Unimportant Speculation on Manifestos and Coalitions

In media parlance they call it silly season, which last week reached a crescendo in a desperate swansong before the Constitutional Court. BOSA, Mmusi Maimane’s opaque party – or is it a movement? as well as the Rivonia Circle – in a bid to ease the requisites for participation in this year’s ballot were unceremoniously shot down by the apex court. New-comer or not, the judges threw down the gavel and determined that there would be no exceptions to the between 11 000 and 15 000 member signatures that parties must gather nor the deposits they must fork out in order to get their logos on the ballot sheet. No special treatment, not even for the new kids on the block.

Game on then it seems!

That the new outfits were pleading mercy little deterred the selfies of old-time politicians popping up on social media. Nor the big-venue manifesto launch hoedowns. Three-meat plates of food and t-shirts for the gathered underclass. Potholes being filled, pipes mended, bucket toilets miraculously replaced with flushing cisterns. Pretty soon we can expect the big guys to be out hugging the elderly, kissing babies and dishing out bursaries to our siblings. No Tintswalo should be left behind at this crucial time when every vote counts.

To much pomp and coverage, the high rollers have launched their various manifestos. Now their underlings in lower party structures – Colesberg being no exception – are out doing the legwork. It’s the every-five-years de javu playing itself out all over again. And the one gnawing question is whether we will still be crying ‘unemployment, poverty, loadshedding…’ this time five years from now.

If there’s anything three decades has taught it’s that cronyism, patronage and rampant corruption have put paid to any grand government commitment to some egalitarian socialist utopia. Now that the comrades have nibbled on the sushi, pap no longer tastes the same. Perhaps the only hope citizens can cling to is that things couldn’t possibly get any worse. Could they?

With the walls closing in, the ruling ANC may have to reconcile with the possibility of sweet talking one of the rivals into a coalition. This may sound like a good thing to those who would wish to see the party up against the ropes and punished – returning to Parliament limping, the smirk of invincibility wiped off their faces. But, what ought to be a far more bothersome concern is: What form might this new partnership government take? What trajectory would it pursue?

Nelson Mandela’s years are mostly remembered as characterised by a massive social welfare drive. His successor, Thabo Mbeki is said to have been obsessed with neoliberal ideas and the establishment of a black middle class which he believed would then result in the pie of prosperity growing so as to accomodate more of the previously marginalised. However, the inverse was achieved; the black middle class grew to a point and those numbered in its elite ranks grew insanely wealthy whilst the rest were left to forage on social welfare. By the time Jacob Zuma took the reins, there was little earnest policy direction except on paper. Instead, patronage was revved up into overdrive and hence today his tenure enjoys the unrespectable moniker of ‘nine wasted years.’ The incumbent, Cyril Ramaphosa, has largely been out somewhat attempting to put out fires caused by those who were watching (himself included) as his predecessor went about his ways.

Now what we are sitting with is a state run by a motley of those trying to right yesterday’s wrongs on the one hand and those who greedily look to benefit immensely if things stay just as they are. One cannot imagine any outright victories in such toxicity, certainly not for the layfolk. Hence we must be wary of the sort of bedfellows alongside whom this government would want to run the country. The ANC’s 54th Elective Conference in 2017 was labelled as ‘a fight for the soul of the ANC.’ The upcoming ballot is clearly geared to be a fight for that of the country.

The first likely candidates who might warm up to talks of coalition are no doubt the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). A former ANC Youth League leader, Julius Malema has been a thorn in the side of the ruling party since his expulsion in 2012. From his lavish ways to his rhetoric, Malema is a pantomime of the old-school socialist cadre of the ANC; roughshod firebrands like the late Peter Mokaba. Thus it comes as no surprise that foremost on his party’s manifesto is the expropriation of land without compensation. In his speeches he’s been known to tear into ANC leaders for having sold out on the dream of restoring the land to ‘its rightful owners’. Of course, those on the middle or right of the political spectrum will be unnerved by this, so too will the ANC which seemingly advocates for a gradual land redistribution process.

Malema’s further calls for the ‘nationalisation of strategic sectors of the economy’ (read: banks) will further cause issues of contention in the partnership. Axed Secretary-General Ace Magashule once tried to pull a similar move at a media briefing, much to the party’s ire. Malema is seemingly yet to let go of the defunct idea of the ANC as some clone of Soviet socialism because such hardline politics have long petered out of the movement, and in their place stands an African capitalist attitude which looks pretty much as capitalism looks anywhere else in the world. Most importantly, this is exactly the worry that has resulted in the explosion of new parties: an ANC/EFF marriage is clearly worrisome across the racial divide.

So what about Songezo Zibi’s RISE Mzansi which as far as donorships go has been amongst the biggest winners with so-called white monopoly capital? As eParkeni has reported previously, we don’t know what to make of Zibi save to say he seems the intellectual type; a thinking man whose manifesto featured some uncommon points, domestically. (Think climate change; not many have touched on that). On his campaign trail, he stressed the need towards an ideas-based leadership with capable people. Given the recent cadre deployment debacle, Khongolose appears to be antithetical to such wisdom and with Zibi’s leadership list comprised of several youngsters, will it be Rooibos or Red Bull at the negotiating table?

The Democratic Alliance (DA), you’d know, has repeatedly stated it would never form a coalition with the ANC, right? So abhorrent was the idea that they reached out to a coterie of smaller, barely-known parties to form the Multi-Party Charter just so that they could meaningfully take on the ruling party . Well, that’s the script the whole country was reading from until News24 editor-in-chief Adriaan Basson and assistant editor in politics and opinion Qaanitah Hunter threw a spanner in the works. Their book, Who Will Rule South Africa?: The demise of the ANC and the Rise of a New Democracy suggests that “there are secret talks between the ANC and the DA that would result in an ANC president and Cabinet and the DA controlling the legislature and Parliament,” according to Polity.org. Of course the party has vehemently denied the claims but one must wonder: what if, behind closed doors, the DA sees this as a once in a lifetime opportunity to get close enough to power and to showcase its mettle. It may never come again, so why not seize the moment and explain yourself later?

One could continue hypothesising but the remaining influential parties seem to be dead set in their designs as the MPC. Other promising upstarts namely the Patriotic Alliance and uMkhonto weSizwe could potentially be game changers in the Western Cape and kwa-Zulu Natal respectively. The former, particularly, could represent the greatest threat to DA dominance in the Cape’s Coloured community. And who knows, even though it doesn’t really count as far as numbers go, the ANC may find itself desperate enough to woo back Gen. Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement into the fold. In the Eastern Cape ‘Njengele’ (that’s General to you, dear reader) is something of a Churchillian figure and as a family friend of the Mandelas perhaps they might see in him somebody who could sprinkle that Madiba magic back into what is an ailing Khongolose.