The 2009 Election Results: Reflecting the state of the class struggle in South
Africa
By David van Wyk in South Africa
The
workers and poor of South Africa voted massively for an ANC that had
been purged of its right wing. Now that the ANC is once more in office,
the bourgeois – having failed to stop this – are putting enormous
pressure on its leaders to steer away from any radical pro-worker
policies. What is required is a struggle within the South African
labour movement to anchor its organisations to genuine socialist
policies.
What many consider to have been one of the most historic elections
in Post-Apartheid South Africa is finally over. Over the last decade it
has become clear that South African politics is still very much defined
by a struggle over the issues of race and class. This election
demonstrated that fact more than ever.
Even before Mbeki took over the helm from Mandela both the ruling
party, the African National Congress and the two main opposition
parties at the time, the New National Party and the Democratic Party,
pushed for a neo-liberal agenda of structural adjustment and
privatization. The first casualty of this shift to the right was many
of the ANC’s struggle slogans, including the Freedom Charter promise
that “the wealth of the country shall belong to the people”, followed
by the social democratic Reconstruction and Development Programme which
was replaced by the self-imposed structural adjustment represented by
the Growth with Equity and Redistribution Programme (GEAR).
Once in power Mbeki endeared himself to global capitalism by
“talking left and walking right” (Patrick Bond, 2004). Mbeki’s
Government carried out pro-capitalist policies while at the same time
trying to create a layer of a “black bourgeoisie”. From pursuing a
presence in the main global financial and economic summits and
structures, to appointing an Economic Advisory Council composed of the
CEOs of major global multinationals and ‘deploying’ senior ANC people
not in government into the fraction of mining billionaires as part of
the ANC’s black economic empowerment programme.
Mbeki further pushed the neo-liberal New Economic Partnership for
Economic Development (NEPAD) onto the rest of Africa. Opening up the
African hinterland to South African and global mining corporations.
Mbeki immersed himself so much in ‘international affairs’ that locals
soon began to joke that he was the president who most frequently
visited South Africa.
Back in South Africa Mbeki began to push his neo-liberal right wing
agenda onto the ANC. With his trusted lieutenants Terror Lekota, Alec
Erwin, Essop Pahad, Trevor Manuel and Manto Tshabalala Msimang he
turned ANC conferences into red bashing and red baiting events. Mbeki
was liberally supported by the neo-liberal media in South Africa who
cheered his intentions to privatise state enterprises, while aspirant
black bourgeois elements licked their lips in anticipation of the tasty
morsels coming their way. Of course privatisation meant job-losses
through down-sizing, right-sizing and given the current political
climate possibly capsizing! These policies led to tensions and
divisions within the ANC and between the ANC government and leadership
and the other organisations in the Tripartite Alliance, COSATU and the
SACP. COSATU called a series of general strikes reflecting the anger of
workers and the poor against the capitalist policies of the government
they had elected. Within the SACP there was also strong criticism
towards the policies of the ANC government but the ANC leadership
continued to cling to the discredited two-stage theory of the
revolution. This states that first there will be a “National Democratic
Revolution” which will overthrow capitalism, and then, later on, once
this question is solved then we can raise the question of socialism.
The leadership of the SACP insisted that the “deepening of the NDR”
would somehow lead to socialism. But as a matter of fact, there was
nothing to deepen, since the ANC in government was pursuing openly
capitalist policies. To make matters worse, SACP members were sitting
in parliament as ANC MPs voting for Mbeki's policies and some were even
ministers in his government carrying these policies into practice.
In trying to entrench the shift to the right the Mbeki government
allegedly began a process of using the structures of the state such as
the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), the judiciary, the National
Prosecuting Authority and of course the Office of the President to
effect a purge against left-wing elements in the Ruling Party and in
Government. This took the form of compromising those opposed to Mbeki.
Thus an attempt was made to taint the leader of the South African
Communist Party, Blade Nzimande by alleging that he corruptly pocketed
a SAR500,000 donation from a corrupt businessman meant for the SACP. It
now appears that this was a sting in which the businessman was promised
a reprieve from charges of corruption if he laid charges of corruption
against Nzimande. Then there were the rape charges against Zuma; it is
alleged that the unfortunate mentally unstable girl had close ties to
the NIA and the National Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils. Finally
there was the corrupt arms deal, where Zuma’s lawyer client
confidentiality was abused in an Apartheid style raid that targeted
both his home and the offices of his lawyers. No one in the media
mentions that the architect of the Arms Deal was Mbeki. The deal
emanated from his office as Deputy President. All the transactions had
to be authorized by the Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel who has a
reputation of being a bean counter, while the economic trade offs were
the responsibility of Alec Erwin. Despite there being rumours of
back-handers involving tens of millions of dollars, only Zuma was ever
investigated for allegedly receiving a pay-off of a paltry half a
million. The energy in which the Zuma investigation was being pursued
by both the NPA and the media clearly demonstrated an agenda other than
good governance. This became especially apparent when Mbeki stepped in
to protect Jackie Selebi the chief of police who kept rather unsavoury
company, and the Deputy President Ngcuka who allegedly took her pals
and family members on a spending spree to Dubai.
Sammy
Ledwaba an activist from Motlhotlo village after the local police meted
out some human rights to him for resisting the expansion of an Anglo
Platinum mining operationIn the mineral rich provinces
the peasantry faced a land grab from mining companies, many of whom
have prominent members of the ANC and key civil servants under Mbeki as
shareholders. In many cases rural communities who received their land
back as part of the land restitution and redistribution programmes of
the Department of Land Affairs just as quickly lost their land as the
Department of Minerals and Energy issued prospecting and mining
licenses to mining companies in bed with senior politicians and civil
servants. Anglo Platinum proudly boasts of providing training in “human
rights” for the police in platinum rich Limpopo province. To the right
is a picture of the face of Sammy Ledwaba an activist from Motlhotlo
village after the local police meted out some ‘human rights’ to him for
resisting the expansion of an Anglo Platinum mining operation that
means the relocation of his house, tilling fields and grazing land.
Given the huge boom in mineral commodity prices one would expect
communities living in the vicinity of mines and in particular
mineworkers to have experienced some improvement in their lot in terms
of housing and wages. Yet many mineworkers find themselves in squatter
camps; the Orwellian sanitized name used by government and the media is
“informal settlements”. These squatter camps are cesspools of substance
abuse, sexually transmitted disease, TB and HIV/AIDS. Thabo Mbeki’s
denialist attitude further alienated the working class and the poor.
Given this rightwing shift and the prolonged pressure being brought
to bear on the working class and the poorest of the poor during Mbeki’s
tenure it is not surprising that the rank and file members of the ANC
lost patience with the leadership of the organisation under Mbeki. The
day of reckoning for the Mbeki clique came at the ANCs Polokwane
Conference in December 2007. The resounding defeat of the Mbeki clique
at Polokwane and his subsequent recall as president led to the
resignation of his entire cabinet. The same clique then formed the
Congress of the People (COPE) to great pomp and ceremony in the media
and opposition parties who hoped that this ‘split’ would irreparably
harm the ANC and the tripartite alliance and destroy the ruling party’s
ability to run an effective election campaign. It was hoped that the
left-wing populists would be taught a lesson in the 2009 election.
After all, Mbeki had received nearly 40% of the votes at the Polokwane
conference. By splitting the ANC the ruling class hoped to destroy its
electoral domination and maybe form a new coalition government between
the newly formed COPE and the DA, or at the very least form a strong
opposition which would neutralise any danger of a leftward moving ANC
government.
Many mineworkers find themselves in squatter camps in spite of the mineral
boom.COPE
ran a campaign which claimed that they were the true custodians of the
Freedom Charter (the definitive script of the liberation struggle);
that they were the voice of middle class reason, and that their members
were above corruption. This despite the fact that COPE’s president
Terror Lekota was Minister of Defence during much of the arms
acquisition that became the arms scandal. Lekota was also caught out in
2003 for not declaring business interests to parliament.
Given these publicly known skeletons in Lekota’s cupboard and his
reportedly abrasive, dictatorial personality, COPE wisely decided not
to make him their presidential candidate for the 2009 elections.
Instead they appointed the Reverend Mvume Dandlala, a priest eager to
exchange the pulpit for the pillbox. Dandala found another priest in
COPE, the Reverend Allan Boesak who spent time in jail for corruption.
There are persistent rumours of divisions and leadership struggles in
COPE. Apart from Lekota’s ego it is a party of “Chiefs” with very few
“Indians”. COPE is funded by amongst others Mbeki loyalist and
billionaire Sakkie Macozoma.
Instead of splitting the ANC vote, Cope split the middle class and
fundamentalist Christian vote, and while the party fared poorly
nationally it has become the official opposition party in four
provinces taking support away from parties such as the United Christian
Democratic Party (UCDP), the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP),
the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) in
those provinces with very small white populations. However, Nationally
COPE only managed to garner 7.43% of the vote. They failed to get any
support from the working class and the poor, reconfirming the defeat of
their leadership in the ANC nationally. The workers and the poor, once
again, turned out massively to vote for the ANC, but this time an ANC
that they saw as representing a change of policies, a shift to the
left. As a matter of fact, even though the percentage of the vote for
the ANC was slightly down, the actual number of votes went up (despite
the split) to 11.6 million (as compared to 10.8 million in 2004 and
10.6 million in 1999, though still short of the historic 12.2 million
of 1994).
Bringing us back to the hysterical anti-ANC white vote. The
Democratic Alliance (DA) is celebrating a victory on the grounds that
they managed to obtain 16.66% of the national vote. They are further
celebrating the failure of the ANC to get a two thirds majority, a
central tenet of their oppositionist election campaign built around
white fears of black government and of the possibility of communist
influence on that government. The DA failed to present the populace
with an alternative vision to that of the ANC, and most voters will
remember their posters which read “Stop Zuma!” and “Prevent an ANC
two-thirds majority!” Today Afrikaans newspaper banners proclaimed,
“South Africa stopped ANC two-thirds majority!” The ANC won 65.9% of
the vote, just less than one percent of a two thirds majority. Given
these statistics it would be more accurate to say that South Africans
rejected neo-liberalism and religious fundamentalism of all sorts.
The DA did win slightly more than 50% of the vote in the Western
Cape Province confirming the combined and uneven nature of issues of
race and class in South Africa. The Western Cape is acting like a
magnet for white South Africans, a Great Trek in reverse so to speak to
the colonial days prior to 1834 when whites started penetrating the
interior of South Africa beyond the Ghariep (Orange) river for the
first time. Coloured voters in the Western Cape associate with the
white population there and the area is still feeling the impact of the
old Group Areas Act which made the province a ‘coloured preferential
area’ as far as work opportunities and residential status was
concerned. Many from the coloured community feel threatened by the
increasing numbers of blacks seeking employment there and fear that an
ANC provincial government would give preferential treatment to blacks
as far as jobs, housing and services are concerned. Apart from the
Western cape the ANC won all other provinces resoundingly.
The white electorate are told by opposition parties including the DA
in just about every election that the ANC would change the constitution
of the country should it win a two thirds majority. This despite the
fact that the ANC has never campaigned with a manifesto that calls for
any changes to the constitution. Almost all the opposition parties
including the DA have campaigned around calls to change the
constitution including bringing back the death penalty, criminalizing
homosexuality, bringing back corporal punishment, curbing freedom of
speech and expression through censorship, revoking labour rights, and
changing the manner in which the president is elected. Just about the
only part of the constitution that most parties to the right of the ANC
do not want changed is the “Property Clause” which protects private
property.
Currently the media and opposition parties are brining great
pressure to bear on the ANC to exclude left-wingers from the alliance
from ministerial positions and to continue with Thabo Mbeki’s
neo-liberal policies.
Scarcely hours after the announcement that the ANC, with the help of
its alliance partners, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the
Congress of South African Trade Unions, received an overwhelming
mandate from the electorate, 65.9% nationally and 66.31% provincially,
the voices of the capitalist class – the various investment agencies
and Media – are warning the ANC not to shift policy to the left. Before
the election the neo-liberal interests held a gun to the temple of the
South African Electorate threatening that a two thirds majority for the
ruling party would be bad for investment. Now they are hysterically
trying to influence government economic policy away from the election
manifesto for which the South African population voted so
overwhelmingly. In other words the capitalist class wants to, yet again
as with every previous election, steal victory from the working class
and the poor by either scaring the leadership of the ANC with the
threat of an investment strike, or through buying off that leadership.
In the meantime the neo-liberal media are trying their best to demonise
and ridicule the left in the ANC Alliance, on SABC one commentator went
so far as to say that “there is not a single example on the planet of
where communism has succeeded” (SABC3).
An editorial in the London-based Independent was very clear in its “advice” to
Zuma:
“He should confirm that now by reappointing the ANC's widely
respected finance minister, Trevor Manuel, who has steered the economy
through 40 consecutive quarters of growth until the end of last year.
He should offer a third term to the governor of its central bank, Tito
Mboweni, one of the most respected economic officials in emerging
markets. He should keep the former ANC Youth League leader Fikile
Mbalula and the Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande, well
away from any posts that might unsettle investors. And he should resist
all temptation to reach for his infamous machine gun. Government is no
place for the songs of opposition.” (Leading article: South Africa's new
beginning)
Given that the South African media is owned and controlled by
corporate capitalist interests there is very little room for
alternative viewpoints reaching the public. Even the public
broadcaster, the SABC, slavishly repeats the mantra of neo-liberalism
warning that the ANC will not be able to realize its election manifesto
once in power because “the tax base is only 6 million taxpayers strong,
while 23 million people registered as voters and the total population
equals 50 million” (SABC 3, 24 April 2009). What the public is not told
is that every South African pays 14% VAT on any purchases, including
basic foodstuffs. Education, water, health, housing have all been
commodified, and in order to create “conditions conducive for
investment” the government has prostrated itself before corporate
interests over the last 10 years, thus corporations pay a fraction of
the price that ordinary consumers pay for utilities such as water and
electricity, not to speak of a variety of other incentives offered by
the Department of Trade and Industry. No wonder that South Africa has
one of the biggest gaps between wealth and poverty in the world.
The poor have in fact subsidized the neo-liberal project advanced
under the regime of Thabo Mbeki over the last decade. Corporations have
shifted the costs of their environmental impact, their social impact
and even the costs of exports onto the poor. Thus mineworkers live
largely in shacks without potable water and electricity in places such
as Rustenburg. Communities who have historically used stream, well and
borehole water stream water in Limpopo province can no longer do so as
mining operations have poisoned these sources of water. The same mining
corporations now purify the water and sell it as a commodity back to
the same water users – the water has been turned into a commodity
through first poisoning it, then purifying it and selling it as a
commodity. The principle of polluter pays has been subverted into the
polluter is paid!
Jacob Zuma is trying to reassure capitalist interests, but this, as
we have seen in the last 15 years, can only be done by attacking the
workers and the poor. This is even more the case as South Africa has
entered into recession and the country has its largest budget deficit
in a decade. One cannot serve two masters. If the new ANC government
wants to please big business it will soon come into collision with the
workers and poor which will express themselves through COSATU and the
SACP.
The task of Marxists in South Africa is to reach out to the most
advanced elements within these organisations and start a serious
struggle to put them on a clear socialist programme, one that is based
not on some “National Democratic Revolution” but firmly on socialist
revolution. If one thing has been clearly demonstrated by the last 15
years of bourgeois democracy and ANC government it is that the problems
faced by the masses of workers and poor in South Africa, overwhelmingly
Black, not even those related to racial discrimination or access to the
land, housing, education and healthcare, cannot be solved within the
limits of capitalism. Only the expropriation of the means of
production, “the wealth of the land” that the Freedom Charter says
should belong to the people, can lay the basis for a democratic plan of
production that can start to address the problems of homelessness,
poverty and unemployment which millions of South Africans still suffer
from.
Sources:
Patrick Bond (2004) Talk Left Walk Right, South Africa’s Frustrated
Global Reforms. University of KwaZul Natal Press: Pieter Maritzburg.
________________________________
See also:
* Political Situation in South Africa on the day of the 2009 elections
by David van Wyk (April 22, 2009)
* The Working Class in the April 2009 South African Elections by David
van Wyk (April 22, 2009)
--
"proleteriats of the different countries unite"
Hasta la victoria siempre...
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