ANC shares ‘arrogance, contempt of citizens’ with National Party

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Despite its backward policy of apartheid – with its legacy marked by corruption, racism, non-tolerance for free speech and association – the National Party (NP) handed the ANC Africa’s most developed economy and infrastructure, among the best in the world, according to political experts.

Their comments come amid South Africa being plagued by constant energy blackouts, high unemployment levels, a soaring crime rate, pillaging of the rail infrastructure and a stagnant economy.

While the country – with a world-acclaimed progressive constitution – may never return to segregation, University of Pretoria politics lecturer Roland Henwood, said there were similarities between the ideologically-apart ANC and the NP.

NP vs ANC

“There are more similarities between the NP in government and the ANC than most care to acknowledge.

“I think arrogance and an utter disregard for the majority of the people in South Africa.

“The ANC is possibly even more arrogant and its leadership acts as if they have a ‘direct mandate from God, to do as they wish without any consequences.

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“The ANC is also so embedded in the past, that it has lost sight of the future,” maintained Henwood.

Added to this, said Henwood, was the “industrial scale corruption allowed and protected by the ANC”.

There was “a total lack of the importance of long-term planning, execution and taking care of small things, with the destruction of capacity in the name of transformation and the appointment of incompetent cadres, being embedded in South Africa”.

While the NP had to shoulder the blame for the impact of its backward of ideology, Henwood said it was its “forward looking strategy on building infrastructure and developmental policy” which developed South Africa.

Said Henwood: “It (NP) handed the ANC the most developed economy and infrastructure in Africa – one of the best better in the world – though with huge challenges that had to be dealt with in future.

“Corruption did happen under NP rule, among them the misuse of public money in what got to be known as the ‘Info Scandal’.

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“Some cabinet ministers were jailed for being corrupt and for their involvement in illegal activities.”
He said the ANC leadership “seems not to be keen on investing in South Africa – acting as if SA is a personal possession to do whatever they feel like doing”.

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“The willingness to sacrifice and serve is completely gone from the ANC of today.

“It exhibits all the traits of a narrow nationalist and some narrow ethnic project.

“It has lost its core values and the willingness to be guided and limited by anything outside of a small elite and its interests.

“The current ANC leadership is largely dishonest and weak.

“The party is bound to an ideological and political model that cannot produce anything other than what we see in South Africa today,” said Henwood.

While the NP had several ills, with implications being currently experienced, Henwood said “its planning and willingness to execute and using the best people got things done”.

Goodwill from over the world

“The NP recruited the persons they needed to get things done – whether from the ‘opposition or from outside of South Africa.

“These were people with a ‘can do attitude’ and often with rather strange ideas and not always in line with the expected ideological line of thinking.

“This was despite having seriously diminished options, due to economic sanctions.

“The ANC still has access and goodwill from all over the world, though stuck in the Russia-Cuba mindset – disastrous for South Africa,” he said.

Concurring with Henwood, independent political analyst Sandile Swana said: “Indeed, the National Party handed over a relatively well-functioning infrastructure and a revamped Eskom, among other things.

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“It (NP) however, did engineer the closing down of certain strategic industries, including the nuclear weapons sector, which could not be handed over to the incoming ‘terrorists and communists’.

“By 1985 PW Botha blundered and put SA into a junk status – like what Jacob Zuma later on did, with President Cyril Ramaphosa having kept us there.”

-brians@citizen.co.za