African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Climate
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • Think African [Podcast]
    • #EndSARS
    • Into Africa [Podcast]
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Africa Science Focus [Podcast]
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

logo

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Climate
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • Think African [Podcast]
    • #EndSARS
    • Into Africa [Podcast]
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Africa Science Focus [Podcast]
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Debating Ideas
Politics
Home›African Arguments›Politics›Mamphela Ramphele: “the ANC gives people food parcels, Agang builds citizens” – By Magnus Taylor

Mamphela Ramphele: “the ANC gives people food parcels, Agang builds citizens” – By Magnus Taylor

By Uncategorised
January 21, 2014
2272
0
Mamphela_Ramphele

Mamphela Ramphele must now translate her technocratic credentials into electoral success.

Mamphela Ramphele, leader of the “˜Agang’ political platform in South Africa, arrived in London this week with the intention of wooing business and the diaspora. Whether she managed to achieve either goal remains unclear.

Ramphele is an admirable woman with an impressive career and impeccable struggle credentials back home (she was the partner of murdered Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko). Agang was launched with something of a fanfare last year and Ramphele got the attention of the international media who styled her as “˜the woman who could save South Africa’ – quite a contrast from the variously corrupt and incompetent Jacob Zuma. Her greatest test as a political actor will be whether she can win mass public support on the back of her convincing criticism of the current government and make a dent in the ANC’s electoral hegemony.

Ramphele’s talk at a Royal African Society Business Breakfast on Monday 20th Jan was pivoted on the premise that South Africa currently stands at “a tipping point”. Ramphele says that “We have felt a shift [in the country] post-Mandela’s passing” – probably true – but whether this means a substantial shift towards her is another matter.

Ramphele’s analysis of what is wrong with South Africa at present is simple; it’s corruption stupid! Although she doesn’t elaborate a great deal on what can be done about it other than vote for her and presumably a coterie of morally upstanding representatives of Agang.

Beyond corruption, Ramphele argues that the poor state of education and the economy are the biggest drags on South African development – not something that too many would disagree with, but her pronouncement that “if we get them right we can turn the country round in 3 to 5 years” seems optimistic. In the first 100 days of the next government she proposes a comprehensive audit of the country’s educational resources.

This is not to say that Ramphele doesn’t have a sophisticated analysis of the current state of the country. She argues that South Africa needs to reformulate the way it is governed from wealth redistribution to wealth creation – saving some of her most scathing criticism for ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe, whose idea that the ANC still cares about the poor because it provides welfare to 16 million people, she rubbishes. “The ANC gives people food parcels, we build citizens” was probably her best line.

On the stump Ramphele feels like a serious politician and is a charismatic performer, but we shouldn’t forget that her party probably won’t win more than an optimistic 3% of the vote in this year’s elections (Africa Confidential predicts 1%). Ramphele may dispute this, but whilst pollsters are predicting a significant decline in ANC fortunes, they see these votes going to a combination of the established Democratic Alliance (focused on the Western Cape) and the insurgent “˜Economic Freedom Fighters’ of Julius Malema. Agang will probably come in 4th overall. Ramphele’s analysis of Malema is cutting; “he has learnt from the master [Zuma] the best way to avoid jail is to run for office” (following a corruption scandal); but the former ANC Youth Leader’s coterie of red beret-wearing Marxists and other fellow travellers probably worries the ANC more than Agang’s centrist approach.

The real unknown in 2014 will be the cohesiveness of the “˜Tripartite Alliance’, comprised by Cosatu (Congress of South African Trade Unions), the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the ANC. Ramphele says that Cosatu is “no longer formidable and Zwelenzima Vavi [its Secretary General] is disaffected.” The National Union of Mineworkers (NUMSA) has withdrawn its support and the National Union of Metalworkers is bleeding members to its rival union the AMCU (which is not aligned with Cosatu).

Ramphele’s most interesting insights, however, relate to the state of opposition politics in South Africa, and more specifically Agang’s relationship with the DA. It’s now well known that Ramphele spent several months trying to work out if her nascent party and the DA could be successfully brought together – she was offered the leadership of this putative alliance. The reason it didn’t happen was her own the belief that the majority of black South Africans would never vote for the DA – it is still seen as the white party and many believe (wrongly) that it would bring back apartheid. However, the DA’s established organisational structure, experience of governing and money would surely have been an asset to Ramphele’s platform.

Taking over the DA would, however, also have been the easy option. What she is trying to do with Agang is much more ambitious, but perhaps ultimately a mistake. It may be that expectations of what Agang can achieve electorally in 2014 are overly ambitious, but Ramphele believes that time is not on the opposition’s side: “We can’t afford to wait until 2019 to challenge the ANC – Zimbabwean people waited too long to try to get rid of ZANU-PF, and look what happened.”

Whatever happens, Ramphele is clearly highly committed to the cause. As she says, she has “stood up to lead the charge once more…a bridge between my generation that fought in the struggle and the new generation that needs to build a new South Africa.”

Magnus Taylor is Editor of African Arguments.

Previous Article

Remembering Komla Dumor – By Dele Fatunla

Next Article

DRC: December’s attacks show post-M23 domestic incohesion ...

Uncategorised

0 comments

  1. Rev. Dr. Paul Baiden-Adams 28 January, 2014 at 12:56

    I am interested in the future goodness of young people in South Africa. I want to be able to produce a programme full of projects to help educate the youth of South Africa.
    If somebody does think selfishly and really believe that the future belongs to the very young and they should be educated, then am on with them.
    Building a nation does not depend on one person….but everybody…its a hands-on-day to day action. Lets do it for the sake of good and prosperous Africa.

  2. Rev. Dr. Paul Baiden-Adams 28 January, 2014 at 12:59

    I will be very grateful to be working alongside Mamphela Ramphele…this will be an opportunity to help youth and family throughout South Africa.
    Lets do it.

Leave a reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Burkina FasoPolitics

    Popular resistance to the Burkina Faso coup: who, where and what next?

  • Politics

    Post-Secession Sudan: Challenges and Opportunities – By Dr Ghazi Salahuddin Atabani

  • Editor's PicksKenyaSociety

    Marking Mawlid, the Muslim festival full of diversity, dhows and donkeys

Subscribe to our newsletter

Click here to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and never miss a thing!

  • 81.7K+
    Followers

Find us on Facebook

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Recent Posts

  • Why France EACOP case might embolden, not discourage, activists
  • The International Community Must Reconsider its Engagement with Somaliland
  • Unpacking the geopolitics of Uganda’s anti-gay bill
  • Why’s the AfDB siding with the Agrochemical Industrial Complex?
  • The Covid Consensus, African Studies and Internationalism

Editor’s Picks

ClimateEditor's PicksEgypt

2022 is Africa’s year to lead the world on climate change

The COP27 climate summit on African soil will be the continent’s chance to put the needs of vulnerable nations above the interests of rich countries. Nowhere experiences the bitter injustice ...
  • At a media roundtable in Gondar, Ethiopia, in 2015. Credit: UNICEF Ethiopia / 2015/Tesfaye.

    Four ways the Ethiopian government manipulates the media

    By Meron Gebreananaye, Saba Mah’derom & Kisanet Haile Molla
    February 1, 2022
  • Rain clouds over a farming village near Iringa, Tanzania. Credit: UN Photo/Wolff

    “There isn’t any”: Tanzania’s land myth and the brave New Alliance

    By Tz
    May 15, 2018
  • Karrayyu in Ethiopia dig a mass grave for the massacred Gadaa leaders. Credit: Nuredin Jilo.

    Ethiopia’s forgotten minority: Who will be the voice for Karrayyu?

    By Roba Bulga Jilo
    March 31, 2022
  • Mauritians protesting on the streets in August 2020. Credit: Matt Savi.

    Mauritius: A picture perfect democracy’s fall from grace

    By Roukaya Kasenally
    May 12, 2021

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
By continuing to browse this site, you agree to our use of cookies.