the outcome of the democratic era has been mixed. If we assume that ‘a better life’ means a longer, healthier and wealthier life for the majority, then the evidence, as recorded by the South African Institute of Race Relations (2012), is very ambiguous.
Life expectancy for South Africans has actually declined from 62.9 in 1990 to an expected 58.6 in 2015).
South Africans’ well-being, as summarised by the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Index, has managed to improve, but at a dismally slow rate (from 0.615 in 1990 to 0.619 in 2011, whereas the corresponding figures over the same period for Ghana, for instance, have seen a much greater improvement, from 0.418 to 0.541).
While these indicators are depressing, those regarding the number of people living in poverty are only faintly more encouraging (although definitions of poverty are highly contentious). According to one measure, for instance, whereas some 49 per cent of Africans lived in ‘relative poverty’ in 1996,3 this figure had fallen to 45 per cent in 2011 (having risen to a high of nearly 59 per cent in 2002); average household income for Africans having increased by some 210 per cent between 1996 and 2011 (at current prices).
Official statistics show that the proportion of households with access to free basic water increased from 59 per cent in 2001 to 85 per cent in 2010/11; functioning sanitation facilities increased from some 5 million in 1993/94 to 10.9 million in 2010/11; and electricity increased from 51 per cent to 74 per cent, and so on, over the same period.
Similarly, there has been an overall improvement in the standard of housing, the number of formal dwellings having increased from 5.8 million in 1996 to 11.3 million in 2011.
All such indicators are inevitably selective and patchy, varying markedly along racial lines, across province, and between town and country, and so on, with life expectancy having been severely affected by HIV/AIDS. Yet the general message is that the standard of living of people at the bottom of society has been rising – the result of the government’s expansion of the number of recipients of social grants, which leapt from 3.4 million in 2001 to over 15.5 million in 2011/12.
Nonetheless, for all that the ANC in government can claim major credit from such indicators, a widespread response is that although such general indicators are well and good, the overall performance could and should have been a lot better, and that poorer people’s expectations remain hugely unsatisfied, not least because inequality remains so vast, albeit somewhat deracialised since 1994. To many at the bottom of the heap, inequality may have in reality become more visible (and hence more politically salient), as at all levels of society ANC-connected elites appear the major beneficiaries of programmes such as BEE and access to jobs in government and other wealth-making opportunities. Nor does it help that the rich display a penchant for highly visible consumption, with those at the top of the corporate pile raking in vast salaries. Meanwhile, although white poverty is beginning to make an appearance, the overwhelming proportion of senior jobs in the corporate sector continue to go to whites and, overall, whites have done very well (in income terms, educational access and jobs) under ANC rule. In consequence, while the ANC can validly claim that much has changed for the better since 1994, the response from its own constituency is that change has not been fast enough, and that far too many continuities with apartheid South Africa remain. The result is a disconcerting lack of social coherence, with the post-1994 glow of national reconciliation increasingly assaulted by class and racial divisions.
Present trends point to a worrying trajectory, with accompanying dangers for democracy. While the relationship between democracy and development is extremely difficult to disentangle, general perceptions are that the quality of democracy in South Africa is declining.4 From a comparative perspective, this is not unusual. Brief reference to the experiences of Zimbabwe and India, two countries which have faced not dissimilar challenges to South Africa, may be instructive.
Zimbabwe’s record is particularly relevant to that of South Africa because it has played out against a similar background of liberation struggle fought against settler colonialism. The independence election in 1980 brought Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu PF) to power, ruling in coalition with its rival Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) as the junior partner. The coalition soon collapsed, however, when Mugabe found reason for a brutal crackdown on Zapu, which eventually sued for peace and dissolved itself into the ruling party in 1987. The resultant political calm did not last for long, for democracy then came under assault in the early 2000s with the rise of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Formed out of the trade union movement and civil society in response to the economy’s plunging into a severe downturn, the MDC posed a major challenge to Zanu PF hegemony which was marked by the government’s defeat in a constitutional referendum in 2000.
Shaken to its core, Zanu PF resorted to increasingly authoritarian behaviour. In a bid to win back popular support, Mugabe now threw government support behind a campaign of seizure of white farms, launched independently by ‘war veterans’, regardless of the cost. As the economic crisis (and inflation) spiralled out of control, the MDC continued to grow, despite facing mounting repression and Zanu PF’s skewing of elections. Its moment of triumph arrived when, with the economy in tatters, it won a narrow majority in the National Assembly elections in 2008, with its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, only denied a victory in the presidential election by official rigging, which forced him into a run-off with Mugabe. However, this proved to be a step too far, for Zanu PF now launched into full war mode, inflicting such brutality upon MDC supporters that Tsvangirai ultimately opted to withdraw.
Effectively backed by South Africa and its most powerful partners in the regional body, the Southern African Development Community, Zanu PF now clung on, not only to the presidency but also the most powerful positions in a regionally-negotiated coalition government. Although the MDC played a significant role in the years that followed in pulling the economy back from the brink, its leaders were themselves to fall victim to many of the sins of incumbency (translating political office into wealth), and were never able to challenge the grip which Zanu PF, backed by the military, maintained on state power. The culmination was a victory for Zanu PF in an election in 2013 which, while owing much to its manipulation of the electoral machinery, also reflected its putting on an election campaign (centred around populist themes of indigenisation and empowerment) to which the MDC had no effective answer.
If democracy has been effectively subverted in Zimbabwe, it has survived severe challenges in India. India’s colonial history of direct domination by Britain is contrasted with that of South Africa’s domination by settler colonialism, but there are strong connections between the two countries. Notably, the ANC initially modelled itself on the Indian National Congress and, once independent in 1947, India was a major source of strength to the anti-apartheid movement. India, like South Africa, was a highly diverse country (despite the breach with Pakistan) demanding that Congress preach national reconciliation under Pandit Nehru just as the ANC was later to do under Nelson Mandela. Although its electoral majorities were never as large as were later to be secured by the ANC, Congress was politically dominant for the first twenty years of democracy. As the party of liberation, it won major victories in the first three national elections until, in the late 1960s, it began to experience internal splits and contestations (similar to those experienced by the ANC today). The outcome was a lurch to political authoritarianism under Indira Ghandi and populist nationalisation of key sectors of the economy, only for a divided party to then be defeated in the late 1970s when Congress stood down from power nationally. Subsequently, formerly-dominant Congress has variously been in opposition, or a majority or minority player in coalition governments. In short, India has survived as a democracy, but only as a very messy one, even marred at times by sectarian (notably Hindu-nationalist) extremism and intolerance.
Twenty years after its own liberation, South Africa – like Zimbabwe – is facing a mounting economic crisis and increasing social and political strains.
