Diplomats, investors and foreign lawmakers — especially those in the US — must sometimes struggle to understand the South African political beast. I know I do. This weekend President Cyril Ramaphosa arrives home from St Petersburg, Russia, where he has been attending an Africa-Russia summit as a guest of President Vladimir Putin.
Just two weeks ago he had three of his senior ministers in the US, trying to persuade government officials and senior members of Congress not to cut South Africa from the African Growth & Opportunity Act (Agoa), the lucrative US trade programme that relaxes import tariffs on goods from selected African countries. Their message was that South Africa, contrary to appearances, was not siding with Russia in its war against Ukraine.
The US is a much bigger trading partner for South Africa than Russia is, so Ramaphosa is trying to strike a pose as an independent world leader, steadfastly non-aligned.
It’s mayhem but it kind of makes you feel safe. As long as the ANC is contradicting or fighting itself I feel strangely more intact.
It took a while to assume the pose. After foreign minister Naledi Pandor initially condemned the invasion on the day it began (February 24 last year), Ramaphosa ordered her statement withdrawn. But non-alignment wasn’t mentioned then, nor was it mentioned on March 2, the first time we abstained on a Ukraine vote at the UN, nor in a cabinet statement about the invasion issued a week later, nor in the explanation of a second abstention at the UN on March 24.
By the time Ramaphosa discovered the rhetorical safety of non-alignment he had largely lost the West, a calamity he has been unable to reverse amid dire warnings from business. Warmly embracing the Russian psychopath this weekend at the summit in St Petersburg — an event attended by only a handful of African leaders — will not do the posturing any good, simply emphasising our capacity for doublespeak. And his smarter ministers know it.
Ebrahim Patel, minister of trade, industry & competition, is desperately trying to keep South Africa in Agoa while also preparing a rationalisation should we be dropped. He has asked the Americans to fast-track the Agoa renewal due next year or to simply extend the current South African membership. At the same time he’s hinted we might be “graduated” out of Agoa in its next 10-year cycle because we’ve become, you know, too successful. Full marks for covering the bases.
Hopefully, in the interests of plausible deniability, Ramaphosa didn’t read the bile spewed on July 16 by his minister for women and children, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, a woman he just can’t let go of no matter how much she openly despises him. Addressing a Brics youth summit in Durban ahead of the main summit in Johannesburg next month, she told delegates: “What we make of Brics and what becomes of this alliance has the potential to change the course of history and accelerate the downfall of an unjust imperialist world order. Brics is a breakaway from the past.”
Lesufi has thrown all caution to the wind. Last month he created a 4,000-strong police back-up, heavily armed with new BMWs. This month he has announced a programme to ‘end unemployment’ in the province, handing out some 6,000 ‘letters of appointment’ at a rally in Orlando Stadium
So much for protestations from Ramaphosa and Pandor that Brics is a simple development partnership between friends. Not in Dlamini-Zuma’s head it isn’t. For her, it’s war and her view is widely shared inside the governing party.
Tolerate Russia invading another country, tolerate China colonising international waters far from its coast, threatening Taiwan. The real enemy is the old invader and coloniser, not the new ones, and always will be.
The West has got the ANC’s number though and, barring a miracle, the game for South Africa under the ANC, whether now or later, may be up. Ramaphosa’s response seems to be to let a thousand flowers bloom. Or to let those flowers bloom that he simply can’t stop.
Blooming like crazy, Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi is incubating a whole new headache for Ramaphosa to ignore with a brand of populism that makes Jacob Zuma look like an amateur. Where Zuma created a national debt crisis by vastly increasing the public service, Lesufi has thrown all caution to the wind.
Last month he created a 4,000-strong provincial police backup, heavily armed with new BMWs. This month he has announced a programme to “end unemployment” in the province, handing out some 6,000 “letters of appointment” at a rally in Orlando Stadium in Johannesburg on Thursday. He says he’ll do 6,000 jobs a month for a year.
You feel for the people being thus deceived, but the ANC — especially in Gauteng, where the threat of an election defeat next year is most acute — is getting into full crazy mode. Meanwhile secretary-general Fikile Mbalula issues orders to ministers.
The ANC then issues a removal of the threat. It’s mayhem but it kind of makes you feel safe.As long as the ANC is contradicting or fighting itself I feel strangely more intact.
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