Growth and identity: right goals, wrong game plan for SA’s National Dialogue
With inclusive economic growth, SA’s rainbow nation dream is possible – but can an ANC-dominated dialogue deliver?
Amidst significant discord, South Africa’s year-long National Dialogue kicked off in Pretoria last week. The process aims to forge a new social compact and essentially lay the groundwork for the next phase of the country’s National Development Plan. It will be a wasted opportunity if the dialogue’s rocky start stymies progress towards achieving these two compelling goals.
Before the launch, the dialogue’s proposed large budget, lack of civil society engagement and rushed process stirred public anger. Then a public spat broke out between President Cyril Ramaphosa and former president Thabo Mbeki, when the latter felt piqued that the government and not the Preparatory Task Team – in which his foundation played a key role – was in the driving seat.
Eventually, several legacy foundations, which had assumed a leadership role in preparing for the process, walked out in protest. The Democratic Alliance, the second-largest party in the Government of National Unity (GNU) after Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC), had also earlier withdrawn.
There is suspicion that the dialogue intends to resuscitate the ANC’s political fortunes ahead of local elections
Mbeki was the first to call for a national dialogue to be held after the May 2024 general elections, and which would address corruption, service delivery failures and systemic decay in governance. During those elections, the ANC suffered an unprecedented 17 percentage point drop in support, forcing it to establish a GNU that eventually included 10 parties.
There is considerable suspicion that the dialogue is intended to resuscitate the political fortunes of the ANC ahead of the 2026 local and 2029 national elections. Those concerns seemed validated when, instead of drawing inspiration from South Africa’s widely hailed 1994 constitution, Ramaphosa said the dialogue would draw on the 1955 Congress of the People and Freedom Charter – which underpin ANC policy.
Without a solid foundation and clarity of purpose, never mind budget and structure, current prospects for the dialogue are not promising.
An updated forecast from the African Futures team at the Institute for Security Studies reveals that South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has stagnated or steadily declined since 2013, with a brief upturn in 2018.
On its current growth trajectory, the country will recover to its 2013 level in 2039, implying 26 lost years. Even in a high-growth scenario, that point would at best, be reached in 2032, some years after the next national elections.
It is widely reported that South Africa has the highest unemployment and inequality rates globally. As if we are not doing badly enough, our foreign policy is among the reasons the United States has imposed 30% punitive trade tariffs on South Africa. The ANC has been in power since 1994, so cannot escape primary responsibility for this dismal state of affairs.
The dialogue’s goal of forging a social compact speaks to the extent of national disharmony – a situation not unique to South Africa. Instead of the unifying vision of a rainbow nation, the ANC has prolonged the racialised politics of the past. Policies intended to promote inclusion do so selectively and perpetuate inequality.
Instead of fixing structural drivers to enable broad empowerment – such as quality education, health and access to opportunity – a host of race-based policies smother the economy. Examples are preferential procurement policies and the Employment Equity Amendment Act. This comes on top of weak implementation, lack of consequence management and widespread corruption in government.
How does SA forge a post-apartheid future when policies intended to promote inclusion undermine it?
Somewhere, the ANC has lost its way and the extent of its corruption, incompetence and internal fractures is on daily display in the media.
What is left of the party’s ideological core is provided by former members of its politicised armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, who today form the centre of resistance within the ANC to Ramaphosa. The latest example was the Chief of the South African National Defence Force’s calculated call for closer relations with Iran – at a time when South Africa is trying to negotiate a reduction in US tariffs.
South Africa is in search of its mojo, largely as a result of the ANC’s loss of moral purpose. The party is widely expected to do badly in the forthcoming local and general elections, but is likely to remain the largest political party nationally. What happens in the ANC should therefore be of concern to all South Africans.
The way forward on the dialogue’s second goal is clear – draw up a follow-on National Development Plan that has the broadest political, business, labour and civil society support, thus enabling it to survive beyond the 2029 elections.
That requires four steps. First, harmonising the National Planning Commission and its work with the Eminent Persons Group appointed to guide the National Dialogue. Second, undertaking a comprehensive diagnostic analysis, as done ahead of the current National Development Plan. Third, crafting the follow-on plan through wide consultations and expert inputs and fourth, taking it out for public engagement, amendment and finalisation.
South Africa should align its planning horizon with the third 10-year implementation plan of the African Union’s Agenda 2063. Its foreign and trade policies should focus on the continent, which objectively presents the most lucrative opportunities.
Only sustained, inclusive economic growth will allow us to deal with the results of our divided past
The dialogue’s first goal is more difficult but perhaps ultimately most important. In simple terms, South Africans need to recapture the dream of the rainbow nation, where poor people are not black, but simply poor people and where business is not white, but simply business.
Even the Chapter 9 institutions created to promote equity and justice, view pronouncements on race through the lens of past injustice, which is understandable but unhelpful in the context of our development challenges.
South Africa needs to pursue a common citizenship and commitment to the future. Rekindling that non-racial vision could be the dialogue’s largest contribution. But racial disparities in wealth, employment and education make this challenging, especially as race-based analyses have animated ANC breakaway parties, such as the Economic Freedom Fighters and the new uMkhonto weSizwe Party. Such analysis is also entrenched in most ANC factions.
This does not mean sweeping the past under the carpet. But scratch deeply enough, and most countries have a brutal past. Ours is just more recent than most.
How does South Africa forge a post-apartheid future when policies intended to promote inclusion undermine it?
The National Dialogue’s two objectives are closely linked. Only sustained, inclusive economic growth will allow us to deal with the results of our divided past and ameliorate its effects. To unlock growth, the country needs all hands on deck, particularly from those with the largest stock of education, wealth and access to finance. Unfortunately, given its shaky start, they are most likely to remain on the dialogue’s periphery.
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