Political Movements

South Africa’s sporting record is outstanding. The country regularly produces world-class performances in golf, tennis, cricket, rugby, and soccer (‘football’). As with much else, sports in South Africa are shaped by race. Under apartheid, like everything else, sports were strictly segregated by race. White South Africans, especially, were ‘sports mad,’ and felt keenly the imposition of sporting sanctions as part of the world wide anti-apartheid campaign. Of the two mass spectator sports, rugby was ‘white’ while soccer was ‘black.’ Other sports, such as tennis and golf, were almost exclusively play by white South Africans. Twenty-one years after the ‘transition to non-racial democracy,’ the pattern remains largely the same. Whites, about 9 percent of the population, dominate golf, tennis, cricket, and rugby. Soccer is almost entirely black, with the national squad having a sole white player. The Springboks, the national rugby team, has thirty-six players, of whom twelve are “of color,” with the ‘majority’ being black Africans. (The others ‘of color’ are likely to be coloured, who often regard themselves as a separate race, or ‘Asians’.) The policy of the governing African National Congress (ANC) is the ‘transformation’ of sports to ensure the end of apartheid injustices. To that end, the Minister of Sport, Fikile Mbalula, has announced he will ban certain South African sports bodies from hosting international events “because of their failure to reach their transformation target.” The sports targeted are cricket, netball, and rugby. Despite ANC policy, a recent South African Institute of Race Relations poll indicates that over 70 percent of black South Africans believe sports teams should be chosen based purely on merit, and not the transformation goals. As with affirmative action in the United States, mathematical percentages loom large in the South African debate. For example, one South African tweeted, “White people make up 8.9 percent of South Africa’s population. One white player in #Bafana is 9.1 percent of team, which is more than enough #Transformation #Mbalula” (Bafana Bafana is the male national soccer team’s nickname.) Black South Africans have been slow to make a mark in certain sports where the costs of participation can be high. Hence, in part, the paucity of black South African tennis or cricket players. Their impact, however, is growing in prominence in rugby.

Four years ago, when he was just fifteen years old, Joshua Wong launched a campaign to prevent Beijing from enforcing its own version of history in Hong Kong schools. Along with other student activists involved in his “Scholarism” group, he managed to rally one hundred and twenty thousand people in protest and eventually beat back the government’s initiative. During that effort, Scholarism raised one million Hong Kong dollars in just one day—with 25-40 year olds as the most supportive demographic. For Wong, it was a signal that young people really could achieve change. (Less well known, perhaps, is that Wong cut his activist teeth protesting against a high-speed rail link between Hong Kong and the mainland when he was only thirteen years old.) Since then, of course, Wong has become world-renowned for his effort in helping lead the Occupy Central movement, which called for universal suffrage in Hong Kong. For his actions, he has been vilified by the Chinese government, assaulted, and arrested—all by the age of eighteen. When I met with him in late April, he was in the midst of a ten-day tour of American universities with a brief stop planned in Canada. My first thought was that the pictures of Wong do not do him justice. Yes, he is slight with big black-framed glasses, but in person, he is less the fierce intensity captured in the many protest photos taken of him than preternaturally calm. In fact, the word that first came to my mind when being introduced was luminous. Wong also has an impish sense of humor that appeared when we talked about the decision of the British newspaper the Independent to publish a front page photo of him during Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit to the United Kingdom last October. (The two were in the United Kingdom at the same time.) Wong will undoubtedly need that humor to see him through his next endeavor. He is in the process of transforming his activism from the immediacy of issue-based campaigns to a longer-term process of political change. He has co-founded a new political party, Demosisto, which is committed to self-determination for Hong Kong.  The party has thirty core members and plans to run candidates in two districts in the next legislative council election in September. (Wong, himself, is too young to run for a seat, but that has not stopped him. He is trying to change the eligibility requirement from twenty-one to eighteen years of age.) Wong’s time horizon for political change in Hong Kong’s relationship with the mainland is three decades—just sometime before 2047, when the Basic Law expires and when, he notes, he will be fifty-one years old. He is developing a sophisticated arsenal of arguments rooted in Hong Kong’s history and seeking ideas for how Hong Kong can expand its international space. He feels confident, too, about the growing popular discourse within Hong Kong over independence and self-determination. Part of Wong’s strategy is to learn from other civil society activists. He has already engaged with a wide range of civil society leaders throughout Southeast Asia, and a trip to Taiwan was particularly affirming. Not everyone, of course, is as welcoming. A year earlier in May 2015, upon arriving in Malaysia, he was forced by officials to board the same flight back home. (Purely by chance, a few hours after meeting with Wong, I had a discussion with an official from Malaysia’s Ministry of Home Affairs. When I asked him about Wong’s experience, he shrugged and said that he wasn’t responsible for the decision, but he understood it, implicitly acknowledging that Malaysia didn’t want to antagonize China.) In the absence of political change on the mainland, it is easy to believe that betting on Joshua Wong and his quest would be foolhardy. (After all, almost three decades after Tiananmen, political change has not materialized.) However, in my forty-five minutes with him, I came to appreciate that foolhardy would best be applied to those who bet against him.

My new book on South Africa is now available in hardcover and Kindle. The book’s core argument is that despite the corruption and incompetency of the Zuma administration combined with slow economic growth, the country’s democratic institutions are strong enough to weather the current period of poor governance. Intended for the non-specialist reader, the book includes an orientation to the history of South Africa. A review of current demographic trends highlights the persistent consequences of white supremacy and apartheid. Since Nelson Mandela’s 1994 presidential inauguration, social and economic change has been slow. Despite the emergence of a black middle class and a few black oligarchs, the gulf between white wealth and that of the other racial groups is greater now than it was in 1994. Whites also have longer life spans, a reflection of their access to much better education and health services. However, politically the country is a fully functioning democracy with credible elections. The book includes a discussion of education, health, contemporary politics, and land reform with an eye as to how South Africa’s democracy is responding to thorny challenges. The book highlights the strength of constitutionally mandated institutions, the rule of law, and the independence of the judiciary. South Africa is a constitutional democracy, not a parliamentary democracy. The constitution limits what governments can do at all levels and has among the most elaborate protections of human rights of any country in the world. Notably, South Africa has outlawed capital punishment and is the only African country that permits gay marriage. Both are the result of judicial rulings based on human rights provisions in the constitution. Both are deeply unpopular, yet there has been no significant effort to amend the constitution to permit the former and ban the latter; such is the prestige of the rule of law. Morning in South Africa concludes with an assessment of why prospects are poor at present for closer South African ties with the West, especially the United States, so long as the current government leadership remains in power. However, I conclude that South Africa’s democracy has been surprisingly adaptable, and that despite seemingly intractable problems, the black majority are no longer strangers in their own country. These are the basis for building in the future a new, stronger relationship between the “rainbow nation” and the West.

Tyler Falish is an intern for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program, and a student in Fordham University’s Graduate Program in International Political Economy & Development. South African President Jacob Zuma was in Iran for a two-day state visit on April 24 and 25. While in Tehran, Zuma and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani signed eight bilateral trade agreements as part of a commitment to increase non-oil trade between the two countries. Trade between the two nations plummeted after the imposition of expanded sanctions on Iran by the U.S., EU, and UN. According to UN Comtrade, in 2012—the most recent year of significant trade between the two countries—trade was valued at approximately $1.3 billion. By comparison, bilateral trade in 2015 totaled only $30 million. Iran has strong ties with the ruling African National Congress (ANC), and the Islamic republic was among the first to resume trade with South Africa following the end of white minority rule. The strong trade relationship has been largely imbalanced, skewed heavily toward the import of Iranian crude oil into South Africa. Prior to sanctions, South Africa imported 380,000 barrels per day from Iran, accounting for one-third of Africa’s second-largest crude consumer’s demand. With the Iranian supply abruptly severed in late-2012, South Africa turned to Saudi Arabia and Nigeria to meet growing demand. As South Africa resumes its trading relationship with Iran following the lifting of sanctions, Nigeria will be the big loser, as the South African Petroleum Industry Association recently announced they will “likely stop importing crude from Nigeria.” This is woeful news at a time when the Nigerian economy is already reeling from a steep decline in oil revenue. On April 27, Deputy Director General Tseliso Maqubela of the energy ministry announced potential plans to build an oil refinery to process Iranian crude oil. Although South African refineries were originally designed to process Iranian crude oil, they were necessarily retrofitted to refine other types of crude in the wake of the sanctions. With no stated estimate on the time frame or cost of such a project, the country will be forced to rely on foreign-owned oil refineries in South Africa when Iranian crude imports resume. South Africa is the main supplier of liquid fuels—including petrol and diesel—to Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, and Swaziland. Although South Africa has among the highest refining capacity on the continent, continuing to meet growing domestic fuel demand will remain a priority and a challenge. Expanding capacity through the construction of the proposed refinery will present an opportunity for increasing exports—and influence—within the region and beyond.

This is a guest post by Allen Grane, research associate for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program. The South African government has announced that it will not petition the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) for a legal trade in rhinoceros horn. South Africa formed a committee to determine the viability of a legal trade in rhino horn in February 2015. After nearly a year of deliberating, the committee’s recommendation was “that the current mode of keeping the country’s stock levels be kept as opposed to the trading in rhino horns.” The decision, announced before the 17th CITES Conference of the Parties meeting in South Africa this fall, is surprising. The South African government owns a stockpile of rhino horn that is valued at approximately $2 billion on the black market, an amount that could contribute to the struggling South African economy. While South Africa will not be seeking to sell their rhino horn stockpile now, it is not clear if that policy will continue forever. When and if poaching in South Africa stabilizes, the government may then reevaluate its position. As private citizens are allowed to own rhinos in South Africa, there are a number of private parties who have also harvested rhino horn. These private parties, some with stockpiles worth hundreds of millions of dollars, will likely continue to push for a legalized trade. Others have argued, and will continue to argue, that if the South African government were to allow the sale of current rhino horn stockpiles, the price of rhino horn would plummet, decreasing the incentive for people to poach rhinos. This of course, is theory, and can’t be proven until tested. The decision seems to be summed up by the World Wildlife Funds statement that they “do not believe that a well-managed legal trade is feasible without negative impacts for wild rhinos at this time.” The South African government stated that its “strategic approach entails security; community empowerment; biological management and responsive legislative provisions that are effectively implemented and enforced; and demand management.” As part of this approach, the South African government will often harvest rhino horns to protect animals from being poached. This will continue, and the government’s stockpile will continue to grow.

South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) has long been a big tent, with its membership united by opposition to apartheid and, less salient, support for “nonracial” democracy. Conventional wisdom has seen the ANC membership, policy, and electoral support as revolving around four poles or tendencies:  the "democrats," devoted to Nelson Mandela’s vision of nonracial democracy and the protection of human rights; the South African Communist Party (SACP), in many ways a Marxist party of a generation ago in Western Europe, but also devoted to a nonracial state; the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which promotes the interests of the country’s “labor aristocracy” rather than the unskilled unemployed; and the “Africanists,”  those who want a redistribution of wealth from whites to blacks and an assertion of black identity that recalls the Black Power movement in the United States. (Many of them would drop the nonracial modifiers of democracy.) Depending on the issue, support varies for each of these “tendencies,” and there is substantial overlap. In any event, however sliced and diced, the ANC is likely to remain intact to contest the August provincial and local government elections. Though this analytical model may be losing its relevance, spurred by accelerated change within the party that is crystallized by an effort to get President (and party leader) Jacob Zuma out of office. The SACP has diminishing influence, is dependent on other parts of the ANC for its funding, and no longer serves as a link to the former Soviet Union. COSATU is no longer a monolith, with the largest trade union in the country, the National Union of Mineworkers, having withdrawn from the federation. However, the “democrats” and the “Africanists” have staying power in South Africa’s evolving political world. Leaving aside the SACP and COSATU, within the ANC it is perhaps more useful to see the fissures as between the urbanists, whose power base is in the cities, and the countryside: Zuma’s power base. This division also corresponds to a rift between the “modernists,” those in favor of “good government,” with close ties to big business and international markets on the one hand, and, on the other, the rural poor, the very poorest of South Africans, dependent on government allowances and patronage. This latter population is most concerned about getting from today to tomorrow rather than “good governance.” With good reason, the rural poor often feel left behind in the “new” South Africa. South Africa is rapidly urbanizing. An estimated 60 percent of the population is now urban. Those left behind in the countryside are relatively poorer than in the past, even if a system of family allowances alleviates the worst poverty. In the countryside, unemployment in some areas probably exceeds the rate of 50 percent (among males) in the townships. As under apartheid, the rural population is disproportionately female youths. The ANC, often using teachers from the grossly underfunded schools, has built powerful patronage networks. As in Mayor Curley’s Boston or Mayor Barry’s Washington, D.C., participation in these patronage networks is an important means of survival. The ANC is challenged in the rural areas by Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), now the third largest party in parliament, though with only 6 percent of the vote. The EFF’s signature political position is expropriation of white wealth (including land) without compensation. The EFF is probably pushing the ANC toward the left, despite the latter’s close ties with big business. Zuma, for example, in a recent visit to a rural town in KwaZulu, called for black South Africans to vote as a bloc. According to the media, he said that was the only way they could recover the land stolen from their ancestors. This is not a message that will be pleasing to the ANC’s big funders. But, if they have the money, the rural ANC machine has the votes.

In the aftermath of the Constitutional Court’s unanimous ruling that President Zuma and the National Assembly failed to uphold the Constitution over Nkandla, there are signs that the grassroots of the governing African National Congress (ANC) is losing patience. (Nkandla is Zuma’s private estate on which the public protector ruled public money was improperly spent; the presidency and the National Assembly stonewalled the public protector, actions which the Constitutional Court ruled unanimously violated the Constitution.) The ANC used its huge parliamentary majority to block an April 5 effort to impeach Zuma, but prominent ANC leaders are saying that Zuma must go. Zuma’s departure has some urgency. There is concern that if Zuma remains in office during the June-August local government elections, the opposition parties will score significant gains. The official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, believes it stands a good chance of capturing the local governments of Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth (Nelson Mandela Bay). Should that happen, local ANC officials in those jurisdictions will lose their jobs. On April 6, an ANC branch in the greater Johannesburg region sent a letter to ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe saying that Zuma had to go. According to South African media, the local branch proposed three options: the National Executive Committee should ask Zuma to resign and allow Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to act in his place until the party’s next conference in 2017. (This is essentially the path the party followed when it removed Thabo Mbeki from the positions of party and national president in 2009.) if Zuma refuses to resign he should be arraigned before the party’s integrity committee or the national disciplinary committee. While that review is underway, the president should be suspended from office so that he cannot influence the disciplinary proceedings. the party should hold a special national conference on how to move forward. These options are all credible. Yet, the ANC is unlikely to move on any of them until after the local government elections, and only then if the ANC does badly. That is by no means certain. Racial identity continues to play an important role in electoral politics. The ANC is the party of the black majority, 80 percent of the population. And Zuma, South Africans like to say, is a cat with nine lives.

Last week, the Constitutional Court ruled that President Jacob Zuma and the National Assembly had violated the constitution with respect to the use of public money on the president’s Nkandla private estate and their collective failure to implement the ruling of the public protector. In the wake of that decision, Mmusi Maimane, leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), tabled a motion on the National Assembly to impeach the president. National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete scheduled debate on the impeachment motion for today, April 5. Conventional wisdom that the ANC’s overwhelming majority in the National Assembly would protect Zuma from impeachment proved correct, and the motion was defeated. Preliminary analysis indicates that all or almost all of the votes against impeachment came from the ANC. Despite today’s vote, the Constitutional Court’s ruling has weakened the president within the ANC. Trevor Manuel, the retired, highly respected finance minister and a long-time leader of the ANC, today added his call for Zuma to step down. Bloomberg, citing the South African newspaper Rapport, reports that on April 3, five ANC leaders called on Zuma to ask him to resign. (Rapport is a weekly Afrikaans-language newspaper that claims to reach 20 percent of that language’s demographic; it appears on Sunday.) According to Bloomberg, Rapport, citing unidentified sources, reports that Zuma refused, and the group concluded that Zuma would go only after the local government elections later this year. The five are ANC heavy hitters. They are Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe, Deputy-Secretary General Jessie Duarte, ANC Treasurer Zweli Mkhize, and National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete, who is also ANC chairwoman. Ramaphosa was a lead negotiator of the transition to non-racial democracy and is said to have been Mandela’s personal choice as his successor; the ANC, however, preferred Thabo Mbeki. Ramaphosa stepped aside and went into private business. He remains close to big business and is a multimillionaire. While he is frequently mentioned as a possible successor to Zuma, he is more popular in London and New York business circles than among ANC party members. Mantashe, a former chairman of the South African Communist Party, has in the past rejected calls for Zuma to step down, but he has also opposed the powerful role of Zuma cronies like the Gupta brothers. He recently accused the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria of working for “regime change” through its exchange programs. Jessie Duarte was Nelson Mandela’s personal assistant after his release from prison. Zweli Mkhize, a medical doctor, has been accused—but not convicted—of misusing public funds. As speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete was directly involved in the vote to set aside the ruling of the public protector. The DA is calling for her to resign, too. She has refused to do so, and she did not recuse herself from the April 5 debate over the motion to impeach Zuma. “The gang of five” that visited Zuma on Sunday, now joined by Trevor Manuel, would seem to indicate that the president’s position within the party is eroding rapidly. As for the markets, they do not seem to be happy that Zuma stays, at least for the time being. The national currency, the rand (ZAR), dropped up to 2.6 percent on the news of the vote. Eyes are on the upcoming local elections, especially in Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Port Elizabeth. Of the three, the ANC seems especially vulnerable in Johannesburg. More generally, at least some South Africans are seeing a parallel between Zuma’s current travails and Richard Nixon’s last days as president.

On March 31, the eleven justices of South Africa’s highest judicial body, the Constitutional Court, ruled unanimously that President Jacob Zuma and the National Assembly had violated the Constitution. The president, the court ruled, had improperly spent public money on his private estate, Nkandla. The National Assembly had improperly defended the president by refusing to implement the ruling of the public protector, a constitutionally mandated official, when she concluded that the expenditure had been improper. In his public statement, the chief justice, a Zuma appointee, said, “The president failed to uphold, defend and respect the constitution.” He characterized the public protector as a “Biblical David” fighting against the “Goliath of corruption.” The Constitution and the rule of law, he continued, was a “sharp and mighty sword that stands ready to chop the ugly head of impunity from its stiffened neck.” He also said that “ours is a genuine and vibrant constitutional democracy capable of self-correction and self-preservation.” The two largest opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Economic Freedom Fighters, took the Nkandla case to the Constitutional Court. The ruling highlights the effectiveness of opposition parties even though Zuma’s African National Congress (ANC) has a large parliamentary majority. The ruling also illustrates the independence of the judiciary, and reaffirms constitutional entities designed to protect citizens from abusive state power, such as the public protector. The DA is saying that it will seek Zuma’s impeachment and hopes that many ANC parliamentarians will vote with the opposition. Over the past several months, disenchantment with Zuma has grown within the ANC. It is also possible that the ANC will “recall” Zuma as party leader, as it did Thabo Mbeki. If it does so, under South Africa’s proportional system of parliamentary representation, Zuma would be required to resign the presidency, as Mbeki did. Such a step might be attractive because it would forestall impeachment. However, it is also possible that the ANC might rally around Zuma, at least through this summer’s local and provincial election. For now, however, South Africans appear ebullient over the Court’s ruling. South Africa’s currency, the rand (ZAR), hit a nearly four-month high against the U.S. dollar following the ruling.

The National Executive Committee (NEC) of South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) met March 19-20. Among issues discussed was President Jacob Zuma’s relationship with the wealthy Gupta family, which critics accuse of “state capture,” that is, exercising undue influence over presidential, high level appointments and government contracts for their own benefit. For many in South Africa, the relationship between President Zuma and the Gupta family has become the face of corruption. Concern about corruption is a major political issue in the run up to local and municipal elections that will take place between May 18 and August 16. Indeed, according to South African media, the NEC also discussed the upcoming elections in Johannesburg and Pretoria, where the ANC faces stiff competition from the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), which has also called for Zuma’s resignation over corruption. Following the NEC meeting, party secretary general Gwede Mantashe said that there had been “frank and robust discussions” of the Guptas. But, he continued, “The appointment of ministers and deputy ministers is the sole prerogative of the President of the Republic, in line with the Constitution. To this end, the ANC continues to confirm its full confidence in our president.” In what might be seen as a damning comment, he also said that the NEC had not discussed Zuma standing down from the presidency. At its weekend conference, the NEC directed the ANC to investigate the relationship between the president and the Guptas. It also issued an invitation to party members to present to Mantashe’s office evidence of any Gupta family impropriety. Meanwhile the Office of the Public Protector, the constitutionally-mandated government ombudsman, has requested additional funding from the Treasury to investigate the Guptas. The involvement of the Public Protector has been requested by the Roman Catholic Dominican Order and DA leader Mmusi Maimane. The Public Protector earlier demonstrated her political independence from the ANC and the administration by finding that Zuma had improperly authorized public money to be spent on his private estate. The South African Communist Party (SACP), closely allied to the ANC, is also weighing-in. In a speech on March 21, the SACP second deputy general secretary, Solly Mapila, publicly called for the president to end his ties with the Guptas and welcomed the ANC investigation. According to the Daily Maverick’s Ranjemi Munusamy, Mapila characterized the relationship as “contaminated.” The Oliver and Adelaide Tambo Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Foundation, and the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation–the memorials to the heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle–have sent a joint letter to the NEC expressing “deep concern” about “state capture.” According to the Daily Maverick, an ANC spokesperson characterized the conversation with the foundations as “cordial, frank, and robust. He also said that there would be follow up conversations. As  Munusamy comments, that would indicate that the foundations are not going to let the issue go away. Munusamy also notes that the NEC mandated investigation gives the ANC a means to deal with the Gupta issue which, up to now, it has largely ignored. She also observes that the enhanced scrutiny of the president makes a cabinet reshuffle less likely. Like a cat with nine lives, Zuma has survived challenges ranging from credible rape charges (he was acquitted) to being fired by a sitting president. He may yet survive the Guptas. If the ANC does better than it currently expects in the upcoming elections, he may recover his political footing.

Brazil’s drama has escalated at breakneck speed. On March 4, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was detained for questioning. On March 8, construction magnate Marcelo Odebrecht was sentenced to nineteen years in prison for his role in the Lava Jato scandal. On March 9, state prosecutors in São Paulo filed a motion for Lula’s arrest, and on March 13, an estimated three million Brazilians hit the streets in the largest anti-government protests of recent years. On March 15, the plea bargain signed by Workers’ Party (PT) senator Delcídio Amaral was approved by the country’s high court, the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), revealing accusations against President Rousseff’s confidante and minister Aloizio Mercadante, against erstwhile government allies Vice President Michel Temer and Senate President Renan Calheiros, against opposition leader Aécio Neves, and even against Rousseff herself, who is alleged to have pushed judges to tamper with the ongoing investigation. Yesterday, March 16, spontaneous protests broke out in several cities after a wiretap was released of Lula and Rousseff discussing his appointment as presidential chief of staff, with protesters interpreting the conversation as obstruction of justice and an effort to ensure Lula special standing in a high court that has long been deferential to politicians (ministers, including the chief of staff, can only be tried in the STF). The speed with which the crisis has developed is reminiscent of another chaotic March, more than a half century ago, which culminated in the military coup of March 31, 1964. Today’s military is thankfully content to remain in its barracks, but although the democratic regime seems secure, the Rousseff administration is in deep trouble. A variety of well-informed observers are predicting Rousseff will be unseated. The arrest of Rousseff’s campaign manager, the charges against Lula, the turning of Senator Amaral, the likelihood of further explosive plea bargains within the next month, and the weakening of support from the PT rank and file all bode poorly for Rousseff. Stock markets have risen and the Brazilian real has strengthened, perhaps unreasonably, on the belief that any new government will be an improvement on the Rousseff administration’s disastrous economic record. But although the government is teetering, Rousseff’s removal is far from a done deal. The odds are still too close to call: a single revelation from the Lava Jato investigation could tip the balance at a moment’s notice. But the obstacles to removing Rousseff are significant enough to suggest that the crisis may still play out for some time, despite the tumult of the past few weeks: Legitimacy: As I noted last week, a central concern driving the calculations around Rousseff’s fate is “legitimacy.” Impeachment is more of a political process than a legal one, and the opposition is both divided and uncertain about how to proceed. The Workers’ Party has skillfully pushed a narrative about the conservatism of the media and the coup-mongering (golpismo) of the opposition parties (including Neves’ PSDB and the DEM, with its historical ties to the authoritarian regime). This narrative gives the opposition pause, and this hesitation has only been exacerbated by the ham-handed prosecutorial overreach by São Paulo state prosecutors last week, which allowed Lula to pose as the victim of a targeted onslaught, and led some Brazilians to question the legitimacy of the ongoing (and multiple) prosecutions of wrongdoing under the PT. Yesterday’s decision by Judge Sérgio Moro, presiding over the Lava Jato case, has generated controversy about potential judicial bias: the wiretap had been lifted by Moro several hours before the taped call, and although the conversation was suspect, it also suggested that the Lava Jato case has taken a more political turn. Meanwhile, none of the opposition has been particularly brave about leading the anti-Rousseff charge, except for Chamber President Eduardo Cunha, who is himself neck-deep in scandal and therefore not the best advocate for a procedurally legitimate impeachment. Street protests and the PMDB: Sunday’s protests sought to pressure Congress. In a secret vote on the impeachment process in December, Rousseff was able to garner 199 votes, only 28 more than she needs to block impeachment. The calculation is that the government has a hardcore bloc of about 125 supporters who are unlikely to switch sides, but the remainder are fair-weather friends, who may melt away if public disapproval is vehement enough. The PMDB is central to this calculus. Ominously, it has put off a decision about whether to support the government until April. But the protests may have less of an impact on changing the PMDB’s posture than many think. The Sunday protests remained a largely upper middle class phenomenon, heavily concentrated in the wealthy southern states, whose PMDB politicians were already largely in the pro-impeachment camp. Protesters reacted angrily to the presence of opposition politicians at Sunday’s march in São Paulo, forcing a hasty retreat by Aécio Neves and others, and suggesting that riding the political wave of impeachment may be fraught with peril. The events of recent weeks have exacerbated fissures within the PMDB: the Lava Jato investigation seems to be getting closer to many PMDB heavyweights, including Vice President Temer, which affects their ability to concentrate on organizing the party; and the PMDB is a fractious party of mutually jealous rivals, many of whom can be peeled away by a government willing to dispense goodies, such as the increasingly pressing renegotiation of state debts. This susceptibility to government pressure may be even more marked in the Senate, where governors’ concerns carry even greater weight, and may become more pronounced in coming months, now that Rousseff has hired a politically-savvy chief of staff. It is no coincidence that one of Lula’s first announced objectives is to begin a discussion of state debts. The path of removal: Rousseff has ruled out resignation, which leaves only two democratic avenues for removal. Impeachment is the most obvious, in part because it would be the most legitimate. Cunha intends to begin selection of the impeachment committee today. But a second path would be for the electoral court (TSE) to void the 2014 election, on the basis of campaign finance violations. Although Gilmar Mendes will soon become the president of the TSE, and he is not known for his love of the PT, TSE removal of the president would be an institutional innovation by a historically timid body. The TSE has traditionally turned a blind eye to almost all campaign finance violations, and over the past thirty years, it has removed only a handful of lower-level politicians for electoral wrongdoing. Furthermore, any TSE decision would likely be appealed up to the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), which would not necessarily agree with the TSE, and in any case, would string out the decision. The day after: Politicians deciding whether to support impeachment are also thinking about the day after. Already, there are allegations pending against every single politician in the line of presidential succession: Vice President Michel Temer, Chamber President Eduardo Cunha, and Senate President Renan Calheiros. Delcídio Amaral’s testimony even raises a cloud over the fourth in line, STF President Ricardo Lewandowski, as well Rousseff’s rival in the 2014 race, opposition leader Senator Aécio Neves. If the selection of a new president were thrown to the Congress—which it would be unless Temer survived or Rousseff and Temer were removed before the end of 2016—there are very few politicians who are both unsullied by allegations and simultaneously capable of pulling together the governing coalition needed to approve any meaningful reform that might jumpstart the moribund economy. Timing: The impeachment and Senate trial of Fernando Collor took seven months from start to finish. Next month, sitting politicians in both the Rousseff cabinet and the Congress will have to step down if they wish to run in October’s municipal elections. This is likely to lead to considerable turnover, muddying the impeachment calculus, and perhaps ensuring that any final decision comes in 2017, with only two years left in the Rousseff administration. Will it be worth the effort, especially if the justification for impeachment is weak, and the likelihood that the new government could turn things around is remote? Will it be worth the effort to join an impeachment drive driven forward by an unsavory Congress, only to replace Rousseff with an equally scandal-ridden Temer or Cunha administration? Justification: Impeachment is all about politics, and although the Lava Jato investigation seems to be marching inexorably toward the upper rungs of the political establishment, there is as yet no smoking gun against Rousseff that would tip the scales. There is evidence of massive campaign violations, confirmation of the kickbacks that helped convict Odebrecht, and allegations of government meddling in the courts. Yesterday’s wiretapped conversation with Lula also puts Rousseff in an unpalatable position, but the presidential palace has claimed that there was good justification for the conversation. Because of the legitimacy concerns noted above, none of these, as yet, seems sufficient to generate the momentum needed in the final push for impeachment, especially in the context of a rudderless, divided, and increasingly discredited opposition.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), a federation of labor unions, played a crucial role in the struggle against apartheid. It provided much of the personnel that mobilized voters for the African National Congress (ANC) from the country‘s first “all-race” elections in 1994 up to now. COSATU, the South African Communist Party (SACP), and the ANC form the coalition that governs the country. COSATU and SACP contest elections as part of the ANC. Conventional wisdom holds that the leadership of COSATU is increasingly distant from the laboring and unemployed masses, just as is President Jacob Zuma and the top ANC political leadership. (Unemployment in South Africa is variously estimated in the range of 25 to 50 percent, depending on the demographic.) The unions that make up COSATU are increasingly white-collar and based in the public sector, rather than blue-collar employees of private enterprises. By and large, the unions do not advocate low-wage, low skill policies that might reduce the very high levels of unemployment that drive poverty. COSATU is internally divided because of personal rivalries, but also over principle. The most salient division of the latter is between those in the federation that want closer ties to the ANC and SACP political leadership, and those who want to maintain greater distance. In general, those who favor distance want a more radical and aggressive labor movement. Here, as is often true elsewhere in South Africa, the SACP and the ANC political leadership are essentially conservative in outlook. Zwelinzima Vavi, a former General Secretary of COSATU who lost an internal power struggle and was fired in 2014, has announced that he will lead a “workers summit” in March, to be followed by the organization of a new federation in May that will rival COSATU. According to the media, current COSATU affiliates that are likely to join the new federation include the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA)--usually identified as the largest and richest trade union, the Food and Allied Workers Union, the South African Football Players Union, and the Public and Allied Workers Union of South Africa. Vavi is saying that the new labor federation will not be affiliated with any political party. However, there has been speculation that a new, “responsible” left-wing party based on trade unions such as NUMSA, will emerge before the national elections of 2019. It would challenge the ANC and also the Economic Freedom Fighters—a radical party that on occasion uses non-democratic methods, such as the disruption of the sitting of parliament. A new labor federation might generate such a “left-wing but responsible” political party. The emergence of two, rival labor federations at best will contribute to the general opening up of South African political life, so long dominated by the ANC and the politics of racial identity. However, it could also result in more labor militancy with consequences difficult to foretell.

Resulting from negotiations between the British Empire and the defeated Boer republics that ended the second Anglo-Boer war and created the Union of South Africa were three capitals. Parliament meets in Cape Town, the former capital of the British Cape Province. The administration was based in Pretoria, the capital of the Boer republic of Transvaal, and the judiciary was based in Bloemfontein, the capital of the other Boer republic--the Orange Free State. At the time of South Africa’s 1994 transition to “non-racial” democracy, there were proposals to consolidate all functions of government in Pretoria or, alternatively, to build an altogether new capital city, following the model of Washington, D.C., Canberra, or Brasilia. The idea was especially popular within the governing African National Congress (ANC). Part of the appeal of a new capital was that it would be free of any vestiges or symbols of the hated apartheid regime. However, there were strong vested interests in favor of the status quo, and a general sense that the costs would be enormous at a time when the new government was seeking to address more pressing needs, such as housing, water, health, and education. But, the issue has never gone away, and continues to resonate within the ANC. (While the Supreme Court of Appeal continues to sit in Bloemfontein, the Constitutional Court—by far the most important—now sits in Johannesburg.) Cape Town and the province of the Western Cape are both governed by the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), and they are widely regarded as the best-administered entities in the country. In addition, race plays a role: the Western Cape is the only region in sub-Saharan Africa where black Africans are not the majority of the population. (“Coloureds” are the largest racial group.) South Africans will often say that Cape Town is “white,” Durban is “Indian,” and Johannesburg is “African.” Cape Town, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, is also a major tourist destination. It is no surprise that President Jacob Zuma in his recent state of the nation address asked parliament to consider “consolidating” government functions in Pretoria. His argument was that it would be cost effective. No doubt there was political motivation as well. Zuma’s administration is widely criticized for being financially profligate and the president himself has been excoriated for spending public money on his private estate, Nkandla. With provincial elections in six months, Zuma and the ANC would prefer to move the discussion away from their financial shortcomings to the “savings” of consolidating government functions. Brooks Specter, in a thoughtful discussion in the Daily Maverick, demolishes the money-saving argument. He notes the huge costs of building new capitals—as well as the juicy contracts that result. (There is widespread criticism of ANC corruption around government contracts.) He also raises the interesting suggestion that making better use of technology, especially video conferencing, would significantly reduce the inconvenience of parliament being in Cape Town with the executive in Pretoria.