South Africa since the elections
Post-apartheid South Africa will mark its second birthday at the end of April. NORM DIXON was there as a Green Left Weekly correspondent in the months before and after the country's first democratic elections. Here he examines the course of the ANC-led government of national unity (GNU) and how the left, popular organisations and the trade unions have coped with the new political situation. The ANC's electoral victory opened a new stage. Workers and poor no longer face the institutionalised racism of apartheid and a dictatorial system enforced through brutal repression. They are now afforded unprecedented democratic and constitutional rights. With the winning of parliamentary democracy and the formal elimination of apartheid, the South African people now confront the reality, aggravated by centuries of racial oppression, of "normal" capitalism — poverty, homelessness and bad housing, unemployment and low wages, environmental degradation, sexism and racism. The end of legislated racial discrimination alone will not bring a curtailment of these ills. Millions believed the ANC would deliver on its election slogan of "Peace, jobs and freedom" and the promises of the Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP). The ANC promised to build 1 million houses over five years, to provide clean water to 1 million people and electricity to 2.5 million, to radically improve health and education and to create jobs through public works.
If the RDP's targets were ever to be achieved, the ANC needed to begin to redistribute the massive wealth accumulated by South Africa's white ruling class and mobilise the black masses if they resisted. But the political direction the country is taking can be observed from the following recent episodes, as reported in South Africa's
Weekly Mail and Guardian:
- A week before Christmas, TV viewers saw a squatter in Moffat Park, south of Johannesburg, on his knees pleading with those about to destroy his home. "We merely ask for alternative land. They should not treat us as animals", he pleaded.
The ANC Gauteng provincial government defended these mass evictions. Property rights must be protected, it said.
- In his inauguration speech, President Nelson Mandela set two overriding priorities for his new government: reconciliation and the improvement of living conditions for the needy.
Mandela has been extraordinarily successful at the first task. A real coup was his visit to Hendrik Verwoerd's widow, Betsie, for tea in the miserable self-proclaimed white "volkstaat" of Orania. Far-right-wing leaders, having to be polite and respectful to the new president, were reduced to a meek bunch of eccentric citizenry. The president then decided to meet Percy Yutar, a man more hated than most for his role as state prosecutor in the Rivonia trial and his determination to have Mandela sentenced to death. Unlike the Verwoerd encounter, this meeting served no political purpose except to rehabilitate an arch-defender of apartheid. For many blacks, it was a sign that reconciliation has gone too far. It was also a reminder that reconciliation with the white ruling class has been put ahead of fundamental social reform. Many believe it is time for the priorities to be reversed.
- Gauteng ANC Premier Tokyo Sexwale emerged from the home of the widow and orphan of a victim of a violent car hijacking and said it might be time to consider a referendum on the reintroduction of the death penalty.
While this was quickly dismissed by the GNU, it brought to the fore how fragile are even the major gains of the new government — the abolition of the death penalty being perhaps the most significant — in the hands of ANC leaders turned parliamentarians.
- "Keep the last carriage on the gravy train for us", read a poster during the September nurses' strike in Gauteng. Nurses, long underpaid, had not had their grievances addressed by the new government. Earlier inadequate increases were agreed to by their trade union with little input from the rank and file.
The government threatened nurses with the sack if they did not return to work. Gauteng authorities said they could not afford increases because the provincial health budget had been cut in the national government's second budget. The national and provincial governments insisted that nurses use "proper channels". The nurses said these were old South African structures and were flawed.
- On December 7, deputy president Thabo Mbeki shocked the trade union movement, COSATU, by announcing the government's intention to privatise up to 49% of Telkom, South African Airways, the authority that runs South Africa's airports and a range of other state assets.
Despite being allies of the ANC, COSATU and the South African Communist Party were not consulted. In response, 40,000 members of the Railway and Harbour Workers Union on December 13 staged a one-day stoppage. COSATU held a two-hour work stoppage on December 19 and called a general strike (later cancelled) for January 16. As these examples highlight, three things will determine South African politics in the coming period: the rightward shift of the ANC leadership; the still strong preparedness of the masses to struggle; and the emergence of a leadership that can provide a coherent alternative — a class-struggle — strategy.
After 600 days, what do the South African people have to show? Among the black majority, there is still an enormous reservoir of good will towards the government and Nelson Mandela in particular. They are enthused at the removal of institutionalised racism and the coming of democracy and euphoric that Mandela is their first president. For the first time, certain rights are written into the constitution and law. These include legal equality regardless of race, sex or sexual orientation, the recognition that certain people have rights to land forcibly taken by previous governments and the right of workers to form unions and to strike. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission is to investigate crimes under apartheid. Ten senior officers of the apartheid security forces are standing trial for their role in creating death squads to assassinate anti-apartheid activists and instigate political violence. Material gains, however, are much smaller. Unemployment among blacks remains above 50% and is growing. At least 13 million are homeless or live in inadequate conditions. The health system is in crisis and the education system near collapse. White South Africans on average are nine times richer than blacks. Progress on RDP-related programs has stalled. The most significant gain is a school lunch program that has given 5.5 million children a free peanut butter sandwich each day. Free health care for pregnant women and children under six has also been a success. A start has been made on the provision of clean water and electricity to township residents, but it remains well behind what was promised. In October, housing minister Sankie Nkondo told parliament that fewer than 10,000 homes had been constructed. To meet the RDP's target of 1 million by 1999, at least 200,000 should have been constructed in 1995 alone. Even this would not begin to reduce the backlog. Why has so little progress been made? Despite being an impressive outline of the dire legacy left by apartheid and a concise summary of what was needed to begin to overcome it, the RDP remained vague on how it was to be achieved. The draft RDP, on which the ANC based its election campaign, had tucked away within it a commitment to "macro-economic stability" and "fiscal responsibility". In other words, the programs necessary would not be funded by drawing upon the accumulated wealth, gained through its collaboration with apartheid over decades, of the ruling class. The draft RDP boldly proclaimed opposition to "trickle down" economics that prioritise economic growth above redistribution of wealth. It argued for "growth through redistribution". The South African left saw the RDP's housing, jobs, health, welfare and education goals as something the people could be mobilised around. That the underlying basis of the RDP is in fact "trickle down" economics has become clearer in the subsequent evolution. The "good points" have been expunged bit by bit as government ministers tie the RDP's implementation to the need to boost "investor confidence" and economic growth. The final RDP white paper contained little of the redistributive dynamic of the draft. RDP minister and former COSATU general secretary Jay Naidoo late last year revised the RDP's delivery targets from five to 25 years!
The new government's first budget in 1994 revealed that the RDP would be funded not through taxes on big business or the wealthy but by juggling within departments. The finance ministry withheld about 5% of the budget of each department, placing it into the RDP fund. Overall spending increases just kept pace with inflation, with a slight real increase in overall social spending. Contrary to pre-election promises, the defence budget increased by 8%. Company taxes were reduced from 40% to 35%. The private sector's contribution to revenue was reduced by R1.4 billion, almost equivalent to the amount allocated to the RDP fund that year. Indirect tax remained despite a pre-election ANC pledge that the 14% VAT would be lifted from food and basic services. The IMF, which loaned South Africa US$850 million for "drought relief" in 1993, had been insisting that the budget deficit be kept to 6% of GDP. Foreign investors echoed this demand to restore "investor confidence". Finance minister Derek Keys announced that the budget deficit for 1994-95 would be 6.6%, a reduction of 0.3%. The ANC's first budget was greeted with acclaim by big business and uneasiness by the mass movement. Hopes that the 1995 budget would be the first full "RDP budget" proved false when the ANC's second budget was presented by new finance minister and former banker Chris Liebenberg in March. Again, social expenditures were mildly increased in line with inflation. However, when these increases were adjusted to give preference to the undeniably needy poorer provinces, there were considerable real cuts in the health and education budgets in the two most populous provinces, Gauteng and Western Cape. Taxes on big business were reduced further. Again the R5 billion put into the RDP fund was drawn from existing budgets. The deficit was projected to drop further to 5.8% of GDP. The budget allowed for only a 3.25% pay increase for public sector workers despite an inflation rate of around 10% and growing demands that poverty-level pay rates and apartheid-created pay inequalities be redressed.
Housing is an example of the inadequacy of relying on capitalism to address the legacies of apartheid. The majority of black South Africans live in overcrowded, poorly constructed dwellings that lack basic services. SACP leader Joe Slovo in 1993 estimated that 1.5 million houses were needed just to meet the backlog of demand. The ANC's housing policy relied on the banks and finance companies lending money to the poor to build homes. Yet 70% of South African families earn less than R1500 (A$375) a month. A recent study of squatter households in Gauteng found that only 18% earned any income at all. Housing capitalists insisted that the government guarantee to pay any loan that was in default and back a warranty against faulty building. They also insisted that the government convince communities to end their rent, mortgage and rates boycotts. Regardless, few loans have been made. The banks and finance corporations will simply not lend money if they feel they cannot make a profit. Standard Bank's Bob Tucker says that a family must earn at least R3000 a month before his bank will loan the money for a house the size of a two-car garage.
South African capital's drive to become internationally competitive can come about only at the expense of the working class and poor. The economic and political concessions demanded and agreed to by the GNU so far are just the beginning. During the apartheid period, South Africa developed a huge self-sufficient manufacturing industry sheltered by walls of protection. It also created a large public sector — at first to provide a political base among poor Afrikaans-speakers, and then to survive the effects of economic sanctions in the 1980s. South Africa produced everything from atomic bombs to audio cassettes. The low productivity of these outdated factories and workplaces make South African goods uncompetitive. Local and foreign employers are demanding that the ANC oversee a massive restructuring that will result in massive job losses as industries either modernise or go to the wall. The ANC in cabinet has shown itself willing to cooperate. Trade and industry minister Trevor Manual in June announced reductions in tariffs on cars and clothing at a rate faster than required by the World Trade Organisation. Public enterprises are being restructured and commercialised in preparation for privatisation. The inevitable partner of restructuring is "labour flexibility" — lower wages, poorer conditions and working harder. Bosses have resisted demands for increased wages and a rapid elimination of apartheid-created pay disparities. ANC ministers refused to back unambiguously the demands of workers during the wave of strikes that swept South Africa following the elections. Some ANC leaders criticised strikers, and ANC administrations did little to prevent the intervention of police and courts in industrial disputes. The most militant strikes last year took place in the public sector. Some 75% of all days lost were in the public sector as a result of the government's determination to restrain the public sector wage bill.
The ANC leadership hopes to enlist the active cooperation of the trade union movement in restructuring capitalist industry. Its political project is a partnership of labour, state and big business, with a black boss class, fostered by state patronage, playing an increasingly influential role. A new labour law was passed last year that enshrines class collaboration. ANC labour minister Tito Mboweni bluntly stated that the new Labor Relations Act was to ensure that the exercise of union power does not lead to the destruction of "wealth-creating capacity". The stated aim of the bill is to facilitate workplace agreements to boost productivity and increase profitability. Strikes are not allowed in essential services, if they threaten the economic infrastructure of the country or if they are called before the extensive conciliation and arbitration mechanisms in the act are exhausted. The act legalises the right of employers to lock out workers. The new act makes no provision for compulsory centralised bargaining on wages or conditions. A new tier of workplace forums has been instituted. Modelled on "co-determination" councils created by social democracy in western Europe, their role is to negotiate changes to boost productivity on a workplace by workplace basis. Many unionists feel these councils will be used to undermine union shop steward structures. COSATU's dissatisfaction with the act, especially the removal of the compulsion for employers to negotiate wages and conditions centrally, exploded in June with a COSATU-sponsored one-day general strike. More than 70,000 workers marched through Johannesburg on June 19. But COSATU's leadership did not oppose the general class-collaborationist thrust of the bill. Nor does COSATU seem to oppose the overall thrust of tripartitism. A willingness to cooperate in efforts to boost profitability is also being reflected in decisions by other unions. The Mineworkers Union agreed to move from an 11-day fortnight for all workers to a seven-day week with rostered days off. This at a stroke increased the number of working days from 275 a year to 365, significantly boosting productivity. The metalworkers union in the car industry recently agreed that its higher paid members take wage increases below the inflation rate so that lower paid members could receive higher than inflation increases, in the name of reducing apartheid pay anomalies. Unions across the board are agreeing to wage increases tied to productivity bargaining, training and multiskilling. South Africa's left movement remains potentially strong, yet it has not begun to take the struggle more clearly in a class-struggle direction. The SACP has more than 75,000 members, and its activists are prominent in the trade unions, from shop steward level to leadership of important unions and COSATU. Its members are activists and leaders in the residents', homeless and student movements. COSATU remains strong, with a well-organised shop steward organisation and a leadership prepared to mobilise the members. Several important trade unions have voiced opposition to the course the ANC leadership is taking. Calls are being made for the ANC-COSATU-SACP alliance to end, or to be transformed so it can be more independent of ANC governments. There continues a vigorous debate over calls for the formation of a workers party. Debates also rage about whether the ANC leadership's right-wing course is now irreversible and whether the SACP should now organise separately. The culture of mass struggle that developed during the anti-apartheid movement is intact. There is a lively exchange of ideas within the broad left. Dissatisfaction has been voiced by ANC parliamentarians, and there is broad scope for struggle within the 600,000-strong ANC membership, given left leadership. Without agreement on the left that it is time to take a clear class-struggle orientation, activists in the mass movement find their campaigns and activities dominated by the politics of the ANC in government. As the class struggle deepens around the elimination of the social and economic legacy of apartheid, such agreement is likely to emerge.