Prof. Sipho Seepe
THE year 2024 will go down as the watershed moment since the advent of the post-1994 political dispensation. An apt description of the 2024 political developments is by Vladimir Lenin. Lenin wrote. "There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen."
Indeed, the year 2024 saw a major realignment, with agents of transformation pitted against those committed to maintaining the status quo of white privilege. The trends of political activism would fall within these extreme postures, with some spiced by crass political opportunism. The choice is between continuing with the failed neoliberal policies on the one hand and coming up with policies that take South Africa out of the clutches of the IMF, the World Bank, and the white interests in general. It is a choice between the privatisation of state-owned enterprises versus their revitalisation.
With its share of the vote reduced to 40%, the ANC has lost the claim to be a leader of society. There can never be a clearer public repudiation of the ANC of Ramaphosa than a cataclysmic decline of 17% of the share of the vote in one electoral cycle.
Since taking over as President in 2017, the ANC’s share of the vote has declined by 22%. In 2019 the ANC’s share of the vote fell by 5%. In 2024, the ANC's support dropped by 17% in one electoral cycle. Any leader with such an abysmal performance would have walked away on his volition. But in a country of miracles, appalling performance is rewarded. And the impugned individuals proudly carry it as if it is a badge of honour.
The political developments of 2024 were a long time coming. The former President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt expressed this as follows. “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
Indeed, as far back as 1997, while delivering his political report at the Mahikeng ANC Conference the founding president of South Africa’s democracy Nelson Mandela warned that “the defenders of apartheid privilege continue to sustain a conviction that an opportunity will emerge in future, when they can activate this counter-insurgency machinery, to impose an agenda on South African society which would limit the possibilities of the democratic order to such an extent that it would not be able to create a society of equality, that would be rid of the legacy of apartheid.”
The ANC’s failure to resolve its internal contradictions in the form of a broad church was a holding position. Defenders of white privilege knew that. All that they needed to do was to bid their time until the right moment. It is precisely for this reason that the former apartheid president FW de Klerk could boldly declare. “Everything is not dark in South Africa, there is light at the end of the tunnel. If the ANC wins and President Ramaphosa keeps his promises, things will get better.”
For his part, Roelof Botha, the son of Pik Botha, the former and longest-serving minister of foreign affairs under apartheid, had this to say. “Thank you to the ANC for electing Mr Ramaphosa. You have no idea how important it is for this country’s future and my dad realized that close to his death, he was a happy man because of this monumental event in our history. I can guarantee you that most South Africans have a lot more hope for the future”.
With eyes always on the prize, the Democratic Alliance federal leader Helen Zille has been consistent. In 2019, Zille had this to say. “Let me make a prediction, because the ANC doesn't know what it stands for anymore, because it can't revert to principles, because it hasn't got any, believe me in my lifetime, I will see that party die too. Believe me, no one would ever have said in their wildest dreams that within my lifetime the National Party would be gone, and it is.”
True to form, Ramaphosa has sought to reframe an unmitigated political fiasco in a positive light. He argued that South Africans “through their votes, determined that the leaders of our country should set aside their political differences and come together as one to overcome the severe challenges that confront our nation.”
This characterisation, which Ramaphosa has used as a justification for the establishment of the so-called Government of National Unity has failed to impress the SACP, one of its critical political allies. Commenting on the GNU, the SACP’s General Secretary cut the chase. “The problem in the GNU lies in one critical issue: the prioritisation and inclusion, above all else, of the right-wing, neo-liberal, white-led DA in a country whose population is overwhelmingly African and black. The DA’s white leadership dominance, historical background, and class underpinnings, including party-political donations, are a reflection and direct continuation of the racist legacy of colonial and apartheid oppression.”
With almost all his promises having come to naught, Ramaphosa has lost all forms of credibility and believability. With every utterance subject to the supervision of the DA, the ANC annual January 8 statement is bound to come with hollow promises. A master of public relations, Ramaphosa would wax lyrical about hosting the G20 as an achievement. But no amount of spin, no repackaging, and no reframing of the GNU would cover its internal contradictions. Speaking like a defeated man, Ramaphosa had this to say during the commemoration of Joe Slovo’s life this week:
“The shadow of apartheid is still with us. Apartheid still casts a shadow on the lives of many of our people. As we move forward, that shadow continues to follow us. We are a country that is characterized by extreme inequality, poverty, and unemployment. Unemployment defines the conditions of the lives of many of our people communities are threatened by crime and violence. In some areas, the state itself is unable to reliably provide the protection and the services that our people need.”
To expect that an ANC, hobbled by parties whose ideological interests are inimical to its historic mission, is no different from believing that pigs can fly. A desperate president would want you to believe anything. An art that Ramaphosa seems to have perfected. But as they say, lies have short legs.
Regarding this Sunday Times columnist Barney Mthombothi warned a while back. “Apart from his well-earned reputation as a coward, Ramaphosa is cultivating another unfortunate trait. He’s telling too many falsehoods…. Most of them seem unprovoked and unnecessary. And these fibs are not only corroding his credibility.” (Sunday Times, 13/12/2020).
The ANC of Ramaphosa's preference to partner with the Democratic Alliance, once dubbed “a party of white bosses and black stooges”, over parties such as the Economic Freedom Fighters and the Umkhonto we Sizwe is consistent with Ramaphosa’s political posture. By the end of his term, there will be nothing recognisable about the ANC.
* Professor Sipho P. Seepe is a Higher Education and Strategy Consultant.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.