South Africa's political power shift

Warm and engaging, he’s quick to break into freedom songs and dance the revolutionary toyi-toyi in front of adoring masses. But as South Africans settle into the reality of Jacob Zuma as President, many are wondering what lies behind his broad smile. Is he the ‘populist’ with authoritarian tendencies that the opposition paint him to be, or the Zulu nationalist with conservative attitudes to social issues? And how much power is wielded by his chief allies in the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party?

The emerging picture is that the new Zuma Government is both more progressive and more pluralist in its composition than its predecessor. A consummate delegator, Zuma offers a return to the old African National Congress (ANC) tradition of collective leadership from which Thabo Mbeki departed. And he is filling a policy vacuum by appointing dedicated social democrats to four key portfolios: finance, trade and industry, public enterprises and a newly created ministry of economic development. Together they will determine economic policy. But to get a sense of how green the new Zuma Government will be, one needs to look at four major drivers of environmental policy and politics in South Africa.

The first is the ANC’s policy framework known as the ‘Polokwane resolutions’, named after the place where they were adopted in late 2007, at the five-yearly ANC national conference. This was where, dramatically and decisively, Zuma defeated Mbeki to become President of the ANC. The resolutions represent a key element of the ‘Zuma revolution’, which entailed reclaiming control of government.

While not a dramatic departure from the past, the policy framework contains some important adjustments in priority and emphasis. No more so than in the set of resolutions on the environment and climate change, which offer a near model approach to sustainable development and renewable energy.

A guiding concept of sustainable development was often conspicuous by its absence during the Mbeki years – despite the hosting of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, the introduction of a Sustainable Development Framework, and some internationally groundbreaking policy work on climate change. The approach was neatly expressed by former Trade Minister Alec Erwin – a trade unionist turned neoliberal – when he uttered the old cliché: “I am too red to be green”. 

Growing the green economy

Has the emphasis changed? The NGO community loves Polokwane, but harbours serious doubts about the Government’s willingness or ability to implement it, not least because of the current recession.

Much will depend on a second key driver: the role of former Finance Minister, Trevor Manuel. During his ten years at the Treasury, Manuel was blamed by the left for placing too much emphasis on financial stability and not enough on the ‘real economy’. Now, intriguingly, he is at the head of a new national planning commission based within the Presidency itself – potentially the role of a Prime Minister. The commission’s precise mandate is still to be determined, but a clue comes from one of the leading leftist thinkers now in Government. He has described the vision for the new planning commission in terms of a solid sustainability agenda – referring to food, water and energy security.

If this is how Zuma and Manuel see it, then their approach will be critical. Manuel’s relationship with the four progressive ministers who now control economic policy lies at the heart of South Africa’s new anatomy of power. But the relationship with industry, particularly with the powerful mining and gas companies and the public electricity utility Eskom, is no less important. And here, the good intentions of Polokwane are likely to hit the hard rock of old capital.

The role of the Environment Ministry will be a third key factor. How effectively will its new head, former Energy Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica, drive the green agenda?

The international climate change talks in Copenhagen will be Sonjica’s first test. Her predecessor, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, carved out a prominent role through South Africa’s groundbreaking Long Term Mitigation Scenarios (LTMS), leaving a complex brief to master. And with the days ticking away to the summit, she has precious little time to do so. Her detractors won’t be encouraged to hear her now describing the LTMS as a ‘research product’, rather than a policy document. Speaking to Green Futures, Sonjica said that LTMS contains “findings that are relevant to policy, but [is] not a policy prescription... [It is] what could be done rather than what should be done”. In the words of one of the facilitators of the LTMS process, this sounds like “an alarming retreat”.

Zuma’s decision to replace van Schalkwyk with Sonjica is puzzling. Van Schalkwyk, the last leader of the National Party, earned his Cabinet position as a reward for taking the party of apartheid into the ANC-led mainstream in 2004. He worked hard and was respected within the ANC leadership. More significantly, he was able to attract the attention of the powerful South African business community. His advisors recall with pride the evening the LTMS was unveiled to a group of around 50 leading captains of industry. He looked them in the eye and said: “You have to do this”. And the Afrikaner politician got their acquiescence to the core principle that South Africa – the continent’s largest emitter of carbon – must change its ways.

If Van Schalkwyk was to cede control over the sustain-ability agenda, one might have supposed it was in order to give the left within the ANC’s new leadership a chance to prove their internationalist mettle. Yet this appears not to be the case, as Sonjica is considered a ‘Mbekite’ survivor.

Either way, she is unlikely to be a soft touch. In the mid 1990s, under Mandela, Sonjica was chair of the parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Water Affairs, and managed to stand up to the famously voluble and charismatic minister Kader Asmal. And as Minister of Energy Affairs herself since 2004, she is quick to point out she “knows something about the industry side”. She clearly understands some of the dilemmas South Africa will face as it tries to wriggle free of dependence on old, unsustainable technology. “Our coal is part of the wealth of this country…it is ‘brown’ not ‘green’ – yet how do you abandon it?” You don’t, appears to be her answer, as she places great faith in carbon capture and storage (CCS). “We have to reduce emissions while growing,” concludes Sonjica.

Meanwhile, she wants South Africa to acknowledge the unavoidable impacts of climate change and develop an effective adaptation policy. A green paper process is under way to deliver a strategy for this – in line, she says, with the ANC’s policy of finding a balance between adaptation and mitigation.

Growing the green economy is the key to unlocking the fourth main driver: the potential to create green jobs. The new Minister for Economic Development, Ebrahim Patel, recently said that he aims to “create a large number of jobs in industries that are designed to mitigate the effects of climate change”. On this subject little has been said so far by the new Minister for Trade and Industry, Rob Davies, as he works on delivering a more effective industrial strategy. Sonjica, however, says she plans to ‘impress’ upon him too the importance of green jobs, and it will be interesting to see what emerges.

Davies will need to work with Sonjica to ensure that economic and environmental policy are fully aligned, something that has not hitherto been the case in post-apartheid South Africa. If they and their leader are perspi-cacious, they will want to reverse Erwin’s cliché and conclude that the Zuma administration is simply too red not to be green.

Richard Calland is Associate Professor of Public Law at the University of Cape Town and Director of the Economic Governance Programme at IDASA, the African Democracy Institute. His best-selling book, Anatomy of South Africa: Who Holds the Power?,  was published in 2006.

3 December 2009

Richard Calland