While we were away …

Having  just returned from an idyllic holiday, I am forced to take stock of what I missed …

The Communists versus the TenderCapitalists

A “TenderCapitalist” is not an over-sensitive entrepreneur. It is a South African person, much loathed by the communists,  who uses his or her  race and/or political connection to win tenders from the state or from private companies hoping to fulfil their BBBEE requirements or just hoping to suck up to the ANC. The South African Communist Party has made it clear it thinks the ANC Youth League president Julius Malema is the ring-leader of this faction in the South African political economy.

The SACP conference and the booing of Julius Malema brought things to a head and throughout December and early January there has been something of a toing and froing between Julius Malema and Blade Nzimande.

The spat continued at the Slovo memorial in Soweto on Wednesday 6th of January when Nzimande said that “narrow African chauvinism” threatened Slovo’s non-racial vision and that the slogan: “liberation of blacks in general and Africans in particular” should not be “corrupted into a narrow anti-white African chauvinism” – quoted in Independent Online.

A few days later at the ANC 98th birthday rally in Kimberley Julius Malema suggested that there were “super-revolutionaries” that wanted to “co-govern” with the ANC. On Sunday, in a statement apparently coordinated with Malema, Jacob Zuma said in an SABC interview that the ANC does not “co-govern” with any other party. In response Blade Nzimande, quoted in The Times, said:

I don’t know who coined the term. It’s people’s figment of their imagination. This issue is manufactured by people who are anti-communists.”

The stage is set; let the theatre commence.

The death of Tshabalala Msimang

Manto Tshabalala Msimang died on December 16 of complications from a liver transplant. Msimang was minister of health from 1999-2008 and presided over a period of health policy uncertainty that began with Thabo Mbeki’s insistence that there was no evidence that HIV causes AIDS. A committed revolutionary who went into exile in 1962 under orders from the then banned ANC, Manto Tshabalala Msimang died as government policy and practice around the HIV/AIDS epidemic finally started to achieve traction.

Matric pass rate drops – again

On Thursday last week education minister Angie Motshekga announced the matric results which showed a two percentage point decline in the already dismal pass rate to 60.6. This is the sixth successive year of drops. The figures are, on closer examination, even worse than they first appear. The science pass rate (those who got above 30%)  dropped about 15 percentage points to 36.8 and the maths pass rate remained unchanged at 46 percent. Nothing is better predictive of future prosperity than improving education outcomes. Nothing (obvious) is more predictive of future troubles, on a number of fronts, than the converse.

Attack on Togo soccer team at CAF in Angola

On Friday January 8th the bus carrying the Togo soccer squad to CAF fixtures into the Kabina enclave in the extreme north of Angola. Several officials and players were injured. Rebels in the Kabinda enclave have been at war since the early 60’s (firstly against the Portuguese and later against independent Angola which has insisted that the oil rich territory stay incorporated as part of the country).

The South Africans have insisted that any suggestion that the security situation in northern Angola is in any way similar to that expected to obtain at the World Cup in South Africa later in the year is ludicrous and possibly racist. However all national security officials will have been reminded how easy it is to target an international sporting event to get maximum coverage for your cause, as I argued here. Watch this space …

President Zuma moves (way) up in the popularity stakes

Sapa reports (on South Africa – The Good News – and in many other places) that Jacob Zuma has increased in popularity amongst all groups but most notably amongst Indians, Coloureds and Whites since last April’s election. It’s a surprise, but mostly a good one.