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South Africa

South Africa’s Nkandla scandal finally catches up with Zuma

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South Africa's Constitutional Court has, at long last, ruled that president Jacob Zuma must repay the government for upgrades to his home at Nkandla.
South Africa’s Constitutional Court has, at long last, ruled that president Jacob Zuma must repay the government for upgrades to his home at Nkandla.

Imagine if, as president, George W. Bush diverted $23 million in public funds to improve his ranch in Midland, Texas.south africa flag

Imagine, further, that after a government ruling to reimburse the state treasury for those funds, it took a Supreme Court ruling to force Bush to acknowledge the graft and apologize. That, in essence, is what has happened in South Africa, where years of graft and corruption have caught up with Jacob Zuma, the two-term president and leader of the African National Congress (ANC).

At the end of last week, South Africa’s constitutional court ruled that Zuma violated the country’s constitution in refusing to yield to the findings of a public protector that he should pay back much of those amounts spent to upgrade his Nkandla estate in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal. Zuma and his associates conjured risible explanations for the spending — for example, a magnificent swimming pool was rationalized as a ‘fire pool’ to provide a reservoir of water in case of emergency.

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RELATED: Even with victory assured, is the ANC’s future at risk?

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South Africa’s public prosecutor disagreed and, after Zuma refused to heed that decision, the constitutional court disagreed as well. Zuma promptly took to national television to apologize, agreeing that he would, at long last, repay the South African treasury. Though opposition parties have called for Zuma’s impeachment, the ANC’s massive parliamentary majority makes that an unlikely possibility.

Set to step down in 2019, the 73-year-old Zuma is no stranger to controversy. He came to power in 2008 as a bitter enemy of then-president Thabo Mbeki, though even then he was under various ethics clouds, including a sensational rape trial that ended in 2006 (he was ultimately acquitted of the charges). Zuma’s rise meant that power would shift from the Xhosa power base of Mandela and Mbeki, for the first time in post-apartheid South Africa, to Zuma’s own Zulu power base. That, in turn, meant an entirely new set of Zulu elites within the ANC looking for their share of party patronage and the other benefits of power. The excesses of Nkandla epitomize the degree of impunity of ANC officials in the Zuma era.  Continue reading South Africa’s Nkandla scandal finally catches up with Zuma →

South Africa

South Africa: early election results point to ANC landslide

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zumawins

There wasn’t any doubt that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) would win the fifth post-apartheid election in South Africa’s history.south africa flag

But relatively poor showings by South Africa’s various opposition parties seem to have failed to hold the ANC under 60% of the national vote, with the party set to enter its third decade in power. Under the leadership of Nelson Mandela in 1994, the ANC rose to prominence after a decades-long struggle against white minority rule, and its political dominance hasn’t seriously been challenged at the national level in the past 20 years. That’s despite growing malaise over economic conditions, income inequality and mass unemployment. That’s also in addition to growing concerns about corruption under the leadership of president Jacob Zuma (pictured above), who will now be reelected to a second term once South Africa’s newly elected National Assembly convenes later this month.

Notably, the election was the first to include the votes of the ‘born-free’ generation, South Africans who were born after the end of the apartheid era. It was also the first election held after Mandela’s death last December at age 95.

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RELATED: South Africa votes in 5th post-apartheid election: what you need to know

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Voters in South Africa yesterday elected all 400 members of the National Assembly and the governments of all nine provinces.

With just over 85.5% of the votes counted, the ANC led with 63.04% of the vote. The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) was winning 21.84%, its highest vote total to date. In third place was the newly formed Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) with 5.46%. Its leader, Julius Malema a former ANC Youth League head and a one-time Zuma enthusiast, was kicked out of the ANC two years ago, and he’s campaigned on a neo-Marxist platform of widespread land redistribution to black South Africans and nationalization of key South African industries, including mining.

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RELATED: Who is Julius Malema?

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Here’s the national breakdown — and the anticipated seat count, on the basis of the current results:

SA14vote

SANA14

So for all the hand-wringing over the corruption, a deadly confrontation with striking mineworkers, the tension within the ‘tripartite’ alliance among the ANC, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the ANC will hold almost exactly the same number of seats in the National Assembly that it held prior to the elections.

What does this mean for South African policy? Continue reading South Africa: early election results point to ANC landslide →

South Africa

South Africa votes in 5th post-apartheid election: what you need to know

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World Bank, South Africa 2007.

South Africans go to the polls for the fifth time in the post-apartheid era today in a race that the ruling African National Congress (ANC), the liberation movement that forced the end of minority white rule in 1994, is nearly guaranteed to win.south africa flag

South Africans will elect all 400 members of the National Assembly, by proportional representation on a closed-list basis (which may explain, in part, the hierarchical party strength of ANC governance). They will also elect governments in South Africa’s nine provinces.

Here’s the current breakdown:

SANatlAssmly

Notably, it’s the first election that will feature the ‘born-frees,’ the generation of South Africans who were born after the end of apartheid rule. Though they’re only 2.5% of the electorate today, they’ll become an increasingly vital demographic, and they might well change the face of South African politics over the next decade.

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RELATED: Even with victory assured, is the ANC’s future at risk? 

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Jacob Zuma, the president since 2009, is leading the ANC campaign, despite his relative unpopularity as South Africans face dwindling economic growth, rising unemployment and the sense that the ANC is more interested in maintaining — and abusing — power than attending to the pressing policy concerns of most South Africans. Zuma’s spending on ‘security improvements’ to his home at Nkandla has captured the widespread disgust of much of the electorate. His government’s handling of a mining strike at Marikana two years ago ended with a clash with police that killed 44 people in the worst state-sponsored violence since the apartheid era. The fallout has severely strained the so-called tripartite alliance among the ANC, the Communist Party of South Africa and the Congress of South African Trade Union (COSATU).

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RELATED: Zuma is strongest president on HIV/AIDS in South African history

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Notwithstanding those concerns, the ANC is almost assured of victory, thanks to its role as the liberation movement that ended apartheid under the mythic leadership of former president Nelson Mandela, who died late last December. The biggest question is whether the ANC will achieve the support of at least two-thirds of the electorate — it could win just 60% (or even less) of the vote.

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RELATED: How Nelson Mandela’s death provides South Africa a challenge and an opportunity

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The chief opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), seems set to increase its support to a historically high level, possibly more than 20% or even 25%. Continue reading South Africa votes in 5th post-apartheid election: what you need to know →

South Africa

Even with victory assured, is the ANC’s future at risk?

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cyril-ramaphosa-and-jacob-zuma-create-south-africa-s-politcal-team-photodpa_0.

No one doubts that the African National Congress (ANC) will win South Africa’s parliamentary elections on May 7, extending its political hold on the country since the end of apartheid in 1994 and the election of the ANC’s Nelson Mandela as South Africa’s first non-white president.south africa flag

Twenty years later, South Africans are going to the polls for the first time following Mandela’s death late last year, and the chief opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA) will be satisfied if it can make further gains, consolidating its hold on Western Cape province, where the DA’s leader Helen Zille serves as premier, appealing to voters in Northern Cape and Eastern Cape, and growing its presence in Gauteng under the leadership of rising star Mmusi Maimane, currently a member of the Johannesburg city council.

But even if the ANC wins with over 60% of the vote, the same level of support as it has generally attracted in the past three elections, South Africa’s ruling structure will enter its third consecutive decade in power exceedingly unpopular, increasingly divided and with no clear path of transition to a compelling successor to the 71-year-old Zuma (pictured above, right, with deputy ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa).

As Zuma is term-limited as South Africa’s president (the president is elected shortly after parliamentary elections, so the ANC’s dominance will all but assuredly result in Zuma’s reelection later in May or June), he’ll enter his second term as a lame duck with nagging controversies over mismanagement and corruption.

What’s more, the ANC will elect a new leader in 2017 — meaning that, unless Zuma tries to hold onto the party leadership, the ANC will determine the individual who could lead South Africa from 2019 to 2029 within the next three-year window. Though posturing for the 2017 contest is well under way, if quietly, too few ANC leaders are talking about how to revitalize the ANC for a new generation of issues and policy challenges.

Policy and governance woes

Over the past five years, South Africa’s once-booming economy has slowed. Continue reading Even with victory assured, is the ANC’s future at risk? →