Zuma 'prone to making promises'

Johannesburg - South Africa is not likely to experience a post-election crisis, according to Southern and East Africa analyst for Control Risks, Anne Fruehauf.

Fruehauf told I-Net Bridge in an exclusive interview on Monday that there may be some localised violence preceding the election, "but I do not foresee a nationwide crisis, not least because there is no serious expectation that anyone but the ANC will emerge victorious".

"We're at a moment where there are signs of electoral competition across the regions and a new opening in the political sphere, which raises the levels of local rifts and tensions. It pans out in different ways, like KwaZulu-Natal where the IFP is threatened by the ascendancy of a strong Zulu faction within the ANC," she says.

But Fruehauf feels this is the key year to see if South Africa will turn the corner.

"If the new leadership wants to, they have the opportunity to send all sorts of positive signals, with cabinet positions being one part of that. I am quite optimistic there will be a weeding out of poor performers and retention of promising candidates," she says.

Fruehauf says there are a whole host of constraints that prevent SA from straying from the course of recent prudent management of the economy, "but we need a massive refocusing on delivery and fixing all the leaks in the pipe".

In a climate of downturn, there will also be an increasing counting of the perceived costs of BEE and questions over how sustainable a strategy this is.

"The historical, social and political imperatives for this are obvious, but the manner in which transformation is handled and the operational challenges associated with implementing BEE standards are attracting increasing scrutiny, including from foreign investors," she says.

Prone to promises

On Jacob Zuma emerging as the new president, Fruehauf feels his critical challenge will be to what extent he exercises leadership and how he reconciles divergent interests.

"He seems to be very good at lending his ear to different interests. He appears prone to making promises, but not all of those interests in that big basket seem easily reconcilable. The ANC is still a broad church despite the emergence of COPE," she says.

"One challenge in recent years has been to separate between any legitimate doubts over Zuma's leadership credentials and a clear degree of demonization. In a best case scenario, Zuma would prove a unifying consensus and broker who will be popular and able to relate to the popular base of this country, which is often lost and the discourse in SA is extremely polarised.

"For example, a lot of the liberal constituencies almost stare in disbelief at some of his traditional attitudes and beliefs, but we have to live with the fact this is still a divided country and we have to navigate those diverging trends. SA has an excellent constitution and has a generally independent judiciary and at least a large part of its institutions have survived intact," she says.

"So all is not lost. We don't want to be seen as 'doom-mongers' regarding SA - in fact, we have a natural inclination to err on the side of optimism when it comes to SA!" concludes Fruehauf.

Control Risks is an international business risk consultancy that provides ongoing monitoring of political trends, security and key trends for investment and counts major multi-nationals and FTSE 100 countries as its clients.

South Africa's election is on Wednesday, April 22.

- I-Net Bridge