Last September I started a thread asking for opinions on Jacob Zuma, who seemed headed to be the next president of South Africa. The response at the time was pretty blase, and I considered my rather alarmist ignorance of the political situation in South Africa to have been duly fought.
Now, however, the election is here, Zuma is likely to have won, and a spate of rather worrisome articles in Anglo-American news magazines (Time I and II; Newsweek I, II, and III; The Economist I and II) are making me wonder how things look on the ground now. What does Zuma mean for South Africa? Are the concerns about him overblown? I know South Africans hate it when their country is compared to Zimbabwe, but I have to ask: is Zuma a potential Mugabe? If he is, is South Africa a strong enough democracy to survive?
South Africa is going the same way as Zimbabwe.
They have been redistributing land for some time, officially with a “willing buyer willing seller” system. The overall results have not been good. (Example). In addition, farmers are struggling with murders, assaults, theft, vandalism and squatters, and getting little help from the police. South Africa is now a net importer of food.
Jacob Zuma has promised to greatly accelerate the land redistribution process. (Linky.) Supposedly they’re not going to just take the farms, Zimbabwe-style, but ANC has made it clear that they will use expropriation if they don’t like the price a farmer is asking. Regardless, the fundamental problem is that the land is already in the hands of the people who can best use it.
(There’s a book on the land reform in South Africa here: The Great South African Land Scandal. I doubt if it’s entirely objective - as I recall there’s a certain amount of nostalgia for the “good ol’ days” of apartheid - but it’s interesting reading nonetheless.)
It really is difficult to say - Zuma has been extreemly evasive on most points, refering to the ANC National Executive Committee on all matters of policy, even avoiding appearing on a Presidential Candidates debate show on the eve of the election with no good reason given (I didn’t watch the show, so this is second-hand via my wife) by the person sent in his stead other than “the ANC refused to allow him to appear”.
The whole of the Zuma corruption trial has been a farce from beginning to end - it now appears that it was political pressure that caused the charges to be re-instated, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that it was political pressure that has caused them to be dropped so close to the election date. Zuma, in spite of making noises about wanting his day in court, spent much of his time (and public money) lodging apeals to avoid going to court.
Zuma is unashamedly more pro-poor than Mbeki was, and this has worried many of the “haves” in the country. Does this mean he is another Mugabe? Only time will tell, but the signs are not encouraging…
Grim
No, it’s not. You have no idea what you are talking about.
Besides being next to each other there is a hell of a difference between Zim and SA, which if you’ve actually been to both countries would be obvious.
As far as Zuma is concerned - I agree with grimpixie. It’s a bit difficult to tell right now. I do have a feeling it won’t be as bad as some people think it will be.
One thing to remember however is that we have a much more stable democracy and infrastructure than any other country in Africa. In a nutshellthere’s more to break down to get to the same level of chaos than many other African states. And it is in no one’s interest to do so - not the ANC nor any other party. That does not mean it is impossible, just a lot more improbable than Zimbabwe.
And to anyone coming in to say “that’s what they said about Zim/DRC/Kenya etc” - you don’t know what you are talking about. If you’ve been to any of these countries you’ll know that even in their “heyday” they were only a hop, skip and jump from anarchy. Not a lot needed to go wrong to go downhill. In South Africa a LOT has to go wrong to get to the same state as the rest of Africa.