear capabilities
built up during the Cold War into a new civilian
nuclear industry with global ambitions. Since
then, Russians have been building nuclear
power plants that are a hybrid between an
embassy and a military base, often financed off
a state guarantee that effectively gives Russia
massive leverage over the host country.534
Relations between Putin and Zuma developed
to both personal and national security interests.
When Zuma believed he had been poisoned in
August 2014, it was to Russia that he allegedly
went to get medical treatment.535 During the same
period, news emerged of a mysterious, but major
personal deal on a nuclear energy programme
concluded in Russia between Putin and Zuma.

Both domestic and foreign considerations play a
role in the ANC’s policy towards Russia. Business
Day editor Peter Bruce speculated in 2013 that
the ANC’s financial troubles would probably
result in the party returning to its dependence on
foreign funders, especially among non-Western
powers.531 In 2014, reports emerged that the ANC
was broke. The ANC denied the reports.532
Putin, a former KGB intelligence officer, used
the opportunity to strengthen Russia’s policy
The nuclear energy deal was in contrast with
energy and economic policies, including the
NDP. Major departments in South Africa were
not involved in the opaque deal, reputed to be
worth up to $100 billion.536 Zuma also dismissed
ministers who opposed the deal and did not follow
the prescribed procedures. The nuclear deal had
as much potential for corruption as the arms deal
scandals of the 1990s, in which Zuma’s role has
not yet been clarified.537

529. http://mg.co.za/article/2015-08-13-diplomatic-fracas-brews-over-ngo-freedom-now.
530. https://m.dw.com/de/s%C3%BCdafrika-im-un-sicherheitsrat-f%C3%BChrungsqualit%C3%A4ten-
gefordert/a-47093477.
531. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2013/11/18/thick-end-of-the-wedge-zuma-is-pretty-well-untouchable-
politically.
532. http://mg.co.za/article/2014-10-30-broke-anc-may-have-to-cut-jobs-for-comrades; http://mg.co.za/article/2014-10-
31-anc-denies-it-is-broke.
533. http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/en/blogs/africasource/russia-s-return-to-africa-an-update.
534. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2019-01-21-the-zuma-power-elite-is-alive-kicking-and-preparing-to-
replace-ramaphosa/.
535. http://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/opinion/reliance-on-russia-goes-way-back-1.1903975.
536. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/08/14/uk-safrica-nuclear-idUKKCN0QJ11T20150814; “Jacob Zuma’s secret nuke
stitch-up”, Mail and Guardian, 26 September 2014; “Less Russia, more speed”, Financial Mail, 4 September 2014;
“SA denies corruption in Russia’s nuclear deal”, Fin24, 1 October 2014.
537. https://mg.co.za/article/2017-10-17-president-jacob-zuma-implements-his-12th-cabinet-reshuffle.

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Since his election as president, Ramaphosa has

indicated that the nuclear deal will not be pursued
immediately. However, in Russia, Vladimir Putin
has won the election and will be ruling until 2024.
538
Russia has also increased its efforts to build
influence in Africa, using government-backed
security, arms, energy and industrial deals.539 At
present it is unknown whether the ANC-controlled
security apparatus will markedly change their
policies on Russia.540 Numerous intelligence
officials of South Africa have received training in
Russia in recent years.541 In September 2016, the
deputy director of the Russian Federal Service for
Military-Technical Cooperation (FSVTS), Anatoly
Punchuk, confirmed that the FSVTS had for the
first time proposed to South Africa to engage in
joint industrial research in the defence sphere.542
According to leaked cables obtained by Al Jazeera,
the military intelligence services of both countries
have been involved in a $100 million joint satellite
surveillance programme covering Africa. The
satellite system, known as Project Condor, is
regarded as a significant part of the envisaged
strategic cooperation between Russia and South
Africa. The project is also aimed at challenging the
domination of African arms sales by the US and
France.
In the document, the ANC leadership also
reaffirmed its ideological roots:
The ANC is a revolutionary national
liberation movement which is an
integral part of the international
revolutionary movement to liberate
humanity from the bondage of
543
imperialism and neo-colonialism.
The text even went so far as to quote the
founder of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin, on
the revolutionary transformation of society, and
extolled the value of the Russian Revolution in
1917.544 The ANC document does not celebrate
the fall of the Berlin Wall a quarter of a century
ago. Instead, the ANC document actually laments
“the sudden collapse of socialism in the world
[that] altered completely the balance of forces in
favour of imperialism”. This new imperialism has
“plunged humanity in a perpetual socio-economic
crisis”, and the US stands accused of “effectively
using its aggressive foreign policy to advance its
national interests”.
Anti-Western bias and paranoia
Outlandish international conspiracy theories
periodically find fertile ground in the ANC,
according to political scientist Anthony Butler
of the University of Cape Town.545 In September

538. https://www.economist.com/news/europe/21738386-atlantic-alliance-ill-prepared-deter-russian-aggression-russias-
conventional-forces.
539. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/west-watches-with-concern-as-putin-builds-influence-in-africa-1.3767151.
540. https://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFKBN1FF1JT-OZATP?utm_source=34553&utm_medium=partner.
541. http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Spies-trained-in-Russia-raise-double-agent-fears-20140831.\; https://
www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-02-05-ramaphosa-will-need-to-tackle-the-state-security-agency/#.
WngwGqjibIU.
542. https://rbth.com/news/2016/09/13/russia-proposes-to-south-africa-industrial-cooperation-in-defense-
sphere_629635.
543. African National Congress NGC 2015 Discussion Documents at http://www.anc.org.za/docs/umrabulo/2015/ngc_
disc_docsy.pdf, pp 160, 185-186.
544. http://allafrica.com/stories/201508251340.html; http://time.com/3601968/anc-south-africa-china-communist-
party/. For a similar approach in Zimbabwe, see http://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/the-ideology-of-russia-s-return-
to-africa/.
545. “ANC blame shifting exercise is under way”, Business Day, 26 February 2016.

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2014, Kebby Maphatsoe, the deputy minister of
Defence and Veterans, called Public Protector Thuli
Madonsela a CIA agent because of her continued
investigation of the Nkandla scandal involving
President Zuma. The US ambassador was present
and lodged an official complaint. Peter Fabricius
of the ISS commented:
[A]t least [Maphatsoe] did new members of the
diplomatic corps a favour … Many diplomats
still arrive in the country under the naïve
impression that they are coming to serve in
the land of Mandela, a rather idyllic rainbow
nation in love with itself and the entire world.
Maphatsoe’s crude suggestion … would have
been a wake-up call, alerting them to the sort
of ideological sentiment that still runs beneath
the surface here, and sometimes emerges.546
When in early June 2015 the news broke that
the hosting of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa
in 2010 may have been obtained through a $10
million bribe to FIFA officials, a similar response
emerged from ANC circles.547 In March 2015,
the State Security Agency announced that it was
investigating Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, EFF
leader Julius Malema, former DA Parliamentary
Leader Lindiwe Mazibuko and head of the
Association of Mineworkers and Construction
Union, Joseph Mathunjwa, as American spies.
Claims of a UK military plot against Zuma emerged
in 2016.548
In February 2016, the then ANC Secretary General
Gwede Mantashe, a strong Ramaphosa ally, said:
“We are aware of the programme that takes
young people to the US for six weeks, then brings
them back and plants them everywhere in the
campuses”. He said “regime-change elements”
had gripped South Africa and they (the students)
aimed to “plant the seeds of anarchy”. The US
ambassador to South Africa, Patrick Gaspard,
pointed out that he had personally invited
Mantashe to recommend young leaders from the
ANC for the programme, called the Washington
Fellowship.549
Van Onselen states:
Under pressure the African National Congress
(ANC) has historically relied on one red herring
above all others to negate responsibility and
divert attention from dissatisfaction with its own
performance: a “third force”, be it the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) or white supremacists,
is supposedly the root cause of its many and
varied problems. Always unseen, never proven
and yet constantly alluded to, its claims to this
effect are the ultimate abdication of agency
… The ANC has deliberately manufactured an
environment in which everything that runs
against the party or threatens its legitimacy is
blamed on some outside agency … The ANC has
helped engender and augment that reality on
various different levels, least of all by fuelling
an atmosphere of paranoia and conspiracy.550
A new Cold War in Africa?
China is strengthening its internal autocracy and
increasingly building its power and influence in
Africa. The hope that China would evolve into a
softer, less autocratic and more capitalist guardian
of an international power balance, is gone.551
US policy in Africa currently focuses on security,
geopolitics and trade, not human rights.552 On 13
December 2018, John Bolton, the national security

546. http://www.issafrica.org/iss-today/acronymia-nervosa-the-cia-and-the-icc.
547. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2015/06/05/thick-end-of-the-wedge-fikile-mbalulas-folly-play-chicken-
with-the-fbi.
548. http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/anc-claims-uk-plotting-to-unseat-zuma-20160516; http://www.vice.
com/read/exclusive-the-british-armys-secret-plan-to-prop-up-south-africas-ruling-party.
549. “South African ruling party official accuses US of plot”, The Washington Post, 21 February 2016.
550. http://sa-monitor.com/top-10-bogus-anc-conspiracy-theories-bdlive-25-may-2016/.
551. https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21737517-it-bet-china-would-head-towards-democracy-and-market-
economy-gamble-has-failed-how.
552. Africa Confidential, 59(18), 14 September 2018, pp 3-4.

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adviser of US president Donald Trump, announced
that the USA wants African governments to
choose strategically between support for the
USA or for China and Russia. Trump’s policy was
especially focused on countering China’s influence
in Africa. “They are deliberately and aggressively
targeting their investments in the region to
gain a competitive advantage over the United
States,” Bolton said. “China uses bribes, opaque
agreements and the strategic use of debt to hold
states in Africa captive to Beijing’s wishes and
demands”.553
Boko Haram.557 There are concerns that several
factors may at some stage converge to increase
the risk of Islamist extremist attacks against
Western or symbolic targets in South Africa. The
extent of political and bureaucratic corruption
and factionalism, limited crime intelligence and
policing abilities, changing dynamics among
extremist groups elsewhere in Africa and the
Middle East, as well as alliances between the
governments of South Africa and other African
countries fighting against Islamist terrorist groups
may result in targets in South Africa being selected.

It remains to be seen how South Africa will
position itself, given its membership of BRICS and
its strong historical pro-China orientation. The
anti-US position of the ANC has implications for
the US Africa Command on the African continent,
as is apparent from this excerpt from a National
General Council (NGC) discussion document in
2015:
The campaign to engage all [African Union]
member state [sic] on the continent not to host
these military bases continue [sic]; however, the
question that should be posed is whether this
is still preventable because in certain places on
the continent AFRICOM has already established
its footprint in the form of training soldiers and
other newly devised mechanisms? The ANC has
to deal with these realities and develop new
strategies to take this campaign forward.554
There is still active cooperation between South
African and European and US security agencies on
potential Islamist extremism.555 To date, terrorist
groups have preferred to use South Africa as
a sanctuary to gain passports, raise funds and
recruit with relative ease.556 However, two of
the four strongest Islamist terrorist groups in the
world are from Africa, namely Al-Shabaab and
The ANC has also used anti-Israel policy gestures to
reinforce its “revolutionary” credentials. The one
foreign policy decision announced during the ANC’s
conference in December 2017 was to downgrade
South Africa’s diplomatic relations with Israel
by reducing the embassy in Tel Aviv to a “liaison
office” – “immediately and unconditionally”.558
At the hundred-and-fifth anniversary celebration
of the ruling ANC in January 2017, Zuma called
on South Africans not to visit Israel in order to
show solidarity with “the people of Palestine”.559
Ramaphosa has not changed the ANC’s conference
decision, and while he has addressed meetings of
Jewish South Africans, he referred in his speech at
the ANC’s birthday celebrations only to the ANC’s
condemnation of occupation and suppression in
Palestinian territories.560
Leaving the International Criminal
Court (ICC)
The ANC government’s foreign policy often
diverts from Western powers’ concerns regarding
human rights and rule of law. On 15 June 2015,
for example, Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir
was allowed to leave South Africa, despite an ICC
warrant for his arrest. On the same day Judge

553. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-national-security-advisor-ambassador-john-r-bolton-
trump-administrations-new-africa-strategy/; https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/us/politics/john-bolton-africa-
china.html.
554. African National Congress NGC 2015 Discussion Documents at http://www.anc.org.za/docs/umrabulo/2015/ngc_
disc_docsy.pdf, p 176.
555. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/04/south-africa-islamist-militant-attacks-us-warning.
556. http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-06-06-terror-warnings-is-south-africa-really-an-islamic-state-target/#.
V1T7X5Uw_IV.
557. See https://reliefweb.int/report/world/global-terrorism-index-2018.
558. https://issafrica.org/iss-today/can-ramaphosa-revitalise-south-africas-foreign-policy.
559. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/222973.
560. https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/ancmanifesto-read-cyril-ramaphosas-full-speech-18792716.

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President Dunstan Mlambo of the High Court in
Pretoria ruled that the ANC government’s failure
to arrest Al-Bashir was inconsistent with the South
African Constitution, that the government was in
contempt of court and should have arrested and
detained Al-Bashir.561
Doctor Abiodun Williams, president of The
Hague Institute for Global Justice, referred to “a
clear abuse of executive authority by the South
African government … Clearly, the Bashir case is
not in keeping with Mandela’s ideals”.562 When
the opposition party, the DA, in September 2015
brought a motion to impeach President Zuma
for the government’s handling of the Al-Bashir
visit, the ANC’s response was to state that the DA
was acting on behalf of the US and promoting an
“imperialist agenda”.563 At the ANC’s NGC meeting
in October 2015, the latter took the decision to
ask the ANC government to begin the process of
withdrawal of its membership of the ICC.564
In October 2016, after Zuma’s visit to Kenya and a
BRICS summit, during which he may have received
guarantees of support, the ANC government gave
notice of its intention to leave the ICC. Shortly
thereafter, Russia also indicated that it would
withdraw its support of the ICC, which categorized
Russia’s actions in the Crimea as an occupation.565.
“South Africa’s withdrawal would be a huge reversal
of its role as a leader promoting victims’ rights and
the values in its post-apartheid constitution”, was
the response by Human Rights Watch.566 Western
media and policy-makers expressed their dismay
at what the former US ambassador, Stephen Rapp,
described as “a betrayal of the victims of atrocious
crimes”.567
However, in November 2016 the ANC government
gave notice of its intention to withdraw from the
ICC. “South Africa’s proposed withdrawal from
the International Criminal Court shows startling
disregard for justice from a country long seen as
a global leader on accountability for victims of the
gravest crimes,” said Dewa Mavhinga, the NGO’s
Africa division senior researcher.568
In February 2017, the ANC government’s
decision to withdraw from the ICC was ruled
“unconstitutional and invalid” by the High Court.
The court ordered the government to revoke
its notice of withdrawal. In December 2017
and September 2018, Justice Minister Michael
Masutha said the government still intended to quit
the ICC.569 Ramaphosa defended the government
decision to withdraw in 2016 when he was deputy
president570 and he has not yet clearly indicated
his opposition to South Africa’s withdrawal from
the ICC.571
In December 2018 the Constitutional Court of
South Africa also found that the Zuma government,
to the detriment of expropriated Zimbabwean
farmers who had turned to the Southern
Africa Development Council (SADC) Tribunal,
had unlawfully supported the Zimababwean
government in suspending the Tribunal in 2011 and
removing its competences to deal with individual
cases when it was reinstated in 2014.572 President
Ramaphosa, whose government opposed a lower

561. http://www.bdlive.co.za/africa/africannews/2015/06/15/failure-to-arrest-bashir-violated-south-african-constitution-
judge-rules.
562. http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/jun/24/south-africas-failure-arrest-
al-bashir-not-in-keeping-mandelas-ideals.
563. http://www.citizen.co.za/666696/anc-rips-into-colonialist-da-over-failed-impeachment-motion/; http://www.iol.
co.za/news/politics/anc-rips-into-colonialist-da-1.1909728#.VkMy0JqBfmQ.
564. http://www.voanews.com/content/anc-wants-south-africa-out-of-international-criminal-court/3002092.html.
565. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/world/africa/south-africa-international-criminal-court.html?_r=0; https://
www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-11-22-view-from-the-hague-the-icc-bleeding-has-stopped/.
566. https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/10/24/south-africa-icc-move-betrays-victims; http://www.fr-online.de/politik/
suedafrika-sabotage-am-strafgerichtshof,1472596,34875228.html.
567. “South Africa to Withdraw From International Criminal Court”, New York Times, 21 October 2016.
568. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37724724.
569. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-39050408; https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-12-07-south-
africa-confirms-withdrawal-from-icc/.
570. http://ewn.co.za/2016/11/09/ramaphosa-defends-south-africa-s-withdrawal-from-icc.
571. https://mg.co.za/article/2018-06-12-ramaphosa-has-a-rare-chance-to-stop-sa-withdrawing-from-the-icc.
572. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-08-30-south-africas-role-in-the-denial-of-justice-in-southern-africa/.

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court’s similar ruling before,573 was ordered by the
court to remove Zuma’s signature.
Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng stated in his
ruling: “It is fundamentally about challenging
the expropriation of land without compensation
and the intended removal of the tribunal’s
jurisdiction to determine the validity of that kind
of land expropriation that was done in terms of
the Constitution of Zimbabwe.” Kallie Kriel, CEO
of the civil rights movement AfriForum, that
was one of the applicants, stated that the ANC
government could be held accountable by the
farmers for considerable amounts for trauma and
dispossession.574
interests, including terrorism in Africa. However,
the tone of ANC statements on Western policies
is largely critical, and is noted by Western
governments and business.575 Often this occurs
to cover internal weakness and failures in
governance, to compete with internal rivals or to
find scapegoats.
The factionalised ANC is now more reliant on
foreign patrons, including China and Russia.
However, the agency of the ANC’s own factions
should not be underestimated.576 Negative
responses by the ANC towards Western powers,
businesses and value systems at crucial moments
remain likely in the next few years.

Anti-Western reflexes?
Western governments and South Africa naturally
continue to try and find common ground and
cooperate on various economic and security

573. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-09-06-two-court-disputes-test-sas-commitment-to-rule-of-law/.
574. https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/courts/2050479/white-zim-farmers-want-billions-from-sa-after-zuma-ruled-
complicit-in-illegal-sadc-move/; https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/zumas-decision-on-sadc-tribunal-
unconstitutional-unlawful-and-irrational-concourt-20181212.
575. http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-08-20-ancs-future-foreign-policy-all-roads-lead-to-china/#.
VeCrx5rALmQ; http://time.com/3601968/anc-south-africa-china-communist-party/.
576. http://www.ascleiden.nl/news/new-asc-infosheet-pivoting-russia-china-and-anti-western-rhetoric-south-africas-
foreign-policy.

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The political risks
to business in the next
two years
South Africa continues to present attractive
business opportunities. High political risk,
combined with global economic challenges,
have already contributed to a massive decline in
meaningful foreign direct investment in South
Africa.577 It is expected that the political risk to
business will remain high in at least the next two
years as the internally diverse Ramaphosa faction
and Zuma faction continue to contest control
over the ANC. Three drivers will strengthen the
dynamics of a hybrid regime and democratic
decline in the coming years: they are intensified
577. http://sa-monitor.com/political-risk-affecting-foreign-investment-sa-bdlive-5-september-2016/.
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Part XIV
factional competition in the run-up to elections
and the repositioning of the deeply divided ANC;
the further politicization of the security forces and
securitization of politics to prop up presidential
rule; as well as the weak economy and more
limited state resources.
The ANC hybrid regime is likely to remain in place
in the medium term. Ramaphosa’s presidency
has meant a continuing recirculation of elites
and new networks of power and patronage, with
related changes in rhetoric and policies. However,
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the Zuma faction and related networks remain
strong at all levels of the ANC. Ramaphosa and his
supporter networks have been deeply embedded
in the current neopatrimonial and one party
dominant system for years. They will be unable to
significantly change the underlying, and by now
well-established dynamics, rules of the game and
the incentive systems described.
Once state institutions in a one-party dominant
state have become so permeated with factions,
patron-client networks, regional and local
strongmen, and unaccountable presidentialism,
the processes become self-generative. Incumbents
have too much to lose and too slim chances
of having political or economic alternatives.
Democratic checks and balances on these forces
will have some partial impact on a case-by-case
basis, but overall and ultimately they will be
ineffective. It is unlikely that Ramaphosa will be
able to institutionalize democratic checks and
balances in the hybrid regime to the extent that
a future Zuma-like presidency can be prevented.
Faced with new political and trade union
challengers, the ANC is desperately trying to find
ways of regaining some of its lost support among
key constituencies. Due to the current levels of
state debt, ANC factions are under pressure to
find economic resources to sustain themselves
and their patron-client networks.
Policies for economic growth will remain torn
between different stakeholders and policy
preferences. Policy incoherence and unexpected
twists will often reflect phases in factional
competition and newly-bargained advantages and
alignments, rather than ideological vacillation.
Policy swings and uncertainty will be experienced
most by companies in those sectors most
exposed to the government’s political priorities
or regulatory and licensing power. Minerals,
energy, security, agriculture, telecoms and
pharmaceuticals would be among these sectors.
The ANC has proceeded with several regulations,
policy initiatives, bills and laws regarding mining
and energy, the security industry, affirmative
action and black empowerment, land, patents,
and foreign investors in general. The common
underlying policy in all of them is the same:
they greatly increase the ANC government’s
interventionist powers in the economy.
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The planned and actual measures would weaken
property rights and reduce private-sector
autonomy. This result would strengthen the
position of crony capitalists with links to ANC
factions compared to other businesses. The
ANC policy move to weaken the constitutional
protection of property rights constitutes another
step in this direction. It also threatens to undo
some of the anchors of the peace settlement
of 1994, creating an even more selective social
contract and polarization between communities.
In addition, the weakening of property rights
create more room for executive discretion in
decision making and non-accountable dynamics
in the hybrid regime.
To date, consumption and short-term fulfilment of
patron-client obligations, rather than production,
state capacity-building or long-term investment,
have dominated the deployment of resources
and opportunities gained. The political effect of
more ANC resources will be to regenerate the
power of ANC factions, since patrons will be able
to cultivate new clients and constituencies and
sustain relationships with existing ones in the
hybrid regime. During the competition with new
political and trade union challengers, such steps
could also be presented as populist measures
aimed at improving the lot of the poor.
The high levels of state debt and the needs of the
ANC’s patronage networks will drive efforts to
look for new sources of income, both domestically
and internationally. The value of some state-run
corporations, but also other assets or opportunities
of which it should be the public custodian, could
be capitalized or mortgaged. Sometimes this will
have a knock-on impact on existing government
undertakings towards business. At present, there
is a real risk of the government inducing major
pension and investment funds to invest in weakly-
managed or failing parastatals.
The search for new sources of income will coincide
with an increased effort at economic diplomacy,
both formal and informal. The diplomacy will be
couched in the rhetoric of branding, using South
Africa’s many and unquestioned opportunities.
However, the actual results would at least partially
strengthen the ANC’s patron-client networks
in state structures, rather than South African
communities and citizens as a whole.
4/11/2019 3:22:36 PM

Factional struggles for scarce resources will
drive efforts to increase state income through
these measures and others. Unaccountable
presidentialism, local big men and informal
patron-client networks may play a role in this
regard. There are different codes of conduct in
different jurisdictions, and international business
would need to heed best practices regarding
integrity and reputational risk.
The levels of visible state mismanagement
and operational risk are likely to remain high
or sometimes even rise. This state of affairs
will continue to have an effect in many areas
of service delivery: the security of citizens and
farmers, electricity, water management, waste
management, roads, education, postal services,
and others that may arise. The impact will differ
per province and locality, with pockets of sufficient
or good service delivery in provinces and local
areas.
Based on the internal and external dynamics
of the ANC government, if interventions do not
have the required effect, there is a risk that such
a result would not trigger a reassessment of
the intervention, but rather a stronger form of
intervention.
Protest politics may have some impact on
operations in a specific location, but are likely to
be of limited duration. Depending on the locality,
protest politics may be more prominent during
periods in the run-up to elections, during elections
and shortly thereafter.
Factions within trade unions and trade unions will
compete intensely with each other for members,
networks, power, status and resources. As a result,
industrial unrest will continue to be a major risk.
Due to the context in which it will be occurring,
the potential politicization of disputes could be
fast and assume militant forms.
Real or instigated xenophobic, anti-Western or
indigenization sentiments may emerge during
power plays or tough negotiations. When under
pressure over non-democratic or bad governance,
the ANC, as in the past, could easily resort to
conspiracy theories or to smearing credible
critics and political opponents as “imperialists”,
“racists”, “fascists” or “colonialists”. Business may
sometimes be caught in the crossfire.
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There is an oligopoly of violence instead of the
state’s monopoly of violence. The ANC government
does not consider a restoration of the security of
citizens and businesses as a state priority. Business
and NGOs should review and regularly update
their risk mitigation measures.
The search for more resources in the hybrid
regime and factional competition could result
in an increased dependency of key decision
makers on foreign patrons like China, Russia or
other political and business actors. The field
of competitors and the importance of specific
competitive advantages of business may change
suddenly. Western business is advised to actively
involve their business associations, business
media and policy-makers to support their projects
in South Africa.
International business may find it worthwhile to
conduct corporate social responsibility projects
that focus on entrepreneurship training and
business education. Given current socio-political
dynamics, such initiatives should take into
account the cultural capital and mother-language
preferences of different groups and the option
of private education institutions. If the projects
involve cooperation between foreign and South
African institutions of public education, strict
criteria and monitoring to reinforce the remaining
spaces of academic freedom are recommended in
policy-relevant education and research.
There is a limited but robust evolution of capacity
and self-help initiatives within cities, communities,
and the private sector. This trend will involve an
authority migration over time and shape the new
political order. Business and NGOs are advised
to identify potential partners and to use the
opportunities involved.
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Rebuilding the private
sector and sustainable
communities
South Africa’s political and economic
restabilization increasingly depends on healthy
institutions in the private sector and sustainable
communities. During the past few years, the ANC
government has increasingly failed to deliver good
governance. While President Ramaphosa is trying
to roll back some of the worst abuses of the Zuma
presidency, the hybrid regime and the incentives
and sanctions of the political order will seriously
constrain any improvement in the near future.
New partnerships, new jobs and skills development
will be important to rebuild South Africa’s stability
and prosperity. There are still opportunities.
Europe-based small and medium businesses,
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Part XV
cultural and education-related institutions and
networks, and NGOs could play a major role in this
regard. If considering activities in South Africa,
such actors should give renewed attention to two
important generators of stability and prosperity:
the private business sector and institutions for
sustainable communities in South Africa.
Opportunities: A McKinsey Global Institute report,
South Africa’s big five: Bold priorities for inclusive
growth, identifies five major opportunities: service
exports; advanced manufacturing; infrastructure;
natural gas; and the agricultural value chain. If
government and businesses prioritize initiatives
from these sectors, they could by 2030 increase
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GDP growth by a total of 1.1 percentage points
per year, adding R1 trillion ($87 billion) to the
annual GDP and creating 3.4 million new jobs in
South Africa.578
Community and private sector alternatives: In
the case of South Africa, the broader population
of more than 57 million people has at least eleven
major identity groups, often with regional histories
and territories. None of these groups constitute
a complete majority, according to South Africa’s
Census 2011. Rebuilding South Africa should take
both the common and the diverse needs of all
communities and citizens into account.
In this regard, Afrikaans-speaking communities
have not received sufficient attention. Afrikaners
constitute about 2.6 million people; coloured
South Africans who speak Afrikaans about 3.4
million and black people who speak Afrikaans
about 600 000.579
In South Africa’s private sector, Afrikaans-speaking
citizens and communities play a major role in all the
sectors mentioned in the McKinsey report above.
In addition, they and other communities also
constitute potential partners and markets with
specific needs and skills in academic education,
vocational education, cultural relationships and
healthcare.
The Afrikaans-speaking language group are spread
in communities across South Africa. As a group,
they include many of the better skilled and middle-
class population in South Africa, with a history
of building strong community and educational
institutions in conditions of adversity. They also
constitute a key and very strong minority among
the six million individual taxpayers, nationally and
locally.
There are larger concentrations of Afrikaans
speakers in Gauteng province and the Western
Cape, where they form just less than 50% of the
population. Numerically and socially they are also
influential in the Northern Cape, North West,
578. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/africa/south_africas_bold_priorities_for_inclusive_growth.
579. See Census 2011 at http://www.statssa.gov.za.
580. http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/southafrica/publication/south-africa-economic-update-jobs-changing-
demographics.
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Mpumalanga and Free State provinces. Afrikaans-
speaking businesses and NGOs are well-placed
to partner with European businesses and NGOs
that want to use developed parts of South Africa
as platform for expansion into other African
countries and markets.
Academic education: Considerable opportunities
exist in private education or community-based
education. Among the Afrikaans-speaking middle
classes, as well as the Afrikaans-speaking poor,
access to mother-language tertiary education
is becoming more difficult. Of the thirty-eight
universities in South Africa, six have traditionally
been Afrikaans-medium institutions. Due to a
combination of political pressures and market
demands, the position of Afrikaans has been
seriously weakened at all of them. In the recent
past, Afrikaans has lost its equal constitutional
position due to new language policies at the
University of South Africa, the University of
Pretoria, the University of the Free State, and
even the symbolically-important University of
Stellenbosch.
Already, the Solidarity Movement, with the support
from various business, academic and community
stakeholders, has established Akademia with the
declared aim of becoming a small, high-quality
university in the next decades. It aims to cater for
the academic needs of the Afrikaans community,
and foreign partnerships will constitute an
essential part of its growth.580
Many young Afrikaans speakers also continue to
look for opportunities to travel and work for a
period before returning home. While many of this
age group go to the English-speaking world, real
gaps and opportunities exist in German-speaking
and Dutch-speaking countries to establish
mutually beneficial and also longer-term relations.
In the war for talent, and in the establishment of
new business ventures outside Europe, young and
skilled Afrikaans speakers represent an overlooked
niche segment.
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Vocational education: In many poorer urban
and rural communities, a massive scale-up of
vocational training is needed for technical skills to
support export-oriented industries. The Solidarity
Movement has launched Soltech, a vocational
training facility, and supports various initiatives to
develop vocational education in South Africa.
Healthcare: Private healthcare systems and
community-based healthcare systems remain a
potential growth market. South African higher
education systems still produce many health-care
professionals sought after in Europe, but state-
supported health systems in several provinces are
decaying.581
Service exports: Europe as a whole remains the
most important trading partner of South Africa.
Many small and medium-sized businesses run by
Afrikaans speakers continue to look at business
opportunities with European partners. Many
of them also draw from cultural repertoires of
a strong work ethic, knowledge about Africa,
and flexible improvisation under conditions of
adversity.
South Africa has highly developed service
industries. Nevertheless, it currently captures only
2% of the rest of sub-Saharan Africa’s market for
service imports, which is worth nearly half a trillion
rand ($38 billion). With the right investments,
service businesses could increase exports to the
region. In construction, the opportunity ranges
from design to construction management to
maintenance services. 582
In financial services, potential growth areas include
wholesale and retail banking. Digital opportunities
are especially promising, with an expanding
middle class, quick adoption of smart phones and
improved conditions for internet access. South
African actors are often world leaders in insurance
581. http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/health/2015/11/11/report-reveals-healthcare-crisis-in-free-state.
582. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/africa/south_africas_bold_priorities_for_inclusive_growth.
583. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/africa/south_africas_bold_priorities_for_inclusive_growth.
584. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/africa/south_africas_bold_priorities_for_inclusive_growth.
585. Steve Hedden and Jakkie Cilliers, “Parched prospects: The emerging water crisis in South Africa”, Institute for Security
Studies - African Futures, 11, September 2014.
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products and services customized according to
demographics and income.
Advanced manufacturing: South Africa has a pool
of skilled labour, in which people from Afrikaans-
speaking communities constitute an important
segment. The country has the potential to
grow into a globally competitive manufacturing
hub focused on high-value-added categories
such as automotive and industrial machinery
and equipment, and chemicals. To realize this
opportunity, South African manufacturers
will have to pursue new markets and step up
innovation and productivity.583
Infrastructure: South Africa is investing heavily
in infrastructure; however, big gaps remain in
electricity, water, and sanitation. According to
McKinsey, partnerships between the public
and private sectors could make infrastructure
spending up to 40% more productive. This could
be achieved by maximizing the use of existing
assets and increasing maintenance. In addition,
prioritizing projects with the greatest impact,
and strengthening management practices to
streamline delivery, would be needed.584
Many parts of South Africa are arid or becoming so,
and the demand for water management expertise
and customized systems is set to grow.585 The
expertise developed in South African conditions
would stand European companies in good stead
if they are able to expand to other countries in
Africa or Asia.
Energy: South Africa’s electricity shortage has
constrained growth. Despite new capacity,
McKinsey forecasts another shortfall between
2025 and 2030. Natural-gas plants can provide an
alternative to diversify the power supply. They are
fast to build, entail low capital costs, and have a
small carbon footprint. McKinsey estimates that
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South Africa could install up to twenty gigawatts for innovation.

of gas-fired base-load power-generation capacity
by 2030. Gas could be provided through imports.
However, once again, policy and regulatory
certainty would be a challenge.586
Afrikaans-speaking and other communities often
strive for increased self-sufficiency from unreliable
government-delivered services. In addition,
among the middle class, there are strong concerns
about the environment and sustainability. Local
renewable energy systems would be highly
relevant and potentially lucrative in a country with
the climate and sunshine of South Africa.
Raw and processed agricultural exports:
Agricultural and food consumption is rising in
markets throughout sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.
South Africa could triple its agricultural exports by
2030. This could be a key driver of rural growth,
benefiting the nearly one in ten South Africans
who depend on subsistence or smallholder
farming. According to McKinsey, capturing this
potential will require a strong effort to improve
production, productivity, and agroprocessing.587
However, to achieve this goal, and ensure food
security for all, the concerns about safety and
property rights of the commercial farming sector
need to be addressed.
Tourism: Cultural, historical, nature and adventure
tourism all constitute major opportunities for
business. Among Afrikaans-speaking citizens,
Europe historically constituted a tourist destination
of high interest. An estimated 300  000 tourists
from Germany to South Africa annually and an
estimated 100 000 tourists from the Netherlands
annually indicate the current potential for
partnerships.588
A place for all communities and citizens: The
position of citizens from different communities
remains a central challenge for political orders
in Africa. Solomon Dersso, commissioner of the
African Commission on Human and Peoples’
Rights, has stated that few African orders and
policies give sufficient recognition to the diversity
of more than two thousand cultural groups in its
54 states.589
A new model of African liberation is needed – in
Africa, and in Southern Africa. It should be one
that allows peaceful co-existence and mutual
recognition in multicultural democracies, not
hybrid regimes with one-party dominant rule,
partisan protection, and threats to civil, cultural
and property rights.

Cultural relations: Most Afrikaans speakers are
very conscious of and positive towards cultural
links with Flanders, Germany and the Netherlands.
Some of these links are also historically
institutionalized in academia, cultural circles,
tourism, family acquaintances and local networks.
Many community leaders are positive about
strengthening mutually beneficial relationships
with cultural institutions in Europe. The cultural
sector in general and cultural entrepreneurship
specifically also currently present opportunities
Afrikaans speakers of all communities have
historically made an important contribution to
the creation of key institutions and productive
gains in South Africa.590 Their presence in areas
currently constitute a force for development and
stability during a period of political and economic
fluctuation.
The turnaround of South Africa’s economic
decline will be unthinkable without the well-being
of Afrikaans communities and more than 6 million
Afrikaans-speaking citizens. As Francis Fukuyama

586. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/africa/south_africas_bold_priorities_for_inclusive_growth.
587. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/africa/south_africas_bold_priorities_for_inclusive_growth.
588. http://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/sa-shares-tourism-success-story-germany; http://www.statssa.gov.
za/?p=4362.
589. Solomon A. Dersso, The human rights system and the issue of minorities in Africa, African Journal of International
and Comparative Law, 20(1), 2012, pp 42-59.
590. See Hermann Giliomee, The Afrikaners: Biography of a people (Tafelberg: Cape Town, 2010); Mohamed Adhikari,
Not white enough, not black enough: Racial identity in the South African coloured community (Double Storey Books,
Cape Town, 2005); Heinrich Matthee, Muslim identities and political strategies (Kassel University Press, Kassel,
2008).

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has noted, the marginalization of such a skilled,

but visible minority would only harm the diverse
population of South Africa.

However, due to the impact of economic

discrimination, concerns about security and
cultural marginalization, hundreds of thousands
of them have already emigrated. Many skilled
professionals from other communities have also
left during the two decades of ANC rule, with
about eight professionals now leaving for every
one professional entering South Africa. This trend
represents a major brain drain and a damaging loss
of job opportunities and value creation generated
by those who are entrepeneurial and skilled.

At present, there already are many foreign

businesses and citizens in South Africa. For
example, there are about 600 German businesses
and 350 Dutch businesses in South Africa, as
well as about 100  000 German citizens living in
the country. A stable environment for foreign
businesspeople and citizens in many areas in South
Africa will often depend on the presence and
well-being of minority communities, businesses
and NGOs. Foreign business and NGOs should
consider the often overlooked opportunities for
mutual benefits, shorter term transactions and
longer term partnerships with them in South
Africa and Africa.

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About the author

Doctor Heinrich Matthee is a strategy advisor and political risk analyst for companies and NGOs in the
Middle East and Africa. He has a D Phil in Muslim politics from the University of Marburg, Germany. He
is an associate of the Africa Studies Centre, Netherlands and a member of the South African Academy
of Science and Art. During the Mandela presidency, he was a senior researcher in African security at the
University of Stellenbosch. After 2000, he was a researcher/editor at the Emirates Center for Strategic
Studies and Research in Abu Dhabi, and a Middle East analyst at Control Risks, London. He is the author of
Muslim Identities and Political Strategies (Kassel University Press, Kassel, 2008) and articles on politics and
economics in the Middle East and Europe.

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