Is South Africa stuck with a one-party state?

Last Thursday, November 4, a brief report in NewsTime included a link to Professor Pierre De Vos’s website and suggested it was well worth reading his article on the ANC-Cosatu row: ‘Regime Change’? - No, it’s called democracy. It is indeed a fine article and, if you have not read it yet and would like to, click here to read it.nike air max on sale

I left a brief comment saying that an important reason the ANC is a threat to democracy is that the party’s viewpoint dominates - you might even say, dictates - our political conversations and thinking - meaning we take as our starting point that SA is a ‘democracy’, but that something has gone wrong with it. No wonder, then, we generally end in confusion - and Professor De Vos will forgive me, I hope, for having included a link to a recent article of mine where I argue this through (‘Why all South Africans - including ANC voters - need another government’).

This produced an excellent reply, from Mr Michael Osborne, that questioned my view and set out, as clearly as you could wish, the role played by the DA in South African politics. Regardless of personal opinions and loyalties, such exchanges seem much more the kind of ‘national debate’ SA should be having sixteen years into the new dispensation. Instead, the mainstream media’s perennial reluctance, or inability, to venture upon the crucial issue - the lack of alternative to the ANC - once again dogged coverage of the milestone Cosatu-Civil Society Conference and has helped important oppositional messages it might have carried to be lost.

Mr Osborne’s contribution to the discussion follows in full. For reasons of space, my reply to him will be published in this column next week.cheap gifts on sale

Neither the term 'one party state', nor 'monocracy', is quite the right term to describe contemporary SA. Note that Giliomee (1999), terms it a 'one- party dominant democracy'. (Admittedly, not a very elegant usage.)

I offer the following points:

1. SA is not a 'monocracy' in the sense of, for example, the DRC, or Museveni’s Uganda. That much is obvious; opposition parties are formally legal. But it is also not a monocracy in the sense that opposition parties exist only in formal, nominal terms. The DA is a relatively large, well organised and adequately funded entity. It controls one very important province and several cities or towns. And it has a non-trivial chance of taking power in one or two other provinces, and in many local governments.

2. DA punches above its weight, because it enjoys significant support in powerful parts of civil society. In fact, it is the DA that is dominant amongst the demographic groups that control large sectors of the economy.cheap toys on sale

3. Another reason DA is able to exercise more power than their numbers suggest is that ANC power in central govt is balanced by the strong and independent elements of civil society – the media, the professions, churches, labour, etc. Even to the extent that these actors do not support the DA as such, their countervailing weight opens up political space for the DA that would not otherwise exist. (The fact that the judiciary remains largely independent also countervails ANC power.)

4. On a more philosophical level, let me pose this question: Relative to what country is SA a 'monocracy'? Consider the U.S., as emblematic of the stable equilibrium that characterises most mature democracies. It is of course true that there is routine circulation of power between the two major parties – as recent events illustrate. But consider how relatively narrow is the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, on most non-symbolic issues. (I refer to the establishment centre of each party, not the wacky left wing of the Democrats or the nutty right of the Republicans.) Consider also that third parties are completely marginalised in U.S. politics. buy cheap gifts

5. If you accept what I contend in the preceding paragraph, one might fairly say that the ideological diversity within the ranks of the ANC is greater than the aggregate variation within the two dominant parties in the U.S. taken together. Could we not conclude that the practical chance of significant changes in government policy is more likely in SA, by virtue of the jockeying for power within the ANC, than it is in the US?buy cheap toys