Zuma and the rise of the right.

At the last general election the ANC, recently placed under the stewardship of Jacob Zuma, was returned to power with the mandate of another 2 million voters. A
t the time pundits attributed the increased support to trade union and the ANC Youth League support for Zuma. However since that election there has been a funda
mental realignment within the ANC which should become readily apparent in Mangaung next month. Those factions attributed with giving the ANC its increased mandate are now among those most opposed to Zuma being elected for a second term. By contrast those supporting Zuma are a strange mixture of "radicals" and conservatives including MK veterans, religious leaders, the SACP and traditional leaders.

The realignment does not represent Zumas betrayal of his backers. Rather it reflects the recognition that the additional votes came primarily from "tribal" areas.  At last count approximately one-quarter of South Africans of voting age resided in what are now referred to as "traditional" areas. This makes this constituency one of the most influential in the country and in the ANC.

The features that unite Zuma supporters are becoming ever more apparent. Not only are these groups socially conservative, they tend to be highly patriarchal and, at heart, anti-democratic. To gain the support of these groups candidates have to focus on beguiling their leaders rather than the rank and file. Zuma has to appeal not to the soldiers, congregants and subjects but to an elite of generals, bishops and kings. Obviously this calls for a fundamentally different approach to the populism of the Youth League we grew accustomed to. 

Zuma's pursuit of support from traditional leaders is shown by the ANC's dogged pursuit of "traditional courts". For some time the Department of Justice has been attempting to pass legislation which grants tribal chiefs the right to try criminal and civil cases and impose sanctions as they see appropriate. The procedures and sanctions adopted in these courts are to accord with traditional law and cultural practices.

The Traditional Courts Bill has stalled on repeated rejection by the affected communities.  While the media has tended to emphasise the criticism voiced by women, opposition to the bill is widespread. In the public hearings on the bill men have tended to dominate proceedings both numerically and in vociferousness. They dismiss the bill with as much vigour as that attributed to women. Despite the opposition (which extends into cabinet) the Zuma administration continues to promote the legislation.

Despite the opposition and its obvious unconstitutionality the bill being pushed through because of the advantages it offers traditional leaders. In return traditional leaders can deliver the support of their subjects - at both Mangaung and at the ballot box.

The ANC will probably deny that the phalanx of legislation focussing on traditional areas entrenches partriarchal and anti-egalitarian systems. Admittedly there are now more women on Traditional Councils. Legislation requires that 30 percent of representatives are women. This is all well and good except for the fact that there is no popular support for Traditional Councils and these Councils have no power to speak of. Not only do these elections not meet the criteria for being free-and-fair turnout in Traditional Council elections typically run at less than ten percent of the eligible population.  The reason for the low turnout lies in the negligible influence elected representatives have in the Councils.  Most people on the council are not elected but are appointed by the tribal leaders. Moreover, just as traditional courts are not compelled to observe the precepts of natural justice, the Traditional Councils are not required to adhere to the basic principles of democratic practice. Chiefs are not bound by the majority vote of the Councils. Given this it is surprising that so many people bother to vote in Traditional Council elections at all. 

Constitutional democrats may well have felt relief when the populist Youth Leagues fell from Zuma's grace. Current tension between the ANC and unions  may even comfort those who fear the influence of the left within the ANC. However the alignment of the ANC leader with anti-democratic factions will prove to be far more worrisome. When he resebtly addressed the National House of Traditional Leaders Zuma encouraged them to reject "white mans justice". His justification rests on the view that "white mans justice" turns on cold facts rather than the "warm bodies" prioritised by indigenous justice systems. Zuma echoed criticisms of the judicial system as retributive, overly codified and "un-african". However the constitution now forms the bedrock of that "white mans justice". This perspective coupled with the bulldozing of the Traditional Courts and entrenching the undemocractic Traditional Councils on the most vulnerable communities in the country suggest that Zuma may be similarly predisposed to dismissing the constitution. He seems ready to court traditional authorities in the name of "Africanness" regardless of how it undermines democracy or how  devisive it is within the ANC.

Surprises in the South African census of 2011
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The results of the 2011 South African census were release in November 2011. The top-line results revealed a few surprises including a higher than expected population growth rate. The population total of 51.7 million was 2.5 percent greater than StatsSA's  mid-year population estimates for that year. This indicates a population 1.2 million more than anticipated.

Apparently the census also indicates an increase in the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) which rose to 2.7 from the 2.5 of a decade earlier. Apparently an increase in TFR  typified all the major population groups classified in the census. While an eight percent increase in TFR may not appear unduly worrisome it actually has has profound implications for our understanding of development. In terms of Demographic Transition Theory an increase in TFR (and by implication in the IMR) indicates a society under great stress. Recent examples of such increase include war-time Afghanistan and Zambia under the IMF structural adjustment programme. The IMF's structural adjustment programmes greatly restricted  access to  health services in Zambia allowing for massive increased in mortality and fertility rates.

According to StatsSA the past ten years in South Africa has been marked by just such trauma. Part of the trauma is related to the impact of HIV/AIDS on the dominant population group. HIV/AIDS may have resulted in the observed increase in mortality rates. In response  families were prompted to having a greater number of children giving rise to higher TFR.

However the data revealed by StatsSA shows that the increase in family size has primarily taken place in the past past five years. The graphic below shows the marked increase in the youngest five year age cohort.


The last five years has coincided with the period in which the impact of HIV/AIDS was greatly reduced by widespread uptake of AVRs. HIV/Aids thus offers an unconvincing argument for the increase in TFR.

The results of the census thus either confirm that a) South African society has been under such profound stress that the Demographic Transition has been reversed or b) a more mundane answer lies in the quality of StatsSA's tallying.

South African democracy: the beginning of the end?

An instinctive response to  the killing of 34 strikers by the police on August 16 is that the event may herald  the end of state tolerance of dissent. Along with the 34 the assumption that state violence will not be lightly used to suppress opposition died.  Although much public debate on the reasons for the incident followed  the incident these discourses centered on explanations for the miners militancy or rationales for the polices' violence. The first perspective tended  to "justify"  the  strikers actions in terms of their personal circumstances or on rivalry between competing trade unions.

The miserable social conditions that allegedly underpins the strikers militancy broadly reflects what happens in areas where the local economy is collapsing. Declining service levels, increasing unemployment, income supplementation through prostitution, illicit brewing, alcohol sales, crime etc. now typify the areas surrounding many platinum mines like Lonmin.  These difficult circumstances contribute to miners militancy and to the ability of a upstart union to organise industrial action under the nose of a trade union that has long dominated the industry. The arguments that focus on the impact of social conditions are undermined by the clear focus the miners had on remuneration and by the fact that the strikers are probably better paid than those who shot them. 

While the social conditions may have contributed to discrediting the established National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) they do not offer insight into why the police played a central role in the rivalry.

Although NUM has long been established as the main union representing underground workers at Lonmin the strikes were organized by a fledgling rival AMCU. Clearly the dominance of the ANC-aligned National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was challenged by the strike and some pundits viewed the  heavy-handed police action as state support for their embattled political ally.

Much public debate focused on the militancy of the miners and the threat they posed to the police and other miners. It is repeatedly pointed out that by the time the strikers stormed off the hillock on which they had gathered ten people (including two police officers) had already been murdered in the conflict. It is from his vantage point that most discussions around the appropriateness of the police response proceeds. This discourse then revolved around assessments of the threat posed by the strikers, the ability of the police to protect themselves and others  etc.

 However a central ingredient is missed in all these debates. By the time the strikers were driven from the hillock by police teargas the order to use lethal force (sharp ammunition)  had already been issued. When the strikers stormed off the hillock towards  the police the SAPS had already  dispensed with crowd control control formations  and non-lethal gear. The police has already demobilised the public-order police units in favour of deploying the elite National Intervention Unit (NIU). The NIU is a unit tasked with dealing with high risk conflict situations. The shields, dogs, batons, perimeter control mechanisms that are central to containing violent situations had been withdrawn in favour of a large, highly trained force armed only with lethal weapons.

Furthermore the police were deployed in a pattern that ensured that the strikers could not but run towards them if they were to escape the teargas lobbed at them. When they stormed off the hillock they strikers could not do anything but run towards the police who, in turn, we're unable to respond with anything other than their automatic weapons primed with sharp rounds.  And fire the police did - until all the strikers were down. The strikers were not given an opportunity to surrender or escape.

In other words points about police preparedness, their level of training, the threat the strikers posed etc. are moot - the die had been cast before the first volleys of teargas were lobbed at the hill.

Authority to use sharps rounds can only be issued by the ranking SAPS officer - in this situation this was the recently appointed commissioner Phiyega. The resultant massacre would, on the face of it, support  calls for police commissioners to be appointed from within police ranks. Perhaps a commissioner more familiar with crowd control and the volatile situations may have prevented the biggest mass ace in South Africa since Sharpeville. By intimation it was the commissioners inexperience that caused the massacre. However this perspective is undermined by the explanations that followed the incident. The day's events were followed by a sanctimonious blathering about the danger the strikers posed to others and how they were belligerent and superstitious they were. The subtext of these explanations was that the strikers got what they deserved. The fact that there were no police casualties on the day of the  massacre suggests that the magnitude of the threat posed by the strikers was probably exaggerated.

However an explanation is still needed as to why the NIU had been deployed and the non-lethal measures withdrawn. Was this, for example, an attempt to neutralise a militant rival to the established union? Such explanations miss a key dimension to the conflict - the close alignment between Lonmin and the upper echelons of the ruling party. For example in its former guise as "Lonrho", Lonmin reputedly bankrolled several of the leading ANC families both while they were in exile and on their return to South Africa in the mid 1990s.  Currently ANC heavyweight Cryril Ramaphosa is a (non-executive) director of Lonmin. It was also Lonmin that stood to benefit most from the ending of the strike. The platinum sector is going through a crisis with falling PGM prices, greatly reduced demand for their product as well as rapidly increasing costs structure. Of particular importance is the cost of electricity used by the mines and associated processors. These factors ensure that not only could the mine not accede to the strikers demands they could not afford to cover running costs while a small component of the total workforce  halted production.  Only about ten percent of the Lonmin workforce joined the strike yet those 3 000 rock-drillers were able to stop production.

Clearly Lonmin stood to benefit most from the collapse of the strike than anybody.  The events of the day represent nothing more sophisticated than the state acting in the interests of big capital and the ruling party. Unless the commission of inquiry is able to provide a more convincing account as to why non-lethal force was withdrawn we really do need to ask whether or not this is the end of the tolerance of dissent required of a functioning democracy.

The ANC is the new IFP

Is the ANC the new IFP?

The National Chamber of Provinces recently concluded public hearing on the Traditional Courts Bill. This bill seeks to give traditional leaders the power to preside over certain civil disputes and criminal offences in the areas under their jurisdiction. The public hearings were an opportunity for those affected by the proposed legislation to voice their concerns about its impact. It was also an opportunity for the provincial legislatures to claim they had consulted affected communities before they endorsed the legislation.

Not surprisingly the bill was met with a great deal of resistance by civil society and community members. It is clear from the public hearings that community members are concerned that traditional leaders, some of whom are corrupt, ineffectual or partisan, are formally being given greater powers. Civil societies' objections centred on the negative impact the bill, if passed, will have on women's rights. The general thrust of criticism is that hereditary leadership in a highly patriarchal and authoritarian social setting undermines the rights of all commoners, particularly women, and is in clear conflict with the constitutions core premise of "equality". Essentially the bill entrenches the right,by birth, of some to judge and govern and the obligation  of all others, by virtue of where they live, to be judged and ruled.

The hearings in kwaZulu-Natal were particularly enlightening. They showed unequivocal support among traditional leaders for the bill. The reason for this consensus is clear as senior traditional leaders are all set to benefit from this and other proposed changes. However the most remarkable part of the hearings  was the absence of the antipathy between the ANC and the IFP that has long marked politics in kaZulu-Natal  - particularly when traditional rights and culture were concerned. There was no sign of dissent between chiefs aligned to different parties or between the chiefs and the sponsors of the bill i.e. Luthuli House.

This consensus highlights the extent to which the political landscape in kwaZulu-Natal has changed.  Those seeking to preserve traditional African culture, hereditary rights or general social conservatism in kwaZulu-Natal can now identify with the ruling party rather than with the IFP whose influence  has been waning since 1994. The ANC has managed to appropriate a rich political terrain once monopolised by the IFP.  Understanding how much the terrain has changed rests on acknowledgment of the extent to which the ANC has moved to the IFP's value system rather than through the political evolution of Zululand residents. It is this change in the ANC that invites the perspective that the ANC is the new IFP. It is the ANC that now promises to preserve hereditary rights, traditional values and promote the associated social conservatism.

The reason for the shift in the ANC is clear. In 2009 the ANC was returned to power with votes just shy of a two thirds majority. When compared to the previous national election (in 2004) voters gave the ANC an additional 1.2 million votes. This increase in votes was widely seen as an endorsement of the ANC under Zuma's leadership. However the addition votes were garnered not, as the political pundits claimed, from the left, the unions or from the youth. The increase in votes were almost entirely from traditional areas in kwaZulu-Natal and other provinces.  As people living in other provinces on "traditional" land had largely thrown their lot in with the ANC already their contribution to the increased ANC vote was less pronounced. 

Traditional leaders are key to the continued support of any political party in what was previously referred to as "tribal areas". The chiefs exert tremendous influence on whether or not people vote and on whom they vote for. For example in the 2009 election the IFP still managed to get 800 000 votes and these votes are now, in a very real sense, there for the taking. Given the changing political landscape there is little reason to suggest that the chiefs will take them to the new National Freedom Party or keep them with the IFP.

Inevitably there is a qui pro quo for this support. The first sign of the quid pro quo was the establishment of a Department of Rural Development and Land Reform within a month of the election. This was followed by the re-invigoration of traditional councils and , belatedly, the holding of traditional council elections. Reviving the Traditional Courts Bill (which had stalled in 2008) followed.  Still to come is the  National Traditional Affairs Bill which may well extend local government powers to traditional leaders.

All this bodes poorly for the IFP as traditional leaders no longer have to look to the IFP to advance their interests and traditional rights in general. The ANC is now happily fulfilling this role - even at the expense of the core values of the constitution and what the ANC's has been describing as its own political heritage. This said, the support that the traditional leaders bring will inevitably be at the cost of some of support it currently enjoys from what the ANC itself terms "progressives". For example, although the Womens League has been silent about the promotion of the Traditional Courts bill their complicity in the promotion of such patriarchal systems can not continue indefinitely. Until then the extent to which  ANC support is derived from traditional leaders is the extent to which Zuma's position will be secure relative to the "progressives".

South Africa and BRICsa - fading to nothing?

South Africa recently became the latest member of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, Indian and China) group of economies. Membership of BRIC should carry, if anything, at least the promise of rapid economic growth.  Unfortunately South Africa however has not been playing in the same league as the original members of BRIC in either terms of size or the rate of economic growth. This point can best be illustrated by contrasting South Africa and China (the biggest economy in BRICSA).

In 2011, according to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) the Gross Domestic product (GDP) of China was US$ 7,298,147 million. By contrast the South African GDP was a "mere" US$ 408,074 million.

The major imbalance is highlighted by differential growth rates. In 2011 the growth rate of China may fall to as low as 8% per annum. South Africa, by contrast, would be fortunate to reach 4% growth. Using these figures it is easy to see that the Chinese economy will grow by US$ 583,851 million. This is 37 percent greater than the entire South African GDP -  even when accounting for the 4% growth rate. In other words the growth of the Chinese economy alone exceeds, each year,  the size of the South African economy. This discrepancy will be aggravated by the big differences in annual growth rates. These factors will ensure that, should current trends continue, South Africa will become an ever less significant part of BRICSA each year.

However being (relatively) small is not a measure of potential and, past growth is not an indication of what will happen in the future. What is an indication of potential are the policies and practices of the respective governments. China epitomises the "developmental state" a label South Africa statesmen adopt at every opportunity. The defining feature of the developmental state is its prioirtisation of economic growth. In other words these economies prioritize growth above other factors like government control and even, other things being equal, profitability.

It is here where South Africa hamstrings itself by prioritising the political agenda of the ruling party above economic growth - even while stating that economic development is its primary objective. In essence economic growth is subverted by a political agenda which seeks greater control of the economy by central government while refashioning the racial profile of the social and economic  landscape - even as this agenda undermines service delivery and economic development.

iPad and Vodacom pay-as-you go

The 3G  connection on my iPad suddenly stopped working for no apparent reason. It kept telling me that I had no data left and prompted me to add data "now" or "later". This was despite me having just bought bundles of data.

I eventually tracked the problem to an invitation to update my settings (which I accepted). Essentially this change the APN setting under "Cellular Data" from "internet" to "iphone.vodacom.za".

Changing the setting back to"internet" solves the problem (leave the Username and Password blank).

It seems that Apple and/or Vodacom are keen to create the eronneous impression that only 3G subscription services, and not prepaid, works on the iPad.