Seamless succession in S. Africa?
LONDON: The transition to a post-Mandela South Africa has already begun. Well before the April 1999 general election, South African State President Nelson Mandela announced on Feb. 15, 1995 that he will not stand for re-election. He also proposed giving up his post as President of the African National Congress (ANC) in December 1997. Mandela made it clear that the current First Executive Deputy President, Thabo Mbeki, was his preferred choice as successor for both roles. Certainly, Mbeki's position as heir apparent was strengthened by the departure in May 1996 of his chief rival, Cyril Ramophosa, former Secretary-General of the ANC, for a career in business. Yet despite Mandela's blessing, Mbeki will still have to win democratic elections for the ANC presidency at the party's congress in December.
Assuming that Mbeki wins, he will then have 15 months to prepare the ANC for the national electoral contest. Other candidates may be tempted to challenge Mbeki, including Tokyo Sexwale, the charismatic premier of Gauteng province. However, the ANC will discourage competition in the interests of a smooth handover. There is little doubt that the ANC will win the national elections and that Mbeki will become State President.
Mbeki is, in effect, currently acting as prime minister responsible for conducting day-to-day government business, and establishing himself as the assured and only candidate for the presidency. By settling the succession issue early, the ANC hopes to avoid a discreditable and destabilizing power struggle should Mandela leave the political scene prematurely.
Mbeki's political inheritance will include both positive and negative elements. His government will operate under a constitution that is, paradoxically, rooted in past experience, and a political culture in which the theory and practice of parliamentary government is well established. Equally, while the rule of law was seriously damaged by the apartheid system, it still retains its value as a benchmark against which the actions of government could and should be judged. Constitutional features such as the Bill of Rights and judicial review by a constitutional court were the product of negotiation by those determined to reverse the legacy of apartheid. Furthermore, there exists a vigorous civil society and a tradition of strong statehood which makes ethnic fragmentation unlikely.
More negatively, Mbeki will be preoccupied with holding the ANC together and, in particular, meeting the populist demands of its partners - the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). Their continued support for an ANC-dominated government will depend on Mbeki's ability to deliver social and economic benefits - such as housing, education, health provision and jobs - to the deprived black majority, and the success of this policy in the months preceding the general election.
Social and economic progress, however, depends on attracting significant economic investment which in turn requires accepting the market verities of deregulation, liberalization and privatization. In the short-to-medium term, this process may result in greater unemployment - currently between 30 percent and 40 percent - if South Africa's industrial and manufacturing base is to become globally competitive.
Mbeki will lack the standing and charisma of Mandela as he struggles to handle contradictory internal and external pressures. For example, while members of the ANC seek a rapid redistribution of wealth, external actors (such as the World Bank) insist on unrestricted market forces as the price of economic growth over the long term. South Africa's economic target is an ambitious one: a 6 percent annual growth rate is required if the economy is to have any prospect of absorbing new entrants to the labor market and reducing the high level of unemployment.
The absence of a united and effective parliamentary opposition is a weakness in South Africa's constitutional system and one that is likely to persist after the 1999 election. Unlike the November 1993 Interim Constitution, a coalition government is not legally prescribed in the new revised constitution. Mbeki may well emulate his predecessor in offering cabinet posts to the radical Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) and the Democratic Party (DP), for example, in the hope that a broad-based coalition would help neutralize radical ANC elements. Given the lack of any opposition party capable of acting as an alternative government, this will be a second-best solution. It assumes that the leaders of small parties will join the government in the interests of national unity and continued political stability if the state fails to deliver long-promised benefits to an increasingly expectant populace.
However, Mbeki will be prevented from acting swiftly to defuse these expectations. The main constraint will be the high social costs, including rising unemployment and wage restraints, caused by economic transformation. If Mbeki's government can survive this difficult transition, then the prospects for high economic growth and wealth redistribution will be relatively good.
Three factors will affect the outcome:
A continuing struggle will persist between the center and provincial governments over the allocation of resources. The nine provincial premiers are likely to oppose excessive centralized policy-making. Moreover, some provincial actors, such as Sexwale, will attempt to by-pass the national government in the hope of attracting foreign investment. Under these circumstances, Mbeki will have to concede the furtive growth of a federal state with all that implies for a competition for legitimacy and resources between its constituents.
The level of political violence - markedly in decline since 1994 - will be kept under control by a government willing, if necessary, to use the army to supplement police powers. In KwaZulu-Natal province, where some 10,000 people have been killed in the last decade, the current peace process is likely to succeed. If for no other reason, this is because the leadership on both sides is finally beginning to recognize that the price of continuing the dispute exceeds the costs of a truce and the restoration of order in the disputed areas. By this time, the leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party, Chief Mangosutho Buthelezi, will have either retired from politics or will regard a continued position in the cabinet as an acceptable price to pay for peace in his province.
The crime rate will remain a major preoccupation for an Mbeki administration. The current figures are alarming: 52 murders each day; a rape every 30 minutes; and an armed robbery and car theft every 11 and 9 minutes respectively. The total cost of crime in 1995 was estimated at 31 billion rand. There is no short-term solution to this problem: the police force is understaffed, underpaid and poorly trained. The army might play a major role in township and suburban security, although the cost may be high in terms of maintaining civil society.
Nelson Mandela's reputation will no longer suffice as an instrument for promoting South Africa's interests abroad. Attention will increasingly focus on maximizing overseas trade and investment, and the search for new markets in the Asia- Pacific region, the Middle East and Latin America will intensify - hence President Mandela's recent tour of South-east Asia. Mandela's reputation is an asset likely to decline in importance as a new generation of foreign leaders and policy-makers takes office with little direct experience of the events following South Africa's April 1994 election. What Pretoria will try to do is build a 'rectitude base' that stresses its commitment to human rights at home and abroad. But this will, in part, depend on how far Mbeki succeeds in consolidating and enhancing Mandela's vision of a united, tolerant and prosperous 'rainbow nation'. Such an outcome is essential if South Africa is to play a constructive diplomatic role in trying to resolve conflicts in Africa.
An Mbeki government is unlikely to become deeply involved in peacekeeping or peace-making beyond the confines of southern Africa. While regional integration will be encouraged, its success depends on South Africa and its neighbors establishing a security regime. This would have to cope with a number of transnational threats, such as arms and drugs smuggling, enforced migration and environmental degradation. So far, progress on integration has been slow and haphazard and cooperation on the European model remains a distant prospect.
The outlook for South Africa over the next decade remains finely balanced. Its historical experience and its political and social culture make it an unlikely candidate for development as an 'African Tiger'. On the other hand, it has human and material resources, and a fierce commitment to succeed. Much will depend on how quickly a post-Mandela government reverses what appears to be a policy of drift and indecision. Mbeki will, no doubt, be given his 'hundred days' to introduce rapid change. But in the absence of a political father figure on the scale of Mandela, South Africa will quickly find itself becoming 'just another country'. Its government, like those elsewhere, will have to recognize that conforming to the demands of the global market- place is essential for long-term survival. The price in social terms may well, however, be high, and South African leaders will have to use considerable political skill and judgment to cope with these costs.
Window A: Mbeki will lack the standing and charisma of Mandela as he struggles to handle contradictory internal and external pressure.
Window B: The absence of united and effective parliamentary opposition is a weakness in South Africa's constitutional system and one that is likely to persist after the 1999 election.