South Africa’s smaller parties just want to get on the ANC gravy train – Moeletsi Mbeki

Renowned political economist Moeletsi Mbeki said not one of South Africa’s current political parties will move the country away from its current downward spiral.

He told the State of the Nation podcast that South Africa finds itself in a sad state of affairs regarding political parties.

Mbeki said that none of the small parties want to break from what is currently happening. “They want to join the gravy train,” he said.

“Not one of them said they want to restructure the economy. They want in on the gravy train and ask people to vote for them to achieve it.”

“The smaller parties like Rise Mzansi want to be like the ANC and join the elite to have a wonderful life.”

However, he said there is the potential that a new political party will be formed to address South Africa’s challenges.

Commenting on the government of national unity, Mbeki said people should realise that the ANC was hugely humiliated following the latest election results.

For the first time, the ANC’s support dropped below 50%, which means it had to rely on the DA to get Cyril Ramaphosa elected as South Africa’s president.

“The voters have rejected the ANC. They now had to depend on the DA to put them in power. So, they are very resentful of the DA,” he said.

“They are dependent on the DA. They could not pass a budget without the support of the DA.  They even had to get rid of a minister because of the DA’s demands.”

Mbeki likened it to the five stages of grief, which include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

“The DA has to manage the ANC going through the five stages of grief because of losing power instead of getting worked up about it,” he said.

‘ANC in drag’

Mbeki offered a sharp critique of the coalition in an interview with BusinessTech, describing it as “the ANC in drag”.

This is because he says it has not departed from policies that have long benefited the African middle class to the exclusion of the broader population.

Mbeki said the ANC has prioritised the African middle class through policies such as Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), preferential procurement, a bloated public sector, and employment equity.

This focus, he said, elevated the living standards of public service employees but alienated the urban African working class and rural poor, whose economic needs went unaddressed and their quality of life eroded.

As a result, he said, the structural issues behind South Africa’s economic stagnation and high unemployment rate remain unresolved.

Central to Mbeki’s critique is his view that BEE, rather than driving broad-based transformation, has primarily enriched a narrow political elite while discouraging innovation and entrepreneurship.

“The expectation of the country was that the DA was going to use this leverage to change the policies that the population was unhappy about,” Mbeki said. That hope has not materialised.

After two weeks of talks, the DA, with 22% of the vote, ultimately supported the ANC’s leadership choices, keeping Cyril Ramaphosa as President, Paul Mashatile as Deputy, and Thoko Didiza as Speaker.

He stated that no significant policy changes were required in return. The ANC’s only concession was granting a few cabinet posts to the DA and smaller parties, while growing an already large cabinet.

“The DA has not brought about any real change in the policies of the ANC,” Mbeki said. “So that’s why I said the government of national unity is just the ANC in drag.”

ANC, MK Party, and EFF alliance unlikely

Mbeki dismissed the widely held concept that the ANC can bring the EFF and MK Party together to form the ‘old ANC’.

As EFF leader Julius Malema and MK Party leader Jacob Zuma are former ANC leaders, many people believe it would be possible to unite the three parties.

There is speculation that Deputy President Paul Mashatile, the frontrunner to become the next ANC President, will unite EFF and MKP and remove the DA in the GNU.

Before the 2024 general elections, the DA has also promoted the concept of a Doomsday coalition between the ANC and EFF.

“The day that an ANC-EFF government takes over, it will be Doomsday for South Africa. It will make the collapse of Zimbabwe look like a dress-rehearsal,” said DA leader John Steenhuisen.

However, Mbeki said it was a misconception that the EFF and MK Party are closely aligned with the ANC and would make for an easy alliance.

“The ANC kicked the EFF and MK out of their party. They are far more antagonistic towards the ANC than the DA,” he said.

“For the ANC to partner with the EFF and MK is likely putting a snake under your blanket when you are cold. It will bite you.”

He argued that the EFF and MK Party would destroy the ANC if it brought them into an alliance because they are aggrieved about how the ANC treated them.