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SA president Jacob Zuma facing impeachment, future of Mandela’s party in doubt
South
African president and ANC leader Jacob Zuma © Siphiwe Sibeko /
Reuters
RT,
2
April, 2016
Embattled
South African President Jacob Zuma could be nearing the end of his
long political career, after a former Robben Island prison mate of
Nelson Mandela called for his resignation Saturday following a
damning Supreme Court ruling this week.
The
move could potentially end the influence of the ruling African
National Congress (ANC), which came into power when Mandela was
elected president in 1994.
Zuma
took to the national airwaves on Friday to apologize for
the "frustration" caused
after it emerged he had spent $23m (£15m) of public money renovating
his home, which he now must pay back.
John Steenhuisen
Wake up ANC and realize what damage this man is doing to your party and country, time for consequences #ImpeachZuma
Themba Maseko
Mandela served 1 term & exited gracefully. Mbeki and Zuma will be remembered for wanting to stay on thereby ripping the party apart.
Zuma
said he had "never
knowingly and deliberately set out to violate the constitution" and
that "any
action that has been found not to be in keeping with the constitution
happened because of a different approach and different legal advice.”
The
apology came after the Constitutional Court ruled the
72-year-old "failed
to uphold, defend, and respect the constitution as the supreme law of
the and.”
Many
hoped Zuma would announce his resignation during his live address,
but this Nixonian moment never materialized, much to the anger of the
Democratic Alliance (DA), the main opposition party.
He’s
also lost support within his party from those who believe he has
trampled on Mandela’s legacy.
Ahmed “Kathy” Kathrada,
who served 18 years of a life sentence alongside Nelson Mandela in
the notorious island prison, wrote a letter to Zuma on Saturday,
which read, “in
the face of such persistently widespread criticism, condemnation and
demand, is it asking too much to express the hope that you will
choose the correct way that is gaining momentum, to consider stepping
down?”
bendepear
#Kathrada letter calling on #Zuma to step down is deeply moving; "I am just a rank-and-file member of my ANC branch"
Clare Hendry
Why is it even necessary for someone who has suffered so much still to be fighting for SA at 86? #Zuma #Kathrada
Referencing
Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of ANC co-founded by Mandela,
he added, "To
paraphrase the famous MK slogan of the time, there comes a time in
the life of every nation when it must choose to submit or fight.
Today I appeal to our president to submit to the will of the people
and resign," added
Kathrada.
It
is clear too that the ANC cannot be relied upon to do the right
thing,” said
DA party leader Mmusi Maimane on Friday.“They
have blindly and shamefully protected him from the consequences of
his corruption. How far has President Zuma and the ANC of today
strayed from the path set by Nelson Mandela?”
Mmusi Maimane
As a SAfrican, the Statement by Zuma & ANC insults us. This is no longer NMandela's party, it's departed from constitution. #vote4change
“Jacob
Zuma is the cancer at the heart of South African politics,” wrote
Maimane. “He
is not capable of honorable conduct, and cannot continue to be
president of our country. Zuma will not change. The ANC will not
change,” he
added.
Lesley-Ann Brandt
In
a series of tweets on Saturday, Maimane said his party, in
cooperation with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, are
proposing impeachment of the president as “Zuma
and the Constitution cannot co-exist.”
Tuesday, Motion to #ImpeachZuma will be debated in the National Assembly. The ANC and Zuma are the same: both disregard the Constitution.
The
ANC, which has been the ruling party of post-apartheid South Africa,
has faced an increasing number of accusations of corruption since
Zuma took office in 2009, with the DA saying in March that the party
had “degenerated
into a crony network that has long forgotten the people of this
country.”
Brazilian
Democracy Thrown to the Dogs
Pepe
Escobar
31
March, 2016
It
took only 3 minutes for a bunch of lowly crooks – more known for
excelling in corruption than competent administration – to
(literally) throw young but vibrant Brazilian democracy to the dogs.
With
no votes counted, so traitors would not be publicly identified, the
centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (Partido do Movimento
Democrático Brasileiro or PMDB) in Brazil abandoned the coalition
that supports President Dilma Rousseff in power in Brasilia, thus
increasing the chances of a – Kafkaesque – impeachment drive
against Rousseff being approved in April.
The
PMDB is Brazil’s largest party – accounting for 69 out of 513
members of Parliament. In the short term, the party will be
contributing for one of its own, current vice-president Michel Temer,
75, a not exactly brilliant constitutionalist lawyer, to ascend to
the presidency until the next elections in 2018, thus fulfilling the
white coup/regime change scenario dreamed about by the proponents of
Hybrid War in Brazil and their lowly vassals.
The
Brazilian Constitution allows for impeachment; but in Rousseff’s
case, no undisputable «crime of responsibility» has been proven.
The alleged accusations – centered on embezzling of public debt and
fiscal mismanagement – are essentially bogus.
It
gets worse; this undisguised white coup/regime change process will
run in parallel to a dirty deal preventing the leader of the lower
house in Brasilia, notorious crook Eduardo Cunha, from being thrown
out of office for corruption. Cunha would simply «resign» – under
the assumption that the new Temer administration would need to
articulate a new majority in Parliament.
A
jury of crooks
This
new phase in Brazil’s massive, ongoing politico-economic crisis now
privileges the right-wing opposition, bolstered by the PMDB gang, all
geared up to snatch the necessary two-thirds majority (342 votes) to
bring the accusations against Rousseff to the Senate.
What
should be expected is a massive PSYOP for the next few weeks, where
the vicious politico/mainstream media/old comprador elite combo will
impose the perception on the majority of the population that the jig
is up. Well, the jig is not up, because those 342 votes essential for
the white coup/regime change scenario are far from a given.
Some
PMDB congressmen – to their credit – still support Rousseff.
Brazilian Federal Police has shown that quite a few PMDB members are
directly involved in the massive Petrobras scandal at the heart of
the Car Wash investigation – including Temer himself. Corrupt to
the core Cunha, the lower house leader, should have been in jail
already. In this landmark case of Soft Hybrid War, as I argued
before, the heart of the matter is a woman President who has not been
found guilty of any wrongdoing being «judged» by a bunch of crooks.
Assuming
a Temer administration born out of a white coup/regime change comes
to fruition, its political platform, according to Brasilia insiders,
will have been concocted by the current right-wing opposition,
soundly defeated at the previous four presidential elections.
Temer
will be at best a tampon. He will not be allowed to run in 2018. He
will be gently «persuaded» to compose a ministerial team of
right-wing notables. And he won’t meddle with the Car Wash
investigation, which will be dissolved into a bathtub full of
nitrate, as its initial intention was never to investigate those
notables, only the Workers’ Party.
Watch
that dustbin
Car
Wash will then be unmasked for what it is. This tropical remix of the
Mani pulite in Italy in the 1990s was never a legitimate drive to
purge the Brazilian political system from corruption; absolutely
everybody profiting from this system is corrupt to the core.
Car
Wash instead was conceived as a relentless New Inquisition machinery
operating to the benefit of the same old comprador elites which are
already celebrating Rousseff’s impeachment, plus the potential
destruction of Lula’s aura, in case he’s legally prevented from
running for President again in 2018.
As
for the whole Rousseff impeachment drive, it rests on a dubious legal
proceeding by a former opposition Congressman who is – what else –
being investigated himself for corruption.
Military
coups are so Pinochet-era. It’s never enough to stress that what’s
taking place in Brazil is advanced Hybrid War, a white coup/regime
change operation organized by the Federal Public Ministry, corporate
media (controlled by four families) and a significant part of
Congress.
All
bets are still off, though. The regime changers are in a hurry
because in an extremely fluid situation in a country totally
paralyzed and polarized, damning new information will certainly come
to light; rats are ratting on a full-time basis, and many a regime
changer is bound to be reduced to road kill.
And
if by yet another elaborate twist of fate the Brazilian Senate
deliberates that Rousseff did not commit a «crime of responsibility»
– after all, there’s no evidence she did – the President will
be back in power. And the provisional regime change «government»
will be thrown to where it already belongs; the stinky dustbin of
History.
BRICS Under Attack: The Empire Strikes Back In Brazil
Eric
Draitser
24
March, 2016
In
Brazil, the government of Dilma Rousseff is facing a major
destabilization campaign orchestrated by powerful right-wing elements
in the country and their U.S. backers. Under the always convenient
banner of “anti-corruption,” millions have turned out in the
streets to demand
the ouster of
the twice-elected Rousseff government on the heels of a series of
revelations about alleged corruption pertaining to the quasi-state,
quasi-private Petrobras oil company.
According
to the allegations, a number of leading political figures, some of
whom are connected to President Rousseff and the Workers’ Party,
have skimmed
at least 3 percent of
the billions in oil revenue from Petrobras, illustrating the still
active tradition of corruption in Brazil.
The
latest target is former President Lula da Silva,
who was forcibly removed from his home in an ostentatious show of
force by law enforcement authorities meant to humiliate the
70-year-old founder of the Workers’ Party. Because of his working
class background, the former president was seen as the hope and pride
of the left in Brazil, and the public removal from his home earlier
this month sparked the latest round of protests.
But what — or who — is really behind the soft coup in Brazil?
The
right wing is the driving force of the protests, despite any
progressive-minded, anti-corruption sentiment being expressed by
various segments of the protest movement. Two of the principal groups
responsible for organizing and mobilizing the demonstrations are
the Free
Brazil Movement (MBL) and Students
for Liberty (EPL),
both of which have direct
ties to Charles and David Koch,
the right-wing, neocon, U.S. billionaires, as well as other leading
figures of the far right, pro-business neoliberal establishment.
MBL
is fronted by Fabio Ostermann and Juliano Torres, both of whom were
educated in the Atlas Leadership Academy, a satellite of the Atlas
Economic Research Foundation, which is directly
funded by the Koch brothers.
EPL is a direct affiliate of the U.S.-based Students for Liberty, a
well-known Koch brothers outfit with deep ties to the right-wing
political establishment in the U.S.
One
of the leading faces of the movement is Kim Kataguiri, a 20-year-old
“activist,” who is both a founder of MBL and a leader in EPL.
Unabashedly pro-big business, he’s an adherent of the so-called
Austrian School of Economics, the economic ideology that advocates
total deregulation of the economy in the interests of private
business, and a great admirer of Milton Friedman, the father of what
is known today as neoliberal capitalism.
Kataguiri
and his fellow right-wing activists have been quick to distance
themselves from the blood-soaked legacy of right-wing coups in Brazil
and Latin America for obvious reasons. Yet they espouse precisely the
same economic policies as those enacted throughout the region,
perhaps most famously in Chile under the brutal dictatorship of
Augusto Pinochet, whose economic policies were directly guided by
none other than Friedman.
In
this March 18, 2015 photo, anti-government protest leader Kim
Kataguiri poses for a picture in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (AP/Andre
Penner)
“We
defend free markets, lower taxes and the privatisation of all public
companies… In Brazil, the left is still seen as cool by young
people… We want to destroy this idea that if you defend free
markets then you’re an old man who is asking for a dictatorship…
Unfortunately, we don’t have any big sponsors. The government
and some sectors of the press say that we are financed by rich
people. We would have no problem in being financed by rich people.”
Unfortunately
for Kataguiri, Ostermann, Torres and their colleagues, the truth
about their connections to powerful finance capital and business in
the U.S. and throughout Latin America is well known. Still, the
corporate media whitewashes these connections, presenting the
protests as some sort of pure expression of people’s discontent,
rather than a manufactured form of political manipulation and
destabilization which has seized upon difficult economic times to
cynically exploit public opinion. Brazil’s economic downturn over
the past two years has made this much easier.
Other
influential groups such as VemPraRua (“Come to the Streets”)
are directly
funded by
powerful right-wing business interests inside the country, including
Brazil’s richest man, Jorge Paulo Lemann. As Bloombergnoted in
a 2013 profile of Lemann:
“In
the U.S., Lemann is virtually unknown, even though he and his two
longtime partners, Marcel Herrmann Telles and Carlos Alberto
Sicupira, now control three icons of U.S. consumer culture: Heinz
ketchup, Burger King, and, after the $52 billion takeover of
Anheuser-Busch in 2008, Budweiser beer. The combined market value of
the companies they run is $187 billion - larger than that of
Citigroup.
In
Brazil, Lemann is a business-class hero… Worth some $20 billion,
Lemann is No. 32 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, seven slots
behind George Soros and three ahead of Carl Icahn.”
Meanwhile,
the reactionary, pro-U.S. elements inside (and outside) Brazil are
particularly angered at the Workers’ Party and, more broadly, the
left. This is not because of corruption – though corruption
undoubtedly remains a problem – but because of the ascendance to
power of political forces representing working class and poor
Brazilians.
As the
North American Congress on Latin America correctly assessed in
April 2015: “Don’t believe the right-wing media’s emphasis on
corruption—the recent demonstrations are motivated by entrenched
elite discontent over expanding economic and political inclusion for
the nation’s majority.”
Bringing
BRICS to heel
In
short, despite all the fancy anti-corruption rhetoric, the assault on
Rousseff’s leftist government is the result of a coordinated
campaign by business interests tied to the U.S. Washington and Wall
Street that see in Brazil a dangerous precedent in which a left-wing
government sympathetic to and allied with Bolivarian movements in
Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and until recently, Argentina, was able
to gain power and preside over an economic boom. 
A
graph demonstrating the correlation between expansion of
anti-government sentiment and the stagnation of GDP growth.
Indeed,
this point should not be understated — namely, the economic
downturn in commodities such as oil which has put the brakes on
Brazil’s rapid economic progress.
In
fact, recent
data shows that
the expansion of anti-government sentiment directly correlates to the
stagnation of GDP growth, which itself directly correlates to the
decline in commodities prices. As many have convincingly argued, the
collapse of oil has no doubt been fomented and encouraged, if not
directly orchestrated, by the U.S. and its allies in the Gulf in
order to target non-Western countries whose economies are tied to oil
and gas revenue — Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, and especially
Russia.
Essentially,
what’s unfolding in Brazil is a multi-pronged effort to destabilize
the country via a variety of political and economic means, with the
ultimate goal of bringing to heel a key member of BRICS. But it is
not the only one.
Brazil
is certainly not the only BRICS member facing an offensive by the
U.S.-NATO system. The next article in this series will examine the
destabilizing forces reaching into South Africa. Future pieces will
examine the growing military relationship between the U.S. and India,
as well as the multi-faceted strategies to contain, isolate, and
destabilize Russia and China.
BRICS
Under Attack: The Empire’s Destabilizing Hand Reaches Into South
Africa
An
undercurrent of political manipulation pulses beneath the surface of
popular South African demonstrations organized around legitimate
grievances. But who’s pulling the strings? And why?
By
Eric Draitser @stopimperialism
Vladimir
Putin, Xi Jinping, Jacob Zuma, Narendra Modi, Dilma Rousseff
Leaders
of the BRICS nations, from left, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin,
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazil’s President Dilma
Rousseff, China’s President Xi Jinping and South Africa’s
President Jacob Zuma, pose for a group photo during the BRICS summit
in Fortaleza, Brazil, Tuesday, July 15, 2014. The leaders of the
BRICS nations are expected to officially create a bailout and
development fund worth $100 billion. It’s meant to be an
alternative to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,
which are seen as being dominated by the U.S. and Europe. (AP PHOTO)
28
March, 2016
This
article is part of a series on Western meddling to foment unrest and
destabilize BRICS nations in an effort to ensure the continuation of
Western economic and political control over the Global South. The
first part, focusing on Brazil, can be found here. Still to come:
BRICS under attack in Russia, India, and China.
NEW
YORK — (Analysis) Major protests have gripped South Africa in
recent months as political forces have emerged to give voice to a
growing discontent with the government and ruling party. Beneath the
surface of these demonstrations organized around legitimate
grievances, however, there’s an undercurrent of political
manipulation.
South
Africa and its ruling African National Congress (ANC) party have been
targeted for destabilization due to the country’s burgeoning
relationship with China and other non-Western nations, most obviously
typified by South Africa’s inclusion in BRICS, the association of
the five major emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and
South Africa.
Last
year, for example, China surpassed the United States and European
Union as South Africa’s largest trade partner, and the ANC has been
hard at work promoting further trade cooperation. Answering questions
in the National Assembly, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa explained:
“We trade more effectively with China because the relationship is
based on win-win; mutual benefit that they can get out of the
relationship and that we can get out the relationship.”
But
recent protests against the ANC government have threatened the ruling
tripartite coalition of the ANC, along with the South African
Communist Party and Congress of South African Trade Unions.
A
number of groups on the left such as the Economic Freedom Fighters,
led by former ANC youth leader Julius Malema, and the National Union
of Metalworkers, have taken part in the protests touched off by
student demonstrations against university fees.
At
the same time, however, Western-backed opposition forces led by the
Democratic Alliance have positioned themselves as leaders and
beneficiaries of the anti-government movement.
The
DA, a center-right liberal political party now fronted by “South
Africa’s Obama,” Mmusi Maimane, is lauded by Western financial
interests. The American Chamber of Commerce, for example, has
consistently heaped praise on DA as the way forward for South Africa.
When
Maimane delivered a widely publicized speech at a May 2015 business
breakfast hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce, he stated:
“While
China may have overtaken the US as South Africa’s largest trade
partner in volume, the US remains an incredibly important partner for
our future growth and development.
I
refer to ‘future growth and development’ for under the lacklustre
and confused leadership of the ANC, our economy has failed to reach
its true potential.”
A
careful reading of the subtext offers a clearer understanding of what
Maimane is implying. By noting that China has overtaken the U.S. as
South Africa’s largest trade partner, he is directly tying the ANC
and its “lackluster and confused leadership” to the close
relationship with China.
In
other words, the DA represents “the future” — that is, a future
in which the U.S. is able to reclaim its status as South Africa’s
dominant trade partner. This certainly would not have been lost on
the attendees at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast. (It should be
recalled that the Chamber of Commerce is traditionally seen as the
main arm of U.S. economic power projection in the Global South —
just ask any leader in South and Central America.)
The
Wall Street-London connection runs deep
But
the ties to the political and financial establishment of neoliberal
capital and the U.S. empire do not stop at the American Chamber of
Commerce. In 2014 it came to light that one of the principal
financiers behind the DA and its short-lived attempt at unity with
the centrist Agang SA party, led by anti-Apartheid figure Mamphela
Ramphele, was billionaire Nathan Kirsh.
As
the Business Times noted in March 2014:
“Mr
Kirsh said he provided a ‘marginal amount’ of funding to both the
DA and Agang SA … but denied bringing the parties together.
‘I
believe there’s got to be an opposition to the government, but I
wasn’t involved in the marriage. … When Mamphela [Ramphele] came
to me, she represented what could be good, credible opposition and I
gave her some money. When [leader of the DA] Helen Zille came to me,
she had already shown her ability to put things together and the
[Western] Cape runs perhaps better than any of the other provinces,’
said Kirsh.
Zille
and Ramphele announced early in February that the short-lived plan to
join forces, and for Ramphele to stand as the DA’s presidential
candidate, was over.
At
the time, Ms Ramphele was quoted as saying ‘a donor pushed the DA
and Agang SA together.’”
Kirsh,
the business tycoon who heads a multinational business empire
controlled through his Kirsh Holdings Group, is one of the richest
men in the world, having made his fortune during the Apartheid regime
in South Africa and in a variety of other ventures since then.
Aside
from his dodgy past, Kirsh is well known to have untold billions in
assets and companies domiciled in tax havens from the British Virgin
Islands to Liberia. Perhaps most notorious among his recent
money-making projects has been the massive contracts awarded to his
company Magal Security Systems by the Israeli government to provide
electronic fences and security systems for the apartheid wall Israel
constructed, and which has been almost universally condemned as
illegal.
In
fact, Kirsh is well known as being very close to some of the leading
institutions of Western finance capital, as evidenced by his choice
of Bradley Fried to oversee Kirsh Group. As noted by Bloomberg, Fried
will oversee “the management company that holds Kirsh’s disparate
assets, which include two U.S. wholesale grocery businesses,
commercial and residential real estate, and private equity
investments on four continents.” Fried is a member of the Bank of
England’s Court of Directors and a well-connected executive in
circles of high finance.
Fried
“takes over [Kirsh Group] from Ron Sandler, the former CEO of
Lloyd’s of London who Kirsh said will remain working as a trustee
and adviser to the family.” It should be noted that Sandler, who
served as chairman of the infamous Northern Rock, had close ties with
former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, himself a creature of the
City of London.
Between
Kirsh’s connections to the highest circles of finance capital in
the U.S. empire, and his lucrative business dealings with Apartheid
South Africa and the current apartheid state of Israel, it should be
crystal clear that Kirsh is no progressive. So what’s he doing
financing the allegedly “liberal-progressive” opposition in South
Africa? To put it simply, Kirsh is making yet another investment that
he hopes will pay massive political and financial dividends.
Soft
power projects from pro-DA think tanks
Another
source of soft power projection from the U.S. empire are the think
tanks that uphold the neoliberal DA as the future for South Africa.
One example is Legatum Institute, which has published numerous papers
criticizing the ANC and calling for “democratization” and
“plurality of voices” in the political sphere.
In
an innocuously titled 2014 report, “South Africa and the Pursuit of
Inclusive Growth,” Legatum noted:
“Together
opposition voters constituted just over 34 percent of the national
vote. The ANC is understandably proud of its achievements in
attracting such a large proportion of votes. However, the weakness of
the opposition has reduced the pressure on the ANC to win electoral
votes on the basis of its performance in government. It also means
that at the national level the ANC’s commitment to democracy has
not been put to the ultimate test: the transfer of power to a
victorious opposition.”
While
the report notes the democratic nature of South Africa’s election,
the implied argument, couched in the typically duplicitous rhetoric
of Western think tanks, is that the ANC should be unseated from power
in order for a truly democratic South Africa to emerge. The report,
it should be noted, was edited and overseen by the notoriously
anti-Russia, anti-China, anti-BRICS, neoliberal Anne Applebaum, who
has repeatedly used her pen and face in the service of the empire’s
agenda. (Interesting to note also is that Applebaum is married to
Radek Sikorski, the vehemently pro-NATO former foreign minister of
Poland.)
One
example of Applebaum’s anti-Russia outlook is her widely read 2014
essay in the New York Review of Books, “How He [Putin] and His
Cronies Stole Russia,” which argued the typical neoliberal finance
capital line that Russia was on the right path in the 1990s under the
stewardship of the U.S.- and Wall Street-backed Russian President
Boris Yeltsin and his gaggle of thieves, but that Putin and his
“kleptocratic KGB apparatchiks” seized control of Russia for
their own purposes.
Such
nonsense, in addition to Applebaum’s unmitigated warmongering in
matters relating to Syria and Libya, demonstrates just what sort of
slant exists in her report on South Africa.
Another
important element in this equation is an understanding of exactly
what the Legatum Institute really is and who funds it. As Pando’s
Mark Ames wrote in 2015:
“Legatum
turns out to be a project of the most secretive billionaire vulture
capital investor you’ve (and I’d) never heard of: Christopher
Chandler, a New Zealander who, along with his billionaire brother
Richard Chandler, ran one of the world’s most successful vulture
capital funds …
Brother
Christopher Chandler took his billions to Dubai, where he launched
Legatum Capital, and, in 2007, the Legatum Institute … The Legatum
Institute’s motto, displayed proudly on its homepage, reads
‘Prosperity Through Revitalising Capitalism and Democracy.’
… [T]he
Chandler brothers were the largest foreign portfolio investors in
Russia throughout the 1990s into the first half of the 2000s,
including the largest foreign investors in natural gas behemoth
Gazprom. …
From
what I’ve learned, the Chandlers make buckets of fast money by
buying into totally depressed and corrupt emerging markets when
everyone else is too afraid to, driving up the price of their assets
by making a lot of noise about corporate governance and corruption,
and then selling out when those investments tick up during what look
like to outsiders as principled battles over corporate governance
issues. In other words, a form of extreme green-mailing.”
Applebaum’s
official title with Legatum is “director of the Transitions Forum,”
“a series of projects that examine the challenges and opportunities
of radical political and economic change.” No wonder the think
tank’s prized propagandist is so gung-ho in her hatred of all
things Putin and Russia: Her bosses were directly targeted by Putin
and the Russian government as it sought to reverse the
“vulturization” of Russia’s economy carried out by Western
capitalists like the Chandlers.
It
seems then that Legatum is part of the same anti-Russian, anti-BRICS
network of Western NGOs and think tanks that includes the
International Republican Institute, Freedom House, the National
Democratic Institute, and the National Endowment for Democracy. And
it should come as no surprise that Russia and many other countries
have moved so strongly to curtail their presence and influence in
their respective countries (this author has written detailed analyses
of the political significance of the NGO laws in Russia and China).
Powerful
forces aligning
Make
no mistake, though: Institutional issues such as corruption and
political and economic disenfranchisement do indeed exist in South
Africa, and these must be addressed. The challenge against the ANC
from leftist forces who seek wealth and land redistribution,
socialization of the economy, and other traditional policies
associated with leftist politics is to be welcomed. That challenge
could likely push the ANC to make much needed policy changes,
including moving further away from neoliberal capitalism, as it
broadens its engagement with the non-Western world.
However,
one should not miss the forest for the trees. There are powerful
forces aligning behind the DA and other Western proxy political
forces in order to destabilize a key partner of the BRICS project.
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