What are we to make of it all? With just three weeks into the year so much has happened already – movements in ANC succession battles, the new Public Protector’s leaked report into apartheid-era bank bailouts, Mmusi Maimane in Israel, massive rhetoric around the economy and new policies plus intimations that #FeesMustFall will be a big issue yet again.
The past week has provided even more evidence that fears about the ascendance of Donald Trump to the most powerful position in the world are justified.
The man has attacked journalists, rubbished civil rights icons and continued to show a vaulting lack of appreciation for the importance of his position and the office he is about to enter.
China has flexed its muscles in Nigeria, forcing the country to dump relations with Taiwan. Expect China to flex its muscles elsewhere, as it has done already.
It is confusing.
It is sometimes even scary.
How does one navigate such a noisy, contested, terrain, particularly here at home?
The first thing to keep in mind about SA politics in 2017 is that this is an election year.
The ANC chooses a new leader in December 2017 and so, as in any election year, what springs out of politicians’ mouths is usually the furthest thing from the truth.
So this year politicians from the governing party, the ANC, will be speechifying and beating their chests and saying all sorts of nice things about the past and the future.
Take all that with a pinch of salt.
Last week, for example, President Jacob Zuma said it was not particularly true that in ANC succession tradition the deputy president took over from the sitting president.
Well, firstly, Zuma and his cronies are exactly the ones who used to underline this tradition way back in the mid-2000s when the man himself was seeking power.
They were right, too, if you considered that from Albert Luthuli in the 1950s through to Oliver Tambo in the 1960s to Thabo Mbeki in 1997 and Zuma himself in 2007 the deputy has succeeded the president.
So why is the man suddenly suffering from this massive bout of amnesia about a “tradition” that he was touting heavily just 10 years ago when he wanted to be anointed?
No matter. It’s an election year.
He wants his preferred successor – Dr Nkosazana Zuma-Dlamini – to be elected on the “woman president” ticket.
He is hoping she will block the 783 counts of fraud, corruption and racketeering that he still has to face in a court of law.
He won’t be the only one dissembling this year.
The ANC is riven with factions jockeying for power.
So expect the Baleka Mbete ticket to tell us that she is the best thing since sliced bread, the Cyril Ramaphosa crowd to paint their man as a saint and the Dlamini-Zuma adherents to tell us she is the original Ms Delivery.
Indeed, this year you might even get some people telling you that Zuma is the greatest president of the post-apartheid era.
Then there is economic policy.
Don’t expect policy to change, but expect the rhetoric about transformation, race, apartheid reparations and redress to ratchet up.
The truth is that no one in the ANC really cares about policy formulation at the moment.
They are too busy fighting and using race to appear radical.
If there are to be policy changes emanating from the ANC then it will take place glacially after December and may speed up somewhat when a new leader gets over electioneering for 2019 and gets to work.
That has terrible implications: the rot and ennui we are living through now will continue for a while to come.
The interesting area will be around the issues of race, transformation, white privilege and wealth transfer.
As can be read from Zuma’s pronouncements in December, when he couched SA’s problems in the light of apartheid-era white wealth acquisition versus post-apartheid black wealth hunger, I foresee an era of major anxiety and tumult as the “redress” rhetoric ratchets up.
It will emanate from the Left – count the EFF, Numsa and others among these – and from the Right in the ANC and its crony capitalists such as the paid Twitter soldiers massed around the likes of the Gupta family.
Interestingly, none of the above really has much to do with the real challenges facing ordinary people on the street – jobs, a growing and inclusive economy or education.
The Zuma administration has failed for nine years on the jobs and education front. Don’t expect movement.
There will be a lot of heat and noise over the next three years, but don’t expect too much real change.
Sadly, and tragically for so many of our people living in abject poverty and need, the reality is that there will be many insults and words, but no real action to change their lot.
Loud, self interested noise for 2017, little meaningful action
The past week has provided even more evidence that fears about the ascendance of Donald Trump to the most powerful position in the world are justified.
The man has attacked journalists, rubbished civil rights icons and continued to show a vaulting lack of appreciation for the importance of his position and the office he is about to enter.
China has flexed its muscles in Nigeria, forcing the country to dump relations with Taiwan. Expect China to flex its muscles elsewhere, as it has done already.
It is confusing.
It is sometimes even scary.
How does one navigate such a noisy, contested, terrain, particularly here at home?
The first thing to keep in mind about SA politics in 2017 is that this is an election year.
The ANC chooses a new leader in December 2017 and so, as in any election year, what springs out of politicians’ mouths is usually the furthest thing from the truth.
So this year politicians from the governing party, the ANC, will be speechifying and beating their chests and saying all sorts of nice things about the past and the future.
Take all that with a pinch of salt.
Last week, for example, President Jacob Zuma said it was not particularly true that in ANC succession tradition the deputy president took over from the sitting president.
Well, firstly, Zuma and his cronies are exactly the ones who used to underline this tradition way back in the mid-2000s when the man himself was seeking power.
They were right, too, if you considered that from Albert Luthuli in the 1950s through to Oliver Tambo in the 1960s to Thabo Mbeki in 1997 and Zuma himself in 2007 the deputy has succeeded the president.
So why is the man suddenly suffering from this massive bout of amnesia about a “tradition” that he was touting heavily just 10 years ago when he wanted to be anointed?
No matter. It’s an election year.
He wants his preferred successor – Dr Nkosazana Zuma-Dlamini – to be elected on the “woman president” ticket.
He is hoping she will block the 783 counts of fraud, corruption and racketeering that he still has to face in a court of law.
He won’t be the only one dissembling this year.
The ANC is riven with factions jockeying for power.
So expect the Baleka Mbete ticket to tell us that she is the best thing since sliced bread, the Cyril Ramaphosa crowd to paint their man as a saint and the Dlamini-Zuma adherents to tell us she is the original Ms Delivery.
Indeed, this year you might even get some people telling you that Zuma is the greatest president of the post-apartheid era.
Then there is economic policy.
Don’t expect policy to change, but expect the rhetoric about transformation, race, apartheid reparations and redress to ratchet up.
The truth is that no one in the ANC really cares about policy formulation at the moment.
They are too busy fighting and using race to appear radical.
If there are to be policy changes emanating from the ANC then it will take place glacially after December and may speed up somewhat when a new leader gets over electioneering for 2019 and gets to work.
That has terrible implications: the rot and ennui we are living through now will continue for a while to come.
The interesting area will be around the issues of race, transformation, white privilege and wealth transfer.
As can be read from Zuma’s pronouncements in December, when he couched SA’s problems in the light of apartheid-era white wealth acquisition versus post-apartheid black wealth hunger, I foresee an era of major anxiety and tumult as the “redress” rhetoric ratchets up.
It will emanate from the Left – count the EFF, Numsa and others among these – and from the Right in the ANC and its crony capitalists such as the paid Twitter soldiers massed around the likes of the Gupta family.
Interestingly, none of the above really has much to do with the real challenges facing ordinary people on the street – jobs, a growing and inclusive economy or education.
The Zuma administration has failed for nine years on the jobs and education front. Don’t expect movement.
There will be a lot of heat and noise over the next three years, but don’t expect too much real change.
Sadly, and tragically for so many of our people living in abject poverty and need, the reality is that there will be many insults and words, but no real action to change their lot.
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