South Africa General Discussion

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I will give this a shot, and try to maintain this thread in one way or another. Please keep the racist garbage and usual trolling out of this thread, please.

Anyway, South African politics is much more fun than it may look and I think the 2014-2019 term will be one of the most interesting in SA politics since the fall of apartheid: Zuma fairly weak(er), the presence of EFF in Parliament (already causing a stir), the aftermath of factional battles in the ANC and COSATU, the chance for a new union-based socialist party coming out of NUMSA for the 2016 LGEs, the DA's shenanigans with race (and perhaps a new leader by 2019?), policy stuff and above all the big ANC conference in 2017 with the brewing battle to succeed Zuma!

Some reference links

Shameless self-promotion of my blog post on the 2014 elections: http://welections.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/south-africa-2014/

2014 and 2009 national/provincial elections interactive map to precinct level:
http://elections.adrianfrith.com/#year=2014&ballot=nat&level=muni&colours=winner&zoom=6&lat=-28.5&lon=24.75

Racial, linguistic and income dot map:
http://dotmap.adrianfrith.com/

Stats SA:
http://beta2.statssa.gov.za/ (Full census results here: http://interactive.statssa.gov.za/superweb/login.do)

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the presence of EFF in Parliament (already causing a stir)

The "pay back our money" chant, right?

Yes, that's it - EFF have been very theatrical and boisterous, determined to always make a scene and make themselves heard (and seen, wearing their red workmen and domestic worker overalls and helmets/berets), and to piss off the ANC. For good reason (within limits) given that the ANC is hard at work trying to push Nkandla under the rug/make sure JZ doesn't have to pay for his fire pool and kraal (arguing that it's not JZ's fault that some people added to the costs. There has also been chaos (again) surrounding the head of the NPA - Zuma wants to fire the new NDPP, Mxolisi Nxasana, officially because he didn't pass his security clearance and failed to declare a 1985 murder charge he was acquitted of (self-defense), unofficially because Nxasana has been proving a bit too clever (going after a corrupt pro-Zuma suspended crime intelligence boss Richard Mdluli) - it's another sh**tstorm, because Zuma can't recommend that Parliament fires him unless an inquiry rules against the NDPP (and, from my reading, it will require a lot of spinning and twisting to do so - see here). See more here and here.

But let's not forget that Malema is hardly one who should be chanting 'pay back the money' given that he isn't too clean himself (tax dodging, tenderpreneur...) and there's something ironic that Malema is now presenting himself as the saintlike defender/representative of "workers" when he used to be quite fond of expensive suits and flashy watches which aren't very black working-class.

The EFF MPs seem to be headed towards a month-long suspension from Parliament without pay for their outburst.

Who are the favourites to succeed Zuma?

Likely way too early to tell and silly to speculate, but Cyril Ramaphosa - the ANC and RSA's Deputy President - may (or may not) be considered as an early favourite or at least one of the likeliest strong contenders. He is also currently chairing the powerful National Planning Commission, which will handle the rolling-out of the government's National Development Plan (a sort of roadmap/wishlist for South Africa’s next 20 years). That being said, there's been rumours that some Zuma supporters and/or Zuma himself have soured on him and are not overly keen on promoting him. There's also been a lot being said about the KZN ANC (the largest ANC provincial party) having a plan to keep the leadership with KZN and stopping Ramaphosa; you have names like Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (Zuma's ex-wife, a former foreign minister and now AU commission president), the new (tame and compliant) speaker Baleka Mbete, ANC treasurer/ex-KZN Premier Zweli Mkhize or the new home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba.

On that note, a recent news story is the reelection of Paul Mashatile as head of the Gauteng ANC (the second largest branch) - Mashatile, a short-lived Premier from 2008 to 2009 and then culture minister, is a prominent anti-Zuma/Zuma-critical leader in the most anti-Zuma branch of the ANC (Gauteng backed Motlanthe at Mangaung in 2012). Mashatile was dumped as Premier in 2009 and then fired from cabinet in May as payback for his stance against JZ at Mangaung. Although there's no open warfare between the national and provincial parties, Zuma allegedly snubbed the Gauteng ANC conference because the Premier wants to review the controversial e-tolls. In May, the ANC suffered major loses in Gauteng and, afterwards, incumbent pro-Zuma Premier Nomvula Mokonyane was ultimately removed despite pressure from the Zuma circles in the national party on the provincial party to place her on their shortlist of names. Instead, David Makhura, who is pro-Mashatile, was named Premier.

That being said, as it stands it's all quite open-ended but we're not seeing a bloody and acrimonious split like the Mbeki/Zuma civil war which preceded Polokwane.

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The EFF has won a student union election at the University of Limpopo’s Turfloop campus, defeating the ANCYL/Young Communist League/SASCO. Students politics have produced a lot of ANC leaders including Ramaphosa, GP Premier David Makhura, former MP Premier Matthews Phosa and former ANCYL leader and firebrand Peter Mokaba.

http://mg.co.za/article/2014-10-10-eff-takes-limpopo-university-src

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M&G speaks of 'widening rift' between JZ and Gwede Mantashe (ANC secretary general):

You must be logged in to read this quote.

excerpts from: http://mg.co.za/article/2014-10-23-zuma-mantashe-rift-widens

Obviously the ANC quickly denied, instead lashing out at the M&G and continues with typical ANC excessive hyperbole

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NUMSA was expelled from COSATU on November 8. How do you view the odds for a new Labour party now?
COSATU SG Zwelinzima Vavi has been against the expulsion of NUMSA and is obviously very critical of Zuma ("predator society" etc), could he join a new party? How is his relationship to big boss Dlamini? It seems very strained.

The odds haven't changed. It remains a long-term thing, and its unclear how fast Numsa intends to move on this. According to what it's been saying, this month it will launch a 'United Front' which will be a grouping of community organizations active at the grassroots level in service delivery movements and protests. Some people have compared this 'United Front' idea to the UDF. In February, they seem to be holding a true believers' conference on socialism with a bunch of leftist parties invited and the outcome of that should determine what happens, in March 2015. Numsa knows that it still needs lots of work and lots of time before it is ready to create a viable political party which can stand a chance.

Vavi has been a Numsa ally and vice-versa for quite some time, but I'm not sure if Vavi is interested in actively participating in party politics and if he's ready to take that leap (which would be a very, very big one involving burning all bridges with the ANC, SACP and the remains of Cosatu). At any rate, it's still very early days as even the idea of the party is still in the drawing rooms, so it's too early to tell how Vavi and others will react when/if Numsa launches its socialist workers' party in 2015. Sdumo Dlamini is Vavi's enemy within Cosatu and I don't think it's excessive to say that both men hate each other. Along with the NUM and other unions in Cosatu, Dlamini has been the driving force (internally) in the expulsion of Numsa.

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Why does the IFP keep losing ground?

I could expand on the details, but it's very simple:
1. The IFP has collapsed rapidly since 2009 because Jacob Zuma is a Zulu, and a folksy one who is very keen on actively showcasing his Zulu culture and preaching respect for traditional customs, so he can really go to the heart of what the IFP is all about. Mandela and Mbeki were both Xhosa leaders from the Eastern Cape/Transkei, and there is an old tradition of hostility between Xhosa and Zulu, the two largest black African ethnic groups in South Africa (there's an old line about the ANC being nicknamed 'Xhosa Nostra'). As a result of the ANC’s new direction under Zuma, the traditional Zulu monarch, King Goodwill Zwelethini, a traditionally ally of Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi and the IFP, has gotten along quite well with the ANC, causing major strains with the IFP. KZN is now the largest provincial party in the ANC and Zulu leaders have gained additional prominence in the ANC since Polokwane.
2. To make matters worse, the IFP's ex-chairperson Zanele kaMagwaza-Msibi created a rival party, the NFP, in 2011. The NFP competes for the same rural KZN votes than the IFP, and there are few ideological differences between the two except that the NFP is less dogmatic and makes noises about being less right-wing.
3. The IFP has no coherent ideology besides traditionalist and chauvinistic Zulu nationalism, which is rendered increasingly meaningless in a modern South Africa and under a ANC led by a Zulu. The IFP's stuff about 'non-tribal federalism' and 'self-determination' is a load of sh**t and nobody falls for it.
4. The IFP's lider maximo Mangosuthu Buthelezi is a political opportunist who has a long-standing reputation of changing his 'positions' willy-nilly and lacking any ideological depth, and a ruthless leader intolerant of any dissent or criticism against him within his party's ranks. He has chased out a lot of more or less talented IFP MPs and potential leaders (Zanele kaMagwaza-Msibi)

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A rather bizarre thing has been unfolding in South Africa for about a month now.

Steve Hofmeyr is a 50-year old Afrikaner singer and self-proclaimed Afrikaner rights' activist, who has a fairly long history of saying racially insensitive things (saying 'kaffir' in a song called 'We will survive' allegedly about AWB leader Eugène Terre'Blanche) or propagating the usual white myths about the new South Africa (claiming whites are being 'killed like flies'). Whenever challenged on his politics and beliefs, he pretends that he's a moderate and that it's only about protecting Afrikaner 'heritage' (obviously there's a very fine line between legitimate promotion of Afrikaner historic heritage and apartheid denialism/praising ). In other words, he's a pseudo-racist moron. In October, however, he took it even further, by tweeting: "Sorry to offend but in my books Blacks were the architects of Apartheid. Go figure."

Chester Missing is a (black) puppet political analyst, who often humorously 'interviews' political figures (and is rather good at it). His puppeteer is Conrad Koch, a white Anglo comedian and ventriloquist, whose political views are pretty unquestionably left-wing and anti-racist. Tons of people were up in arms over Hofmeyr's nonsense comments, but Chester Missing led the charge against him via Twitter, questioning the sponsors (Land Rover, Pick n Pay supermarkets) of an Afrikaans music festival where Hofmeyr is performing about whether they'd pull their sponsorship of Hofmeyr. Hofmeyr threw a fit, went to court and obtained an interim protection order (gag order) against Chester Missing, to prevent the puppet from harassing him on Twitter (i.e. not allowed to contact him, his sponsors or his business partners directly or indirectly). Koch challenged it in court, on November 27.

Hofmeyr did not show up to court and was represented by Dan Roodt, an Afrikaner 'academic' and far-right racist fruitcake. Roodt's nonsense arguments notably included: blacks weren't offended by Steve's tweet but only white leftists cared (Afrikaner racists seem to hate 'white leftists' even more than they hate the blacks), that Chester Missing was defaming a member of a minority suffering 'extreme violence' in RSA, claimed that Koch calling stupid were motivated by 'an elitist Anglophone white perspective against the Afrikaners', proved that he would fail the Ontario Literacy Test by not understanding the meaning of the word 'architect', bringing up Bantustan leaders and black police officers who supported apartheid 'wholeheartedly' and saying that Hofmeyr's reputation had been ruined. Like every racist, he also came out with the uber-sage 'an anti-racist is just another form of racist' sagenugget. During his trial, Hofmeyr retweeted one of his fans who said 'Small cliques that control SA rage are making lots of noise today', which is obviously so charmingly ironic.

The court set aside the interim protection order, with the judge ruling that Hofmeyr's tweet was of such a nature that it allowed the respondent to view him as a racist and that Hofmeyr was, in effect, "seeking an order to advance views that lend themselves to racism and advance the imposition of the apartheid regime."

In the last few days, DA leader Helen Zille stepped into the matter. Zille is notoriously feisty and confrontational on Twitter, and suffers from foot-in-mouth syndrome whenever she speaks about racial issues; she also gets her panties in a bunch whenever she's challenged on racial issues, especially by other whites. For example, in 2013, she got into a Twitter war with white left-wing journalist Carien du Plessis, claiming that she was left-wing only because she was an ashamed white Afrikaner who needs to bend over to win the favour of the black community. This on top of countless other unfortunate tweets or incidents on racial matters, which just reinforce DA critics' views of the party. This time, in a newsletter, she wrote that "Chester knows there is nothing like a running battle with racists to send your career into orbit. Maybe he did a deal with Steve [Hofmeyr] and Dan [Roodt] to share the royalties in perpetuity. Steve and Dan would know that’s what you do when your career needs a booster rocket." Missing took to Twitter to attack Zille, accusing her of not raising her concerns in the beginning rather than accusing him of seeking publicity. He tweeted 'Today we learned that @helenzille thinks apartheid wasn't so bad. Damn that's gonna sound good at voting time', to which she obviously took offense and leashed out at him. Chester Missing claims he's glad Zille spoke out about racism but said that Zille's words made it seem like she fuelled Hofmeyr's cause.