New South African Review 2 - Paul Hoffman

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experiences of forced removals – from evictions from farms in the Hartebeespoort dam area, and from forced removals from land they were occupying illegally in Meloding.

      REFERENCES

      Naidoo P and A Veriava (2009) Reinventing Political Space in Post-apartheid South Africa http://sacsis.org.za/site/article/281.1; accessed 03/05/2010.

      Naidoo P (2010) Indigent management: A strategic response to the struggles of the poor in post-apartheid South Africa. In New South African Review 1, pp. 184–204.

      PART 1: POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL

      INTRODUCTION

      The Zuma presidency: The politics of paralysis?

      John Daniel and Roger Southall

      That the ANC will become another ZANU is possible, but by no means certain, even if the entrenchment of a one-party dominant system is likely to continue generating a range of democratic deficits in South Africa.

      (James Hamill and John Hoffman in Chapter 2 in this volume)

      The intent of the Zuma presidency, according to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), both of which played vital roles in bringing about its political ascendancy, was to create a government that would be less remote, more responsive and closer to the people, and which would, above all, implement a shift in economic policy that would create more jobs and be more pro-poor. In short, we were led to believe that Thabo Mbeki’s conservative macroeconomic policies would give way to Zuma’s more activist, interventionist ‘developmental state’. The reality, however, has fallen dismally short of such expectations. Popular anger has been stirred by the personal extravagance of countless government officials, including members of the cabinet. Corruption appears rampant. Key agencies of the state, notably the police, seem unaccountable, if not out of control – an entity as in apartheid days, more to be feared than relied upon. The capacity of local governments in numerous ANC-run councils seems on the verge of collapse. The global recession has bit deeply, causing continuing job losses and spreading indebtedness while a high rand is stimulating higher prices, notably of food. Although some movement towards a significantly different, perhaps employment-creating, industrial path has been presaged by the government’s New Growth Path, official policy seems as largely beholden to the market as ever – except insofar as its penchant for ramping up regulations and controls in areas such as mining seems designed to discourage rather than facilitate foreign investment.

      Amid this evidence of stasis and looming crisis, Zuma himself appears indecisive and weak. Brought to power by a coalition of those at odds with Mbeki rather than merely of the left, he has seemed to devote more effort to shoring up his position (and promoting the material interests of his family, his friends and his home village) within the ANC than to meeting the challenges of government; he seems so beholden to the diverse constituents of the alliance that enabled him to unseat Mbeki that he seems reluctant to offend any of them. Having, it seems, reneged on his pledge to serve only one term as president, he has plunged the ANC back into a succession struggle, with rivals scheming to unseat him at the ANC’s five-yearly conference in December 2012 (although, as ever, the ANC publicly denies what is plain for all to see). So it is that Zuma fiddles while South Africa stumbles along a path of political uncertainty. An unknowing observer studying the recent 2011 local government election campaign of the ANC could be forgiven for concluding that Julius Malema held the party’s presidency and not the hapless Zuma, who seems to have lost the brilliant politicking touch he so adroitly displayed in the 2009 national elections.

      In 1976, Soweto erupted, taking the then exiled ANC as much by surprise as the then National Party government and fundamentally shifting the terrain of South African politics as, over the following decade and a half, popular resistance was to render the continuance of white minority rule unsustainable. The eventual outcome was the celebrated compromise between popular forces and the white state in 1994, resulting in a liberal democratic constitution which balanced minority protection against majority rule, sought to render government accountable under a system of constitutional rule, and entrenched myriad individual, human and social rights. It has been in many ways remarkable: South Africa has now conducted four free and generally fair general elections; there is freedom of speech and extensive and critical debate; on significant occasions the constitutional and other courts have held government to account; and for all the criticisms of the government’s economic strategy there has been a concerted expansion of grants and benefits to the poor. No one seriously questions whether South Africa in 2011 is a better place to live in than in 1976, even though there are many people at the bottom of the social pile who have only seen limited change or no change at all. Nonetheless, there is widespread concern that the ANC, the party of liberation, has become the major problem in regard to the health and prospects of South African democracy.

      It is commonplace

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