Post-unrest: Three top priorities for South Africa’s Ramaphosa
Authorities in South Africa have for the most part restored order in KwaZulu-Natal province and Gauteng province where much of the upheaval this month occurred. The military is now helping law enforcement to secure key supply routes, including the N3 that links the country’s largest city Johannesburg to the port city of Durban. Meanwhile, the National Prosecution Authority is going after suspects who allegedly instigated the unrest, and President Cyril Ramaphosa has said his administration is developing a relief package to help businesses rebuild in those two provinces. Beyond this, there are three top priorities for the president in the coming months.
1. Cabinet and ANC
Ramaphosa has to address splits in his African National Congress (ANC) so that he builds enough political capital to drive structural reforms. Splits in ANC presently threaten the capacity of the South African state to function effectively, as was evident in the state’s response to the recent upheaval. Cabinet figures responsible for law enforcement and intelligence did not cooperate effectively to contain the violence. Instead, the police minister Bheki Cele denied receiving information from the State Security Agency as claimed by the state security minister Ayanda Dlodlo. Ramaphosa initially described the unrest as a failed insurrection intended to ‘severely weaken – or even dislodge – the democratic state.’ But when parliament queried defense minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula about this claim, she said the military was not seeing the signs and that the unrest took the form of criminality and thuggery. She later deferred to the president. Now, all cabinet members have been directed to clear future comments about this unrest with the president’s office. That dynamic is rooted in ANC divisions that were compounded by Zuma’s court troubles (See: South Africa’s Ramaphosa ‘suspended’ by party’s secretary-general). Police minister Cele, who helped Zuma to win power in 2009, was initially reluctant to arrest the ex-president after he was sentenced to prison in June. And like Mapisa-Nqakula, ANC’s provincial chapter in KwaZulu-Natal has contradicted Ramaphosa’s claims about an insurrection. That province is ANC’s largest base by membership.
2. Covid vaccination
South Africa went into a two-week lockdown on 27 June when 20,000 new Covid cases were being recorded daily. At the time, all public gatherings were banned while restaurants and similar facilities were restricted. That lockdown has since been extended for two more weeks, and this demonstrates that the infection risk remains high even though the government has ramped up vaccination in the last two months. Only one million South Africans had been vaccinated at the start of June, but now more than five million people have been vaccinated. The government needs to sustain this momentum to ensure fewer lockdown disruptions that could trigger further unrest. Rising unemployment (partly due to lockdowns since last year) has worsened longstanding income inequality in the country, and we note that the recent riots appeared to intensify after Ramaphosa announced the current lockdown extension.
3. Operation Vulindlela
South Africa’s economy shrank by 7% in 2020 while unemployment rose to 32% from 29% in the previous year. Ramaphosa then announced an economic recovery plan titled Operation Vulindlela, not just in response to the pandemic but also in response to the underlying structural defects that had subdued GDP growth in the preceding decade (below 2% on average). The latest turmoil raises the urgency of implementing that plan given the scale of economic damage in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. Those two provinces account for 50% of South Africa’s GDP and host nearly half the population. Proposals under Operation Vulindlela include (a) improving generation capacity by expanding the role of independent power producers and restructuring the state utility Eskom, and (b) strengthening port and rail efficiency by reforming the state-owned Transnet and promoting private participation in the transport sectors.
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image: Paul Fiedler
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