SA will not collapse along with the ANC

It is a mistake for ANC leaders to claim that if the ANC collapses South Africa will follow suit and become ungovernable, say experts.

Instead, the governing party is bound to lose power whether it likes it or not and the country will not go bust unless the ANC itself deliberately renders it ungovernable so as to frustrate a different government in charge.

They unanimously argue ANC power would end but SA would continue to function under another party or a coalition of parties.

“Eventually, the whole thing simply means that the ANC is going out of power and it’s not the end of South Africa, but it just might be the end of the ANC,” said political analyst, Dr Ralph Mathekga.

Another analyst, Dr Ntsikelelo Breakfast, from the department of history and political studies at Nelson Mandela University, had similarly strong views. He said the ANC posed a danger to democracy because it believe it was ordained into power by God.

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Breakfast disagreed with the assertion by former president Thabo Mbeki, who reportedly claimed the ANC was too big to fail.

“If the ANC collapsed today, ceased to exist, this country would become ungovernable, simply because of the influence of the party,” he said.

Mbeki, who has been tasked by the ANC to bring unity among its structures in terms of a renewal resolution from the 2017 Nasrec conference, was addressing Free State ANC delegates on unity and renewal of the party.

Prior to the appointment of the interim provincial committee, Free State was divided into two factions – one being followers former premier and suspended ANC secretary general Ace Magashule and the other supporters of President Cyril Ramaphosa. Breakfast described Mbeki’s statement as “fallacious”.

“I disagree with that. It’s like blackmail to say the ANC was ordained by God to be in power forever. It’s like there are no men and women, or parties out there, who could get the country’s job done,” he said.

Mathekga, an author on both the Jacob Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa leaderships, said it was untrue that without the ANC the country would be ungovernable. Mathekga said it was sad that the ANC and many South Africans were so used to the ANC being in charge that they believed without it in government, SA would collapse.

“I don’t think it’s true this country will not function without the ANC,” Mathekga said.

“Look around and see some of the major cities where the ANC is not in charge, such as Johannesburg, Tshwane and Cape Town for instance, things are not falling apart.

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“The idea that if the ANC is out of power the country will collapse is the ANC’s own indulgence.

“My view, as I argued last year, is that the ANC losing powershould not be seen as tragic because it actually says South Africans need to find another point of representation – something different to the ANC.”

South Africans were already moving away from the ANC, its mandate had been reduced and it struggled to pass Bills in parliament. This meant the voters no longer want to give the party a stronger mandate. Breakfast said it was the ANC that posed a threat to democracy because it refused to accept defeat, as happened in the recent municipal polls.

“Look what they’ve been doing in Joburg and Tshwane, where they disrupt council meetings,” he said. “If it does this on a small scale like this, how much more on a large scale at national level? Is that what they mean when they say the country would be ungovernable without them?”

He said an argument by other political scientists that SA would not know democracy until the ANC lost power seemed to hold true because it was hell-bent on holding onto power, by hook or crook.

– ericn@citizen.co.za