Critics of the 1994 political settlement largely hail from the black middle class, even though it has been one the principal beneficiaries of South Africa’s social democracy.
There is never going to be a final assessment of Mandela’s legacy. How it is regarded will continue to change, depending on the destination South Africa travels to.
Despite its vagueness, the RET has become central to the contemporary ANC. It is destined to remain a powerful bloc within the party, and a constant constraint on Ramaphosa leadership.
The ANC has been using multiple tactics to fend off the looming calamity of not having Ramaphosa as its president, and that of the country, in the clear absence of a credible candidate to replace him.
Ramaphosa’s rise to power in 2018 offered South Africans hope that he would end corruption. Indeed, he made promises to do so. But he has met with resistance, especially within the ANC.
Metaphors are not used for their own sake in politics, but as part of a strategy to persuade a particular audience to accept a point of view, and act accordingly
South Africa’s governing ANC has always seen economic growth as the driving force for change. This was wishful thinking as the damage done by apartheid will take far more to undo.
Policy conferences of South Africa’s governing ANC have been about economic policy matters. But more recently organisational renewal has also dominated, as the party loses support.
The populism politics adopted by South Africa’s ruling party, African National Congress, mask a strategy to deflect attention from the party’s policy failures and to hide its many scandals.