Speaker 1: Next month, South Africa will hold what many people are
Speaker 1: calling the country's most important election since the end of apartheid.
Speaker 1: But can the A and C remain a powerful force
Speaker 1: in the country. From Bloomberg News, I'm Jennifer's Abasaga and
Speaker 1: this is the Next Africa Podcast. When Nelson Mandela came
Speaker 1: to power, he made the promise of an efficient state
Speaker 1: led economy that would uplift the country for all South Africans,
Speaker 1: no matter their color.
Speaker 2: Their time to build is upon us. We have a
Speaker 2: plus that saved our political emancipation. We ploods ourselves to
Speaker 2: liberate all our people from the continued fonders of poverty, deprivation,
Speaker 2: saf sander and other discrimination.
Speaker 1: But three decades after that promise, the ruling African National
Speaker 1: Congress is facing the real prospect of losing its national
Speaker 1: majority for the first time since it came to power
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety four. The ANC led government is facing
Speaker 1: major challenges. The economy isn't growing.
Speaker 3: The essay economy has tended to consistently underperform.
Speaker 1: Unemployment and poverty remain persistent, and crippling power cuts load
Speaker 1: shedding as they're known here, have become the norm.
Speaker 4: It comes expecting worst case scenario twenty six days of
Speaker 4: one to two hour power cuts.
Speaker 1: This week, with our reporter Stembile Stele, we take a
Speaker 1: step back and look at what happened over the past
Speaker 1: thirty years and why the future of the ANC as
Speaker 1: a major party is at risk. Stimbile, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for being here. It's a busy season for you, so
Speaker 1: appreciate your.
Speaker 3: Time from them.
Speaker 1: You've been covering politics here in South Africa for a
Speaker 1: number of years. Can you just tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about where we're at right now with the ANC
Speaker 1: in terms of the ruling party being the leader of
Speaker 1: this country.
Speaker 3: So I think most people will come to North South Africa,
Speaker 3: this tiny country at the bottom of the African consonants
Speaker 3: because of the events that led us to the nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety four which is the beginning of the democratic governments.
Speaker 2: It was the.
Speaker 3: Transition from the apartheight regime, white minority rule which oppressed
Speaker 3: the majority of black South Africans for the longest period
Speaker 3: of time.
Speaker 2: The prohibition of the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress,
Speaker 2: the South African Communist Party and a number of subsidiary
Speaker 2: organizations is being rescended.
Speaker 3: So the current ruling party, the African National Congress. They
Speaker 3: are this liberation movement, in fact, the oldest one on
Speaker 3: the African continents, and they end up engaging in this
Speaker 3: armed struggle against the apartheight regime. That background is important
Speaker 3: because you have people that have been soldiers, that have
Speaker 3: been so called guerrillas of warfare coming into the state
Speaker 3: now and having to engage in a very different way,
Speaker 3: having to engage with state machinery and trying to translate
Speaker 3: the idealism into a government that works for the majority
Speaker 3: of people that have not had access to a number
Speaker 3: of for the duration of the apartheid regime thirty years on.
Speaker 3: And they're very much in trouble in terms of what
Speaker 3: they have been able to make good on, in terms
Speaker 3: of the promises that they made and what they've not
Speaker 3: been able to do.
Speaker 1: So let's just dig into that. You've been in the
Speaker 1: middle of this campaign and we're hearing all of these
Speaker 1: parties talking about what the ANC has been able to
Speaker 1: make good on and what they haven't. I mean, can
Speaker 1: you give us maybe your your report card for the
Speaker 1: ANC up into this point.
Speaker 3: So it's Africa's most industrialized economy, but it's hobbled by
Speaker 3: I think what is both structural and self inflicted challenges
Speaker 3: which have over time resulted in this really anemic growth.
Speaker 3: In the early days of the anc led government to
Speaker 3: under presidents at Sabombigie and Nelson Mandela, you had growth
Speaker 3: at around three maybe four percent in a good year.
Speaker 3: But thirty years later things are looking really different. Inequality
Speaker 3: has remained, if not worsened. Unemployment at the moment stands
Speaker 3: at thirty two percent, and the majority of those are
Speaker 3: young people who are expected to votes come May twenty nine.
Speaker 3: What we've also seen because of this lack of economic growth,
Speaker 3: of course, is this unemployment breeding poverty and so as
Speaker 3: a result try and stave off a poverty that could
Speaker 3: be settling into the country, government has really gone to
Speaker 3: pains to expand its social security nets, and so you
Speaker 3: have a situation now where just under half of the
Speaker 3: country relies on some form of a social grant. And
Speaker 3: that's really because the economy is growing at insufficient rate
Speaker 3: to meet the growing demands of the majority of South Africans.
Speaker 1: So Stambila, I mean, that's a long list of challenges
Speaker 1: that have gotten in the way of any sort of
Speaker 1: growth for this economy. I mean, this couldn't have happened overnight, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, how did we actually get here?
Speaker 3: When the ANC comes into power, then inherits a lot
Speaker 3: of apartheid regime's debt as well. But there comes a
Speaker 3: point obviously where they kind of settle into government, they
Speaker 3: figure things out, but they're still very flat footed when
Speaker 3: it comes to certain issues. So we have these ideals,
Speaker 3: these policies, We thought that this could work, and even
Speaker 3: when they realize that within the confines of state machine
Speaker 3: they can't do those things, they're flat footed. And I
Speaker 3: think then also a part of that in the background,
Speaker 3: you have corruption, right that obviously existed in the part
Speaker 3: he had regime as well. It probably existed under the
Speaker 3: first two presidents, but it really becomes laid bare with
Speaker 3: the phenomenon and the election of President Jacob Zuma in
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight, when he succeeds Tabombeggie, who is
Speaker 3: then recalled from governments.
Speaker 1: I think it's really interesting to bring up Jacob Zuomer,
Speaker 1: especially because now we're seeing him back in the political
Speaker 1: spotlight now that he is able to contest in the selection.
Speaker 1: But when we think about the president and the years
Speaker 1: of sort of degradation under Jacob Zuma. I mean, just
Speaker 1: how bad did it get Jacob Zuma.
Speaker 3: Like I say, he's not alone in this corruption that
Speaker 3: takes place. It is within the ranks of the ANC,
Speaker 3: it's throughout various levels of government, but he in some
Speaker 3: ways becomes the poster boy for it, especially to the
Speaker 3: extent that the ANC is willing to protect him on
Speaker 3: so many occasions when he is found to have done rondoing.
Speaker 3: There is this groundstole that happens throughout the country. People
Speaker 3: from completely different backgrounds, from a private sector, from government's
Speaker 3: ordinary citizens are taking to the streets in their numbers,
Speaker 3: basically trying to force the ANC's hand with the hopes
Speaker 3: that they will force Jacob Zumer to leave office. In
Speaker 3: South Africa's President, Jacob Zumer's fate is set to be
Speaker 3: sealed later today. While South Africa's President Jacob Zumer has
Speaker 3: survived yet another motion of no confidence in parliament. It
Speaker 3: doesn't happen, but there are numerous attempts that happen, certainly
Speaker 3: at the level of parliament, in which lawmakers, after a
Speaker 3: series basically of allegations that are put before him or
Speaker 3: a series of wrongdoings, they do try and remove him
Speaker 3: through a motion of no confidence, in which the ANC
Speaker 3: again protects him and defends him and staves off those
Speaker 3: motions of no confidence using their majority in the House.
Speaker 3: In early twenty eighteen, Jacob Zuma is then essentially forced
Speaker 3: to resign from government.
Speaker 4: And your decision has been made by the ANC was
Speaker 4: the fact is that I have now been compelled to
Speaker 4: resign by way of a motion of no confidence.
Speaker 1: Let's move then to the current President, Zero Romoposa, because
Speaker 1: you know he too has a long and storied history
Speaker 1: within the ANC. But how did his presidency then sort
Speaker 1: of differ from what we saw from the Zuma years.
Speaker 3: So he succeeds Jacob Zuma after any Lexi conference of
Speaker 3: the ANC in twenty seventeen. And this conference comes on
Speaker 3: the back of kind of this ground swell of opposition
Speaker 3: towards Jacob Zumer. You have people that you would never
Speaker 3: think would be in the same room gathering on the
Speaker 3: streets to protest against Jacob Zuma, saying he needs to go.
Speaker 3: And so the ANC essentially relieves the country of this
Speaker 3: burden that is Zuma, and he comes into power on
Speaker 3: the back of this campaign to renew the A and
Speaker 3: c to root out corruption, to take a tougher stance
Speaker 3: on the senior leaders that are implicated in wrongdoing. And
Speaker 3: so I think he does have an understanding, probably not
Speaker 3: to the full extent, but he has a sense when
Speaker 3: he comes into power that he's got this mammoth task
Speaker 3: that is ahead of him.
Speaker 4: Now, cleaning up clearly is going to be quite a
Speaker 4: mammoth task, but we've got to start somewhere.
Speaker 3: What then constrains him is really himself. He delays in
Speaker 3: taking I think, very important decisions. It creates an environment
Speaker 3: of uncertainty that even business people and investors that really
Speaker 3: were looking to him to move things forward, they then
Speaker 3: start to doubt his ability to do so because he
Speaker 3: just doesn't act when he should be doing so.
Speaker 1: I think one of the terms I've heard is rahmophoria.
Speaker 3: I think it's how exciting and hetty it was when
Speaker 3: he came into power with all of these great expectations
Speaker 3: that were set upon him.
Speaker 1: Wow, and to now go from this crossroads really for
Speaker 1: this party that, as you mentioned, he's been trying to
Speaker 1: keep together. Let's talk about the other options, Tambile, because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of them, right, I mean, how many parties.
Speaker 3: Are so more than three hundred and fifty parties are
Speaker 3: eligible to contest the SAIS elections, not them, but it
Speaker 3: is a historic vote in that two ways. One is
Speaker 3: for the first time that independent candidates are able to
Speaker 3: contest national elections. It doesn't mean that any of them
Speaker 3: are likely to become president, of course, because South Africa
Speaker 3: doesn't vote directly for presidents. It's the parliamentarians that do that.
Speaker 3: So that's the one sort of logistical addition that we
Speaker 3: have to this election. But also just this amount of
Speaker 3: people that are vying to be an alternative to the ANC.
Speaker 1: You know, we're not going to go through all of
Speaker 1: the parties, but maybe give us some insight into maybe
Speaker 1: the biggest the biggest threats to the ANC in terms
Speaker 1: of other political parties that people are looking to other options,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, so we.
Speaker 3: Speak about one of the things that maybe would have
Speaker 3: slowed down the decline of the ANC is this brand
Speaker 3: loyalty that people have to it. But I do think
Speaker 3: that another factor is the absence of a credible opposition
Speaker 3: to the ANC. But maybe just to go through two
Speaker 3: of the most recognized we have the main opposition, the
Speaker 3: Democratic Alliance. They achieved around twenty percent in the last election.
Speaker 3: And the third biggest party is the very left leaning
Speaker 3: Economic Freedom Fighters, which is the breakaway from the ANC.
Speaker 3: It was a breakaway led by their former youth leader
Speaker 3: Julius Malima, and they have about ten percent of the votes.
Speaker 3: And so I think those are the main options that
Speaker 3: people will be looking at when it comes to deciding
Speaker 3: whether or not to give their votes to the ANC
Speaker 3: or not.
Speaker 1: We were talking about Jacob Zumer earlier. His party is
Speaker 1: surprisingly doing much better than most people would have expected.
Speaker 1: I mean, do they have any chance in getting potentially
Speaker 1: better results on election day?
Speaker 3: He is throwing his weight behind this new party from
Speaker 3: Condoss Party, and so it's really difficult right to say
Speaker 3: what a new party is going to do, especially when
Speaker 3: they've formed five months before an election. Or what he's
Speaker 3: lying on is his popularity, right, People, particularly in the
Speaker 3: province his home province of woslom Natal, are just extremely
Speaker 3: taken by him, despite all of the allegations of longdoing.
Speaker 3: It's on the basis of that popularity that so many
Speaker 3: polls then predict that he could very much take a
Speaker 3: huge chunk of the ANC's vote. I would take them
Speaker 3: with the brick of salt. It's really difficult because popularity
Speaker 3: doesn't always translate to someone actually going out and voting
Speaker 3: for you.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can look at the various scenarios, because you
Speaker 1: sort of started touching on the options right for potential
Speaker 1: coalitions here, Maybe we will start with the most likely
Speaker 1: of options that we could see, and then you give
Speaker 1: us your insight into what you think else people are
Speaker 1: anticipating for.
Speaker 3: So I think the first scenario is one in which
Speaker 3: the ANC just makes over the line, so in which
Speaker 3: case nothing changes. The second scenario is in which the
Speaker 3: ANC falls below fifty percent, and in that case it
Speaker 3: relies on one or two smaller parties which are unlikely
Speaker 3: to dictate any policy changes. And in that case, the
Speaker 3: ANC then kind of retains its policy trajectory, and I
Speaker 3: think there's certainty specifically from an economic perspective. The third
Speaker 3: scenario is one in which the ANC declines below forty
Speaker 3: five percent, reaches maybe the early forties, if not lower
Speaker 3: than US, which I think is unlikely, but it depends
Speaker 3: on the day. Right, things are quite fluid, and I
Speaker 3: think that's also the caveat when it comes to these
Speaker 3: poles and these predictions coming to The third scenario then
Speaker 3: is one in which the ANC needs a much bigger party,
Speaker 3: and obviously the risk when you work with a bigger
Speaker 3: party is that it will want to throw its weight
Speaker 3: around a little bit, it will want to make a demand.
Speaker 3: So we had the day factor Prime Minister as it were,
Speaker 3: it's an unofficial position in the country, but a staunch
Speaker 3: ally of President Silamapaosa, and that's the A and C
Speaker 3: chairperson guerde mandashe coming into the office and we obviously
Speaker 3: put all of these scenarios to him. The one that
Speaker 3: he obviously does not want to hear is the prospects
Speaker 3: of the ANC falling below fifty percent, and he was
Speaker 3: clear that from the ANC perspective, they can't be defeates.
Speaker 4: We're not planning for a coalition. We're planning for a majority,
Speaker 4: and that's what we're working for.
Speaker 3: And so they are campaigning to win. He's saying that
Speaker 3: collisions for all of the talk that's happening around them,
Speaker 3: they're not a plan for the A and C, but
Speaker 3: rather a consequence for all of the scenario planning that
Speaker 3: people are looking at. It means nothing until the electoral
Speaker 3: body actually announces that this is what parties have and
Speaker 3: it's from there that we'll see this horse trading then
Speaker 3: furiously begin to happen behind the scenes. Maybe worth noting
Speaker 3: that after the May twenty nine elections, once the election
Speaker 3: results come in, unlike most other countries where you have
Speaker 3: a couple of months to form a government, South Africa's
Speaker 3: constitution requires that it be constituted within fourteen days, and
Speaker 3: so you can imagine how Manica period that's going to
Speaker 3: be given all of these conflicting views and ideas and formations,
Speaker 3: everyone struggling basically to get a seat for themselves at
Speaker 3: the table.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and for you as our political Eco gov reporter here,
Speaker 1: But Cimbile, honestly really appreciate your time, your insight, and
Speaker 1: we know we're going to have you back on as
Speaker 1: we get closer and closer to May twenty nine, So
Speaker 1: appreciate you.
Speaker 3: Looking forward to it. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: As she was mentioning unchartered waters for much of the
Speaker 1: country and for many of the politicians who are going
Speaker 1: to be contesting and campaigning in this election, what we've
Speaker 1: been hearing time and time again from both the private
Speaker 1: and the public sector is what's been happening is not
Speaker 1: working for this economy. As we mentioned, unemployment sits close
Speaker 1: to thirty two percent, and so it really seems like
Speaker 1: the consensus is there needs to be a change. But
Speaker 1: the question really is for all of us who are
Speaker 1: going to be watching very closely with this election, is
Speaker 1: what is that change, what does it look like, and
Speaker 1: who are the people that are going to be at
Speaker 1: the table when those changes actually start to take place.
Speaker 1: This program was produced by Christopher Pitt and Leone Wedrago.
Speaker 1: I'm Jennifer Zabasancho. Thank you so much for listening. We'll
Speaker 1: see you next time.