A prevalent assumption in the business community is that although President Cyril Ramaphosa is hemmed in right now by his detractors in the ANC, if he is returned with a strong majority come the election in May he will have the political space to implement much bolder, far-reaching reforms.
It follows, therefore, that it is important to support him in the coming election and make sure this becomes a reality. But how much political space will he win? And how bold and far-reaching will these changes really be?
The past week was suggestive of the challenges and the constraints. On the upside, Malusi Gigaba was forced to resign as home affairs minister after he was found by the public protector to have lied under oath. He also exposed his vanity and shallowness, which won him few friends among the public. It was a distinctive departure from the ANC norm that an individual resigned for being caught in an act of dishonesty.
The revelations on the downside were, however, more profound. ANC stalwart Barbara Hogan detailed how – long before the Guptas had seized the power to run the country – the ANC used its cadre deployment policy to direct her to appoint a particular candidate to a top job in a state-owned company, after the board had gone through a rigorous process and selected its own excellent (and black) candidate.
And, Ramaphosa admitted to us that a company notorious for corruption in state contracts had donated R500,000 to his campaign to become president of the ANC.
These two events are indicative of the two big problems corrupting the ANC: cadre deployment and money politics. Cadre deployment had its genesis in the ANC’s realisation that after five years in power it did not control many of the levers of power in the state.
After its initial approach in 1994, when every individual with leadership capacity and skills was deployed to the benches of parliament, the ANC changed tack and began to send people into strategic jobs in other areas of society.
But from there it was a small step to lucrative jobs for pals, and within no time at all cronyism had percolated into the nine provinces and the 278 municipalities across the country. Money politics followed in its wake. As access to state resources was the prize, it made good sense to invest in winning it. Power in the ANC is directly determined by simple numbers in branches, regions, provinces and nationally.
As winning ANC power meant winning ANC conferences in a small space of time, from branches upward, within the first decade of being in power, vote-buying and patronage had become the hallmark of ANC politics.
What Jacob Zuma did on becoming president was insert himself as an additional player into this informal network of influence on deployment. As time went on and the ANC’s internal cohesion weakened as it became more diffused, the influence of the deployment committee waned. Zuma made sure influence grew.
At the heart of all this is the ANC’s disdain for the separation of party and state. The collapse of this distinction, vital to protecting the integrity of state institutions, was not an incidental oversight.
It follows from the ANC’s mythology of the liberation movement as the repository of wisdom and goodness.
After the May election, Ramaphosa will cut down the size of cabinet and improve its competence.
He may also be able to carry out some economic reforms, such as increasing private participation in state-owned companies.
The worst excesses of cadre deployment at the centre will be curbed.
With luck, there will be consequences for those who have looted the state and broken the law and people may even go to jail.
Thanks to the dedication of a small handful of ANC leaders and public representatives we will have a law that regulates donations to political parties.
However, some really big things will remain out of bounds.
The cabinet will still need to be balanced to take account of ANC dynamics. Education reform, public-sector pay reform and labour-market reform will not be on the agenda. Party donations may be regulated but the use of money in internal party contests will not.
The ANC will not be inclined to abandon its national liberation movement political philosophy that enables it so easily to collapse the distinction between party and state.
This means the systemic dynamics that fuel ANC corruption and patronage will remain at work under the surface.
A healthy majority for the ANC post the election might mean more stability, especially for business. It will not mean a deepening of democracy.
Paton is writer-at-large for Business Day...