Susan Booysen - Precarious Power: Compliance and Discontent Under Ramaphosa’s ANC

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Published in South Africa by:

Wits University Press

1 Jan Smuts Avenue

Johannesburg 2001

www.witspress.co.za

Copyright Susan Booysen 2021

Published edition Wits University Press 2021

First published 2021

http://dx.doi.org.10.18772/12021026451

978-1-77614-645-1 (Paperback)

978-1-77614-649-9 (Hardback)

978-1-77614-646-8 (Web PDF)

978-1-77614-647-5 (EPUB)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.

Project manager: Inga Norenius

Copyeditors: Monica Seeber and Lee Smith

Proofreader: Inga Norenius

Indexer: Margie Ramsay

Cover design: Hothouse

Typeset in 10 point Minion Pro

CONTENTS

Precarious Power is about how South African politics revolves around a powerful but contradictory main character, the African National Congress (ANC), in the time of Cyril Ramaphosa.

It delves into politics in a way that helps us to understand the unspoken texts, the often near-imperceptible rules. It leads us to see how the system of ANC dominance flounders yet survives. This story of South African politics pieces together and reinterprets the trends we think we have seen and know but we dont always see them for what they are. My study connects the dots and draws the lines. It reveals the rules and laws of an ANC intermingled (if not fused) with South African politics. It is a bottom-up case study of how a mammoth but meandering former monolith created more layers of politics while the people forged alternative politics rather than trade their ANC for another party. It is a politics that rewrites the textbooks.

The process of writing this book was like a rollercoaster of political despair and hope, and the story remains incomplete. It started with a coincidental meeting at a Sophiatown jazz club when my publisher Veronica Klipp and I reflected on ANC politics. Jacob Zumas fall was gathering momentum, a mere few months after I had completed Dominance and Decline and five years after I had set out the fundamentals in The ANC and the Regeneration of Political Power. The story was continuing, the plot gaining character and the finale uncertain. I had to continue analysing the saga. The narrative of the immediate events kept on changing dramatic scenes moved from the Nasrec cliff-hanger to the recall and continuous fall of Zuma; Ramaphoria as the new panacea; elections that were ambiguous at best; the disillusionment and reality checks that followed, aggravated by the complex Covid-19 moment while the curse of corruption throttled Ramaphosas new ANC. But the otherworld of South African politics, of ANC and of popular creation, continued opening in the wings, and the ANC lived and lives to see another political day.

The more the narrative ran on, the more the trends cohered and painted a curious picture of the system in which the ANC ruled. Whether I investigated the institutions of the state, public policy-making, election practice or peoples protests, the trends were there in a system with strength that depended not simply on the veracity of its institutions and formal processes but also on indulgence in and tolerance of supplementary processes, alternative layers, complementary institutions. It was a parallel politics and, above all, a suspension of popular disbelief that the former liberation movement could be fatally flawed and faltering.

My research took five years of intense observation, collection of details, mapping of patterns, reinterpretation of political reality ANC conferences and briefings, speeches, ANC statements, policy documents, government records, court and commission proceedings and investigative reports and writing. I observed; monitored events; analysed content; did interviews with those prepared to speak without trying to mislead; engaged with communities to hear first-hand how cadres and others related to the ANC; and dissected the reliable public opinion polls to help in seeing the bigger picture. On many of the topics in this book I developed sets of in-depth case studies to build the picture of people and protests, policy, the Presidency, state institutions and party politics. It was a continuous, 360-degree research operation. Then analysis followed.

My analysis is about seeing and synthesising the patterns and trends. What were the commonalities and consistencies, perhaps even the surprising realities, that the mass of research details revealed? The answers my arguments and interpretations fill the pages of this book.

The pages of references at the end of each chapter reveal much of my style of analysis, and the character of Precarious Power. The sources in many of these notes are not cited as the source of arguments rather, they illustrate the type of information, provide typical examples or highlight an event that proves an argument. Many points like these, detected and recorded in my personal database of research which I have been constructing since my research for The ANC and the Regeneration of Political Power inform my inferences and insights. The book is about critical analysis, not solutions unless the reader is prepared to perceive the solutions through an understanding of the present and its precise dynamics. This understanding of praxis is what I see as the contribution of this book.

There was no boring moment. There would not have been a manuscript had the ANC not provided me with so much, such rich and such vexing information.

My heartfelt thanks go to Wits University Press for the confidence in my scholarship and authorship. This journey of three books on the ANC in ten years would not have been possible had it not been for the core team of Veronica Klipp, Roshan Cader and my astute editor, Monica Seeber.

Susan Booysen

20 October 2020

AIC	African Independent Congress
ANC	African National Congress
ANCYL	African National Congress Youth League
ANCWL	African National Congress Womens League
ATM	African Transformation Movement
BLF	Black First Land First
Concourt	Constitutional Court
Cope	Congress of the People
Cosatu	Congress of South African Trade Unions
Covid-19	Coronavirus disease of 2019, caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV2
CR17	Cyril Ramaphosa 2017 ANC presidential campaign
DA	Democratic Alliance
EFF	Economic Freedom Fighters
EISA	Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa
KZN	KwaZulu-Natal
IEC	Electoral Commission (of South Africa)
IFP	Inkatha Freedom Party
IMC	Inter-Ministerial Committee (of Cabinet members)
IMF	International Monetary Fund
MP	Member of Parliament (of South Africa)

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