Battle for the soul of SA: How the next three years will make or break the country

The new South Africa has reached the point of make or break, says Richard Calland, who plots the signposts of both paths in a country brought to the brink by Zuma’s ANC.

It seems clear that South Africa has reached a fork in the road. The year 2016 has been a big one: we've witnessed an authoritarian populist, Jacob Zuma, cling to power in order to continue to loot the state, and seen him wage war against a reformist finance minister, Pravin Gordhan.

Gordhan in response has attempted to draw a line in the sand and say "No more", and at the same time convince sceptical ratings agencies that South Africa should not be downgraded to junk status.

We've observed the political traffic warden, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, biding his time.

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He knows Zuma has become far too politically expensive but is unsure how, or when, to plunge his knife into the back of his president to complete the much-needed coup d'état by the moderate middle and sensible social democratic left that until recently has succumbed so meekly to Zuma's state capture.

We've been faced with an unforgiving market and unyielding global and domestic economies.

And we have been left with an increasingly angry population, and a vanguardist, militant student movement, ready to pounce and lead a South African Spring in which the centre will decidedly not hold.

The ruling party has lost its way and abandoned so many of its great traditions and principles. And, without a united trade union movement as an ally, it is unable to absorb the socioeconomic pressures that unbendingly press against South Africa's stability.

Opposition parties tread unsteadily forward, hoping to benefit from the ANC's travails and division but unsure of the policy agenda and political strategy that will differentiate them sufficiently from the establishment, other than to claim that they will govern more efficiently and more honestly, as if that alone will fix South Africa's deep structural economic constraints.

And yet, there are reasons to be cheerful. It is make-or-break time. There is a "make scenario" and a "break scenario", and not a great deal in between.

Thanks largely to Zuma's divisive and corrosive leadership, now that the ANC has fallen from its perch since the local government elections in August, it will prove very hard to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

block_quotes_start The "break scenario" is easy to describe. In it, Zuma prevails, while Gordhan fails and falls. The reform package is not delivered block_quotes_end

Unless the opposition make a complete mess of coalition government - which is entirely possible - there is every reason to think they can kick on and that South Africa's competitive multiparty democracy will further consolidate.

Whether, however, this produces better government and better prospects for South Africans, especially the poorest citizens, is another question.

How will the ANC respond to the election outcomes and who will succeed Zuma? I honestly don't know. It depends on whether Zuma can be contained or, better, removed from power at the first available opportunity. In turn, that depends on whether the ANC's moderate middle and sensible left can turn its new resolve into action.

It really is, finally, a battle for the soul of the ANC, and much depends on the balance of power within the national executive committee. While I want to believe the organisation can reboot and recover its good, old traditions, I fear it is too far gone and that, regardless of who succeeds Zuma, the ANC is unlikely to play the nation-building role it once did. Progress will come in spite of the ANC, not because of it.

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Perhaps the biggest and most important question of all is, can Gordhan survive and succeed? I think he will survive and succeed, because he will get sufficient backing and because the National Treasury is strong. And Gordhan has enough aces in his pack to trump even Zuma's most deadly moves.

The "break scenario" is easy to describe. In it, Zuma prevails, while Gordhan fails and falls. The reform package is not delivered. The downgrade to junk status happens in December. The economy spirals further downwards and we fall off the fiscal cliff.

Cosatu turns against the ANC, and the public service all but abandons its post. A Brazilian-style crisis of political leadership and economic disintegration beckons. As inflation rises and food becomes unaffordable, people starve. And then they protest, violently, led by a militant student movement with little to lose.

A South African Spring arrives. The establishment fights back, although domestic capital has taken flight. More people die, as first the police and then the army fail to keep control without resorting to violence. Malema is martyred.

A state of emergency is declared. It is 1985 all over again. The world looks on, horrified, but is too busy with its own crises to bother too much. South Africa staggers along as a freshly elected, authoritarian populist drags us further down. It could be Mantashe. Or Zuma, again. Or someone else. By then it will no longer greatly matter.

In the "make scenario", which is more difficult to articulate, Gordhan prevails. He and the other reformers push Zuma and his corrupt cronies into retreat. Business and the government continue to talk, and avoid a downgrade, creating a R4-billion fund for small and medium enterprise job creation and overcoming the structural constraints to growth.

Cyril Ramaphosa succeeds Zuma and invokes the one-nation spirit of Mandela. An era of progress unfolds and the government makes greater strides in implementing a coherent national development plan across a better-led, better-coordinated administration.

Sound credible? As I said, it is harder to paint this scenario.

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How will we be able to tell which path South Africa is taking? Here are some signposts along the road:

• Closely watch the socioeconomic indicators relating to inflation, and especially food price hikes, to note how they impact on social protest and whether they trigger a new student uprising;

• See whether such instability and violence impacts on " strike season";

• Next month the medium-term budget policy statement will tell us a lot about who is winning the war between Gordhan and the president. For instance, has the Treasury been able to stave off corrupt intrusions on fiscal probity such as an unaffordable nuclear deal?

• In terms of Zuma's own prospects, by early next year we should know the Constitutional Court's view of the unlawfulness of the 2009 decision to discontinue charges against him;

• The state of the nation address and the budget speech at the start of 2017's political year in February will reveal a great deal about the balance of power, both in the government and in the ANC. In mid-2017, the ANC national policy conference will provide further clues, especially in terms of whether Zuma intends to go for the "Putin option" of a third term as ANC president, compelled by his and his cronies' venal interest in trying to control power from the back seat with a puppet South African president;

• The ANC national elective conference in December 2017 will bring to the West Wing either Ramaphosa or a more nationalist (Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma ) or populist (Mantashe) president; and

• Lastly, the 2019 national election will soon be upon us.

To use the "frog in the pot" metaphor, 9/12 [the day Des van Rooyen was appointed finance minister in place of Nhlanhla Nene] spat the frog out. Since then, the frog has remained suspended tantalisingly above the close-to-boiling pot. It can't remain suspended indefinitely. Political gravity will pull it down.

If the frog falls back in then, in theory, it ought to notice and spring back out. Or perhaps it's too wounded and weary, and it simply, sadly, is boiled alive.

Calland is an associate professor in public law at the University of Cape Town

This is an edited extract from "Make or Break: How the next three years will shape South Africa's next three decades", published by Penguin Random House (R220)