ZUMA MUST GO - NOW! - BEFORE DISASTER STRIKES IN SOUTH AFRICA.

National Day of Action: When mass power knocked on Zuma’s door

• Ranjeni Munusamy
• South Africa
• 13 Apr 2017  Daily Maverick

442 Reactions

The Zuma presidency has come full circle. He was carried on a wave of mass popularity to the presidency and so it seems that mass power will bring him to his knees. On Wednesday, 10 of South Africa’s opposition parties led a crowd of over 80,000 people to the South Lawn of the Union Buildings, where they demanded that Zuma’s lumbering and destructive presidency be brought to an end. Because South African politics now parodies an epic thespian production, this all happened on the president’s birthday, which was marked at an elaborate celebration hosted by Zuma’s faction in the ANC. This is a time when history and politics are being redefined. By RANJENI MUNUSAMY.


On May 10, 1994 an estimated 100,000 people gathered at the magnificent Union Buildings to see power transferred from an illegitimate and racist regime to South Africa’s first democratic government. After more than three centuries of white rule, Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s first black and democratically elected president. It was a day of unparalleled celebration for a nation rising out of the ashes into a new era with one of the world’s greatest leaders at the helm. 

Skip ahead 23 years.

Tens of thousands of people turned up at the Union Buildings, not to praise the president, but to seek to bury his disastrous and highly compromised presidency. This gathering on April 12, 2017 had a vastly different atmosphere. It was a display of a popular revolt; tens of thousands of people from across party lines marched from Church Square in the Pretoria city centre to the seat of power.

Their message was rather straightforward: South Africa’s president must step down or be removed from power.

And so another new era begins. This time the revolution is not led by the ANC, the party at the forefront of the fight against Apartheid and the governing party in the democratic era. The ANC has turned on itself and is convulsing from corruption eating at its soul, the toll of too many scandals involving its leaders, bitter factional battles, the capture of the state by a family that disrespects its political mandate, and a president who has done everything in his power to bring the organisation into disrepute.

The ANC’s decline has been years in the making but the tipping point was solely Zuma’s doing. In an act of irrationality to please those he is beholden to, Zuma reshuffled his Cabinet, dislodging a highly credible team from the National Treasury. Pravin Gordhan and Mcebisi Jonas were fired as minister and deputy minister of finance, for no logical reason, and the director-general Lungisa Fuzile has subsequently resigned. Zuma’s act of wilful sabotage of the economy – the second in 15 months – led to ratings downgrades to junk status by S&P and Fitch, plunging the country into a state of unprecedented political and economic crisis.

Zuma’s leadership has been a heavy burden for the ANC, forcing the party to defend a series of intolerable actions, including a violation of the Constitution. But he has been a boon for the opposition. The ANC lost control of three metros in last year’s local government elections to Democratic Alliance (DA)-led coalition governments.

While Zuma has torn his own party apart, his actions have pushed opposition parties into a united front against him.
The mass march to the Union Buildings was led by leaders of the DA, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), United Democratic Movement (UDM), Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Congress of the People (Cope), African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), Agang SA, African People’s Convention, African Independent Congress, and Azapo. Usually competitors, the parties brought their supporters together in an unparalleled show of strength.

UDM leader Bantu Holomisa proposed the holding a summit of political and civil society leaders “to hammer out a common vision, binding to all, of how we should address our country’s problems”.

“We can’t continue marching forever. We must find a way to converge in under one roof to discuss South Africa’s future,” Holomisa said.

The IFP’s Youth Brigade leader Mkhuleko Hlengwa said Zuma was in office to serve his own interests and that of his family. 

“Zuma is a failed liberation fighter and must go… We are here with the red card to say Mr Zuma your time has come.”

EFF leader Julius Malema, who stepped into the lead role on the day, told masses of protesters that the national day of action was not a once-off event. He vowed that there would be rolling mass action until Zuma was removed. No memorandum was delivered to the Presidency, Malema said, because the person who occupies the office does not read.

Malema mocked the president’s labelling of the protests against him as racist, saying “If wanting Zuma out is racist, then we are all racists.” He also dismissed claims by Zuma’s allies in the ANC that the ratings downgrades to junk status would only affect the rich and white people. 

“Junk status is not an issue of white people alone. It is going to affect the poorest of the poor and less paid workers… When we take power in 2019, bread will be R80 and you will blame us,” Malema said.
 
He accused ANC Members of Parliament of being cowards, saying they would not vote against Zuma openly in a motion of no confidence debate. Because of threats and intimidation of MPs, Malema called on the Constitutional Court to “protect life” by ruling in favour of a secret ballot in the UDM’s application to the court. 

Parliament announced on Wednesday that the motion of no confidence debate had been postponed from April 18 on request from DA leader Mmusi Maimane, to allow the Constitutional Court to rule on the matter.

According to the Presidency, Zuma was in his office on Wednesday morning, meeting with his ministers, but left later in the day to celebrate his birthday at an ANC bash in Kliptown, Soweto. At the start of the event, Zuma appeared fatigued and downcast but warmed up as his deification unfolded. The party could compete with the praise singing sessions of the world’s best despots, with sycophants lining up to extend their well wishes and pledge their unfailing support for him.
 
Much effort was made to project Zuma as a universally loved leader who would remain in office until his term ended. But it became glaringly obvious that the event was only attended by people in the Zuma faction of the ANC, with the notable absence of four of the party’s top six leaders, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, secretary general Gwede Mantashe, national chairperson Baleka Mbete and treasurer general Zweli Mkhize. Only deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte attended and made cutting remarks in her speech about people who had turned against the president. 

Others who attended and spoke included Cosatu president S’dumo Dlamini, Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association president Kebby Maphatsoe, ANC Youth League secretary general Njabulo Nzuza and ANC Women’s League president Bathabile Dlamini. One of Zuma’s chief defenders, Nomvula Mokonyane, was the MC. 

In his address, Zuma said he was not bothered by the onslaught he was facing. He said he did not experience stress as it was an affliction of white people. He told his supporters not to worry about the protest action against him and the campaign by opposition parties to remove him from office. He claimed opposition parties were similarly opposed to Mandela and former president Thabo Mbeki. 

Zuma ridiculed the protests and calls for him to step down, saying opposition leaders would demand his resignation even if he coughed or sneezed, or if they saw the presidential convoy. 

Playing to the gallery, Zuma said he would step down if the ANC wanted him to.

“There are a few more months left before my task as president ends. In December, a new president will be elected,” Zuma said. “In 2019, I will take off my hat of being the state president. I want to tell you that even if you said tomorrow I should step down from these positions, I would do so with a clean heart.” 

Zuma promised, however, that even if he were to step down, he would not disappear into obscurity.

No matter how disconnected from reality Zuma is, he must know by now that the ground has shifted. From the moment he recalled Gordhan from his overseas investor roadshow, the country switched into overdrive with a rapid succession of staggering developments. His Cabinet reshuffle triggered an explosion of public anger and accelerated the crisis in the ANC. More and more people are pulling away from Zuma. 

Civil society organisations and opposition political parties have discovered the power of a united voice and are now charting a new path ahead to intensify pressure on Zuma and the ANC. While the parliamentary vote against Zuma in a motion of no confidence is a long shot, the focus is again shifting to the ANC with calls for a special national executive committee meeting to discuss the crisis. But the ANC’s state of paralysis is now so rooted that bold decision-making seems rather impossible. 

As the mass protest march made its way to the Union Buildings on Wednesday, just ahead of the line-up of leaders, someone dragged the remnants of an ANC t-shirt bearing Zuma’s face along the road. People kicked it along and stomped on it. And as the rally on the lawns rounded up, a cardboard and wire coffin with Zuma’s name on it was set alight. It flamed and then disintegrated into embers as people congregated around it singing “Happy Birthday Zupta”. 

Photo by Ranjeni Munusamy.
 
As Zuma clutches on to power, he should be aware that the turning tide spells bad news for him and his clique. In the same way he rose to power, he seems destined to fall. If the treatment of his effigies is anything to go by, he could be heading for an inglorious end. DM
 
Photo: Protesters hold banners as they crowd the lawns of the Union Buildings during a mass protest by all opposition parties in the country calling for President Zuma to step down, Pretoria, South Africa, 12 April 2017. EPA/KIM LUDBROOK

ZUMA MUST GO - THIS FARCE HAS BEEN PLAYING LONG ENOUGH AND IT IS TIME IT CAME TO AN END!

National Day of Action: When mass power knocked on Zuma’s door

• Ranjeni Munusamy
• South Africa
• 13 Apr 2017  Daily Maverick
442 Reactions

The Zuma presidency has come full circle. He was carried on a wave of mass popularity to the presidency and so it seems that mass power will bring him to his knees. On Wednesday, 10 of South Africa’s opposition parties led a crowd of over 80,000 people to the South Lawn of the Union Buildings, where they demanded that Zuma’s lumbering and destructive presidency be brought to an end. Because South African politics now parodies an epic thespian production, this all happened on the president’s birthday, which was marked at an elaborate celebration hosted by Zuma’s faction in the ANC. This is a time when history and politics are being redefined. By RANJENI MUNUSAMY.

On May 10, 1994 an estimated 100,000 people gathered at the magnificent Union Buildings to see power transferred from an illegitimate and racist regime to South Africa’s first democratic government. After more than three centuries of white rule, Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s first black and democratically elected president. It was a day of unparalleled celebration for a nation rising out of the ashes into a new era with one of the world’s greatest leaders at the helm.
 
Skip ahead 23 years. 
 
Tens of thousands of people turned up at the Union Buildings, not to praise the president, but to seek to bury his disastrous and highly compromised presidency. This gathering on April 12, 2017 had a vastly different atmosphere. It was a display of a popular revolt; tens of thousands of people from across party lines marched from Church Square in the Pretoria city centre to the seat of power.
Their message was rather straightforward: South Africa’s president must step down or be removed from power.
 
And so another new era begins. This time the revolution is not led by the ANC, the party at the forefront of the fight against Apartheid and the governing party in the democratic era. The ANC has turned on itself and is convulsing from corruption eating at its soul, the toll of too many scandals involving its leaders, bitter factional battles, the capture of the state by a family that disrespects its political mandate, and a president who has done everything in his power to bring the organisation into disrepute. 
 
The ANC’s decline has been years in the making but the tipping point was solely Zuma’s doing. In an act of irrationality to please those he is beholden to, Zuma reshuffled his Cabinet, dislodging a highly credible team from the National Treasury. Pravin Gordhan and Mcebisi Jonas were fired as minister and deputy minister of finance, for no logical reason, and the director-general Lungisa Fuzile has subsequently resigned. Zuma’s act of wilful sabotage of the economy – the second in 15 months – led to ratings downgrades to junk status by S&P and Fitch, plunging the country into a state of unprecedented political and economic crisis.
 
Zuma’s leadership has been a heavy burden for the ANC, forcing the party to defend a series of intolerable actions, including a violation of the Constitution. But he has been a boon for the opposition. The ANC lost control of three metros in last year’s local government elections to Democratic Alliance (DA)-led coalition governments. 
 
While Zuma has torn his own party apart, his actions have pushed opposition parties into a united front against him. 
 
The mass march to the Union Buildings was led by leaders of the DA, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), United Democratic Movement (UDM), Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Congress of the People (Cope), African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), Agang SA, African People’s Convention, African Independent Congress, and Azapo. Usually competitors, the parties brought their supporters together in an unparalleled show of strength. 
 
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa proposed the holding a summit of political and civil society leaders “to hammer out a common vision, binding to all, of how we should address our country’s problems”.
 
“We can’t continue marching forever. We must find a way to converge in under one roof to discuss South Africa’s future,” Holomisa said. 
 
The IFP’s Youth Brigade leader Mkhuleko Hlengwa said Zuma was in office to serve his own interests and that of his family. 
 
“Zuma is a failed liberation fighter and must go… We are here with the red card to say Mr Zuma your time has come.” 
 
EFF leader Julius Malema, who stepped into the lead role on the day, told masses of protesters that the national day of action was not a once-off event. He vowed that there would be rolling mass action until Zuma was removed. No memorandum was delivered to the Presidency, Malema said, because the person who occupies the office does not read. 
 
Malema mocked the president’s labelling of the protests against him as racist, saying “If wanting Zuma out is racist, then we are all racists.” He also dismissed claims by Zuma’s allies in the ANC that the ratings downgrades to junk status would only affect the rich and white people.
 
“Junk status is not an issue of white people alone. It is going to affect the poorest of the poor and less paid workers… When we take power in 2019, bread will be R80 and you will blame us,” Malema said.
 
He accused ANC Members of Parliament of being cowards, saying they would not vote against Zuma openly in a motion of no confidence debate. Because of threats and intimidation of MPs, Malema called on the Constitutional Court to “protect life” by ruling in favour of a secret ballot in the UDM’s application to the court.
Parliament announced on Wednesday that the motion of no confidence debate had been postponed from April 18 on request from DA leader Mmusi Maimane, to allow the Constitutional Court to rule on the matter.
 
According to the Presidency, Zuma was in his office on Wednesday morning, meeting with his ministers, but left later in the day to celebrate his birthday at an ANC bash in Kliptown, Soweto. At the start of the event, Zuma appeared fatigued and downcast but warmed up as his deification unfolded. The party could compete with the praise singing sessions of the world’s best despots, with sycophants lining up to extend their well wishes and pledge their unfailing support for him.
 
Much effort was made to project Zuma as a universally loved leader who would remain in office until his term ended. But it became glaringly obvious that the event was only attended by people in the Zuma faction of the ANC, with the notable absence of four of the party’s top six leaders, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, secretary general Gwede Mantashe, national chairperson Baleka Mbete and treasurer general Zweli Mkhize. Only deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte attended and made cutting remarks in her speech about people who had turned against the president. 
 
Others who attended and spoke included Cosatu president S’dumo Dlamini, Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association president Kebby Maphatsoe, ANC Youth League secretary general Njabulo Nzuza and ANC Women’s League president Bathabile Dlamini. One of Zuma’s chief defenders, Nomvula Mokonyane, was the MC. 
 
In his address, Zuma said he was not bothered by the onslaught he was facing. He said he did not experience stress as it was an affliction of white people. He told his supporters not to worry about the protest action against him and the campaign by opposition parties to remove him from office. He claimed opposition parties were similarly opposed to Mandela and former president Thabo Mbeki.
 
Zuma ridiculed the protests and calls for him to step down, saying opposition leaders would demand his resignation even if he coughed or sneezed, or if they saw the presidential convoy. 
 
Playing to the gallery, Zuma said he would step down if the ANC wanted him to.
“There are a few more months left before my task as president ends. In December, a new president will be elected,” Zuma said. “In 2019, I will take off my hat of being the state president. I want to tell you that even if you said tomorrow I should step down from these positions, I would do so with a clean heart.” 
 
Zuma promised, however, that even if he were to step down, he would not disappear into obscurity. 
 
No matter how disconnected from reality Zuma is, he must know by now that the ground has shifted. From the moment he recalled Gordhan from his overseas investor roadshow, the country switched into overdrive with a rapid succession of staggering developments. His Cabinet reshuffle triggered an explosion of public anger and accelerated the crisis in the ANC. More and more people are pulling away from Zuma. 
 
Civil society organisations and opposition political parties have discovered the power of a united voice and are now charting a new path ahead to intensify pressure on Zuma and the ANC. While the parliamentary vote against Zuma in a motion of no confidence is a long shot, the focus is again shifting to the ANC with calls for a special national executive committee meeting to discuss the crisis. But the ANC’s state of paralysis is now so rooted that bold decision-making seems rather impossible.
 
As the mass protest march made its way to the Union Buildings on Wednesday, just ahead of the line-up of leaders, someone dragged the remnants of an ANC t-shirt bearing Zuma’s face along the road. People kicked it along and stomped on it. And as the rally on the lawns rounded up, a cardboard and wire coffin with Zuma’s name on it was set alight. It flamed and then disintegrated into embers as people congregated around it singing “Happy Birthday Zupta”. 
 

Photo by Ranjeni Munusamy.
 
As Zuma clutches on to power, he should be aware that the turning tide spells bad news for him and his clique. In the same way he rose to power, he seems destined to fall. If the treatment of his effigies is anything to go by, he could be heading for an inglorious end. DM
 
Photo: Protesters hold banners as they crowd the lawns of the Union Buildings during a mass protest by all opposition parties in the country calling for President Zuma to step down, Pretoria, South Africa, 12 April 2017. EPA/KIM LUDBROOK

SOUTH AFRICAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTION OUTCOMES - ANC THE BIG LOSER - MESSAGE TO JACOB ZUMA!

South Africa has just had one of the most extraordinary elections in the short history of democracy from 1994.

When Nelson Mandela was elected to be president after the first democratic elections in April 1994, the African National Congress (ANC) had an enormous majority, winning with about 66 percent of the popular vote. Mandela was president for 5 years and did not seek another term of 5 years - very wisely - after 27 years in prison and already being over 70 years old.

However, one of Mandela's big mistakes - an error of judgement if ever there was one - was to anoint his successor in the form of the son of one of the main freedom fighters of the ANC, Govan Mbeki, and so his son Thabo Mbeki became the second president, leading South Africa down the path of AIDS denialism and thus being responsible for one of the world's worst HIV/AIDS affected states, from which, in 2016, it is slowly recovering.

After some years misleading South Africa, Mbeki was forced out of office and a temporary president appointed until a successor could be found to replace him. That successor was/is Jacob Zuma and the path to corruption has been steady and ongoing for at least the last 10 years. If it wasn't for the fact that South Africa has always been rich in diamonds, gold, steel, uranium, platinum and many other minerals which are in constant demand, South Africa would be in an even more parlous state than it is at the moment.

2016 saw national elections for local government areas across the country and the outcome has been a humiliating blow to the ANC, however the analysts try to disguise the results.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) and the EFF - the Economic Freedom Fighters - have reduced the overall vote throughout the country to its worst result so far - about 53 percent. The DA, which already held Cape Town, has now won control of Nelson Mandela Bay, which consists of an amalgamation of Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage and a few other areas. The DA may also have won Johannesburg and Tshwana, which is an amalgamation of Pretoria and surrounding districts. The DA may have to form a coalition with one or more of the minor parties, but the ANC headquarters are in Johannesburg and it is a devastating blow to their control and prestige.

There is - and has been for some time - a cry for Zuma to go - he owes millions of Rand by court order on illegal alterations to his palace in the country - Nkandla - but so far he is not budging.

One name put forward to replace him is that of Cyril Ramaphosa, previously head of COSATU, the main trade union controlling body in South Africa, But Ramaphosa has become a millionaire business man and mining magnate since leaving COSATU and he was, with Zuma, responsible for the massacre at Marikana, not that long ago.

There are other candidates for the position of president and Zuma and Ramaphosa are not two of them.

Just as in Australia after the recent federal elections on 2 July 2016, South Africa, since the 3 August 2016 Local Government Elections, is in for some interesting times.







Cyril Ramaphosa COSATU

SOUTH AFRICAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION HAS REVERTED TO APARTHEID STYLE DICTATORSHIP WITH ITS CURRENT BOSS

 This article comes from the Daily Maverick and details how dictatorship is born and creeps up on a population without them being aware of what is going on. This needs to be nipped in the bud, but the other dictator in South Africa, its president, needs also to be removed now before it is too late. South Africa's governance has reached crisis levels and the people of South Africa who have suffered the consequences of Mbeki and AIDS during his presidency have gone even further backwards since the advent of Zuma.

Enough is enough!

His Master’s Voice: Why Hlaudi Motsoeneng is democratic SA’s biggest threat

• Ranjeni Munusamy
• South Africa
• 01 Jul 2016 

Until this week, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, the holder of all power at the public broadcaster, was being written off as a megalomaniac on his own frolic at the SABC. But the ANC has now shown its hand, coming out in defence of Motsoeneng’s total onslaught. Motsoeneng is moulding his own brand of political indoctrination out of the worst models of propaganda in history and taking media freedom hostage as he does so. This is no longer a laughing matter and society should not be looking away any more. By RANJENI MUNUSAMY.

At the Topography of Terror monument in Berlin, Germany, a sign at the entrance to the museum reads: “Berlin 1933-1945 Between Propaganda and Terror”. The sign is a reminder of the central role the propaganda machinery played in Nazi Germany’s era of persecution and terror. Adolf Hitler’s chief attack dog was Joseph Goebbels, who directed the propaganda machinery to acquire total power and control the minds of an entire nation. The reign of terror would not have been possible without effective indoctrination and complete control of every aspect of communications in Germany through the Second World War.

The problems at the SABC started long before the matric-less Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s rise to power. The SABC was a key instrument of apartheid South Africa’s machinery and with its size and reach, through 19 radio stations and now four television stations, the “public” broadcaster has continued to serve as a powerful political tool. During the democratic era, the SABC has been on a constant ebb and flow with financial crises and senior management coming and going. There have been phases in the past where censorship and editorial bias were prevalent, but they pale in comparison to the Era of Hlaudi, with a wholesale takeover of editorial policy and programming.

When it comes to survival tactics, it is only President Jacob Zuma who can rival Motsoeneng. Both are able to shake off scandals, adverse court rulings and damning Public Protector reports, and are somehow strengthened by them. Perhaps their common invincibility is the secret to their alliance. 

Motsoeneng was fired from the SABC in 2007 when he was a current affairs producer at Lesedi FM. He fought his way back into the public broadcaster despite a long drawn-out labour dispute that brought to light the fact that he misled the SABC about his qualifications.

 Motsoeneng was appointed as the general manager responsible for board and stakeholder relations in the group chief executive officer’s office in February 2011, a position that opened his path to the top job. In December 2011, he was seconded to act as chief operating officer and has been an unstoppable force since then.

In February 2014, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela released a report, “When Governance and Ethics Fail”, which found that Motsoeneng was “unethical” and “dishonest” about claiming to have a matric certificate. She also found that his conduct was irregular and he was guilty of maladministration for improperly escalating people’s salaries. The remedial action prescribed by Madonsela was that the SABC board should take disciplinary action against Motsoeneng.

The Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that Madonsela’s report could not be ignored or second-guessed. The Constitutional Court judgment in the Nkandla matter removed all doubt about the standing of Public Protector reports, and even the president now has to comply with the remedial action prescribed in his case. While Zuma has agreed to pay back the money, Motsoeneng continues to dodge the rulings against him. He wriggled out of censure though a farcical SABC disciplinary hearing and was permanently appointed into the position of COO.

He has unchecked power, including over programming and news. Motsoeneng has gone from silly antics, such as ordering television news coverage of his colourful life, including a group of religious leaders praying over him and receiving a “bride” as a gift, to censoring news and suspending journalists. He has banned coverage of violent protest action and negative news about Zuma because he “deserves a certain degree of respect as president of the country”. The SABC has canned shows featuring the views of editors and analysts, and journalists at the broadcaster have become progressively constrained about what they can say and who they can interview.

Motsoeneng’s penchant for ludicrous statements and perspectives on journalism have escalated to bizarre levels in recent weeks. He told City Press recently that SABC employees were expected to “sing the song and talk the talk of the SABC”.

“If the SABC releases a statement, our employees can’t say ‘the SABC said this’; they must say ‘we are saying this or have decided on that’. They can’t report like other broadcasters when they are part of any SABC decision,” Motsoeneng told the paper. “I have been thinking maybe our employees should have uniforms so that they can understand unity,” he professed.

Speaking at a media briefing this week following the sudden resignation of acting group chief executive officer Jimi Matthews, Motsoeneng denied that his actions constituted censorship:
“I don’t even know what censorship is. What is this censorship thing? It is English so I don’t know it. There is no censorship here,” he said.

The SABC has now suspended six journalists who have expressed their concerns about the strict editorial stance of the broadcaster. At a staff meeting on Tuesday, Motsoeneng told SABC employees to comply with his rules or to leave the broadcaster. The Star reported that Motsoeneng said at the meeting:

“If you are at the SABC, there is leadership, and if the leadership says you must turn right, you must turn right. If you turn left, you must get off the bus.”

The paper quoted an employee as saying:

“He said he was going to charge people and discipline them. His tone was very harsh. He also said the three suspended journalists may survive the axe but those standing in solidarity with them may lose their jobs.”

Director of Media Monitoring Africa William Bird says many SABC staffers are worried about being victimised and the atmosphere of fear at the broadcaster is growing. He said editorial interference was increasing with journalists being told, for example, that that they were not allowed to broadcast any analysis of the spy tapes judgment against Zuma.

The skewed editorial positioning is particularly concerning during an election period as it is unashamedly intended to project the president and the ANC favourably. Until this week, the ANC could not be directly linked to Motsoeneng’s onslaught on the airwaves. It appeared that he and Communications Minister Faith Muthambi were on their own misguided mission to keep the favour of the president. But in reaction to Matthews’ resignation, ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa said this week that the move was “opportunistic”. Kodwa was quoted by the SABC as saying that Matthews had allowed himself to be “used by those who… want to undermine the integrity of the public broadcaster”.

Matthews said in his resignation letter that there was a “corrosive atmosphere” at the SABC that had impacted negatively on his moral judgement and made him complicit in decisions he “was not proud of”.

“What is happening at the broadcaster is wrong and I can no longer be part of it,” he said. “I also wish to apologise to the many people who I’ve let down by remaining silent when my voice needed to be heard.”

Instead of being discerning about what Matthews and others have been saying about the chaos at the SABC, the ANC has opted to defend Motsoeneng’s reign of terror:

“I think clearly the intention is to add to the narrative that SABC is in disarray… he has allowed himself to be a tool to be used to attack the entire integrity of the SABC,” Kodwa said of Matthews.

Bird says the regression and assault on media freedom at the SABC has the sanction of Muthambi and the ANC. “It is astounding that the ANC has gone against its 100-year history of promoting media freedom,” Bird said.

A report by Media Monitoring Africa on media coverage of the 2016 local government elections shows that the ANC already enjoys the bulk of the voice, much higher than it did during the 2014 election campaign. The ANC now has 57% of the total media coverage compared to 38% in 2014. In comparison, the Democratic Alliance’s coverage dropped from 25% in 2014 to 16% now. The Economic Freedom Fighters’ coverage dropped from 13% to 11%. Bird said these percentages were largely affected by the SABC’s coverage patterns.

South African society has so far been largely tolerant of Motsoeneng’s antics and propaganda mission. In the context of a cycle of scandal and abuse of state institutions, the decay of the SABC is not out of the ordinary.

But through the power and resources of the public broadcaster, Motsoeneng has been allowed to infiltrate the homes and minds of millions of people around the country. He is able to do much more damage to a free and democratic society than any other state institution can by controlling access to information and people’s perspectives. Motsoeneng’s evasion of court rulings and legal procedures adds to the culture of impunity in our country. His assault on media freedom is an assault on the Constitution and the fundamentals of our democracy.

On Friday morning, the South African media fraternity begins a campaign to stand up to South Africa’s answer to Joseph Goebbels. Media freedom pickets will be held at the SABC headquarters in Auckland Park, Johannesburg and the broadcaster’s offices in Sea Point, Cape Town. The pickets are acts of solidarity with journalists forced to comply with Motsoeneng’s ridiculous editorial policies and those who have been suspended for speaking out against them. These pickets will hopefully awaken society to the clear and present danger of accepting indoctrination in an era when democratic institutions are under siege and those in power seek to hide their scandals and leadership failures.

Motsoeneng is as conceited as he is dangerous. Left unchecked, it is not just the SABC that he will destroy. It should not be forgotten that Goebbels succeeded Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, if only for a day.

Motsoeneng’s ambitions and political backers have brought him this far. Left unchecked, the SABC is unlikely to be the end of the road for the invincible Mr Motsoeneng. After successfully penetrating our living rooms, our workspaces and our minds, the sky is the limit in terms of what Motsoeneng will do next. The onus is upon us, South Africans, to decide if we will let him. DM

Photo: Hlaudi Motsoeneng with his spirit guide, Joseph Goebbels.

From CounterPunch - 4 March 2016

Austerity Gathers Pace in Schizophrenic South Africa

by Patrick Bond

 

A wedge is being quickly driven through Pretoria’s political elite, splitting even those who operated tightly together in the murky 1980s Durban spy scene during the fight against apartheid. Amongst the victims are vast numbers of poor people beginning to bear the brunt of the diverse shakeouts now underway, in a confrontation between the country’s two most powerful 21^st century politicians: President Jacob Zuma and his predecessor Thabo Mbeki. That battle began more than a decade ago, when Mbeki fired Zuma as Deputy President in 2005 after a corruption conviction against a long-time Zuma associate.

The revival of the duel comes at a very tense time here, what with student, worker and community protests having intensified last month after the December-January summer break. Repeated currency crashes have left a 30% decline in value over the past year, so the country’s financiers and upper-middle class commentariat are nearly universally applauding Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan for maintaining low-grade austerity. The economic threat to this faction is a ‘junk’ label by international credit rating agencies, one which appears imminent and will lead to faster capital flight.

But Gordhan was himself under growing political threat, becoming visibly furious with Zuma’s top police and tax authorities last week, as his parliamentary Budget Speech preparations were interrupted by allegations he once set up a ‘rogue unit’ to spy on Zuma, during the time Gordhan ran the tax agency. The ruling party appears split down the middle with durable loyalty to Zuma, on the one hand, balanced against fear that Gordhan’s misfortunes will reverberate chaotically across the sickly economy on the other.

To make matters even muddier, Zuma – formerly head of the African National Congress (ANC) spy unit during the liberation struggle when Gordhan was amongst his most loyal cohort working from Durban – was defended in court this week against allegations against his allied spies within state security. In April 2009, just before being elected president, as Zuma was preparing to be charged for 783 counts of corruption, his spooks foiled the prosecution by releasing transcripts of tapped phone calls between Mbeki’s main crime investigator, Leonard McCarthy, and Bulelani Ngcuka, who was a former prosecutor and the husband of Mbeki’s then Deputy President.

Though it is unclear how much Mbeki knew and endorsed, the two apparently arranged the timing of earlier attacks on Zuma to coincide with Mbeki’s ambition to serve a third term as ANC leader in late 2007. Mbeki’s failure to win support for that bid (as Zuma replaced him in a decisive election) led, by September 2008, to Mbeki’s sacking as state president nine months before his term was due to end. The firing was done in a fit of collective rage by the ANC National Executive just after a Durban judge affirmed that Zuma was being victimised in a political conspiracy.

The main conspirator, McCarthy, was – without any apparent due diligence investigation at the time – quickly moved from Pretoria to Washington in 2008, to become World Bank Vice President: Integrity (sic), with the assistance of Mbeki ally, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. As McCarthy put it, he needed a makeover to appear ‘squeaky clean.’ He wasn’t, a fact that we are continually reminded of, while the World Bank continues to employ McCarthy on sensitive investigations.

Meanwhile back in South Africa, corruption was spreading like wildfire, and in one futile effort to douse an obvious source, illegal cigarette smuggling, local tax authorities ran foul of Zuma’s spies as well as his son Edward in 2011. Those investigations, in turn, apparently generated the recent attack on Gordhan, who before becoming finance minister initially in 2009, was the chief tax commissioner.

The unprecedented contagion of what Zuma last week called ‘gossip and rumour’ around his inner circle threatens the internal stability of the Pretoria regime. The loyalty of many key individuals is being tested. Indeed the ANC’s schizophrenia was amplified two weeks prior to Gordhan’s Budget Speech when, just before his State of the Nation Address on February 11, Zuma himself finally agreed to repay some of the $16 million in state subsidies that were spent on upgrading his rural palace, Nkandla. This about-turn occurred after Zuma compelled ANC parliamentarians to support him when he had refused to ‘pay back the money!’, as opposition politicians long demanded.

While society tried to steady its political feet on this SA Titanic, the economic ship also continued to list dangerously, what with world financial markets roiling the currency and ever-worsening GDP statistics fueling capital flight. In spite of bending over backwards to meet financial markets’ demands for a lower budget deficit (he promised it will be just 2.4% of GDP by 2018, down from 3.8%), Gordhan was pummeled by an immediate 3.2% currency collapse in the minutes after he spoke to parliament.

Yet he had done what the financiers demanded: increased the austerity begun a year earlier by the prior finance minister Nhlanhla Nene, who was fired in a farcical musical chairs operation in December that led to Gordhan’s return. Though Gordhan was once a leftist, his new budget provides just a 3.5% nominal increase to foster care providers (who play such a vital role given the catastrophic AIDS orphan rate) and a 6.1% rise for mothers who are Child Support Grant recipients.

These poor families face double-digit inflation this year thanks to food, electricity and transport hikes. So Gordhan’s ‘real’ – after-inflation – cuts to welfare grants of several percent lower the incomes of 16.5 million recipients (out of the country’s 55 million population). They will struggle to find more holes in their frayed belts to tighten them up, given that 63% of South Africans – mostly women – already live below the poverty line.

Worse is to come, what with South Africa’s foreign debt having doubled to $145 billion since 2009, with debt/GDP levels at mid-1980s levels. As a result of that worsening vulnerability, the men who really yank Gordhan’s chain work for Standard&Poors, Fitch and Moodys credit rating agencies, and financiers such as New York-based Goldman Sachs. The latter bank helped raid the South African currency on January 11, sending it down 9% to R17.99/$ in just 13 minutes of flash-crash speculation, shortly after telling its traders that globally, the rand’s decline is the bank’s second most aggressive bet for 2016 (after the dollar’s rise).

The dire financial situation is far more complicated than mere ill-will, for it is useful to recall that back in 2009, when IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn advocated deficit spending to save world capitalism from implosion, Moody’s actually upgraded Gordhan after his soaring 7.3% deficit/GDP rise that year. The agency actually raised South Africa’s credit rating from BBB+ to A-. (With similar wild abandon, Moody’s also rated Lehman Brothers as ‘investment grade’ just days before it crashed.)

Whimsical though they are, these agencies have at least put pressure on Gordhan to throw cold water on Zuma’s $100 billion nuclear energy dreams, notwithstanding intense pressure to buy reactors from Moscow and Beijing. And to Gordhan’s credit, he dodged that round of Russian Roulette by kicking the bullet over to Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson, to do “preparatory work for investment in nuclear power.”

More objectionably, Gordhan’s budget included a substantial $40 million increase in funds for the notorious Public Order Policing (POP) unit – the unpunished Marikana Massacre hit-men who joked about defective muti while planting weapons on their victims – instead of defunding the POP and replacing it with skilled peace-broking units. But on the other hand, Gordhan slashed $500 million in overall spending on defence, public order and safety services from the 2018 spending projections made by his predecessor.

But it was when Gordhan bragged of the state’s most active spending that leaders of my residential community grew furious. After living on Durban’s seaside Bluff neighbourhood for many years, the highlight of Budget Day for me was reviewing the carnage with the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance in a long strategy session two hours after Gordhan finished speaking. In the basement of a shabby community hall that Gordhan himself once frequented when he was a Durban activist, as rusty fans blew back the city’s

 humid air at us, two dozen hardened activists of all races, classes, genders and ages mulled over his generosity towards the parastatal corporation Transnet and other behemoths within the local port-petrochemical complex – the activists’ sworn enemies.

Gordhan would not be the first politician accused of pandering to the construction mafia by turning a blind eye to repeated collusion and overpricing here in Durban. The current outrage is Transnet’s racist rerouting of the oft-exploding pipeline that doubles petrol-pumping capacity to Johannesburg from the Engen and Shell/BP plants at Africa’s largest refining complex, sandwiching the Indian suburb of Merebank, whose Settlers Primary School has an asthma rate that was not long ago measured at 52%, the world’s highest. Last month’s cost estimate revision on what Transnet originally priced at around $400 million, is now nearly $2 billion.

Gordhan announced another $19 billion in state spending on “inter-modal transport and logistics networks [to] improve South Africa’s competitiveness,” but vast shares of those spoils are going to
Zuma’s White Elephant breeding project: useless fossil-centric infrastructure.

Here in South Durban, we worry that the Baltic Dry Index – which measures shipping capacity – is now at its lowest in history (around 300 after a 2008 peak of 12 000). And with demand having crashed, fossil fuel prices have also hit the floor, casting a dark spell over Gordhan’s brag that “work has begun on a new gas terminal and oil and ship repair facilities at Durban.”

Ironically perhaps, this sentence came just three lines after Gordhan praised the Paris UN Summit’s (highly dubious) commitment to fighting climate change. He continued, “We need to accelerate infrastructure investment in the period ahead. So we must broaden the range and scope of our co-funding partnerships with private sector investors.”

Worst of all, in terms of violating both climate and economic commonsense, Gordhan bragged about Transnet’s financing of the top priority Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission project: the rail-to-ship transfer of 18 billion tonnes of coal in coming decades, dragged over mountains new heavy-duty railroads. That Waterburg-Richards Bay rail line – also costing upwards of $20 billion – may have looked profitable in 2008 with coal at $170/tonne, but now the price is $50/tonne. Yet the project trundles on, fertilising the northern areas of the country – including an area not far from Nkandla – with white elephant manure.

Further south in Durban, Toyota boss Johan van Zyl (whose plant – Africa’s largest – is adjacent to the old airport site) complained of frustrating delays in getting $7 billion Dig Out Port up and running back in 2012: “If return on investment is the line of thinking we may never see the infrastructure.” Similarly, amidst rumours of a two-year Dig Out Port delay last December, Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Zeph Ndlovu insisted on adding this biggest single elephant to the herd: “We have to press ahead, and if we are to unseat our competitors up north, we can’t win this battle if we pull back every now and then and look at accounting principles.”

Whether Gordhan goes ahead with reducing the state payroll by tens of thousands of public servants as he promised the ratings agencies, or continues his nudge-nudge-wink-wink towards corporations’ $20 billion in annual Illicit Financial Flows, it’s in his coddling of accounting-challenged Durban cronies and the crack-down on welfare grant recipients that Gordhan has most decisively intervened in South Africa’s world-leading class struggle.

And this tearing of the social fabric by one faction of the ruling party, backed by the country’s core bourgeois interests and petit-bourgeois cheerleaders, makes the overall split between Gordhan’s technocrats and Zuma’s populists all the less appealing. Some might be tempted to hope that both factions succeed – in ripping each other’s power bases to shreds.

Patrick Bond has a joint appointment in political economy at the Wits University School of Governance in Johannesburg, alongside directing the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society in Durban. His latest book is BRICS: An Anti-Capitalist Critique (co-edited with Ana Garcia), published by Pluto (London), Haymarket (Chicago), Jacana (Joburg) and Aakar (Delhi).

ZUMA AND ESKOM KEEP SOUTH AFRICA IN THE DARK

 

 

 

Zapiro in the Mail and Guardian from 14 December 2014 makes a very good introduction to the following article:

 

This article is from Counterpunch Weekend Edition 6-8 February 2015

 

For South Africa’s electricity supply, a muddle through, a meltdown or a miracle?

South Africa in the Dark

by PATRICK BOND

 

South Africa is losing its power, literally: it’s a process called “load shedding” that will last for the foreseeable future. The state energy utility Eskom is careening out of control, begging for an emergency $4.5 billion bailout within the $120 billion national budget later this month
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The coming fork in the road provides three distinct directions. The poorly-lit one straight ahead suffers from potholes that force stop-start-reverse maneuvers
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Second, the most scary route away from this fork lacks streetlights and appears to be illuminated only by a brief, fiery meltdown – utter grid failure – at the end of the road. Then, no Eskom or municipal electricity supplies will be available for weeks, they say.

In a third direction, looking leftwards, a light flickers at the end of a dangerous tunnel, but to get there safely means slowing the vehicle to a manageable pace and tossing the greediest 1% of passengers out, thus allowing everyone else to at least enjoy basic-needs electricity.

When originally built, this vehicle had the capacity to run quickly – with 43 000 MegaWatts of installed peak power – but in coming months and probably years, only 70% is available for use because of delayed maintenance. As a result, travel on the status quo road will become ever more chaotic as competition rises for declining electricity supplies.

Making excuses for muddling through

Eskom chief executive officer Tshediso Matona attributes “the unreliability of our equipment” to his predecessors, who delayed maintenance due to populist electioneering by the ruling party and, as well, “the World Cup played a big role” because the lights had to stay on in mid-2010.

Within corporate South Africa, the 31-member Energy Intensive Users’ Group (EIUG) comprises most of the mining houses and smelters customers; the EIUG consumes 44% of the country’s electricity. It’s at the core of what academics term the ‘Minerals Energy Complex’; its leaders were the main authors of the state energy policy in 2010.

The ‘muddling through’ scenario entails Eskom bumbling along, as it has the past quarter century since major decisions were taken about what was then its overcapacity crisis. Instead of mothballing its climate-wrecking coal-fired power plants, Eskom attracted new smelters constructed by BHP Billiton and the Anglo American Corporation by offering massive rates discount, which still today mean huge firms get power at 1/8^th what ordinary consumers pay.

Sometimes the mines and smelters agree to lower their demand. But the EIUG retains sufficient power that its former director Mike Roussow is now a top Eskom advisor.

When, for example, last November 2 Eskom’s Majuba coal silo crashed, “National Load Shedding [a term for brown-out] was implemented affecting municipal customers and Eskom residential customers” and not the mega-guzzlers, according to the EIUG. Much later, there was “curtailment from Key Industrial Customers on 12 November to assist Eskom in meeting demand requirements over the peak.”

They are able to maintain this power because of prevailing power relations in the society. Ironically, the most angry passengers in the back of Eskom’s chaotic fleet include furious trade unionists and township residents who are ANC members but who have been paying extreme price increases annually – more than 150% cumulatively since 2007 – while experiencing degenerating service.

One green passenger, Earthlife’s Dominique Doyle, blamed Eskom for emitting more CO2 than anyone else in Africa and hence contributing to more atmospheric moisture which causes more rain. That in turn made Eskom’s coal dust a useless soup last March, thus causing further emergency load-shedding. It’s a refreshingly valid argument in scientific terms, and unusual, in a society near the bottom of world rankings in climate awareness.

‘Meltdown’ emanating from excessive mining and smelting
As a result of such ingrained EIUG stubbornness, the doomsday scenario is not impossible: an out-of-control rolling black-out that prevents Eskom from turning its dozen main powerplants back on without the infamous ‘black start’ routine.
Last June, the firm’s spokesperson Andrew Etzinger assured that that scenario would result in only a fortnight-long crisis, but not to worry, a good supply of diesel makes the black-start restart feasible at most power plants.

Providing relief from Etzinger’s persistent unfounded optimism, Eskom sustainability manager Steve Lennon confessed in August, “We would have to rely on our own black-start plant to start the system from scratch. We are not ready for that at all.”

There is a terrifying fictional precedent in which an entire advanced economy and society is hit by an indefinite ‘lights off!’ The US television series ‘Revolution’ is based on the premise that nanotechnology nerds can be influenced by asinine politicians. In the series plot, nanobots are let loose on the world, sucking up electricity sufficient to cause a 15-year blackout and social mayhem.

If a full grid collapse occurs, mutual aid systems that have existed in so many South African migrant-labour export sites – such as ‘stokvel’ collective savings – will be vital. More likely in less civilised places (such as Johanesburg’s wealthy suburbs), there will be a rush for household petrol generators and a new wave of wall-building around those elite establishments which can muster off-grid power, as the rest of society’s food runs out and municipal water pumps are turned off.

A miracle scenario?

If that is too horrible to contemplate, then we must hope that the ‘miracle’ scenario overcomes elites’ paralysis with grassroots consumer and community movements, a revitalised commitment by organised labour to broader public interests, and society’s renewed respect for environmentalists.

For instance, community activists conduct ‘service delivery protests’ – thousands last year, of which nearly 2000 became ‘violent’ according to police definitions – and on a day-to-day basis, reconnect power illegally.

For instance, the founder of the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC), Trevor Ngwane, was fired by the ANC as a Johannesburg city councilor and as the party’s Soweto leader in 1999 and within six months the SECC had emerged as an inspiration for similar power struggles across the world.

Another miracle solution – the ‘Just Transition’ away from carbon-addicted economics – is provided by Alternative Information and Development Centre which sponsors the Million Climate Jobs campaign.

That campaign is illustrative of the light at the end of the tunnel, for it poses creative options that would allow metalworkers to turn their welding skills to making turbines for wind and tidal energy, auto-makers to produce new forms of public transport, and hole-digging mineworkers to return home to townships with the skills required to create underground biogas digesters for sanitation that also supply cooking methane.

A miracle scenario is actually one that Numsa itself occasionally dreams. Its renewable energy team has made inspiring statements over the past five years, led by the union’s education officer, Dinga Sikwebu, who is now a strong advocate for a broad United Front.

Illustrating some early connections in a precursor to the Front, Numsa took the lead in building a momentarily successful anti-Eskom alliance once before: over prices. Numsa had demanded that the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) lower Eskom’s tariff hike that year from the firm’s proposed 16%. Although Nersa angrily blamed Numsa for a January 2013 labour-community protest that disrupted its first hearing, in Port Elizabeth, eventually the regulator agreed that Eskom should only get an 8% increase.

The problem, though, was that Nersa – a ‘captive regulator’ whose first leader, Xolani Mkhwanazi went on to become BHP Billiton’s local boss, and who now defends the R11.5 billion Eskom subsidy he had repeatedly approved during the 1990s – did not delve into the rest of the energy crisis. So as Nersa napped, Eskom continued to mostly ignore renewable energy, and Transnet doubled the size of its Durban-Johannesburg oil pipeline without critical scrutiny.

Menu for a miracle

As Nersa regulation continues to fail society, ironically, the miracle option begins to look more plausible – even if highly unlikely – once one considers underlying political trends.

One factor is the extent of durable anger against the state over electricity, specifically what is sometimes described as ‘poor and expensive electricity supplies’, signifying problems with both access and costs.

The community protests are ubiquitous, sometimes victorious, but also full of dangers, including a localistic perspective without ideology. That problem dates back more than 15 years, to when waves of post-apartheid unrest swept urban and even small-town South Africa, even when Nelson Mandela ruled.

Over just the past six months, South Africa’s national media covered intense electricity protests in the core site of struggle, Soweto (against pre-payment meters) and in the townships of Thembelihle near Lenasia and Lawley near Ennerdale in southern Johannesburg, Kwanonqaba near Mossel Bay, Grabouw in the Western Cape, Mhlotsheni and Qhanqo villages in the Eastern Cape, Mankweng and Thoka near Pholokwane, and oThongathi north of Durban.

But a lack of linkages to one another and to similar water, housing, healthcare and education protests reflect how much a common democratic organisational home is desperately needed.

The fiery community protests have had their dark side: scores of electrocutions when activists reconnect wires without caution, kids not being able to attend school during demonstrations, and periodic outbursts of xenophobia.

Numsa’s deputy general secretary Carl Kloete offered one of the most optimistic scenarios of how, in the wake of Eskom’s repeated failures, a different electricity institution might emerge from the mess: “When we talk about social ownership of energy systems we are referring to the fact that ownership of energy resources must be taken out of private hands and be put in the hands of the public… When we talk about social ownership of energy systems we are referring to energy systems that respect our environmental rights, our rights for survival and those of future generations.”

Late last year, Numsa helped coalesce the United Front of community, social movement and environmental leaders. Last week, the Front’s interim National Working Committee made encouraging statements along these lines, too.

These values should be the basis for a coalition bringing together affordable energy activists in communities (as well as feminists possessing class consciousness), providing that such a transition would allow more Free Basic Electricity than at present, cross-subsidised by charging more to wealthier over-consumers. Earthlife Africa advocates a raise to 200 kWh/household/month is reasonable.

We all want miracles to happen. One example is the defeat of apartheid in spite of its decades-long attractiveness to multinational corporations and the West’s ‘democracies’ (recall how Washington officially labeled Nelson Mandela a ‘terrorist’ from 1961-2008!). Another South African miracle is the turnaround in life expectancy from 65 in 1994 to 52 in 2005 to 61 today, mainly as a result of 2.7 million people getting AntiRetroViral drugs from the public sector, which happened purely because of treatment activists. Access to medicines cut AIDS deaths from 364 000 in 2005 to 172 000 last year.

It is here that the United Front might explicitly claim to have within it all the most vital ingredients to provide the political will that generated those other two miracles, namely: the expertise and militancy of Eskom and Billiton workers, the anger of service delivery protesters, the desire of those poor masses lacking affordable electricity, the critical sensibility of environmentalists – all embracing the bravery and vigour of a young new organisation committed to fighting the state and capital from the left.

The sense South Africans have of paralysis above and movement below leaves these sorts of energy scenario planning exercises – ‘muddle through’, ‘meltdown’ and ‘miracle’ – in a rather fluid state.

But at a time the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report labels South Africa the world’s most intense class struggle site, the vitality of the coming debate on how Eskom should produce, transmit and distribute its power will surely mean we look hard at the extremes as well as the status quo.

If change entails rejecting the capture of South Africa’s electricity by multinational corporations as well as the scamming behind ANC crony capitalism, it also must entail advocacy of an alternative strategy. And that means, as the electricity is cut erratically each week into the foreseeable future, and as more South Africans become ever more gatvol, we can hope – and work – for a miracle.

Patrick Bond directs the UKZN Centre for Civil Society and authored the book Politics of Climate Justice. He is a Numsa Institute advisory board member.