Cleaning Up SA's Political Mess

As long as the poor people living in the rural parts of the country are dependent on social grants for their survival, they will continue to support the ruling party.

- Mariam Isa

The key to wresting control of the economy away from President Jacob Zuma and averting a spiral of crippling credit rating downgrades lies in winning over rural voters who are the main support base of the ANC, a panel of high-profile analysts concluded last week.

But that would be difficult as this group of people – who are generally poor and unemployed – relies for their survival on social grants dished out by the government every year, the four participants warned at an event hosted by the Gordon Institute of Business Science on 19 April.

Channelling private investment into impoverished rural areas was the only way in which alliances could be built with the country’s poor majority, loosening the ANC’s grip on power, alleviating unemployment, and ensuring business sustainability, they said.

“What is missing in our society today is – how do we wrest this massive underclass from the control of voting for the ANC? You can’t do that without the capitalists investing and creating employment for this group,” said political economist Moeletsi Mbeki.

“They are so incredibly locked into state dependency. You need investment, you need private sector investment to break that dependency and that is where the business community comes in.”

Mbeki maintained that the biggest hurdle that South Africa faces now was lack of investment, which according to figures from the Reserve Bank contracted sharply last year.