AUBREY MATSHIQI: ANC decline is a chance to correct the errors and folly of past 30 years

Since the advent of democracy in 1994, the ANC has been aiding and abetting counterrevolution. With the self-inflicted poor showing by the ANC in this watershed election, the counterrevolution is truly under way. The irony, of course, is that the mortal blow was delivered by the same man who said the ANC would be in power until the “Second Coming”.

At the next meeting of the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC), President Cyril Ramaphosa and other leaders of the ANC will be sitting with their legs crossed. Jacob Zuma has given the ANC a kick between the legs. Ouch!

As a former gun-carrying member of the ANC — a semi-senile, old and decrepit former member of uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), I am sad that we betrayed our people so badly and left them with no choice but to free themselves from the shame of what the ANC and its leaders have become. They did this in two ways: first, many of them stayed at home and chose to do better things with their time than voting for the ANC; second, the rest chose to vote for the MK party and others.

This election result has, emphatically, freed the country from the single-party dominance of the ANC. But by betraying the trust of the people so egregiously over the past 30 years, the ANC has done something else: it has destroyed the hopes of millions who were stripped of their human dignity during the dark ages of colonialism and apartheid. Also, it has caused serious damage to our democratic project since many South Africans have started to equate the failures of the ANC to what they think are the failures of both our democracy and the constitution.

But the biggest harm the ANC has inflicted is to the memory of those who sacrificed their lives during the struggle for freedom and to the credibility of the liberation struggle itself.

As some have said, history is not linear. It is a ceaseless repetition of error, folly and correction. The past 30 years have been about the errors and folly of the ANC. This election result is an opportunity for South Africans to do the hard work of correcting the errors and folly of the past 30 years. This must start with political parties putting the country first when it comes to the process of coalition formation.

Which coalition arrangement will be the best medicine for the country? I suppose the answer will depend on who you ask. For the DA, the worst-case scenario is a coalition government of the ANC, MK and EFF. From the standpoint of global and domestic capital, such a coalition arrangement would be a disaster since the levels of political and policy uncertainty would be too high. As it is, many international investors have decided to adopt a holding pattern until the new government is formed. Because of the weakness of our economy, the country is susceptible to the imposition of policy choices from outside. Internally, the country may become susceptible to the populism of political actors.

Within the business sector, there is growing support for the idea of a coalition between the ANC and DA. I still maintain that, when it comes to economic policy, the ANC and DA are two different sides of the same coin. I, therefore, think that it will not be too difficult for the DA and ANC to find one another when it comes to the content of economic policy.

As for the possibility of a coalition arrangement between the ANC and the EFF, the latter has been insisting that Floyd Shivambu should be the next finance minister. However, EFF leader Julius Malema now seems ready to compromise on two points: first, he said that Shivambu will be the next finance minister if “they” agree. This means that the EFF is prepared to jettison this demand because it realises it may become a deal-breaker, causing the party to lose more than it would be able to extract as concessions from the ANC.

Furthermore, until Sunday, the EFF has been insisting that it will not go into a coalition with the ANC if Ramaphosa is the presidential candidate of the ANC. On Sunday Malema sang a slightly remixed tune, saying the removal of Ramaphosa is not the EFF’s problem. This suggests the EFF may be prepared to walk away from its insistence that it cannot countenance a coalition arrangement with the soon to be former governing party if Ramaphosa is its presidential candidate.

If the EFF does indeed compromise on these two demands, the question is what it will want in return. An ANC-EFF coalition is unlikely to be a favourable option to capital and the markets. The ANC establishment is sensitive to the desires of the markets, capital and big business. Because of its dismal performance in these elections, it is unlikely the ANC will have the gumption to make policy choices that are at odds with the wishes and desires of global and domestic capital.

This renders the option of a coalition arrangement between the ANC and MK or a coalition arrangement between the ANC and EFF unattractive to those in the ANC establishment who have become adept at appeasing global and domestic capital.

Pursuant to this agenda of appeasement, the core of the ANC establishment is probably praying for an ANC-DA coalition because this may be the best way for them to propitiate the markets and show fealty to their handlers in the global and domestic economies.

No matter how coalition governments are configured at national and provincial level, our politicians must foreground the needs and interests of ordinary South Africans. Nkosi sikelela iSouth Africa. God bless SA!

• Matshiqi is a veteran political analyst.