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MANY people were rather surprised that just over 62% of registered South African voters voted for the ANC in last week’s election. This was less than the almost 66% five years ago, but in any language it still was a resounding victory.
That this happened in spite of Nkandla, corruption, inefficiency, rotten service delivery - all hallmarks of ANC governance – is truly remarkable. Nevertheless, this column is not about voter patterns, interesting as they may be.
The fact is that a sizeable majority of the voters entrusted the country for the next five years to the ANC, and the big question now has to be how the ANC is going to work with that trust.
There are indications that the ANC will exercise some self-reflection in the weeks to come. In particular, its poor performance in the Western Cape and Gauteng will be examined, and it is possible that voters’ general low esteem for President Jacob Zuma will be one of the subjects looked at.
Another will be the excellent performance of Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters. This, together with the founding of an alleged socialist workers’ party by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa later this year, will certainly concentrate minds.
There is always the danger that the threat from the left will cause government to veer off in that direction. During the election campaign one could hear much more leftist talk from ANC politicians, for example about affirmative action and land redistribution.
But politicians tend to make all sorts of promises during elections which they never keep. We will have to see whether they regard the developments on their left flank as being worrying enough.
The fact is that the pull of the economy is - at any rate for the time being - probably bigger than pressures from the left. The general expectation is that the largely business-friendly national development plan will be carried out.
The litmus test will be which politicians are put in charge of the economy. Zuma will have to make some gesture to the left by appointing socialists such as Ebrahim Patel and Blade Nzimande to cabinet, but the expectation is that people like Pravin Gordhan, Tito Mboweni and Cyril Ramaphosa will get the most muscle power to steer the direction of the economy. We will have to see.
Whatever happens, most people who know anything about economic affairs will agree that the main focus should be the sustainable creation of jobs, as well as training and education in the broadest sense of the word.
Due to the publication of studies by economists like Thomas Piketty, Jonathan Ostry (and Professor Sampie Terreblance in South Africa), the focus of late has fallen on the question of gross inequality and the dangers this holds.
Most informed people will agree that gross inequality endangers stability and economic growth. This has also been a factor in last week’s elections. The question is how best to tackle it.
Tax them till they groan
Piketty’s answer is to tax the rich till they groan and divide the spoils among the poor – a typical socialist measure which may be rather popular with the have-nots, but which also has stifled growth wherever it was implemented.
This is not the way to go.
In restructuring the economy for a more equitable distribution of wealth, the socialist way boils down to doing it topsy-turvy. They, so to speak, want to start the building with the roof, instead of the foundations.
What are these foundations?
Above all, poor people must be enabled to increase their own worth on the labour market so that they may earn more. In other words, they need skills which are in demand in a 21st-century economy.
This, obviously, has to start at an early age, at school. This means much more than throwing millions at schooling. It means that the whole edifice of dysfunctional schools has to be forcefully transformed. One reads and hears too much of school buildings in disrepair, handbooks not delivered, teachers who turn up late, drunk or not at all, and school masters who have no interest in their work.
These people, and those higher up who do nothing to rectify the situation, are betraying hundreds of thousands of children who are denied the capability of making something of their lives.
Increasing the level of skills in the population will also stimulate economic growth, and unemployment will come down too. The problem is that this is a long-term solution, which will bear fruit only in 20 or 30 years’ time.
And most politicians are unable and unwilling to think beyond the next election, so they opt for the attractive short-term way, namely to distribute food parcels and other hand-outs.
In this way, the receivers may stave off immediate starvation which is, of course, a good thing. But this is also the surest way of making people dependent and unable to look after themselves (I am not referring to those – the elderly or handicapped – who are really not able to survive on their own).
It is also the surest long-term measure to prevent the poor as a class from moving upwards to the middle class.
There are three building blocks on the way to sustainable development: education and training, education and training, education and training. There is no other way.
- Fin24
* Leopold Scholtz is an independent political analyst who lives in Europe. Views expressed are his own.
That this happened in spite of Nkandla, corruption, inefficiency, rotten service delivery - all hallmarks of ANC governance – is truly remarkable. Nevertheless, this column is not about voter patterns, interesting as they may be.
The fact is that a sizeable majority of the voters entrusted the country for the next five years to the ANC, and the big question now has to be how the ANC is going to work with that trust.
There are indications that the ANC will exercise some self-reflection in the weeks to come. In particular, its poor performance in the Western Cape and Gauteng will be examined, and it is possible that voters’ general low esteem for President Jacob Zuma will be one of the subjects looked at.
Another will be the excellent performance of Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters. This, together with the founding of an alleged socialist workers’ party by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa later this year, will certainly concentrate minds.
There is always the danger that the threat from the left will cause government to veer off in that direction. During the election campaign one could hear much more leftist talk from ANC politicians, for example about affirmative action and land redistribution.
But politicians tend to make all sorts of promises during elections which they never keep. We will have to see whether they regard the developments on their left flank as being worrying enough.
The fact is that the pull of the economy is - at any rate for the time being - probably bigger than pressures from the left. The general expectation is that the largely business-friendly national development plan will be carried out.
The litmus test will be which politicians are put in charge of the economy. Zuma will have to make some gesture to the left by appointing socialists such as Ebrahim Patel and Blade Nzimande to cabinet, but the expectation is that people like Pravin Gordhan, Tito Mboweni and Cyril Ramaphosa will get the most muscle power to steer the direction of the economy. We will have to see.
Whatever happens, most people who know anything about economic affairs will agree that the main focus should be the sustainable creation of jobs, as well as training and education in the broadest sense of the word.
Due to the publication of studies by economists like Thomas Piketty, Jonathan Ostry (and Professor Sampie Terreblance in South Africa), the focus of late has fallen on the question of gross inequality and the dangers this holds.
Most informed people will agree that gross inequality endangers stability and economic growth. This has also been a factor in last week’s elections. The question is how best to tackle it.
Tax them till they groan
Piketty’s answer is to tax the rich till they groan and divide the spoils among the poor – a typical socialist measure which may be rather popular with the have-nots, but which also has stifled growth wherever it was implemented.
This is not the way to go.
In restructuring the economy for a more equitable distribution of wealth, the socialist way boils down to doing it topsy-turvy. They, so to speak, want to start the building with the roof, instead of the foundations.
What are these foundations?
Above all, poor people must be enabled to increase their own worth on the labour market so that they may earn more. In other words, they need skills which are in demand in a 21st-century economy.
This, obviously, has to start at an early age, at school. This means much more than throwing millions at schooling. It means that the whole edifice of dysfunctional schools has to be forcefully transformed. One reads and hears too much of school buildings in disrepair, handbooks not delivered, teachers who turn up late, drunk or not at all, and school masters who have no interest in their work.
These people, and those higher up who do nothing to rectify the situation, are betraying hundreds of thousands of children who are denied the capability of making something of their lives.
Increasing the level of skills in the population will also stimulate economic growth, and unemployment will come down too. The problem is that this is a long-term solution, which will bear fruit only in 20 or 30 years’ time.
And most politicians are unable and unwilling to think beyond the next election, so they opt for the attractive short-term way, namely to distribute food parcels and other hand-outs.
In this way, the receivers may stave off immediate starvation which is, of course, a good thing. But this is also the surest way of making people dependent and unable to look after themselves (I am not referring to those – the elderly or handicapped – who are really not able to survive on their own).
It is also the surest long-term measure to prevent the poor as a class from moving upwards to the middle class.
There are three building blocks on the way to sustainable development: education and training, education and training, education and training. There is no other way.
- Fin24
* Leopold Scholtz is an independent political analyst who lives in Europe. Views expressed are his own.
