DA and ANC ‘both barren’, neither will fix South Africa

While the ANC’s cadre deployment is part of the reason for the mediocrity, rampant corruption and mismanagement of the state, the Democratic Alliance (DA) would be no better because they are in the same neoliberal boat as the ruling party, some academics say.

They said ANC misrule was “a symptom of a much deeper crisis”, but the DA would lead the country in a “false chase” as it offered nothing different.

“Like the ANC, the DA is the party of monopoly capitalism that is in crisis. In the period of crisis, there is no way of managing capitalism other than austerity and accumulation by dispossession or plunder of the state,“ they said.

Mametlwe Sebei and Raligilia Konanani, both lecturers in the department of jurisprudence at the University of South Africa, as well as Lufuno Nevondwe, a lecturer at the University of Limpopo, said the problem was not cadre deployment itself, but lack of proper deployment by the ANC.

The ANC was “deploying mediocre opportunists and petty thieves with a counter-revolutionary agenda to loot the state and sabotage and misdirect public services in the interests of corporate profiteering and aspirant black capitalists”.

They said cadre policy is historically about deploying “selfless, disciplined and ethical cadres who will dedicate their professional lives towards the implementation of policies aligned with the party advancing the revolution”.

“For over two decades, a small group of senior ANC figures have regularly met in backrooms at Luthuli House to corrupt appointment processes by ensuring that only ‘loyal cadres’ of the ANC are appointed to positions of power in the public sector.

“As a result, skilled and meritorious applicants are sidelined, with positions reserved on the basis of loyalty to the ANC.

“This is why the DA has long held that cadre deployment is the root cause of state capture, lack of skills and service delivery collapse.”

The DA, which they claimed was committed to preserving the status quo of neoliberal colonial capitalism behind the current austerity in the public service, privatisation and outsourcing of public services, had misdiagnosed the problem.

“If there is only a change from one government to another within the framework of the same state, changes are likely to be minimal, compared to if there is an overhaul of the state.”

The change from a white minority-dominated apartheid regime to a black majority, democratic state is one example.

They noted that, regardless of how change came about – by revolutionary overturn or negotiated settlement as happened here – “the essential political form of the state generally requires a more comprehensive purge”.

“Alongside the purge of the personnel of the old state proceed deployments of new personnel aligned to the objectives of the new state and its ruling party.”

The government, led by the ANC, has since 1994 faced a plethora of challenges, mainly around service delivery and socioeconomic rights.

It has been suggested the problem emanates from the incompetence of the personnel associated with the ruling party deployed in strategic positions without the necessary skills.

The greed and corruption of the public service is, however, not a reflection of moral failure of the “deployed cadres”, as the ANC suggests.

Greed and corruption are a function of the accumulation of capital by the tenderpreneurial black capitalist class and monopoly capital, they said.