Читать книгу New South African Review 1 - Anthony Butler - Страница 12

The ANC provided an absolutely necessary condition for the success of South Africa’s ‘reform bargain’: the political legitimacy of the state and government in a country where both had been under bitter attack for decades. Today it continues to have no effective challenger, and in 2009 again demonstrated its capacity to win elections on a playing ground which, whilst tipped in its favour (notably by its access to massive financial resources), nonetheless allows ample scope for opposition party mobilisation. However, there are numerous indications that the ANC’s hegemonic hold over its original liberation constituency is declining: apart from its loss of the Western Cape provincial election to the Democratic Alliance and the decline of its proportion of the vote in all provinces except KwaZulu-Natal, the 2009 elections continued a constant trend whereby the ruling party is still winning elections but with the support of a declining proportion of eligible voters, and its support is increasingly drawn from Africans (Daniel and Southall 2009). As Butler points out below, this is against a background of declining popular trust in key political institutions. The converse is the ANC’s declining capacity to shape and control society. Three aspects are highlighted here: division and dissent within the ruling party itself; the crisis in education; and popular protests at perceived failures in ‘delivery’ by provincial and local government.