The good, the bad and the ugly: Scenarios for South Africa’s uncertain future by Ray Hartley, Greg Mills and Mills Soko (Pan Macmillan, 2023)
The good, the bad and the ugly: Scenarios for South Africa’s uncertain future
Authors: Ray Hartley, Greg Mills and Mills Soko
Publisher: Pan Macmillan South Africa (2023)
ISBN: 9781770108820
The good, the bad and the ugly is a stimulating, accessible and timely contribution as South Africa’s 2024 election looms. Respected former public protector Thuli Madonsela describes it in a foreword as a “worthy read that presents what the future holds if the right political choices are made”. Former National Party politician Roelf Meyer, who played an important role in the 1990s when the transition from apartheid to democracy was negotiated, sees the book as recognising “a serious national emergency”, yet seeing leaders “working together to fix … instead of squabbling”.
The authors want the book to help South Africans get past the “heated emotions … dominating the national conversation” towards rational discussion of “key decisions” about the future. They see this as a choice between “growth and shared prosperity” and “opening the door to economic collapse, rising poverty and … failure” à la Zimbabwe or Venezuela.
Under the auspices of the Brenthurst Foundation and the In Transformation Initiative, the authors consulted business and political figures, highlighting high risks of failure and mapping a road towards a positive future. To this end, the book identifies four possible future scenarios:
- The “good” scenario entails constitutionalism, rule of law, economic growth and rejuvenated reform. At the time of writing, the authors saw scope – albeit with a good dose of scepticism – for the ANC to be part of such a coalition with other parties, but their subsequent writings in the press have displayed more scepticism about such a prospect.
- In the “bad” scenario, the ANC’s Radical Economic Transformation (RET) would seize control of the party’s policy directions, perhaps even in a coalition with the Economic Freedom Front (EFF). This, the authors project, would accelerate economic decline, bring more corruption and weaken democratic values.
- The “ugly” scenario entails a divided ANC that is unable to chart reform, the rule of law, energy reform, economic growth and job creation, thereby deepening decline in investment and state-private sector relations.
- A “fistful of cents” would be a close relative of the “ugly” scenario, marked by rising cronyism, freefall corruption and graft, and deepening inequality and joblessness.
While inspired by the Clem Sunter scenarios in the early 1990s when the transition from apartheid to democracy was at stake, The good, the bad and the ugly is more overtly biased, lacking the joint cross-party interrogation of the earlier exercise. Controversial as Sunter’s Anglo American connections were, those scenario discussions involved the apartheid government, the ANC and other interest groups coming face to face to consider the costs of not reaching a political settlement and to conceptualise the basis for a democratic constitution.
.........
While inspired by the Clem Sunter scenarios in the early 1990s when the transition from apartheid to democracy was at stake, The good, the bad and the ugly is more overtly biased, lacking the joint cross-party interrogation of the earlier exercise.
.........
Although The good, the bad and the ugly was also tested by some stakeholders, the process seemed less inclusive than the Sunter scenario processes in the 1990s. The new scenarios come at a time when the drive for collaboration among political factions seems at the lowest ebb since 1994. The 2024 elections will involve a more fragmented range of parties, many very small. Moreover, the country is in the midst of an energy crisis; severe deterioration of water systems, services and transport networks; fledgling municipalities; and escalating crime. Multiparty coalitions have emerged in several municipalities, but most have been unstable and opportunistic rather than collaborative on policy. Voters across the political spectrum have thus become disillusioned as services have deteriorated, coalitions have come and gone, and corruption has become endemic in municipalities and other public and private institutions.
The good, the bad and the ugly does indeed identify and demonstrate alternative routes that the country could follow to attain a better future. The authors see the scenarios as “giving us a glimpse into possible futures” and call for inclusive “political will to bend the future towards the South Africa we want”. In contrast to the joint engagement in the 1990s of at least the major political protagonists, it is telling that the scenario process on which this book is based seems markedly less rooted in dialogue among political parties. This may reflect that whatever the merits of the analysis and roadmaps of this book may be, there is deeper animosity in South Africa today as opposed to the sense of promise that evolved in the negotiations in the early 1990s, which attracted interest among political groupings across most of the political spectrum.
As yet, the odds are currently rather stacked against a collaborative quest by key parties to identify (let alone agree on!) the risks and pathways out of the political dysfunction and growing intolerance in South African politics today. And while Sunter had his critics in the 1990s, he was able to engage an interested and seriously solution-seeking political audience at the time.
........
In sum, this is an easy read, and within its liberal constitutionalist paradigm is easy to understand, offering food for thought as South Africans consider their options at a turbulent political time.
........
The deepening animosity in the current political climate seems unlikely to allow the evolution of a collaborative macro-coalition such as during the transition three decades ago. At that time, the Sunter scenarios not only analytically narrowed down South Africa’s choices to the “High Road” of a negotiated end to apartheid versus a “Low Road” of civil war and socioeconomic disintegration, but the process included the contesting parties coming face to face to seek solutions. In 2024, the race card is back in circulation with a crudity that the Mandela era sought to undo. Add to that the deepening ideological cleavages around distribution of wealth and land, and the severe division in South Africa’s stance on the Israel-Gaza crisis since October 2023, and it is clear that forming such scenarios as a methodology to draw stakeholders together might face strong new animosities, and will require more than this well-written, seemingly logical framework to get contesting parties and interests jointly moving for South Africa’s rebirth à la the “good” scenario.
In sum, this is an easy read, and within its liberal constitutionalist paradigm is easy to understand, offering food for thought as South Africans consider their options at a turbulent political time. Its best use might have been round-table, facilitated discussions about the state of the nation and the options for getting back on the promising track of the early 1990s. But even without that, it is provocative enough to provide food for thought as voters, investors and other decision makers and protagonists consider their options at a time when so much is at stake.
- Chris Heymans is an independent governance advisor.
Also read:
Wake up, this is Joburg by Tanya Zack and Mark Lewis: a book review