Saturday, April 17, 2004
TINA -- The South African edition
So, the elections results in South Africa are in. Thabo Mbeki and the ANC have won an overwhelming majority, as most of the opinion polls and pundits had been predicting. Despite the terrible snafus around AIDS issues, Mbeki is very popular with his people, unlike another president next door. However, in a democracy you have to wonder how long it will be before Lord Acton's dictum about absolute power corrupting absolutely kicks in. In South Africa, an opposition alternative has been historically lacking. The National Party ruled from 1948 to 1994. The ANC has been in power since the handover under Mandela and Mbeki. Opposition is scant and there seems to be no danger of a credible opposition part appearing anytime soon.
Of course, it is also possible to have the TINA factor at work but for people in power to not succumb to its temptations. Botswana and Japan are obvious examples. However, most people would agree that the polity in South Africa would be better served with competition. Martin Woollacott touches on some of these issues in the Guardian.
A political system with a dominant party is not a one-party state or a dictatorship, it does not rig its elections, and it is not lawless. But how can democracy function, if there is no alternation in power? How can efficiency be achieved if affirmative action brings into public service and business echelons of people who might otherwise not have risen to those positions, setting off a cycle of patronage which cannot then be easily stopped?
How can solidarity be maintained if the luck and wealth of this new class of governmental and economic appointees is not matched by the adequate provision of jobs, housing and education for ordinary folk? How can the need to satisfy the demands of local and international business be reconciled with the need to satisfy the demands of ordinary people for rapid improvement in their circumstances? And how can the gap between rhetoric and reach, between the proclamation of policy and its execution, be bridged?
The greatest difficulty for dominant parties is that they must play to two constituencies - one to the right, consisting of business and the new class of beneficiaries they and business together have created, and one to the left, consisting of the masses they are also trying to serve and whose interests in theory are their priority. The South African picture of unemployed men and women queueing in the sun to vote at polling booths in the shadow of skyscraper offices on whose executive floors Africans are more and more a presence sums up these contradictions.
The internal democracy of the dominant party can be a substitute to some extent for the competition and choice of a multi-party system. But it is an imperfect substitute, even where the party has a record of strong internal debate.
Of course, it is also possible to have the TINA factor at work but for people in power to not succumb to its temptations. Botswana and Japan are obvious examples. However, most people would agree that the polity in South Africa would be better served with competition. Martin Woollacott touches on some of these issues in the Guardian.
A political system with a dominant party is not a one-party state or a dictatorship, it does not rig its elections, and it is not lawless. But how can democracy function, if there is no alternation in power? How can efficiency be achieved if affirmative action brings into public service and business echelons of people who might otherwise not have risen to those positions, setting off a cycle of patronage which cannot then be easily stopped?
How can solidarity be maintained if the luck and wealth of this new class of governmental and economic appointees is not matched by the adequate provision of jobs, housing and education for ordinary folk? How can the need to satisfy the demands of local and international business be reconciled with the need to satisfy the demands of ordinary people for rapid improvement in their circumstances? And how can the gap between rhetoric and reach, between the proclamation of policy and its execution, be bridged?
The greatest difficulty for dominant parties is that they must play to two constituencies - one to the right, consisting of business and the new class of beneficiaries they and business together have created, and one to the left, consisting of the masses they are also trying to serve and whose interests in theory are their priority. The South African picture of unemployed men and women queueing in the sun to vote at polling booths in the shadow of skyscraper offices on whose executive floors Africans are more and more a presence sums up these contradictions.
The internal democracy of the dominant party can be a substitute to some extent for the competition and choice of a multi-party system. But it is an imperfect substitute, even where the party has a record of strong internal debate.
