It produced one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century. It fought a violent race-based dictatorship and replaced it with the most liberal constitution the world has ever known. Its song, a poignant Christian hymn, became South Africa’s national anthem. Since it came to power in 1994, about two thirds of South Africans vote for it. Yet now, as it lavishly celebrates its 100th birthday this week, it has a reputation for corruption and incompetence. So whatever happened to South Africa’s African National Congress?
The ANC was formed as the Native National Congress by urban middle-class Africans and chiefs to protect and promote African interests after the Boer War, when peace between Boers and the British came at the price of African rights to own property and vote. At this stage ANC leaders were more concerned with protecting their own rights than representing the masses.
Quite soon the ANC had to face the dilemma: was it to fight for black representation within the existing political system or for a more just political and economic system for all? After forging an alliance with the South African Communist party in 1953, it chose the latter course, and became a protégé of Russia and the Communist bloc, its language borrowed from Moscow. The ANC began to talk about smashing the apartheid state and capitalism. Banned in 1960, its leadership was imprisoned or fled abroad, though it subsisted in the minds of black South Africans as a symbol of hope and resistance.
The fall of the Berlin Wall came as a shock to the ANC. Many saw it as a victory for apartheid’s allies. In fact it was the opposite. Britain and the US, freed from the Communist threat, could end their protection of apartheid South Africa. Release Nelson Mandela and negotiate was Mrs Thatcher’s message to F.W. De Klerk, the new president, in 1989. The ANC hardliners in exile did not believe it. This was not in their script, which said that Umkonto we Sizwe, their military wing, would bring down the apartheid state. (In fact it had been the least effective guerrilla movement in southern Africa.)
Meanwhile an internal leadership had grown up in the real world of strikes and street battles: leaders more adept at negotiation and politics, who understood how South Africa worked. It is no surprise that Cyril Ramaphosa, the former mineworkers’ leader, became the chief strategist in negotiations with the government. But while the internal leaders had a greater connection to the people, they were pushed out by returning exiles who had mastered the small print of the ANC’s constitution.
Thabo Mbeki, the ANC’s foreign minister in exile, squeezed out Ramaphosa, Mandela’s first choice in the battle to succeed him. An intellectual who did not connect easily with people, Mbeki’s big idea was to give Africans an economic stake in the new South Africa by giving them equity in all South African companies and give jobs to black people. As it was implemented, Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) did not engender participation through jobs and productive entrepreneurship for ordinary people but gave free shares in big business to ANC bosses. The ANC’s mass support base was rewarded with welfare programmes indifferently delivered. South Africa’s corporate sector went along with BEE, giving some of their less vital assets to a small new elite. Even the Communist party went along with it. And a number of senior ANC ministers and officials became multi-millionaires overnight. South Africa is now an archipelago of fortified islands of luxury in a sea of poverty.
The ANC itself has broken into cliques. All major decisions are taken in secret. Perhaps it has returned to its roots, as a narrow class of haves protecting their own interests. It is unlikely to recover any time soon. Last November parliament was told by Willie Hofmeyr, head of the Special Investigative Unit, that £3 billion to £4 billion a year was lost to corruption, negligence and incompetence in the public service with very few consequences. ‘South Africa’s law and regulations are good but it appears there are virtually no consequences when they are broken,’ he said. He was sacked shortly afterwards. And fearful of further press exposure and comment the government drew up the Protection of State Information Bill which treats media investigation of government activities as spying with a possible 25-year jail sentence.
Eighteen years after the ANC came to power South Africa has one of the highest levels of inequality in the world and the gap appears to be widening. Ten per cent of the population are still without clean water and 20 per cent without electricity. And who is picking up the £8 million bill for the ANC’s 100th birthday party this week? The South African taxpayers.
Richard Dowden is director of the Royal African Society and author of Africa, Altered States, Ordinary Miracles.