Infinite deadlock: how the ANC will win again

The DA has been successfully neutered, the EFF are facing jail, and Zuma is both irreplaceable, and facing old age. The ANC will soon have no opposition.

Much like the old German Schlieffen plan, the ANC has managed to play a daring game of containment and elimination, capturing and neutering the DA, while pursuing legal action against the EFF and leaving the MK’s sole leader to die of old age.

The aftermath will be volcanic, and the Liberals are sitting on the cone.

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The Schlieffen Plan

The nature of the current government is fairly stably established now. The DA has given up all of their policy positions, and over a third of their theoretically entitled representation in the cabinet.

In response, there is some muted grumbling from the leadership, but overall they have been more keen to underline their success than their failure. As the Daily Maverick reported today, the DA’s official position on the National Health Insurance Act has softened down to a question of fiscal responsibility.

In the Statement of Intent for the coalition, the DA acquiesced to the ANC’s “transformation” agenda, in all its glory, finally removing all opposition to the racial quota system destroying the country.

They have also acquiesced to the ANC’s particular mode of quasi-privatisation, which sees the state-owned and/or ANC-aligned enterprises keeping a controlling share in all their domains while farming operations out to foreign companies (provided they turn to BEE partners for procurement).

This has fully established the ANC as an unopposed titan, and even thought their vote share has fallen, their containment of the Liberal opposition has resulted in the destruction of all opposition to every aspect of their ideological program.

The other side of this equation is the cordon sanitaire around the radicals, who wish to accelerate their plan. The ANC is now demonstrating a final resolve to prosecute the EFF for their involvement in the VBS investment scandal, much to the delight of the liberals in and out of government.

But this should be eyed with caution - the refusal to prosecute the EFF in previous years has not been due to a lack of evidence, but due to a lack of political necessity - the EFF was a good way of forcing the DA to swallow the spoonfulls of manure they have just been fed.

The MK party certainly played into their hands in this regard. While the MK is a formidable opponent, Zuma is also extremely old, and though he is spry for his age, he is 82, and has no credible successors who can even distantly rival his negotiating and coalition-building acumen.

This means we will soon see the ANC take out the leadership of the EFF, while watching the MK implode, their presence being the number one reason which justified the alarmism upon which the DA built their entire campaign strategy. The fear of a rapid Zimbabwefication will now be allayed, and the ANC can implement it themselves at the gradual pace we are accustomed to resigning ourselves to.

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Foreign balance of forces

It has been clear to all observers that the local oligarchies and corporate enterprises are fully willing to either capitulate or divest as their exclusive reactions to the ANC’s policy programmes. This makes them no threat.

The only threat remaining to the ANC remains from the latent force of Afrikaner parallel government, and the foreign policy positions of the Eastern Alliance (China/Russia/Iran) and the Global American Empire (US/EU/Japan/Australasia).

The Solidariteit Movement can seize both territory, economy and logistical prowess if they can act now to build an implementation schedule for their Anchor Town Plan, and prepare for a tax revolt and security action in the event of EWC. They have about ten years to do this, and will die if they don’t.

The Americans and the Chinese have spent the past ten years carving up the carcass of our local productive forces, with China replacing much of our manufacturing, and the West seizing our digital retail market and food production.

As the global balance of forces shifts East, the South African government will be able to take greater and greater liberties with property rights, and have already been testing the US’s resolve enough to trigger threats from Washington, as recent challenges to the established trade policies.

The ANC will not enact EWC until they feel they are free to do so, but they clearly see that horizon approaching, judging by the Acts which have passed Parliament recently, including the Expropriation Act, which is waiting merely for the president’s signature.

The Saudis have recently dropped the petrodollar, and the rapid expansion of BRICS has been keeping pace with a rapidly growing sovereign and private debt crisis building across the West, as many countries increasingly replace the dollar as a medium of exchange in bilateral trade.

The US are bogged down in three frontier confrontations - Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine - and are losing ground in all three, with most of the world outside of their WWII conquest territories uniting behind Russia, China and Palestine.

It is hard to tell when the avalanche will come, but the snow has definitely been building.

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Ground tremors

When Zuma dies and the EFF leaders go to jail, I can fully see the two parties collapsing. But there are two ways the electorate could respond - either they return to the ANC fold, or they stop voting. But if they stop voting, our turnout would be the lowest in the world.

The consequences for utterly alienating the majority of the electorate, who are overwhelmingly black nationalists, is a disconcerting prospect. They will be on the lookout for a leader with extraordinary hunger.

The DA will also likely see performance issues. Their voting count (in absolute terms) has been declining now for ten years, and their star campaign manager for the past 20 years, Greg Krumbock, has just retired. They likely do not have a replacement. The closest alternative is Ryan Coetzee, but though he is an intelligent man, I have serious (and informed) doubts he can run the machine as smoothly as Krumbock.

After muting their stated policy preferences in favour of securing a stable coalition, the DA will increasingly feel pressure from the public, who will have no opposition to turn to (especially if the VF+ stays in the cabinet).

While some will claim the DA will capture the difference and grow to the biggest party in parliament, this flies in the face of all available evidence. The DA has not only been declining in support, they have never captured more than a miniscule fraction of the black electorate. Counting black people as a proportion of the DA's overall support (~1/4) is almost meaningless when one realises that less than 5% of the black population support them.

The IFP, which would have been able to take KZN with the DA if not for the emergence of the MK, have now shown themselves to the people as a sellout organisation by teaming up with Ramaphosa and the DA. Their loss will not be total, but they have likely lost their opportunity to dominate the province in the foreseeable future.

The EFF, while certainly frightening to many, were an effective containment mechanism, relegated to the political fringes, covering for their impotence with public histrionics.

But without a bought-and-paid-for clown running the red circus, and without King Lear at the helm of the MK, the people who desire a militant black national-socialist revolution will be unchained.

The entire electoral system will be held hostage by an invisible enemy, and will begin to jump at shadows. Perceived challengers to the ANC’s patronage networks will be held in treasonous suspicion, and zealots will be pursued. But they cannot be long contained in a country with such an ineffective security apparatus.

Eventually, a leader will emerge, and when he does, not only the carcass of the MK and EFF will be drawn to him, but many of the absentee majority. Whether this will play out in the streets or on the ballot box is anyone’s guess.

But it is just as likely that the ANC will stage a comeback.

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National radicalisation

This death of both the radical and the liberal opposition will leave us in a position where the only means for change are either the courts, or through violence. Very few organisations can afford the legal challenges, and very few legal challenges can really change the system, those that can will be small and temporary patches on a leaking high pressure system.

In the meantime as we wait for the guillotine to fall on the radical parties, they will hold the opposition narrative. Only the tiny Action SA remains to offer criticism of the government from the right, and they are pretty left-wing on all matters except immigration.

As the next few years unfold, the ANC will become the conservative position in the political system, and the DA will become a barely invisible marbling in their stonework.

The entire country will now have ears open for any whisper of “white monopoly capital”, and see colonial capture behind every tree.

When Ramaphosa goes, the entire system will be lined up for the remaining radicals in the ANC to scoop up, with Paul Mashatile waiting patiently in the wings. If they fail to do so, the centre will collapse and the people will turn to increasingly extralegal and violent solutions.

If they succeed, it will be as if the MK and EFF were never kicked out of the party.

The time to organise is now.