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Thirty years after the end of apartheid, the country is firmly in the hands of a corrupt elite. This is the background against which South Africa's development since the end of apartheid in 1994 and the subsequent takeover of South African government institutions by the economic and political elites must be viewed. The corporatist model in South Africa has always been synonymous with corruption. Given the virtual carte blanche given to capital after the end of apartheid, as well as the acceptance and endorsement of its continued dominance in the economic sphere and the ANC's policies of accommodation and inclusion, the corporatist model found a sympathetic cooperative partner in the ANC. As a result, it has become a two-headed parasite entrenched at the heart of South Africa's political economy. Like any parasite that feeds on its host, it attracts other parasites, and if not removed, it multiplies and overwhelms the host. In this case, the host is the post-apartheid South African state. The shortest path to liberation To fully understand the organizational, ideological, and strategic pillars of the political economy of post-apartheid South Africa—and thus the basis for the development of the state and the constitution—one must go back to the beginning: the founding of the ANC. As has been extensively reported , the majority of the ANC's founding members —along with the traditional chiefs—came from the emerging Black petty bourgeoisie, whose economic interests were directly tied to the availability and use of land. The primary reason for the ANC's founding was to create a political and organizational instrument that could counter the assault on the class interests of its members and, above all, on what they perceived as the general welfare of the Black population. Most of the new leaders brought with them not only their own class politics, but also the massive influence of a Calvinist upbringing and its associated moral code. This led to a policy of assimilation, primarily concerned with convincing the "civilized" British, through constitutional means, that the educated, wealthy, and thus "civilized" Afrikaners could be absorbed into the mainstream of South African society. The ANC leadership advocated the application of what it viewed as "justice and fairness" in the British sense. Afrikaners, as "loyal British subjects," would greatly appreciate this . In other words, the leadership of the early ANC wanted a certain segment of the Black population to become an integral part of the capitalist system. This laid the foundation for what would later become, after the ANC seized state power in the 1990s, its policy of Black Economic Empowerment. Yet for a long time, this policy did not appear to be central to the ANC's main strategy for South Africa's liberation. Instead, the ANC leadership pursued a macro-nationalist policy that conveyed a sense of collective and classless "ownership" (understood primarily in racial terms) for the emerging struggle against the racist structure of South African society. Thus, from the outset, the concept of political freedom for all Black South Africans was linked to a nationalist policy that endorsed the capitalist class system. This paralleled the acceptance of the specific (and overriding) need for the economic empowerment of that class of Black people who might join—and possibly eventually replace—the white capitalists, as forerunners, so to speak, of a broader "economic empowerment" of the Black majority (that is, the workers and the poor). Few statements describe this approach better than the 1945 statement by ANC President Alfred Bitini Xuma : "...it is not so important to us whether capitalism is destroyed or not. What is much more important is that as long as capitalism exists, we must inevitably struggle to get our full share and benefit from the system." This conceptual understanding and practical approach subsequently established itself as the dominant expression of the entire liberation struggle, which in turn dates back to the 1962 program of the South African Communist Party (SACP), "The Road to South African Freedom," and was subsequently codified in the ANC's 1969 document "Strategy and Tactics." Here, the theory of "a special form of colonialism" was contrasted with the "new" basis for the quest for Black "empowerment." The core argument was that apartheid originated in the era of monopoly capitalism and that South Africa represented "a combination of the worst features of imperialism and colonialism within the borders of a single state," in which Black South Africa was a colony of White South Africa. Since there are “currently no acute or antagonistic class differences” among the African population (which would mean a uniform identification of all Black people as a closed and oppressed “class”), it is only logical that the immediate task is to fight for the national liberation of the “colonized”. This task, in turn, would be fulfilled in the form of a "National Democratic Revolution" led by a cross-class liberation movement (the ANC), but in which the working class (led by the SACP) would be the leading revolutionary force. Since not all classes had an objective interest in the fundamental transformation of post-apartheid South Africa into a non-capitalist society, the leading role of the working class would ensure that the liberation struggle could develop toward socialism. This struggle thus had two stages: a first for a national democratic state (non-racist, non-sexist, etc.) and a second for a non-capitalist society, vaguely defined as socialist. The "result" of these historical developments was that when a bitter and sustained mass struggle against the apartheid system erupted in the 1980s, the ANC's path to power took place within a hopelessly contradictory paradigm, from which national liberation itself was analytically and practically separated. In other words, the political side (the struggle for democracy) had been decoupled from the economic side (the struggle for social and material power). Thus, the idea of "empowerment" of the Black population would necessarily be put into practice as part of a "de-racialized" capitalism liberated from racism, whose logical goal is the empowerment of an emerging Black capitalist class as a means of overcoming racist oppression. This "empowerment" would trickle down to the Black majority, which would then, at some point in the distant future, assume command of the ANC alliance and, together with the newly "empowered" Black capitalists, overthrow the capitalist system. Above all, this meant that the path to power took the form of a corporatist strategy, in which the democratic will of the people was to supersede the interests of the elite. In the case of South Africa's liberation struggle, the ANC leadership described its own strategy, based on its interpretation of "objective realities" and the "balance of power," as the only possible path. This was then quickly translated into the "will of the people," a rhetorical sleight of hand that reinforced the ANC leadership's historical practice of proxy politics. This strategy ultimately privileges the existing and emerging elite—those who already wield political and economic power, as well as those with the means to acquire it—over the majority of people with limited power. This, in turn, results in the needs, interests, and struggles of this majority, the workers and the poor, being viewed merely as ad hoc demands in order to access a much more important and instrumental access to and use of institutional political power (via the state) and the capital that comes with it. This was and continues to be presented as the "normal state," as the elite dominates and controls the political and economic terrain on which this liberation struggle unfolds. From this perspective, it is much easier to understand why deracialized capitalism, the ANC's path, could practically only result in two things: first, the ANC's rise to political power through the "capture" of the state through representative democratic elections, which provided the necessary consent for a development whose overarching goal was already determined; and second, the creation of a new class of Black capitalists and political entrepreneurs and their incorporation into the existing economic system, primarily with the help of the state and the private sector. Sealing the deal The announcement on February 2, 1990, by then-President Frederik Willem de Klerk, still in office during the apartheid era, that he would release Mandela, lift the ban on the ANC, the SACP, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), and several other allied organizations, and initiate negotiations to end apartheid rule was, above all, a public confirmation of the effective appropriation of a long-planned political process to abolish apartheid in South Africa by corporate capital. Ultimately, despite all the ideological, political, and military struggles waged in the preceding decades, the core interests of capital had won the war. The decisive turning point in this long-running war occurred at the end of 1985, when the regime's ruler, Pieter Willem Botha, known for his authoritarian approach, retreated to the apartheid camp. In his " Rubicon Speech ," delivered at the 1985 National Party (NP) congress, Botha declared to the country and the world that he was "not prepared to lead white South Africans [...] down a path of abdication and suicide" and warned critics of the apartheid state against "pushing us too far." This proved to be the last straw for the representatives of capital, who immediately decided to seize the initiative. A few days after several international financial institutions announced a moratorium on lending to the apartheid regime, a delegation of the who's who of South African capital (Anglo American, Premier Group, Barlow Rand, Sanlam, and Barclays) flew to Lusaka to meet the ANC leadership. When asked what the talks would be about, Anglo American CEO Gavin Relly didn't mince words: I find it logical that business people would want to find out if there is common ground [...] that a free-enterprise society is demonstrably better for wealth creation than some kind of Marxist socialism. I would have taken it for granted [...] that no one would want to play a role in a country where the economy [...] has been destroyed either by some kind of Marxist approach to wealth creation or by a [...] revolution. After the talks, Relly and the other company representatives agreed to work with the ANC to ensure, as another Anglo American representative put it a few months later, that "the baby of free enterprise is not thrown out with the bathwater of apartheid." In a radio broadcast by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), Relly said he emerged from the talks with the clear impression that the ANC was not "too keen" to be perceived as "Marxist" and that they had a strong understanding of "the need for free enterprise." Ultimately, it turned out that in the final stages of the liberation struggle, both parties – the business camp and the ANC – were increasingly drawn closer together, even though some members of the ANC leadership did indeed envision a non-capitalist, post-apartheid South Africa. The strategic logic of the ANC's national-democratic concept of the liberation struggle, combined with an economically vague Freedom Charter, coincided with the prevailing idea of capital: South Africa should be a political democracy and an economic autocracy. It took almost four years for the apartheid regime to finally officially capitulate. The transitional program proposed by de Klerk in February 1990 fully reflected what corporate capital had established in 1986. In addition to the release of most "political prisoners" and the lifting of the ban on political parties of the liberation struggle, the most important "goals" of the regime's future agenda , according to de Klerk, were: "a democratic constitution, universal suffrage, an independent judiciary, the protection of the rights of minorities and individuals, religious freedom, and a sound economy based on proven economic principles and private enterprise [read: capitalism]." Whether the ANC leadership—not to mention its rank-and-file members, its base of supporters, and, above all, the country's Black majority—agreed with the program or not is beside the point. First and foremost, they had little choice in the face of unprecedented pressure resulting from a combination of factors. These factors included the increasingly difficult international context, the constraints inherent in the continued oppression of the apartheid state, and the ideological vacuum resulting from the spectacular collapse of Stalinist-inspired "socialism" in the USSR and Eastern Europe. Most importantly, the cumulative effect of the ANC's own strategy and tactics cemented the corporatist path to power. What kind of democracy? A key aspect of the compromise negotiated between the ANC and the apartheid regime was the adoption of a federal system of government. Instead of a single, unified state, South Africa was now to be divided into provinces, each with a range of independent powers and functions alongside the existing national government. Furthermore, local government structures were also granted additional powers and responsibilities. The ANC's agreement to a five-year "Government of National Unity" (GNU), which guaranteed "co-government" status to the pro-apartheid National Party and the Inkatha Freedom Party, as well as the economic compromises to which the ANC agreed, contributed overall to a high degree of continuity within the South African model of government. Apart from a few modifications and additions made prior to the handover, the House of South Africa was inherited as is—without warranty or guarantee. In practice, this meant that the new ANC-ruled state had little "room for maneuver" to effect immediate structural and personnel changes—within and through the state—in those areas that most needed such change. This situation has since been mostly interpreted as a "sign of the times" and/or the result of necessary compromises given the existing "balance of power." Yet it remains to be seen that these conditions were in complete contradiction to the ANC's promise, once in power, to use the state for what it had previously been unable to do. The new state was left with only one realistic option: to push the chairs of governance and politics out onto the veranda to create new "room in the house" and realize the various rights enshrined in the constitution. Even in this respect, appearances rarely matched reality. The least controversial task was replacing the predominantly white professional and managerial staff and bureaucracy at all three levels of government. Not surprisingly, this task was tackled immediately, albeit gradually—due to the Government of National Unity Agreement. Crucially, however, there was virtually no change in the most politically and economically important areas of government—such as public finances, security and defense, state-owned enterprises, and courts—allowing apartheid-era politicians, bureaucrats, civil servants, judges, spies, and soldiers to become the primary "enablers" or "teachers" for most of the newly appointed civil servants. In other words, the formative phase of the new South Africa largely continued the previous government culture (apart from its deeply rooted racist underpinnings), characterized by secrecy, internal hierarchies, technocracy, class bias, a lack of responsiveness, and a top-down approach. Central to the reorganization was the drafting and passage of new laws at all levels of government to give effect to the various components of the Constitution, particularly its centerpiece, the Bill of Rights . Such legislation was absolutely necessary, and undoubtedly many of those involved in its drafting acted with the best of intentions. The new legislation was accompanied by the establishment of numerous new provincial and municipal governments, departments, representative bodies (provincial legislatures and municipal councils), and public service institutions such as local waterworks. At the same time, new departments were created and existing ones expanded at the national level. Development agencies and institutions were established under Chapter 9 of the South African Constitution, such as the Human Rights Commission and the Office of the Ombudsman (Public Protector). Overall, this was all very sensible and, in many cases, necessary to fulfill the expanded government mandate to establish some form of independent oversight of the state and enable the delivery of basic services to previously unserved communities. However, apart from the short-term, public-relations-oriented "Batho Pele" (translated from South African Sotho: "People First") program, there was a lack of a parallel effort to transform the governance culture in the service sector and create pathways for more direct democratic participation and control by those "governed" and "receiving services." As a result, the unique opportunity to establish a new model of government and an associated public service ethos, which could have deepened the democratic process, was missed. Instead, cross-party political bickering and clientelism centered around personal, party, and class interests emerged. This trend was further exacerbated by the ANC's decisions regarding the remuneration of senior politicians and bureaucrats at all levels of government; the granting of exorbitant salaries and myriad perks in the public service was presented, defended, and even celebrated as reasonable. From the very beginning of its rise to power, the ANC leadership deliberately worked to sharply distance itself from the "ordinary" class of South Africa's population. In other words, the ANC and the South African state were quickly co-opted, not primarily for the benefit of the governed, but for the benefit of a new elite. This, in turn, paved the way for holding political office (whether in the party or in the civil service) to be seen as a sure path to wealth in the public sector. What kind of appropriation? Throughout the history of capital, corruption has been at the heart of an insatiable pursuit of profit and new and creative ways to further exploit people and nature. A key instrument in this pursuit is the ideological and financial "co-optation" of the ruling political parties, and thus of the institutional mission and political direction of a particular nation-state. The central actors of this corruption, at the individual or party-political level, were leading politicians and civil servants. As outlined above, the relationship between the ANC and corporate capital was thus characterized by state co-optation from the outset. One of the most blatant examples of this appropriation is perhaps the commodity trading and mining company Glencore. Throughout the apartheid era, but especially in the 1970s and 1980s, the apartheid regime and its agents were "involved in systemic economic crime to circumvent sanctions, buy advantages abroad, and finance their smear campaigns at home." This created parallel "criminal networks between the state and the private sector," which in turn provided ample opportunity for a small group of individuals "to steal and transfer vast amounts of money abroad under the cloak of secrecy." Glencore was founded in 1974 by oil trader Marc Rich. After fleeing the United States in 1983, where he was accused of tax evasion and illegal business practices, Rich settled in Switzerland and soon became indispensable to the apartheid regime's global criminal network, selling oil for cash. Shortly before his death in 2013, Rich admitted that his relationship with the apartheid state was his "most important and profitable" business, and that Glencore's success was largely due to bribery. The end of apartheid, however, did not mean the end of Glencore's ties to South Africa. Through various subsidiaries and partner companies, notably the mining companies Trafigura and Xtstrata, Glencore became a major player, investing heavily in the extraction of vast quantities of the country's mineral resources and the associated trade. The founder's criminal past and the company's important role in maintaining the apartheid machinery appeared to be no obstacle. As the mining sector became the centerpiece of the ANC's Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) program, the web of relationships between Glencore—now led by Rich's protégé, South African-born Ivan Glasenberg—and leading ANC figures further intensified. When Glencore acquired Optimum Coal, South Africa's largest coal mining company, in 2012, none other than Cyril Ramaphosa, the BEE program's key figure and ANC leader, was appointed chairman . At the end of 2015, Glencore sold Optimum to Tegeta Exploration & Resources, a corporation founded by the notorious Gupta family, whose close ties and dubious dealings with the disgraced former ANC leader and President Jacob Zuma and his family have been at the center of political discourse in South Africa for years. It is therefore not surprising that Zuma's aide and Minister of Mineral Resources, Mosebenzi Zwane, flew to Switzerland for a meeting with Glencore CEO Glasenberg. Just three weeks before the sale, half of Tegeta's shares were transferred to a company owned by Zuma's son, Duduzane Zuma. A system riddled with corruption When these connections are made, the continuity of corruption prevalent before and after 1994 becomes ever clearer. The investigative journalism collective Open Secrets summarizes it this way: "The enormous level of economic crime that plagues our democracy today is due in no small part to our failure to dismantle the criminal networks that thrived under apartheid." This is why the ANC's unilateral adoption of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy and the resulting, vigorously pursued pro-business policies are so central to understanding the ongoing state capture in South Africa. GEAR paved the way for a wide range of public and private business transactions between the ANC, the state, the "donor countries," and involved politicians, civil servants, and representatives of capital, from which all benefited equally. In this arrangement, both corporate and group interests and individual class interests are linked to foreign and domestic investment by capital. This allows the ANC and its leadership not only to conceal their shared interests and the associated corruption, but also to further the expansion of the clientelist networks that have become so central to both the ANC itself and to governance in South Africa after 1994. There is no clearer evidence of this state of affairs than that which Zuma himself provided in 2015 at a gala dinner for the ANC's capitalist cronies, also known as the Progressive Economic Forum (PBF) : I always tell businesspeople that it's wise to invest in the ANC. If you don't invest in the ANC, your business is at risk. The TG [ANC Treasurer-General] is a nice and handsome young man. If he knocks, you should let him in. If he says we need something, he will only ask for one thing. If he says, 'Support the ANC, just write a blank cheque for a six-figure sum [...].' This organization doesn't make a profit, but we create an enabling environment for those who do. Anyone who has made a profit knows what to do. This corrupt organizational and political culture has spread from the upper echelons of the ANC, the state, and the capitalist world, with which many ANC leaders are intertwined, to the lower structures of the ANC and its allies. Over time, this has led to an increasing number of people being drawn into this matrix. They assume leadership positions not out of political and/or ideological conviction, but to seek power and material gain. The constitutional endgame This background should be taken into account when assessing the content and character of the celebrated South African Constitution, as well as the difficulty of implementing many of its promises and the various attacks directed against it. Despite the deep-rooted and systemic social, economic, and political crises so clearly evident in South Africa today, there are several positive aspects of the country's constitutional framework, even if they are not fully implemented in practice. Some of these are worth mentioning: An institutionalized democratic system based on non-racist ideals and a constitution that enshrines basic civil, political, and socioeconomic rights. The right to citizenship regardless of race, ethnicity, or geographical location, including the right to vote, to form political parties, and to participate in elections. Protection against discrimination, including on the grounds of race, gender, ethnic or social origin, sexual orientation, age, conscience, belief and culture. Other civil and political rights, including the right to assembly, access to information, freedom of expression, religion, language, freedom of movement and privacy. A set of enforceable socioeconomic rights, including access to housing, water, food, healthcare, social security and education, as well as the right to a safe and healthy environment. There's a catch, however: the exercise of the various rights enshrined in the Constitution is directly tied to political and economic status, power, and wealth. If the legitimate expectations of the majority of the population, i.e., workers and the poor, regarding practical support and effective assistance are continually frustrated, then the very value of the Constitution, its comprehensive rights, and all associated legislation and measures intended to give these rights legal and practical effect must be seriously questioned. To return to the aforementioned metaphor of the house: While there have been some interior improvements and exterior additions to the house in the post-apartheid era—meaning South Africa—the house itself not only rests on a rotten foundation, but most of the improvements and additions are not designed for the majority of the house's residents and were largely implemented without their participation. This deliberately constructed, combined, and uneven development characterizes the constitutional architecture of post-apartheid South Africa. Since 1994, we have observed how political and economic elites choose which aspects of constitutional democracy apply exclusively to them and which parts of the democratic process they wish to grant to the rest of society. For example, participatory democracy itself has been virtually eliminated and politically manipulated. As a result, the ANC and the state itself have lost political authority and popular support. Furthermore, voter turnout has fallen to an all-time low . Increased information control, a lack of regulation, an almost blatant disregard for democratic oversight and the uniform application of the law, and an increasing securitization of state and society define today's South Africa. Even more fundamentally, South African politics is characterized by the arrogance of the elite and its desire to dominate and maintain power at all costs. Therefore, it was foreseeable that opportunistic and hypocritical attacks on the constitution would occur—even if they include legitimate and necessary criticisms and sound arguments for sensible, progressive constitutional changes, particularly with regard to property rights and socioeconomic rights. Such attacks have become increasingly frequent, especially in recent years. In most cases, they stem from the narrowly nationalist, ethnically motivated, socially conservative, and authoritarian policies of former President Jacob Zuma and, more recently, the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party he founded. The MK manifesto states that, if it comes to power, it will "abolish the 1996 Constitution and replace it with a parliamentary system." This is not a specific "anti-constitutional ideology," but rather a self-serving, demagogic political stunt that seeks to exploit the majority's justified skepticism toward the constitution. The manifesto is intended to create the impression that the constitution stands in the way of redistributive social and economic policies and is responsible for the erosion of the state. This argument is best illustrated by the 2011 remarks of former senior ANC politician Ngoako Ramatlhodi, who argued that the ANC had been unable to bring about radical change primarily because it had accepted a constitution that shifted "significant power from the legislative and executive branches to the judiciary, Chapter 9 institutions, and civil society organizations," leading to the "hollowing out of the state." In fact, the attacks are aimed at gaining political support in the hope that it will translate into political power. Indeed, these attacks are consistent with the historical and current policies of inclusion and growth that are the cornerstones of the co-optation of the post-apartheid state. Beyond that, however, they represent a South African version of a much broader, global development of increasingly right-wing, authoritarian, and fascist policies aimed at delegitimizing "democracy." Under the guise of "the people," both state and private political and economic power is being concentrated, centralized, and controlled to an even greater extent. Thirty years of state capture, combined with the recent emergence of a pernicious and often violent pattern of anti-democratic politics and behavior, poses the greatest challenge facing South Africa today. Beyond the fundamental need to defend the constitution against external attacks, it will be up to the country's nearly 65 million inhabitants, and especially its working-class majority, to protect their hard-won rights and strengthen democratic institutions and practices in the coming years. This, in turn, will determine whether this beautiful but battered country can achieve developmental and democratic transition or whether it will become yet another failed state run by and for elites. This article is based on a lecture given by the author as part of the Democracy Dialogue series organized by the Johannesburg office of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation . https://www.rosalux.de/news/id/53573/die-vereinnahmung-des-staates-im-post-apartheid-suedafrika? Back German translation by Cornelia Gritzner & Sabine Voß for Gegenteil Translation Collective. |
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