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South Africa: sliding toward authoritarianism?

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    South Africa: sliding toward authoritarianism?

    Is a state of emergency on the cards?

    South Africa’s teflon president Jacob Zuma, was at it again in February, slipping away from responsibility after the State of the Nation Address debacle in parliament. Within hours he had distanced himself from any knowledge of the jamming of digital signals that curtailed media reports and from the subsequent melee when an armed, plain clothed, security detachment dragged, punched and kicked Economic Freedom Fighter (EFF) MPs from the House.

    #2
    South Africa: sliding toward authoritarianism?

    No, South Africa has a strong constitution, judiciary and civil society.

    It's true that the ANC is not treating the democratic institutions with much respect. The debacle of the State of the Nation address was an example of the excesses the ANC is capable of in disregarding the democratic institutions.

    The strong mandate the ANC receives from the electorate has turned the party -- or, more accurartely, the faction that currently leads it -- into one that is as arrogant, venal, paranoid and vain as that of the apartheid National Party.

    At the moment the party is scrambling to protect Zuma, who is the figurehead of a kleptocratic Zulu-led cabal within the ANC. It's difficult to bring him down because too many people have too much to lose.

    None of that is good for SA's young democracy. And if the ANC does not take due care, the question of the thread title will become pertinent. But we are not there yet, and even within the ANC -- internally a very democratic institution -- there is no desire to crush the democracy, even if the party often rides roughshot over it.

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      #3
      South Africa: sliding toward authoritarianism?

      Ta.

      Tell me more about these EFFs.

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        #4
        South Africa: sliding toward authoritarianism?

        The EFF was founded by the populist polemicist Julius Malema who was kicked out of the ANC, of which he was the controversial Youth League president,after turning on Zuma, who had disciplined him and colleagues for making the ANC look bad (worse) and sticking the demand for the nationalisation of mines, which is not ANC policy.

        Previously he had declared he would die for Zuma...

        The EFF is popular among the very poor who have been neglected (and taken for granted) by the ANC. But for all their red overalls and militant rhetoric, the leadership are champagne socialists. And their funding came from criminals. And where there's funding, there's squabbling about who gets to steal the money. And that is tearing the EFF apart.

        They are no viable opposition, and they will disintegrate.

        The real opposition resides in the trade unions which currently are still alligned with the ANC. There will be a split, and that opposition will be serious. The key question is how united -- in body and in policy -- it will be.

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