The African National Congress (ANC) is slumping in South Africa and President Robert Mugabe has critics all around in Zimbabwe. Change is in the air. ‘
Source: Are Southern Africa’s liberation movements now in deep crisis? – The Zimbabwe Independent September 2, 2016
The African National Congress (ANC) is slumping in South Africa and President Robert Mugabe has critics all around in Zimbabwe. Change is in the air.
Alex Vines,Academic
It really is a tough time being a liberation party of government in Southern Africa at present. The ANC has just lost control of major cities in South Africa in the country’s municipal elections, registering its worst electoral performance since the end of apartheid in 1994.
A vicious power struggle over succession to 92-year-old Mugabe is heating up in Zimbabwe. Renewed armed violence in Mozambique between old civil war foes has seen thousands flee to neighbouring Malawi. And in Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos, the world’s second-longest-serving president, has signalled that he will step down in 2018. All eyes are on who the Movement for Popular Liberation of Angola (MPLA) chooses as its de facto vice-presidential candidate and likely dos Santos’ successor, for multi-party elections in 2017.
Since change is in the air, can we see patterns in the political trajectories of southern African countries and whether there is something special about national liberation movements (NLMs) and the governments they have spawned?
Their leaders certainly believe themselves to be exceptional. South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma described his mandate in divine terms in May 2008.
“Even God expects us to rule this country…It is even blessed in heaven. That is why we will rule until Jesus comes back,” he said.
Similarly, Mugabe has said previously that he intends to rule until he is 100 and will not relinquish control of Zimbabwe “until God says ‘Come’”.
NLMs portray themselves as the political aristocracy of Southern Africa that have earned their legitimacy to govern through armed struggle in perpetuity. But they have, in fact, re-invented history — with particular emphasis on the armed struggle — to provide historical legitimacy and solidarity in order to combat internal and external threats to their national democratic revolutions.
The ANC, the South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo) of Namibia and the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu, which later became Zanu PF) all have in common independence settlements sharing two of the same fundamental characteristics: settler populations that lost political power in exchange for guarantees of rights of minorities and property; and NLMs that gained control of the state in an exchange for accommodation with domestic and international capital.
In Angola and Mozambique, everything was expropriated by the state at independence and although gradually there has been some privatization, land remains leased by the state.
The principal concern of the NLMs has been the consolidation of power (including through transitional elections) and all show a trajectory of political, social, and ideological decline. Incumbency has also enabled the NLMs to use the administrative and financial resources of the state and to set up of party business empires.
But there are also some significant variations. Zanu PF, unlike Swapo and the ANC, lacked a secure national mandate and has needed to manipulate election victories in a phenomenon that is still playing out today. The near-loss of the 2000 parliamentary election and 2002 presidential election prompted Zanu PF to ensure it would not lose again through fair or foul means.
Checks and balances play an important role and functioning institutions can limit NLMs. Carefully-protected neutrality of the electoral institutions in Namibia and South Africa have served both countries well, but in Zimbabwe they became progressively politicised and militarised. There is a wider southern African lesson here — elections in 2014 and 2015 in Malawi and Zambia worked because their institutions were respected, but the 2013 elections in Zimbabwe and 2014 elections in Mozambique were flawed partly because their electoral institutions were compromised.
Constitutions play a protective role here too. Constitutionalism has not only imposed boundaries on ruling power but has also given impetus to internal party democracy in the NLMs, such as the blocking of Swapo’s Sam Nujoma from running for a fourth term as president.
Leadership renewal and understanding changing fortunes may also prolong popular support. Swapo in Namibia has had smooth and peaceful changes of president and also seems to be working harder to be accountable. There are transferable lessons for other southern African NLMs from Swapo’s experience.
It is not coincidence that former president Hifikepunye Pohamba won the 2014 Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership and that the current President Hage Geingob and his wife openly have declared all their assets — a sharp contrast to many of their southern African colleagues.
All NLMs recognise the need for a major change in economic direction to address the needs of their impoverished majorities, but how to achieve this is less clear.
In the 1990s, the ANC sought to convince investors that South Africa was open for business and adopted a policy agenda that appeased these interests. But is the deal that the ANC has constructed with capital sufficient to sustain its rule against a backdrop of still brutal social inequality, massive unemployment and growing social protest?
As we have seen in Zimbabwe and Mozambique and now in South Africa, NLMs that become complacent do so at their peril. Increasingly, all NLMs are becoming ordinary political parties. Their decline will though be drawn out with many bumps along the way, but what is sure is that they will not rule until Jesus comes back.
Dr Vines has been head of the Africa programme at Chatham House since 2002 and in 2008 became director for Regional Studies and International Security. In 2012 he was appointed director for Area Studies and International Law. This article was originally published in Newsweek.
COMMENTS
Be a good idea for him to learn something about African culture, and forget about ‘NLMs’.
We always seem to have foreign “experts” telling us about our own countries. Maybe our unemployed academics should “write papers” on UK and US politics?
To me, the US gives a very good example of how NOT to do politics, whereas the UK has a system that works.
That just made me laugh so much!
The political system of the UK is almost completely broken and to paraphrase an ex-PM ‘outrageously corrupt’ at least when compared to other northern european countries.
Corruption in the UK is so well entrenched it is actually legal and considered ‘tradition’. It is well known that titles are for sale by ‘donating’ money to whichever party is currently in power, parliamentary questions are fielded for cash, the banks have a permanent observer in parliament, complete with direct access to any sitting committee, whose sole purpose is to make sure that any proposed legislation is favouring the banks rather than people. That position existed now for 400 years.
Not that the US is much better with their pork-barrel politics but generally if you want to build a democracy both UK and USA are the prime examples of how NOT to do it. First-past-the-post electoral systems which both employ are at best semi-democratic to start with.
PS: I am fully aware that UK and USA score very low on international corruption indices but that is because what counts as corruption in the rest of the western world (corporate donations to political parties for example) is perfectly legal in both.
If u really think the uk has a system that works, you really should get out more, learn to read, watch the news, use the Internet or maybe even talk to some people….
The article was written for a Newsweek audience and I think it covers all the bases for such an audience.
For readers here who have probably been to all the countries mentioned saw first hand what is happening maybe not.
The problem with Zanu PF is that it is a minority party and it’s only trump card is to use the liberation war – maybe should say abuse.
So they will abuse the liberation on every turn but it has backfired lately with the split in Zanu ranks.
Contrast this to Namibia. Swapo has tried to make sure its party is modern and mainstream and if you go there you would think their war finished earlier than Zanu’s. I think they are on the right path and should continue like that.
As for Zanu I think they will milk and abuse the war for as long as it takes even though the war finished almost forty years ago but surely do they have another choice?
A good example of the UK’s hypocritical system of governance is the call for a “second referendum”on Brexit. They didn’t get the vote they wanted, so let’s manipulate. As a British citizen (but Scots) I can say that the UK government is the most treacherous organisation on the face of the planet. Having initially plundered it, they are now content to leave it in disarray.
Any challenge by the UK ambassador is welcomed.