the country experience a sustained decline in the number and proportion of unemployed people.[27]
Taking a measure of relative poverty as an income of about R1500 a month, in 1996 some 40% of South Africans lived in poverty. Sixteen years later, in 2012, that figure had fallen only marginally to 36%.[28] For too many South Africans, the experience of democracy is a life of poverty.
Another major factor is that of inequality, with its well-documented implications for political and social stability. The most commonly used measure of inequality is the Gini coefficient, which ranks the extent of income inequality in a given society on a score between 0 and 1. (A score of 0 would indicate complete equality, with every person in a particular society earning precisely the same amount, and a score of 1 would indicate complete inequality, with one person in the society earning all the income.) In 1996, two years after the democratic transition, South Africa’s Gini coefficient was 0.60. By 2012 it had worsened to 0.63,[29] making it one of the most unequal societies in the world.
For these and other reasons, a growing number of analysts and politicians – even leading figures in the ruling party – have sounded alarm bells about persistently high levels of poverty, unemployment and inequality. In June 2012, the Minister of Mineral Resources, Susan Shabangu, appealed to delegates at the South African Mining Lekgotla to do more to address the issue of skills shortage and the ‘ticking time-bomb that is the unemployed and unemployable youth of the country’s townships and rural streets’.[30] Similarly, in that same year, Zwelinzima Vavi, then general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), told an international policy conference that unemployment, coupled with dehumanising poverty, was a ‘ticking time bomb waiting to explode’.[31]
Perhaps most alarmingly, in February 2011 the chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), Moeletsi Mbeki, wrote in Business Day: ‘I can predict when South Africa’s “Tunisia Day” will arrive. … The year will be 2020, give or take a couple of years.’ Mbeki was referring to the unexpected and violent North African uprisings that year that led to the collapse of the governments of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, and destabilised the entire region. He went on to say that ANC leaders were like a ‘group of children playing with a hand grenade. One day, one of them will figure out how to pull out the pin and everyone will be killed.’[32]
In 2012, my colleague John Kane-Berman, then head of the South African Institute of Race Relations, suggested in an address to business and other leaders that the South African political system was approaching a ‘tipping point’.[33] Earlier that year I chaired a private dinner where former president FW de Klerk told business and think-tank leaders that South Africa was approaching some kind of tipping point, and could slide very rapidly if some poor policy options currently on the table were exercised.[34]
Even within the ANC there is growing concern: in July 2013 the deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, startled observers by warning that, if the ANC failed to remain relevant to the people, it would run the risk of losing power.[35] In that same month the ANC admitted that South Africa’s economy risked being left behind, and needed to be urgently reformed. Similarly, in 2013, the former treason trialist and liberation icon Andrew Mlangeni warned that without reform the ANC could lose an election.[36]
These observations and predictions did not appear in a vacuum as there are growing signs of popular dissatisfaction with the government’s performance. In the 2009 national elections the ANC won 65.9% of the vote; however, ANC voter support calculated as a proportion of potential voters fell precipitously from 55% in 1994 to just 38% in that 2009 election.[37] Moreover, in that 2009 election, more people chose not to vote than to vote for the ANC.
These indicators must be read alongside rising protest action in poor communities. Commonly labelled ‘service delivery protests’, they are an increasingly prominent feature of post-apartheid South Africa. Often violent, they are triggered by grievances over service delivery and governance, and typically involve mass marches or other mass action, the erection of barricades on public roads, and the destruction of state facilities as well as other property. These protests have escalated significantly in recent years; according to official statistics, crowd management incidents involving unrest (mostly service delivery protests) almost doubled from 622 in 2005/2006 to 1091 in 2011/2012. Between 2009 and 2012 unrest incidents averaged 2.9 per day – an increase of 40% over the 2.1 incidents per day in 2004-2009.[38] In incidents reminiscent of the anti-apartheid struggle, protestors have also torched the houses of local councillors, and some councillors and other local role players have been attacked and killed. Indeed, according to a timeline constructed by Sapa, as many as 50 political figures – many of them local councillors – were killed in the five years prior to 2012.[39]
While the government and ruling party have tended to downplay their significance, the emergence of these protests in a supposedly inclusive constitutional democracy is disconcerting, and analysts are increasingly acknowledging that they are more significant – and more ominous – than the anodyne term ‘service delivery protests’ suggests. Indeed, Peter Alexander, professor of sociology at the University of Johannesburg, has described them as part of a broader ‘rebellion of the poor’, which will not subside unless the government becomes far more effective in channelling resources to deprived communities.[40]
Branching off from the high road?
Therefore, despite South Africa’s transition to democracy, and the significant improvements in living standards that followed, it is clear that new negative trends and fault lines have also emerged. While they are multifaceted and complex, they all come down to whether our country will be able to meet popular demands for improved standards of living.
This is not a question of whether we have made progress or not. The welfare model, together with free state-led service delivery, has driven great improvements in living standards, but this in turn has heightened expectations of future improvements. However, welfare and free services do not contribute to the growth or investment necessary to finance those future improvements. So, every year, poor communities will expect more and more from government, while it will increasingly struggle to meet those demands.
The key question now is whether these expectations can be met – and, if not, what the social and political consequences are likely to be.
If South Africa cannot meet the demands of its people, and will not have the resources to do so in the foreseeable future, then surely it is at risk of sliding into a dark future. This is the view of veteran role players and commentators such as Moeletsi Mbeki, FW de Klerk and John Kane-Berman. It is the view of international ratings agencies such as Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s, which in 2012 downgraded South Africa’s credit ratings, citing the risk of populist pressure undermining sound fiscal policy.[41] It is also the view of respected international publications such as The Economist, which has commented on what it calls South Africa’s ‘sad decline’ while much of the rest of Africa is rising.[42] Even some ANC leaders are acknowledging – in private and even in public – that their time in office may be limited.
Indeed, South Africa’s most respected scenario planner, Clem Sunter, has adjusted his own scenarios downwards, saying the odds of the country dropping out of the premier league of nations had increased significantly.[43] His opinion carries a lot of weight as his celebrated ‘High Road/Low Road’ scenarios of the mid-1980s helped South African decision-makers to identify and understand the ‘tipping point’ that the country was then rapidly approaching, as well as the vital role their decisions would soon play in setting South Africa off irrevocably on one road or the other.[44] South Africa undoubtedly took the high road, as evidenced by its constitutional settlement and the political, economic, and social recovery outlined above. However, this ‘high road’ seems to have reached a new crossroads, centred on rising expectations.
The year 2024 – ten years from now – will feature South Africa’s seventh inclusive national elections, only three national elections away from today.
