adminOpinion, Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu
As 2016 ends, a look at historically significant developments that occurred during the year on the global political arena shows, among other things, an electoral loss in August of three big municipal areas by the African National Congress of South Africa (ANC) to the Democratic Alliance.
Later, opposition parties won presidential elections in three countries in two continents; in the United States on November 8, and in Ghana and The Gambia at the beginning of December.
Much has already been written about how and why Donald Trump, a Republican, electorally trounced Mrs Hillary Clinton, a democrat, who it had been hoped by most media political analysts would replace President Barack Obama, that country’s outgoing democratic head of State.
In The Gambia, the sitting president, Yahya Jammeh, lost to former security guard Adama Barrow. At the time of writing this article (December 20) however, Jammeh who had earlier conceded defeat, had changed his mind and was demanding new elections, but regional attempts were underway to persuade him to surrender power to Barrow, the winner.
In Ghana, John Mahama had lost by 53.8 percent to 44.4 percent to Nana Akufo-Addo and was willing and ready to pass on the baton at the appropriate time.
Nearer Zimbabwe, we had seen one of black Africa’s oldest, if not actually the oldest, political party, the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa lose three big municipal areas to the Democratic Alliance (DA) in August.
That did not only surprise but shocked not only the ANC but also the DA itself as Trump’s victory had numbed virtually the entire US media and, of course, that country’s Democratic Party.
Political parties that are usually regarded as safe and secure national institutions unexpectedly lose elections because of a number of reasons which can be summed up as “failure to fulfil the electorate’s expectations.”
That failure is caused by the following negative factors and developments in the concerned national social, economic and political environments:
Failure to utilise the electorally won political power to improve the lives of the majority of the people;
Disallowing the generality of the people from freely expressing their criticism of the government’s performance;
Allowing government officials and other top national leaders to use their influential positions for self-enrichment and personal aggrandisement;
Using nepotism, cronyism, regionalism, tribalism or racialism in the employment or promotion of civil servants or those in parastatals;
Accepting and or demanding bribes for government services, including the issuance of licences or the awarding of tenders, scholarships or even jobs such as those in the diplomatic services;
Practising political party favouritism in the granting of government or quasi – government loans or grant;
Letting unpunished embezzlement of misuse of public or state funds and property by government officials and their next of kin;
Leaving unpunished misuse of government property such as motor vehicles, aircraft, office or residential accommodation;
Ignoring offensive bullying behaviour by party or government officials against the public;
Passing and applying repressive or any type of disadvantaging legislation or action against the generality of the people;
Failure to expand the national economy resulting in inability to create employment;
Failure to keep prices of vital consumer goods and social services within an affordable range of the average worker.
Inability by some political parties to use their power after getting into office to improve voters’ quality of life is most probably the commonest cause of electoral losses by all formerly major parties throughout the world, that is, of countries where elections are freely and fairly run.
In South Africa and other Southern African countries where universal adult suffrage was achieved after protracted liberation struggles, the socio – economic expectations of the masses were very high, resulting in very deep disappointment if they are not met by a government of a party they regard as their liberator.
The masses feel betrayed and switch their support to any other organisation they feel is a better alternative. In South Africa, the majority of the black people live in abject poverty, not very much different from that experienced during the apartheid regime days.
But a few, very few indeed, of the former freedom – fighters have become rich, some of them stunningly so, to the dismay of the masses the overwhelming majority of whom live in grinding poverty.
That makes one wonder whether or not it would not be correct to say the liberation struggle brought about political freedom to everybody but economic freedom to only an insignificantly few.
The blame for that goes to the leaders of former freedom fighters who are in power. They have failed to design an ideology that can equitably share national natural resources and effectively generate employment for and among the masses because the struggle was meant to bring about political as well as economic freedom to everybody and not only to a privileged few.
What is conspicuously lacking is an economically people-driven ideology, an ideology that makes it possible for a villager at, Rustenburg, at Mafikeng, Brits and wherever else to borrow money from a state bank to enable him or her to launch a business project.
After being voted into power, the next wise thing to do should be to use that power to meet the voters’ expectations which fall under three catergories: economic, social and cultural. Political parties in office can uplift voters’ lives by starting economic projects at cell level.
Instead of holding rallies to denounce opposition parties or to talk nostalgically about the past, political leaders should hold cell meetings to plan and start economic, social and cultural development projects.
The lower in the social ladder development projects are begun, the more likely they are to benefit the most disadvantaged members of the society because the members are much more easily identifiable and helpable at cell than at more or less faceless higher levels.
The desired dream of all genuine freedom fighters was for emancipated nations to produce adequate food and social services on their own lands. Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere tried to achieve that by his famous “iyamaa” policy. In Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda introduced Zambianisation of ownership of land and mining companies to enable “every Zambian to afford and have a glass of milk and an egg per day.”
Mozambique’s Samora Machel burst into the scene with uncompromising socialism, that is state ownership of means of production and distribution of goods and services. He tragically died before he had implemented his socialist development plans.
Some of the world’s economically disadvantaged (poorest) people are still found in Mozambique today, 41 years after that country’s attainment of political freedom.
In South Africa’s case, the end of 2016 marks that country’s 22nd year since the fall of the apartheid regime during which the black people were hewers of wood and drawers of water for white people. That was the regime’s deliberate policy, hence its creation of Bantustans, those now dismantled reservoirs of cheap labour for the Boers’ capitalist economic system.
Bantusans had been created to control the black people’s movements. Since they were abolished, black people can move how, where, when, and why they please.
Job-seeking answers “why” they mostly move, something they should not be doing if the ANC had crafted a people-based socio-economic development policy. The absence of such a policy is a result of fear to adopt an ideology that rivals and inevitably replaces the capitalist system of the Guptas et al.
That leaves South Africa with more political freedom, that is to say one person one vote, freedom of movement, freedom of association (with the Guptas et al), freedom of worship, freedom of thought and freedom of expression, but NOT freedom from poverty nor freedom from want.
Political freedom becomes virtually meaningless if it is not buttressed by socio-economic self-reliance at family level, the family being, of course, the smallest component of any society. If state’s citizens depend on external sources for their economic and social needs and sustenance, their national political sovereignty is, ipso facto, compromised.
If psephological research were conducted to find out why the South African electorate voted the way it did in August, it is most likely that the result would be that the ANC has failed to meet the socio-economic expectations of many, if not most, people, especially the 18-40 years age group.
It is also quite possible that many female voters have been alienated from that political party (the ANC) by the revoltingly high rate of rape that characterises that country’s social life; that the ANC has failed to stamp its foot on the country’s security sector.
This perception would prevail most probably among women with some formal enlightenment, at least secondary school education. Some men would certainly share that sentiment by also blaming the Government for not taking an uncompromising position legislatively and judicially against rape. The ANC could pluck a leaf from Zimbabwe’s statutory book in this regard, a country where the law lays down a minimum prison term for rapists.
The large number of foreign workers in South Africa does certainly have an adverse impact on that country’s electoral landscape.
The current loss of popularity by the ANC reflects its inefficiency after achieving democracy in 1994. That means poor planning by the party’s leadership. An organisation’s membership or following cannot and should not be blamed for its poor electoral performance, all other external factors being equal.
It is always the leadership that enables a political party to win or lose elections. The ANC leaders need to introspect to identify the leadership’s weaknesses. Unlike threats, weaknesses are internal, but threats are in the external environment.
There may be other negative factors in the South African political environment that contribute to the ANC’s currently poor public standing. Among such factors is old age and corruption among the national leaders.
It is important to remember that by the end of the 1930s and the beginning of the 1940s, the ANC was virtually dead because of the passive attitude of old people at its helm.
The organisaton was brought back to life by members of the newly formed Congress Youth League (CYL) among whom were Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Peter Mda, Jordan Ngubane and William Nkomo who actually formed the Congress Youth League (CYL) in December 1943.
These were much younger patriotic men who rejuvenated the ANC leadership not only in terms of physical vigour, but very much also with new dynamic ideas.
There were soon joined by a brilliant young man, Anton Lembede, who was more or less immediately elected its (CYL) first president. He was succeeded by Peter Mda after his untimely death in 1947. Oliver Reginald Tambo, another extremely intelligent and highly educated youngster also joined the (CYL) leadership at that time.
It was the CYL that reinjected some revolutionary vigour into the ANC, a development that needs to be regularly done in any social product all over the world.
It was in pursuance of the ANC’s original goals that the CYL declared at its inaugural congress in Johannesburg over the Easter weekend in 1944:
“The hour of youths has struck! As forces of National Liberation gather momentum, the call to youths to close ranks in order to consolidate the national unity front becomes more urgent and imperative”.
That was the first time a national sense of urgency was injected into the ANC since its historic launch in Bloemfontein in January 1912, some 32 years or, in sociological terms, a generation earlier.
That 1944 CYL declaration catapulted the ANC into a new era against many odds one of which being a statement by the then ANC president, Dr. Alfred Xuma, that the ANC was not yet sufficiently organised for mass action.
Is it that the ANC is presently not sufficiently organised for a national economic transformation?
It had better be lest it will sooner than later become relevant only to South Africa’s political history but not to that country’s socio – economic future.
Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo-based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734 328 136 or through email. [email protected]
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