A pattern of stuttering, incremental improvement is the surest guide to South Africa’s future
Africa self-styled liberation parties have proved adept at clinging on to power. Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe are all still run by the parties that took office after the end of white rule. TheDespite presiding over a lost decade, opinion polls suggest that it will retain power at the elections on May 8th. The average support for the party in the eight publicly available opinion polls published since Cyril Ramaphosa became president is 56.4%.
The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance , has done progressively better at national elections since its founding in 2000, winning 22% in 2014. A strong showing at the 2016 local elections suggested that it was poised to challenge the. But while it retains the loyalty of most white and “coloured” voters, especially in its stronghold in the Western Cape, it needs to win over more black voters, a task made harder since the departure of the singularly unpopular Mr Zuma.
It is not hard to find other examples of reasoned apocalypticism. Some think it inevitable that South Africa will eventually need to go cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund. Others worry that corruption and economic conditions will lead to a scenario reminiscent of the Arab spring protests throughout 2011.
On the other hand there are the optimists imbued with a sense of “Ramaphoria”. Once he gets a “mandate” , they argue, South Africa will be back on track. The president will clean up his party, bring discipline to thes, entice enough foreign investment so that the economy will grow by at least 5% per year and all will be well.
Yet it might be the case that South Africa avoids the worst while improving only slowly. In his first year Mr Ramaphosa has made uneven progress cleaning up South Africa’s institutions, within the limits set by his own caution and his party’s dynamics. That pattern of stuttering, incremental repair work is the surest guide to the next five years.president to enjoy a majority.
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