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South Africa is again at a turning point and politics will drive economics for the next five to 10 years. “The choices made within the ANC, particularly at its national conference in December between two large ideological orientations within the party, between the traditionalists and the reformers, will largely determine our future,” director of the Institute Executive for Security Studies Jakkie Cilliers told a Gordon Institute of Business Science forum.
In his book, Fate of the Nation, Cilliers has developed three detailed scenarios for our immediate future and beyond – Bafana Bafana, Nation Divided and Mandela Magic.
South Africa has a long tradition of scenario planning, he explained, which began with the Mont Fleur Scenarios during the country’s transition towards democracy. This planning played a role to “change the focus from our differences to rather seek out a common future” and devised the concept of a social compact.
Three scenarios
The split along factional lines within the ANC is also “a deeply held conviction of alternative models of how South Africa should develop. The one is more collectivist, centralist orientated. The other is more modern and social democratic in orientation,” Cilliers explained. These ideologies inform his scenarios and the trajectory the country could take in the future. However, he pointed out that the scenarios are broad generalisations of a very complex party and are not predications but tools to frame discussions about the future.
1. Bafana Bafana
The Bafana Bafana, or compromise scenario, where we simply muddle along as a country, is the one Cilliers sees as most likely. In this situation, the ANC prizes unity above all else and the outcome of December 2017 is a compromise. The party holds together, but at the cost of a clear direction.
Under such a scenario, the ANC loses Gauteng in the 2019 election and subsequently its majority in the 2024 election. “The future is not very bright for the ANC,” Cilliers said.
2. Nation Divided
According to the Nation Divided scenario, the traditionalists within the ANC triumph, leading to a split in the party ahead of the 2019 election. Events in the country take a more populist direction, and the economy grows slowly, taking more pain before voters punish the ANC at the 2019 polls.
3. Mandela Magic
The third scenario is entitled Mandela Magic. In this case, the reformers triumph and “drag the ANC into the 21st century.” The tripartite alliance no longer holds together and the ANC are free of the constraint of labour on economic policy. The party stays in power and is able to regenerate itself, until the 2034 election.
Employment and Economic growth
All three of Cilliers’ scenarios “point to the need for much more radical changes in South Africa”, he said. Employment creation must be placed at the heart of the future of the country: “If we cannot fix employment, we cannot fix anything else. And we can only fix employment with growth. Only formal sector employment can help with sustained poverty alleviation and the reduction of inequality.”
South Africa’s average economic growth rate since World War II of 3.4% “is not good enough. We need 5% or 6% of labour intensive growth if we are to deal with our structural unemployment, which has become a feature of the local labour market. These people are going to be with us for generations to come. We will have to have basic income grants, pensions and work schemes to look after them.”
Gwen Ngwenya, chief operating officer of the Institute of Race Relations, questioned the shift in South African politics towards the cult of personality, and a lack of a robust and ambitious policy vision.
“We are involved in big-man politics rather than engaging with policy platforms and have yet to see much vigorous debate around different parties’ platforms. None of the policies put forward introduce any form of grand thinking, but all seem to focus on slow incrementalism,” she said.
While the idea that labour, business and government need to work together in a social compact was important, this idea could be taken too far, Ngwenya argued.
“The terms of agreement in a social compact need to be discussed so that the arrangement doesn’t simply make it easier for any one of the parties to abdicate their responsibility.”
The path forward
Cilliers said South Africa had “significant growth potential” and that none of the three scenarios envisaged the country remaining in a recession. His recommendation was to update the National Development Plan in a practical way, so as to be able to achieve this potential, with every effort focused on implementation.
“South Africa has a significant surplus of policy, but we have an absence of implementation, clear direction and leadership.”
• City Press is a media partner of the Gordon Institute of Business Science.
