Is South Africa a failed state? Why some think so
A South African flag.
Amid crippling power cuts, failing infrastructure, poor governance at all levels and rampant corruption, South Africa is no longer in danger of becoming a "failed state" - it is already one.
That is the view of some business leaders and academics in the southern African country, who say the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has lost its way and is unable to deal effectively with several crises facing the state.
The professor of practice at the Johannesburg Business School (JBS) and chairman of two major private companies - The Bidvest Group Limited and SBV Services - says the declining economy is dangerously close to being unable to afford the country's very high and rising public debt burden, which is expected to reach 70.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of 2023, rising to 73.6 percent by 2025/26.
"We are not a failing state, we are a failed state," Mohale said.
"Every time we have load shedding (planned outages imposed by the crippled national power utility Eskom), we wipe out about 1 percent of GDP, which affects the future of every single South African," he added.
A number of CEOs of listed companies have also called out the ANC government for failing to provide solutions to a growing list of pressing problems, most notably the chronic, years-long critical power shortage.
Last weekend was supposed to mark a near return to normal power supply, but instead saw a rapid deterioration to the worst blackouts yet, with five power station units failing in quick succession.
In a bid to reduce sabotage and theft at the country's struggling power stations, President Cyril Ramaphosa has deployed an additional 880 members of the SA National Defence Force to supplement existing security.
But such measures seem to mark a worsening situation in which power stations are sabotaged and then equipment and power lines are stolen while the power is off.
The electricity crisis is just one of many, though perhaps the most pressing. It is costing billions that the country's economy cannot afford.
From a failing economy with an unemployment rate in the mid-30s, similar to or worse than some countries at active war, and consequently soaring poverty rates, to water supply crises in major metros and many smaller centres, to crumbling inner cities with potholes galore, rubbish littering public squares and streets, and little sign of improvement, the signs of government inadequacy are literally everywhere.
As it stands, some households and businesses receive as little as 10.5 hours of electricity between 5am and midnight on any given day, leading to a deterioration in manufacturing and mining output. The power crisis and infrastructure vandalism have brought the passenger rail system to its knees in most areas, while the national freight carrier has also been crippled and is operating at a fraction of its potential capacity, as are the country's major ports.
Poor policing and a lack of service delivery of all kinds, especially at local government level, round off a long list of governance failures.
Political upheaval
Ramaphosa is still considered the country's best leader, but there is widespread debate about whether it is the ANC itself that has run its course, with the continent's oldest liberation movement set for a sixth consecutive term of political dominance in next year's national elections.
Conditions are so dire that opposition groups are certain the ANC will lose its majority in 2024, paving the way for coalition governments, some of which are campaigning for the upcoming vote on 'pacts' with other groupings, all promising clean and efficient governance.
Most polls and election observers agree that the ANC is likely to win less than 50 per cent of the total vote, nationally and in many regions, leaving it with the role of 'largest minority' in what is sure to be a highly unstable coalition environment.
South Africans are already accustomed to turmoil in major metros where the ANC has a 'plurality' but not a majority, with power swinging from one unstable coalition to another, with the ANC leading with several smaller parties to form a majority, only to be replaced by an opposition-led coalition, and vice versa.
More recently, some of the more unstable coalition municipalities have seen multiple changes of executive mayors and executive committees in a matter of weeks.
This 'game of political musical chairs', as it has been described, has been going on since the ANC's last major electoral setback in 2021, when it lost its overall majority in the local government elections.
That time, the party of Nelson Mandela won just 49% of the vote, setting the stage for several administrative upheavals in SA's major metros of Johannesburg, Pretoria/Tshwane, the Eastern Cape capital of Nelson Mandela Bay, and Ekurhuleni, formerly the East Rand region of Gauteng, a large suburban extension of Johannesburg.
Similar upheavals are expected at national and provincial government level after the 2024 elections.
The antics of Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have already shown what is to come, as the party has repeatedly and embarrassingly disrupted proceedings in parliament, with rowdy EFF members being forcibly removed after noisy debates.
In the latest such incident, EFF members even attempted to rush the podium from which President Cyril Ramaphosa was addressing MPs and were again ejected from the chamber for disruptive behaviour.
In recent years, the floors of various metros and municipalities have literally been in chaos as small parties with one or two members have held large parties to ransom for control, while disputes by those ousted in such manoeuvres have repeatedly led to recourse to the courts.
The unseemly governance demonstrated by most coalitions to date has sent shivers down the spines of many citizens, particularly in the business community, where there are fears that the struggle for raw power, regionally and nationally, will further impede much-needed clean and efficient governance.
One commonly cited assessment places South Africa in the same category of 'failed states' as other notable examples in Africa, including other 'post-conflict states' that have emerged or are trying to emerge from external or civil war, such as Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Somalia.
It has been a long fall from grace for a country that was once hailed as a model not only in Africa but globally, into the category of a state that cannot even run itself properly.
