Given the African National Congress’s (ANC) hegemony as a consequence of its liberation credentials, South Africa has what is generally described as a one-party dominant political system.  And the concomitant electoral system ensures that all senior governmental positions are held by the ANC or its allies. This is the background against which the ANC’s presidential election in Mangaung (Bloemfontein) will take place from 16 – 20 December.  The ANC will then elect its president who will in turn be its candidate for president of the country.  And at this stage, unless something totally surprising happens, it will be Jacob Zuma.  He will get the second term which he so clearly wants.

What sophisticated analysts committed to a genuine democratic state in South Africa are looking for are signs that the dominant one-party status is changing.  And as with most such things, these changes may be minute and seemingly insignificant but powerful on the longer term.

The changes may be organisational or simply attitudinal and reflecting changes in socio-economic relations.  From an organisational point of view, the one-party dominant state has certainly been weakened by the Democratic Alliance (DA).  In this regard Helen Zille has been brilliant.  She has changed the party’s culture, its image, and its message so that it is attracting middle-class blacks.  And Helen’s re-election three weeks ago was deserved and reassuring, as were the election of a number of black DA’s into executive positions.  The fact that this was held at Boksburg is itself  significant.  (Can one imagine the PFP organising their conference in Boksburg!)

But the DA’s growth and its attraction of black support results from a factor which is not so much political as socio-economic.  And this is a factor which will profoundly change the South African political system.  It is no more or less than the emergence of the black middle-class.  In a brilliant analysis under the heading “South Africa’s silent majority will soon be vocal”, Ray Hartley, editor of The Sunday Times, describes the growth of the black middle-class in South Africa on the basis of the recent population census.  He makes the preliminary point that South Africans have always laboured under the assumption, born of centuries of institutionalised inequality, that this country has a small middle-class that constitutes a minority.  He goes on to say:  “That was certainly true while there were racial barriers to the majority of South Africans owning property, starting enterprises and obtaining the sort of education needed to enter professions.  These barriers have been absent for 18 years and perhaps it is time to shed the calcified carapace of apartheid economics and look at our society afresh.”  And if we do this what do we find?  The striking development of the past 18 years has been the transformation of at least two provinces into modes of tremendous growth and wealth.  Over the same period the average household income has doubled – in Gauteng and in the Western Cape.  Urbanisation accompanied by rising income, suggests a strong growth in earnings and that suggests growth in the middle-classes.  He goes on to say that:  “This has been accompanied by rising participation in education especially in the 5-17 year-old age group with more and more children attending private schooling of one or other kind.”  Another important indicator of middle-class growth he says is the declining household size.  In 1996 the average South African household comprised of 4.5 people.  This has now fallen to an average of 3.4 people.  And the number of people living in formal dwellings has increased from 65.1% in 1996 to 77.6 in 2011.  Some 84.7% of all dwellings now use electricity for lighting – an increase on the 58.2% in 1996.

So he goes on to challenge the concept so popular with the ANC that struggle and conflict are essential for a change in economic circumstances.  The fact is that what the recent census statistics show is that poverty and its attendant problems are declining and the middle-class is booming.  (This article is worth reading in its entirety.  It appeared in the Review Section of this week’s Sunday Times (2 December 2012).)

Now, from a rapidly emerging middle-class to the most intriguing aspect of the ANC election is the emergence of Cyril Ramaphosa, as a personification of middle-class values, as a probable running mate to Zuma and probable deputy president.  Cyril, it should be recalled, was Nelson Mandela’s choice to be the country’s first president.  It didn’t happen, and he went away and developed an impressive business career.  However, he remained a factor within the ANC, and the extent of his standing and influence was demonstrated in KwaZulu-Natal a week ago where in that region’s election of a candidate to run with Zuma he received over 800 votes to Kgalema Motlanthe’s less than a dozen.

Cyril’s nomination as deputy president of the ANC and therefore of the country could only be good.  Firstly, it slots in to the middle-class phenomenon Ray Hartley talks about – in fact, reinforces that transforming development.  Secondly, given his business connections it will have an effect on international business and investor confidence; thirdly, given his role in the writing of the South African Constitution, his presence at the highest level of power would put an end to the ANC’s playing around with undesirable constitutional ideas.  And fourthly, his association as deputy chairman of the National Planning Commission – in other words the man behind Trevor Manuel - would put the National Plan upfront and set the National Plan at the heart of the ANC’s policy programme.  Aside therefore from the election of an ANC president and deputy presidential candidate, the most important thing to emerge from the Mangaung conference will be a total commitment to the National Plan.  And as the veteran economist Raymond Parsons pointed out this week that is what the country needs.  It will happen with Cyril upfront.  While Cyril’s election will undoubtedly staunch the flow of black support to the DA, it will strengthen democracy within the one-party state dominant system.