dependence upon the ‘minerals-energy complex’ and to develop an alternative path of sustainable industrialisation will lead, in relatively short order, to the inability to fund its extensive provision of social grants to the poor.
Does the focus by Pillay (and the left in general) upon relationships between the working class (or working poor) and the ANC betray an urban bias, one which loses sight of the fact that a huge portion of the ruling party’s constituency resides in the countryside, notably within the former bantustans? To what extent, one might ask, are traditional leaders a vital component of the ANC Alliance? And just what is the connection between the ANC and the rural poor? Leslie Bank and Clifford Mabhena, analysing the implications of the overturning of the government’s Communal Land Rights Act (CLRA) by the Constitutional Court in May 2010 on the grounds that it made it too easy for the tribal authorities of the former bantustans to reconstitute themselves (and to become, in effect, a fourth tier of government), pose such questions and provide an important insight into basis of ANC rule in rural areas, most particularly the former Transkei region of the Eastern Cape.
The CLRA had sought a compromise between a shift to individual, freehold tenure in communal areas and a retention of communal-tenure regimes, on the grounds that they offered some protection for the poor. After years of deliberation, the CLRA sought to find a balance between giving people real and secure land rights, while recognising that in some areas traditional government had continued to work effectively and that it would be counterproductive to destroy functioning systems. The Act stopped short of giving rural people individual ownership rights, proposing instead the idea of permanent rights, and also allowing for a system of ‘commonhold’, where groups took control of land as collective units. However, because this was thought by various NGOs, land activists and rural communities to provide for a reassertion of the chiefs’ power, the CLRA ended up in the constitutional court and, consequent to a contrary judgment, the government is now having to rework the law so that it conforms to constitutional principles.
Bank and Mabhena untangle the strands of this very complicated story. Basing their analysis upon a detailed survey conducted in 2007–2008, they demonstrate that traditional authorities remain firmly in control of rural land allocation across the Eastern Cape, and that most rural households believe that they should continue to direct the process. On the other hand, there is considerable support at household level for more individual title to land within a system of ‘commonhold’. Meanwhile, the level of de-agrarianisation within the former homeland areas has reached such a level that an overwhelming number of rural households are heavily dependent upon social grants provided by the government, and herein lies a major reason for the strong support which inhabitants of rural areas continue to give to the ANC. Against that, there lies deep discontent with rural development policies and, in particular, popular anger, directed at the democratically-elected local authorities and councillors who are widely seen as incompetent and corrupt. In contrast, chiefs are seen as far more responsive to their local communities (as indeed, to an extent, they had been forced to be under apartheid), resulting in considerable nostalgia for the era of Kaiser Matanzima, the long-time ruler of the Transkei bantustan. Bank and Mabhena are, however, careful to stress that this does not imply that rural dwellers want to go back to the political authoritarianism of Matanzima’s rule. Rather, the nostalgia is an expression of a sense of social marginalisation felt by the rural poor, and the fact that traditional leaders have – under the ANC, and in contrast to local councils – reinvented themselves as community builders, consensus seekers and intermediaries between state and society. Their representative organ, the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa), has proved to be among the most effective of the civil society groupings spawned by the post-apartheid dispensation. Hence the importance to the ANC of Jacob Zuma, a populist of rural origin with strong traditionalist tendencies, who can shore-up or even win new support for the party from the chieftaincy and from their rural subjects.
The analysis of Pillay and that of Bank and Mabhena are conjoined by the apparent contradiction that, despite multiple dissatisfactions and popular disillusion with the ANC government, its constituency continues to vote it back into power. This forces us to examine vital contours of contemporary South African democracy. But how can an electorally dominant party be held accountable? And what are the future prospects for institutionalised political uncertainty; that is, for the development of a political opposition with the capacity to mount a serious electoral challenge to the ANC? And moreover, if there is a disjuncture (as it appears) between electoral democracy and holding the government accountable, what does this say about the content and nature of political participation?
Paul Hoffman approaches the issue of accountability from a robustly liberal basis, arguing that if constitutionalism obtains (imposing limitations upon government; enjoying domestic legitimacy; and protecting, promoting and enforcing human rights), then true democracy or ‘people power’ will flourish. Without the rule of law and enforcement of property rights, he argues, no country can prosper under present global conditions. However, the ANC, as a former liberation movement, insists upon its historical right to rule, and the majority continue to vote for it. The result is that the ANC has at times, he claims, displayed a dangerous disregard for the constitution and has ignored demands for accountability. It has become the instrument of a political elite and a focus of struggle by factions for perquisites and power.
Although this is his general thrust, Hoffman is at one with Pillay in recognising the manifold and varying tendencies within the ANC. He therefore notes that the ANC’s ‘theatrics’, dressed-up in the ideological clothing of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), are often at odds not only with the tenets of the constitution, but also with the various exigencies which the ANC faces as a government. The government’s actions have therefore often been far more pragmatic than its formal ideologies would seem to allow, and this tendency towards realism and pragmatism accounts for the various successes which the ANC has chalked up in government. He argues that this is no coincidence, for where the ANC has adhered to the values and requirements of the constitution, good governance has ensued; where, by contrast, the values of the NDR have predominated, as in the practice of ‘deploying’ ANC loyalists to state positions in order to ensure the predominance of the party over the state, there has been consistent government dysfunction and corruption. Overall, the encroachment of party power into all spheres of the constitution, justified by the NDR, is undermining democracy and is at fundamental odds with constitutionalism, not least through an attempted ‘transformation’ of the judiciary and the erosion of the separation of powers built into the constitution. Ironically, it is the champions of the NDR who are slowing the progress towards a more egalitarian society in which human rights and freedoms for all are to be found. Ultimately, Hoffman finds that the ‘crisis of social delivery’which has come to characterise so many departments and levels of government results from a lack of accountability of officialdom to the demands of the constitution. It is therefore up to civil society and ordinary people to keep the politicians in check.
But what of the parliamentary opposition? Classically, in liberal democracies, parliamentary oppositions have two functions. The first is to hold governments to account. The second is to provide institutionalised uncertainty; that is, to be capable of replacing incumbent governments if and when they are unable to summon a parliamentary majority. The problem for democracy in South Africa, however, is that the manner by which the ANC exercises its voter-derived dominance of the polity threatens both of these oppositional roles. On the one hand, ANC control of the parliamentary machinery – and the apparent growing ministerial contempt for parliament – has eroded the capacity of the opposition parties to render government accountable. Often, therefore, it is only when it suits the ANC to allow probing of government departments that opposition parties are allowed free rein. On the other hand, for reasons to do with the legacy of apartheid, opposition parties have hitherto been unable to pose a serious challenge to the ANC electorally, except where the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in 1994 and 1999 in KwaZulu-Natal, the National Party in 1994 and the Democratic Alliance (DA) in 2009 in the Western Cape were able to assert themselves provincially.
The 2009 general election provided further evidence that the IFP is now dying under the twin pressures of Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s inability to give
