ANC elite empowered

Article from: The Australian

In South Africa, the new president can do what he likes

SOUTH Africans voted with predictable passion yesterday, hardly surprising given that millions of black voters remember the years when they were less second-class citizens than not citizens at all. While voting is voluntary, an estimated 80 per cent of the 23million enrolled turned out, and they overwhelmingly supported the African National Congress, the party they believe ended apartheid. While results are far from final, it seems certain that even if the ANC does not equal the 70 per cent of the vote it won in 2004, it will not be far off. It is a massive majority that new president Jacob Zuma would not have won if the opposition were better able to confront the ANC machine, which is now deeply entrenched in the agencies of government. The electorate has continued to judge the ANC as liberators when it should have been called to account for the services it provides and the standards it sets. And on these measures, the party's record is mixed.

Certainly the state of South Africa is superior to conditions in the rest of the continent. A welfare state provides benefits for 12 million of the country's 50 million citizens, and the Government has built homes for 20 per cent of the population since independence. Most impressively, increasing public sector spending has not broken the bank, and government debt dropped from nearly half of GDP in the mid-1990s to 30 per cent in 2007. By Australian standards this may be a frightening figure, but not compared with Britain, where public sector debt is expected to reach 80 per cent of GDP within five years. But South Africa's standards are slipping. Crime is out of control, with 39 murders per 100,000 people in 2007-2008, an improvement on the previous year but still 20 times the rate here. The result of the crime wave is that the middle class relies on paid security services while the poor are left to fend for themselves. And rather than tackle the problem, the police force is without an effective leader - the commissioner has been on leave for 15 months under a corruption cloud. It reflects the way the emerging generation of ANC leaders has lost interest in the electorate, and the way some assume they are above the law. Including Mr Zuma, who fought corruption charges for eight years, which were dropped just before the election. Given the size of his majority, Mr Zuma can claim the electorate has exonerated him, that he has a mandate to enact his populist welfare spending program and to remain cavalier in arranging his affairs. The rule of law is already under threat at the bottom of South African society. The risk is the danger will extend to the top.