John Rapley - FOREIGN FOCUS TEN YEARS from the end of apartheid, South Africa will hold its third national election next week. Continuity will be the order of the day, though analysts will no doubt pore over the results to try and discern possible changes in the country's direction.
The governing African National Congress (ANC) will once again win by a big margin, securing both the presidency and the legislature. At issue is whether the party can win the two-thirds mandate it would need to unilaterally amend the constitution. South Africa's opposition parties, anxious that the country might degenerate into a one-party state, worry that an over-powerful ANC might disrupt the country's fine post-apartheid balance. President Thabo Mbeki insists that even with a two-thirds majority, he has no intention of altering the constitution. Yet it is not clear that in such an eventuality, he could easily rein in the radical wing of his party.
Mr. Mbeki's problem is that there is simmering discontent both within the party, and in the wider society. The ANC draws its support largely from loyalty, because satisfaction with the government's job is not high. South Africa's post-apartheid achievements are many: to have navigated a country poised on the brink of civil war a decade ago into a stable democracy today is no mean feat.
Nevertheless, for poor South Africans, the fruits of independence have remained scarce. More than four in ten South Africans are unemployed, with the rate among poor blacks higher yet. Crime is worsening. Economic growth has been anaemic. And as for affirmative action, to date this has benefited but a small elite. Some of the nation's old militants happily traded their green fatigues for pinstriped suits, and have done mighty well off the end of apartheid. To many of their poor compatriots, who still lack work, water, housing or electricity, their actions are starting to look like a betrayal.
Soon after it came to power in 1994, the ANC marginalised its radicals and adopted a neoliberal economic policy. The hope was that by delivering economic growth, an orthodox economic strategy would generate economic surpluses, which the government could then use to redress the wrongs of the past.
Since coming to office five years ago, Mr. Mbeki has maintained this approach of trying to balance neoliberal economics with black empowerment. Unfortunately, so far he has largely failed on both counts. The nation's economic growth has been well below what would be required to spread the fruits of progress beyond the country's boardrooms. And even there, despite the greater presence of black faces, progress has been slow: only about 1% of the shares on the Johannesburg stock exchange are at present owned by black South Africans.
Still, surveys show that South Africans prefer their disappointing democracy to what went before. It is likely that after the election, Mr. Mbeki will redouble the government's efforts to proceed with affirmative action. He will have to. His allies in the trade union movement, an important base for the ANC, are growing increasingly restive. To date, they have found that they need the party more than the party needs them. However, they have been working to try and gain more influence over the party. If Mr. Mbeki does not deliver in his next term of office, their patience with his approach may wear thin. They might then begin looking for a South African Mugabe.
One thing that augurs well for Mr. Mbeki is that the white business community is aware of this. Mindful that white intransigence in Zimbabwe helped to drive the radicalisation of Robert Mugabe, South Africa's business leaders have begun putting forth proposals for a co-operative effort between government and the private sector to speed up affirmative action. If they are to buy themselves a secure future, they are going to have to deliver on their promises.
All the while, the opposition fails to gain traction. The many parties running against the ANC have mainly poached support from one another, scarcely making a dent in the ANC's rock-solid base. For the foreseeable future, the ANC will remain the only show in town. The question on Wednesday will therefore be less what parties do well, than what factions in the ANC emerge strongest.
John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government UWI, Mona.
