Concourt, Ramaphosa and the art of blackmailing the ANC

By Hadebe Hadebe

[Side Note: The art of blackmailing the ANC:

Ramaphosa in 2017: “You don’t elect me in Nasrec I will form a new political party.”

Concourt in 2020: – “Get rid of him and he will become a president as an independent candidate in 2024”

ANC: “What kind of a fool would vote for retrenchments, Covid-19, police and military brutality and landlessness? Go to hell, Satan”]...

My past prediction that a liberal party is going to arise in South Africa is quickly gaining shape and is soon to be realized. This liberal party will however not follow the traditional political party structure but it will be a loosely coordinated entity that will pass political power from the masses (vote) to capital...

The Constitutional Court decision on Thursday 11 June 2020 sets the ball rolling for this to happen. In the past, many commentators alluded to the unusual reality that courts seem to have more powers than the other arms of government. The notion of ‘trias politicas’ (separation of powers) in South Africa can only be summarized as a big fuss.

The Constitutional Court decided that the provisions of the Electoral Act that do not permit individuals to contest provincial and national elections is unconstitutional. The circumvention of the voting system in South Africa has long been on the cards, hence the Constitutional Court decision yesterday fails to make sense. 

This article argues that the judiciary should at all times provide guidance to other structures of government rather than exceed its mandate. It has been a while that the judiciary has overplayed its hand in South African politics, only to get away with murder. Its decision yesterday is obviously taking this overreach affinity too far. For the South African political system to fledge, it needs a judiciary that understands its role, not the one which encroaches on political terrains and decisions that should be left to parliament and government.

The Constitutional Court has erred in the past, especially during Thuli Madonsela’s tenure by granting an ombudsman office (Office of the Public Protector) teeth of steel to help in political wars. This time again, it has made a huge error by handing political power on a silver platter to private capital.

A Union of the verkramptes?

The political storm has long been brewing in South Africa for the longest time. The idea with this highly contentious development in South African politics (Concourt judgements) is that, among others, the Democratic Alliance (DA) raised a critical point by urging what they consider a user-friendlier faction, or 'moderates', within the African National Congress (ANC) and beyond to come together with them to create a new formation that will kowtow to the apartheid markets and oppose the ‘leftist rhetoric’. On 18 February 2020, for example, DA MP and spokesman on finance Geordin Hill-Lewis urged President Cyril Ramaphosa "to part with factions in the ANC that were opposed to policy and structural reform, and to instead assemble a progressive coalition to govern South Africa."

As Zuma once argued during a SASCO lecture at Walter Sisulu University in 2018, South Africa is no longer a majority rule but a constitutional democracy 

[Side Note: Zuma was just being politically modest here; we believe he used the word ‘constitutional democracy’ as a euphemism for constitutional dictatorship]

There’s an argument that South Africa is a constitutional democracy rather than a parliamentary one, which means that it doesn’t matter how large the majority is because every decision will be subjected to courts for its legitimacy. This is only technical because parliament is still the most important body of the state in that it is still in charge of formulating laws. So, the people who favour a ‘union of verkramptes’ in South Africa understand that once parliament is populated with like-minded representatives they will pass legislations that will support their ideological standpoint.

With the proposal for a liberal party, its backers hope to extinguish critical debates on economic policy. Development economist Bheki Mfeka reasons that there is what he calls a “structural reforms stalemate”: the two opposing directions must resolve whether it forges ahead with its resolutions or pursues the route of “market liberalization, privatisation of the SOEs, and crowding in of the private capital in the market at all cost, maintaining a lean and mean government.”

Nonetheless, it is unclear how this ‘progressive’ coalition would differ from what former DA politician Herman Mashaba has been cooking since his resignation as Johannesburg mayor late in 2019. Media sources suggest that Mashaba will launch his party in August 2020. He has declared that he will work with all parties with the exception of the ANC. Strange enough; he appears to hold no beef against his former party, the DA.

Hill-Lewis appears frustrated with what he views as lack of progress in fast tracking reforms. He says, "The president promises major reform, the treasury supports major reform, the official opposition supports major reform, the country wants major reform. So here is the very curious thing: Where is the major reform? We have been promised it. But we do not have it.”

The reported haste to “restructure” SoEs appears to have come to a grinding halt in recent weeks. For example, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan and SAA business rescuers are said to be at loggerheads, and this now stalls the dissolution of the national carrier. For Hill-Lewis, one major weakness of Ramaphosa's presidency was “his quest for consensus.”

What is apparent is that there could be nervousness about many of the agreements made during Codesa negotiations. The storm which swept South Africa earlier in the year over FW de Klerk’s comments about apartheid showed that the Sunset Clauses, especially those relating to the protection of private property rights, have lived beyond its sell-by-date.

[Side Note: As far as we know, the main proviso to the Sunset Clauses was that they were supposed to last for five years, to address the concerns of the old guard office bearers who were not sure about their role in the New South Africa, to accommodate them in the proposed Government of National Unity (GNU), as a token of reconciliation. This means Sunset Clauses expired when Mandela’s term ended in 1999. In fact they should have expired when the National Party walked out of the GNU in 1996, (the same year Cyril Ramaphosa resigned as ANC Secretary General to go into private business and accumulate wealth, the same wealth he is using today to buy ANC Conferences and political patronage), obviously for fear that their presence in Parliament was unwittingly benefiting the newly elected ANC government in terms of learning how to run the country].

According to former Cosatu economist Prof. Chris Malikane: “Matters  over land ownership, mines, banks, and monopoly industries, are the epicenter of what is happening with the South African economy right now.”  

In turn, all the present political haggling originates directly from the dissatisfaction by the African majority with the status quo. On the other hand, the largely white but wealthy minority is uneasy with the current developments and where they are headed. Agitation for change by the younger generation goes against what certain older leaders in post-apartheid South Africa stood for. In this regard, former President Thabo Mbeki once stated that the ANC “offered the Sunset Clause to the National Party, saying the ruling party at the time never asked for that clause but they were offered without asking.”

The prevailing standoff between Moderates and The Hardliners in the ANC

So, the present discomfort is that hardliners inside and outside the ANC could not be as easily fleeceable and compromising as the ‘moderates’. Unlike the hardliners; the ‘moderates’ are seen to be amenable to a softer (what Mbeki refers to as ‘tactical’) approach to economic change and Land Reform.

At the end of 2018, another DA MP Toby Chance argued that a coalition between moderates within the ANC and the DA will stave off tyranny, “if the country is to avoid a descent into despotism.” He further added that in order to avoid this unpleasant scenario, the ANC would need to split. Chance's proposal came exactly a year after the ANC failed to split in 2017 when Ramaphosa controversially won against Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to become president at Nasrec.

The suggestion by Chance was that the breakaway constitutionalists within the ANC would form a coalition with the DA and other like-minded smaller parties. Chance’s ideas correspond with those advanced in Leon Schreiber’s book titled ‘Coalition Country: South Africa after the ANC’.

On his side, Schreiber argues that coalitions could become “the norm in South Africa, although they are not the only possibilities.” The Constitutional Court judgement expedites this merger, which will be mainly facilitated through billions of rands. Large companies have already showed at the last conference of the ANC that they are capable of using the strength of their deep pockets to capture the State.

[Side Note: Which explains why the apartheid economy should go up in smoke first for a destination to the Promised Land to be reached by dispossessed Black South Africans. Countries affected by US imperialism and terrorism are willing to assist in smashing the apartheid economy in  South Africa since they have discovered that the Rostchilds are using the mineral resources dug out of this country's soil to pay international mercenaries that are terrorizing other countries around the world for their global expansionism. 

Izazi Team are fully aware that the constitutionalists apartheid spies currently infiltrating the ANC and their White Monopoly Capitalists are using the same  resources to execute apartheid-like persecution of those who do not see eye to eye with them in the country by, among several terrorists acts, bankrupting them out of business and trying to starve them to death through red tape. The unemployment grant is another case in point, as our investigations have established that this grant is only paid to CR17 agents and opposition party members who are very active in fighting Ramaphosa political wars against his enemies. The only food parcels that benefit ordinary people are those you see on SABC cameras only].

When Chance wrote his article, he was dead worried about agitations for land reform in South Africa and other resolutions that were taken by the ANC’s elective conference at the end of 2017. In advancing his argument, Chance referred to the push for change in South Africa as constituting “outdated ideology,” which would lead to some form of paralysis.

Outdated ideology, for Chance, refers to the ANC’s resolutions regarding the nationalization of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) as well as the Land Expropriation without Compensation, among others. The new move is to strengthen economic conservatism and to oppose the growing voices that demand to see change in the economic structures that are stifling Black economic freedom in South Africa.

Ideological cliff in South African body politic and direction of the economy 

Chance’s view is that the current CR17 led ANC government’s posture has ‘EFF-leanings’ (as he calls it). He then predicted that this would result in a mayhem, e.g. reduced investment, higher unemployment, more government debt, existential threats to our financial system, etc. Hence, the decision to allow independent candidates seeks to break the ANC’s back in the short-term. The long-term intention is to contain any possible growth of a leftist voice in South African politics. This sounds like a replay of Cold War politics.

The ideological divide is too visible to ignore both within and outside the ANC. For example, when he was discouraged from approaching the international financiers to fund the COVID response, finance minister Tito Mboweni openly declared, “There is no time for ideology. If not IMF, then give me the money. I cannot eat ideology.” Economic policy is the biggest point of contention inside and outside the ruling party. For good or wrong reasons, the CR 17 faction has always struggled to settle for a firm ideology, not just with economics but also with everything.

After the recall of Former President Jacob Zuma in early 2018, the DA has made serious overtures towards the ANC under Ramaphosa. Following his election as interim leader in November 2019, John Steenhuisen said his party intended to work well with the ANC. This was a significant departure from the frosty relationship the DA had with the ANC under Zuma.

In fact, Steenhuisen’s comments came directly after the DA had sacrificed its former leader Mmusi Maimane who appeared not yet ready or keen to follow a new party directive of a ‘softly, softly’ approach on the ANC in the post-Zuma era. Many analysts cite his parliamentary question about a R500 000 donation by the controversial Bosasa to the CR17 as his major undoing.

On the other hand, the mumbling and rumbling is also taking place within the ANC. The Sunday Independent first reported in December 2019 that some senior ANC leaders had accused President Ramaphosa “of working with external parties to collapse the governing party and replace it with a centre-right coalition led by him after the 2024 general elections.” read the article Cyril Ramaphosa's plot to kill the ANC here

Excitement to turn into tears

Some odd voices have welcomed the Constitutional Court judgement. They mainly look at it from the failures of the ANC since 1994. However, this perspective is too narrow and is likely to transform this excitement into a river of tears. As things currently stand, the dominance of money in South African politics is seen as a problem. And for the longest time, political parties have been resisting to disclose their funders.

In an unexpected move, Cyril Ramaphosa in early June 2020 signed into law a legislation that “will require political parties and independent candidates to record the names and details of their donors and make financial records available on a quarterly basis.” [Side Note: Only for him to demand that courts classify ‘donor’ findings on his CR17 pre-Nasrec Conference]. This legislation and judgement came within days of each other and this cannot be a coincidence.

What this means in practice is that political power is quickly ceded to owners of capital in Sandton and Stellenbosch with their deeper pockets. The implication of this that only the well-resourced candidates by ‘legitimate’ funders will contest elections. Also, the South African proportional representation system is being underhandedly turned into a presidential elective system without party backing. [Side Note: System of a US electoral corruption nature, where the voter can vote for a certain Presidential head, perhaps who belongs to another political party for ‘President’ but once again cast another vote against the party that Presidential head of his/her choice represents. Sheer madness) without notice, all in the name of constitutionality.

Of course, the Voting  system will have its weaknesses such as a disproportional large number of political heads that will appear on the ballot paper. Its proponents defends it because it will allow little parties and individual get a seat in parliament. What is likely to happen now is that South Africa will not only have many individuals wanting to lead the country but it will also have a president without a political party backing. Having an independent (unaffiliated) president will make decisions in both Houses of Parliament interesting since the entire political system will need a complete overhaul!

[Side Note: Like we have always maintained, the aim here is to collapse the ANC government using the Constitutional Court Judges as the battering rams]

Will the government now have its version of a “shutdown” should the president and parliament not agree on such things as the budget and other strategic decisions? Some technical complications that could arise from this decision are yet to be felt. Unfortunately, the constitution is not even ready to provide guidance when such situations occur.

At the moment, a presidential position in the current arrangement doesn’t have sufficient powers. In reality, under the constitutional democracy powers are located at different sections and levels of the state and are protected through a string of legislations.

It is therefore unlikely that the 24-month window period allowed to parliament to amend the law will be met. In all fairness, the Constitutional Court should at least have recommended for a review of the political system to meet its constitutional mandate.

The winner is capital which will field its preferred candidates and support them with huge financial backing. The judiciary has just laid foundations for a coup d’etat in South Africa through its grand scale overreach that has gone unpunished for ages.

Si ya yi banga le economy!