He and many of his supporters would be exceedingly motivated to resist a forced ouster as they are vulnerable to severe legal repercussions. It is not reasonable to assume that Zuma can be forced from office without a brutal showdown. The range of plausible scenarios for SA between now and the next general election is very broad. If protests begin to play a much larger role in defining SA’s political economy, Zuma’s quick decision to employ troops in response to the xenophobic attacks could prove to have been a precursor to a much larger domestic deployment. Taking him on from outside the party would demonstrate that the broad economy is much more vulnerable to event risks and general decay than he and his entrenched comrades are. In both a technical and a practical sense, Zuma is not accountable to voters. Protests can serve as tripwires but they tend to be less meaningful in countries that have elections. The two primary opposition parties are themselves opposites. SA’s business leaders and investors do not have mandates to challenge the country’s elected leadership. He has many cards to play whereas those opposed to him and his policies have divergent views and interests. His senior cronies and rural support base are not going to abandon him for offending wealthy investors. Zuma’s bad week was never likely to provoke a recall. Banking crises provoke much scrutiny and a sovereign debt default would trigger IMF demands hostile to patronage-inducing policies. This helps to explain why an interventionist state has not borrowed more than it has and why, in flagrant repudiation of economic development fundamentals, African Bank was rescued. The ANC has favoured policies designed to avoid accountability. Electoral pressures have been weak with the next general election a long while off. The core problems is that SA still has not produced a political dispensation which can sustain adequate economic transformation and growth. Unlike the country’s consumers, SA’s bankers are exceptionally skilled at credit management – leading to much wealth flowing from consumers to lenders with profoundly negative transformation consequences.
SA’s reliance on foreign debt is not yet extreme and domestic pension funds can be forced to buy government debt.
Frequently, the IMF then negotiates the structural reforms that politicians resisted when their government could still borrow in the international capital markets. When a national economy is seriously stressing, waves of financial repression typically begin with consumer and corporate defaults bringing down banks followed by a sovereign debt default. It is possible, though unlikely, that the recent finance minister fiasco will spur meaningful changes. Zuma will not be forced out without a destructive fight Shawn Hagedorn says President’s senior cronies are not going to abandon him for offending wealthy investors
0 kommentar(er)
