A new analysis by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) examines South Africa’s prospects under a possible coalition government comprising the ANC and EFF.
Written by IRR analyst Terence Corrigan, A Question of Fate: An ANC-EFF coalition in 2024? seeks to determine whether a combination of negative economic growth, hyperinflation, escalating unemployment and the unravelling of South Africa’s constitutional infrastructure could be the future.
The paper will be launched with a webinar on at 10am on Monday, in which Corrigan will set out the contents of his paper in greater detail in discussion with Nicholas Lorimer.
A Question of Fate is being published on the eve of a seminal election and quite possibly the inauguration of an era of coalitions.
Examining the respective ideological underpinnings and manifestos of the two parties, the paper suggests that such an arrangement would likely follow a populist pattern. That is, it would attempt rapidly to expand welfare and redistribution, while simultaneously circumventing the constitutional and institutional limits currently in place. This would likely come with an aggressive narrative of combating supposed enemies.
Such strategies have in other contexts often been motivated by severe socio-economic stresses and the failure of confidence in existing institutions. These conditions certainly exist in contemporary South Africa, driven in large part by choices that have consciously been made by political actors. Indeed, elements of the populist agenda have already been enacted.
Experience of this sort of political strategy elsewhere has invariably proved deleterious. After a brief period in which it appears to be working, the room for economic manoeuvre shrinks and the unsustainability of the strategy becomes manifest. Attempts to correct these failures are expressed in attacks on institutions intended to hold governments to account.
The implications of this are profoundly important for South Africa’s future.
Click on this link to register for the webinar: https://streamyard.com/watch/vQEZHkS8x73v