Heightened tensions are good for SA
•Fri, 8 Jun 2007
One of the paradoxes of good political health is that the political climate experiences tension
and momentum, for such conditions are conducive to political change. Developments on the
South African political scene would seem to indicate that a significant cycle of tension and
momentum is under way.
Until the former National Party embarked on its reform process in the early eighties the
South African political scene was stagnant. Prospects for political change were zero. But
when P. W. Botha decided to embrace change he infused the political climate with tension
and momentum. First off, the NP suffered a right-wing breakaway which saw the
establishment of the Conservative Party, while the NRP and PFP saw their policies hijacked
by the NP. Black politics and resistance was rekindled as a result of Botha’s apartheid
reforms which included the establishment of the doomed tricameral system. Opposition to
the NP government took on new faces and strategies. Nonetheless, within a decade
fundamental change overwhelmed the NP. What were once the holy cows of its political
agenda became pariahs and those that had been pariahs and “total onslaught” elements
became partners in a process to establish a new South Africa.
Since 1994 the political strength of the African National Congress has been dependent on
its alliance with the SACP and Cosatu. During its first decade in office the glue of history and
the fruits of political triumph sufficed to hold the partners in harness. Internal feuds were
managed, cracks were papered over and solidarity was projected. But the seeds of division
could not be prevented from germinating. Essentially those harked back to 1996 when,
much to the consternation of the hard-core socialists, the Nelson Mandela government
adopted the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear) economic policy. But socialist
frustration with Gear’s seeming inability to reduce unemployment (largely a result of the
socialists’ insistence on inflexible labour laws) has since become anathema.
As history shows, a house divided against itself cannot stand. The tensions that could once
be contained are now fuelling political change. Transport minister and chairman of the ANC’s
policy committee Jeff Radebe has indicated (Business Report, March 23) that “total
economic transformation” based on the 1955 Freedom Charter’s vision of a society in which
the wealth is “shared” — meaning nationalised by the government and, in socialist claptrap,
“owned by the people” such as in the former Soviet Union — is to be determined at the ANC’
s December national conference. The pursuit of a failed ideological blueprint can only be
described as backwards to the future.
The partners of the tripartite alliance now find themselves on a collision course with destiny
as they confront the same dilemma that Abraham Lincoln pointed out to Americans in 1858:
they could not endure half slave and half free. The ANC must either recognise the folly of a
failed ideology and break with its past or it must retreat into the past and repeat the ruin that
is the cost of socialist economics.
Ahead of the ANC’s looming high noon it is significant that the SACP in Gauteng province
has registered with the IEC as a political party and has indicated that it will contest elections
under its own banner. Presumably it intends to rely on Cosatu support to realise its political
aims. Those implications could be crippling for the ANC in Gauteng.
Exacerbating relations within the tripartite alliance is the public servants’ strike. Not only has
Cosatu stepped up its rubbishing of government ministers like Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi,
who it has denounced as having “an anti-worker attitude”, but the government’s stance on
the wage dispute is highlighting the ideological split within the alliance. For Fraser-Moleketi,
as a SACP member, to be called “anti-worker” is as bad as being called “bourgeois”. Yet her
staunch defence of macro-economic spending limits casts her in an ambivalent position.
Quite rightly she says “we cannot have a situation where the state’s wage bill is 20% of
GDP”. Hardly the sentiments of a tax-and-spend socialist.
Relations between Cosatu general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and ANC president Thabo
Mbeki have sunk to a new low. In his May 25 online letter ANC Today, Mbeki said he had
disregarded Vavi’s comments in the past but could no longer do so. Mbeki was responding
to Vavi’s likening of the government’s euphoria over the economic boom to “Nazi
propaganda” tactics. Burdening these divisions within the alliance is the ANC’s leadership
election. Whereas the DA recently went through this exercise in an open and public way,
and emerged exultant in its choice, intrigue and what the SACP calls a “very poisoned
atmosphere” characterises the run-up to the ANC’s December election. Even business
tycoon Tokyo Sexwale’s election bid stinks. Trying to sweeten people with tranches of
shares makes him damaged goods and unsuitable as a future South African president.
Benefiting from these tensions is the political health of the country.
Racial divides are crumbling along with political straitjackets. Opposition is being
transformed. Nothing attests to this more emphatically than the recent launch of three DA
branches in a black community near Westville where more than 100 former ANC members
pledged their support for Helen Zille. Roll on December 2007.
• Duncan Du Bois is a DA Durban Metro ward councillor. He writes in his private capacity.
•Fri, 8 Jun 2007
One of the paradoxes of good political health is that the political climate experiences tension
and momentum, for such conditions are conducive to political change. Developments on the
South African political scene would seem to indicate that a significant cycle of tension and
momentum is under way.
Until the former National Party embarked on its reform process in the early eighties the
South African political scene was stagnant. Prospects for political change were zero. But
when P. W. Botha decided to embrace change he infused the political climate with tension
and momentum. First off, the NP suffered a right-wing breakaway which saw the
establishment of the Conservative Party, while the NRP and PFP saw their policies hijacked
by the NP. Black politics and resistance was rekindled as a result of Botha’s apartheid
reforms which included the establishment of the doomed tricameral system. Opposition to
the NP government took on new faces and strategies. Nonetheless, within a decade
fundamental change overwhelmed the NP. What were once the holy cows of its political
agenda became pariahs and those that had been pariahs and “total onslaught” elements
became partners in a process to establish a new South Africa.
Since 1994 the political strength of the African National Congress has been dependent on
its alliance with the SACP and Cosatu. During its first decade in office the glue of history and
the fruits of political triumph sufficed to hold the partners in harness. Internal feuds were
managed, cracks were papered over and solidarity was projected. But the seeds of division
could not be prevented from germinating. Essentially those harked back to 1996 when,
much to the consternation of the hard-core socialists, the Nelson Mandela government
adopted the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear) economic policy. But socialist
frustration with Gear’s seeming inability to reduce unemployment (largely a result of the
socialists’ insistence on inflexible labour laws) has since become anathema.
As history shows, a house divided against itself cannot stand. The tensions that could once
be contained are now fuelling political change. Transport minister and chairman of the ANC’s
policy committee Jeff Radebe has indicated (Business Report, March 23) that “total
economic transformation” based on the 1955 Freedom Charter’s vision of a society in which
the wealth is “shared” — meaning nationalised by the government and, in socialist claptrap,
“owned by the people” such as in the former Soviet Union — is to be determined at the ANC’
s December national conference. The pursuit of a failed ideological blueprint can only be
described as backwards to the future.
The partners of the tripartite alliance now find themselves on a collision course with destiny
as they confront the same dilemma that Abraham Lincoln pointed out to Americans in 1858:
they could not endure half slave and half free. The ANC must either recognise the folly of a
failed ideology and break with its past or it must retreat into the past and repeat the ruin that
is the cost of socialist economics.
Ahead of the ANC’s looming high noon it is significant that the SACP in Gauteng province
has registered with the IEC as a political party and has indicated that it will contest elections
under its own banner. Presumably it intends to rely on Cosatu support to realise its political
aims. Those implications could be crippling for the ANC in Gauteng.
Exacerbating relations within the tripartite alliance is the public servants’ strike. Not only has
Cosatu stepped up its rubbishing of government ministers like Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi,
who it has denounced as having “an anti-worker attitude”, but the government’s stance on
the wage dispute is highlighting the ideological split within the alliance. For Fraser-Moleketi,
as a SACP member, to be called “anti-worker” is as bad as being called “bourgeois”. Yet her
staunch defence of macro-economic spending limits casts her in an ambivalent position.
Quite rightly she says “we cannot have a situation where the state’s wage bill is 20% of
GDP”. Hardly the sentiments of a tax-and-spend socialist.
Relations between Cosatu general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and ANC president Thabo
Mbeki have sunk to a new low. In his May 25 online letter ANC Today, Mbeki said he had
disregarded Vavi’s comments in the past but could no longer do so. Mbeki was responding
to Vavi’s likening of the government’s euphoria over the economic boom to “Nazi
propaganda” tactics. Burdening these divisions within the alliance is the ANC’s leadership
election. Whereas the DA recently went through this exercise in an open and public way,
and emerged exultant in its choice, intrigue and what the SACP calls a “very poisoned
atmosphere” characterises the run-up to the ANC’s December election. Even business
tycoon Tokyo Sexwale’s election bid stinks. Trying to sweeten people with tranches of
shares makes him damaged goods and unsuitable as a future South African president.
Benefiting from these tensions is the political health of the country.
Racial divides are crumbling along with political straitjackets. Opposition is being
transformed. Nothing attests to this more emphatically than the recent launch of three DA
branches in a black community near Westville where more than 100 former ANC members
pledged their support for Helen Zille. Roll on December 2007.
• Duncan Du Bois is a DA Durban Metro ward councillor. He writes in his private capacity.
Councillor's Corner
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Lifetime Bluff resident serving his third term in office as representative
of the area. Member of the Democratic Alliance.
of the area. Member of the Democratic Alliance.
This weeks Councillor comments
| Duncan Du Bois |
8 June 2007
Phone:467-0343 or mobile:083 291-4913
Municipal Manager - Dr Sutcliffe: Tel 311-2130 ;
SutcliffeM@durban.gov.za
SutcliffeM@durban.gov.za
Report dumping or unauthorised use of verges; Phone 311-7448
Metro All-Call / All hours Tel No.: 361-0000
Metro Police: Tel 402-0680
Brighton Beach SAPS: Tel 451 8060 / 8059
Brighton Beach Community Policing Forum Chairman: Carl Knauff : 082 449-6503
Metro All-Call / All hours Tel No.: 361-0000
Metro Police: Tel 402-0680
Brighton Beach SAPS: Tel 451 8060 / 8059
Brighton Beach Community Policing Forum Chairman: Carl Knauff : 082 449-6503
Useful Contacts
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You can contact Councillor D Du Bois by e-mail @ dubois@axxess.co.za