Dem
51
GOP
49
On the same day we wrote about the situation in Israel (see above), we also wrote about the election in South Africa where, in a nutshell, it was decided to retain the crook who is already in power as opposed to replacing him with the crook who used to part of the government. That said, we know even less about South African politics than we do about Israeli politics, as indicated by the fact that we gave President Cyril Ramaphosa the wrong title (we called him "prime minister," even though we really should have known that was not correct, since we've only heard the phrase "President Nelson Mandela" a million times).
Fortunately, we have readers around the globe, including in South Africa. And reader G.G. in Johannesburg has kindly sent in a report that clears up any misstatements we might have made, and also expands on events in that nation:
Daily reader, U.S. citizen and South African permanent resident here. Having seen some of the great commentary you get from other readers abroad, I feel a sense of duty to point out some errors in your item "...And so Does South Africa," as well as providing some larger background.
First, Cyril Ramaphosa is the president, not the prime minister. South Africa has a governmental structure which is a hybrid between a parliamentary system and separation-of-powers system. Like a parliamentary system, parties nominate their leaders, but voters cast ballots only for their members of parliament (MPs); parliament then elects the president. However, unlike a parliamentary system, the president is not himself a member of parliament; he does not participate directly in parliamentary proceedings (other than an annual State of the Nation address), he nominates his cabinet from people who are not MPs, and he runs an independent executive branch. The latter part of that description will sound familiar to American readers.
Second, South Africa is not a "one-party state," unless you also consider the U.S. to have been a one party state for the last 2 years. From the standpoint of democratic choice, it is actually a much healthier democracy than the U.S.; There are currently 14 political parties represented in parliament, although the ANC holds 57.5% of the seats, the two largest opposition parties combined hold 32% of the seats, and a Zulu separatist party that is only viable in one province holds 3.5% of the seats, so the other 10 parties are just white noise. One of the reasons the ANC has been so dominant for so long is that the main opposition party—the Democratic Alliance (DA)—is generally centrist or center-right, but has no unifying platform (imagine Mit Romney and Hillary Clinton in the same party), and the second largest opposition party—the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)—are left-wing fringe with somewhat violent rhetoric, gumming up the works but rarely offering anything remotely realistic as a solution (think: Venezuelan-style socialism meets Tea Party/MAGA political stunts). Anyway, it is definitely not a one party state: the DA has always controlled Cape Town and the Western Cape province, and other big cities are electorally competitive, and often have coalition governments. Now imagine Mit Romney, Hillary Clinton, and Nicoals Maduro all in the same coalition, and you'll get a sense of how well that functions.
Now, about "Farmgate." The cash found stashed in Ramaphosa's sofa is only half the story; there are two issues which make it worse than just "cash in sofa." One is that Ramphosa claims the money was payment for the sale of buffalo at his game farm, but 3 years later, all the buffalo supposedly sold are still at the farm, and the receipt for the sale has only the name of a buyer, without any other identifying info. The second is that all of this was only brought to light because the money was stolen from his farm, but he never reported the theft of cash at the time. One imagines that "someone stole the half million dollars stashed in my sofa" might have raised some additional questions. Well, now it has.
Some larger background helps to understand the situation. Politically, Ramaphosa had always been in a position somewhat akin to Joe Biden during the 2020 primaries: hardly anyone's first choice for leadership, but tolerable to enough of the different factions within his party to gain votes from people afraid of one of the other factions. Like Biden, he's put in his time in governmental ranks, is generally considered to be a skilled negotiator, is pretty boring, and is a terrible public speaker (actually, much worse than Biden on that front). Of course, it is unlikely Biden has $600,000 in cash stashed in the Oval Office sofa, so take Biden's politics but combine it with, say, Jared Kushner's level of transparency and trustworthiness, and you start to get the picture. Then put that person in a political party in which half the influencers make Ryan Zinke-level corruption look pedestrian, and you get the bigger picture.
Ramaphosa's party—the ANC—ousted their former president, Jacob Zuma, when the stench emanating from his rule became politically untenable, but they enabled him for 9 years prior to that, not only electing him as president even after he was credibly accused of rape (does that sound familiar?), and prosecuted for it (he was acquitted), but also keeping him there while the state rotted from within under his direction. Since Zuma's rise, the ANC has been running on a "platform" that is basically "we're the party that ended apartheid." That's true, and was no small feat, but it was also 30 years ago. One of their 2019 campaign slogans was "we've got a great story to tell," which shows you how much they're living on past glory—even the professional spinsters couldn't think of anything current to put on a sign. In the meantime, they've overseen a state that was a beacon of hope for human rights but has become functionally decrepit. Apartheid was specifically engineered to perpetuate wealth inequality, but since apartheid was condemned to the ashes of history, wealth inequality in South Africa has actually increased (let that sink in for a moment). It's just that being super-rich is no longer a whites-only club.
The factions within the ANC are not as simple as pro-Ramaphosa and anti-Ramaphosa. There's a left-wing faction, which is generally serious about governance and finds Ramaphosa a bit too pokey, but usually sticks with him to avoid splitting the party. There's what I can best describe as a power-hungry faction which has no real policy platform, but just wants power; they stick with Ramaphosa only because they don't have the numbers to take over if he is ousted. They'd dump him in a heartbeat if they thought someone else would give them greater power. There's a somewhat laissez-faire neoliberal faction, which sometimes overlaps with the power-hungry faction, but is more like a Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) kind of Democrat, and is the faction that Ramaphosa initially came from, though they aren't always in his pocket now. Then there's a pro-Zuma faction, which is the largest one. This is made up of people whose hands were likely in the cookie jar under Zuma and are unhappy with the cookie crumbs they get under Ramaphosa. This was Zuma's way of holding on to power—if he knew everyone's chicanery, his own chicanery could remain under wraps. The Zuma acolytes are champing at the bit now, looking to be let back in.
I give that background because it is relevant to the current state of affairs, independent of "Farmgate." The energy crisis in South Africa, which gets all the attention, is just the beginning. It is a full-blown infrastructure and service delivery crisis on all fronts. Even when there isn't "load shedding" (the euphemism for rolling blackouts), electrical substations just break down from time to time, and sometimes take days to repair. Entire areas of Johannesburg were without a water supply for over 3 weeks in October. Sewers back up with trash from time to time. Water pipes leak all over the place, and even when they get repaired, the holes they had to dig in the roads to get to the pipes remain unrepaired for months or even years. The post office is so useless that anything sent through it has roughly a 50/50 chance of ever arriving. Just about every middle- and upper-class home in the country subscribes to a private, armed security service, because no one trusts the police to show up in less than half an hour, or to do much more than file a report once they arrive. All of this is at least partially a result of a crumbling civil service. Zuma's legacy is one of normalizing corruption and creating a culture of politicians and senior-level civil servants who think they are untouchable, which is generally not a good recipe for competent governance.
Prior to COVID, there was still a sense of optimism among most South Africans. The economy was sluggish, but crime rates were dropping and people saw possibilities. COVID revealed how thin the veneer of economic health was, as crime rates have spiked, and now the infrastructure crisis is revealing how deep the rot has gotten. A brain drain is rapidly developing, as many well-educated people and entrepreneurs are looking for opportunities abroad. Ramaphosa was commandeering a ship that was riddled with holes and taking on water, but was generally seen as a steady captain. Now that good will is gone, and due to the overall situation, a lot of South Africans have basically resigned to living in a crumbling society for the foreseeable future. The ANC will certainly suffer at the polls in 2024, but without a unified opposition, they are all but certain to still hold a plurality, even if they lose an outright majority.
Thanks for the education, G.G.!
Note that we are still planning a rundown of the major foreign elections of 2023. However, this post is already quite long and already has two "list" items. So, we're going to push it to next week. (Z)