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Members of parliament hold placards after the result of the vote on the first motion of no-confidence against the French government at the National Assembly in Paris, France, March 20, 2023.
What We’re Watching: Slim win for Macron, protests in South Africa, Trump’s legal woes, Colombia peace collapsing?
Macron’s narrow escape
It came down to the wire, but Emmanuel Macron’s government narrowly survived a no-confidence vote in France’s National Assembly on Monday, with 278 voting to topple the government, nine votes shy of the threshold needed to pass.
Quick recap: The motion was triggered after Macron used a constitutional provision last week -- bypassing a vote in the lower house -- to pass a controversial pension reform despite weeks of protests (more on that here).
Not only do 70% of French adults abhor Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62 by 2030 – which he says is necessary to plug the growing debt hole – but the French electorate, which has long had a libertarian streak, is also furious that the government used what it says is an anti-democratic loophole to pass the measure.
Macron’s troubles are only just beginning. Hundreds were arrested in Paris over the weekend and on Monday as anti-government protests turned violent and smelly. Unions have called for nationwide demonstrations and strikes in a bid to pressure the government to roll back the measures (which will never happen).
Prime Minister Élizabeth Borne will likely take the fall and resign. Still, Macron, already unpopular before this debacle, will emerge a diminished political figure. After previously saying he understood that people were “tired of reforms which come from above,” it will be very hard for the ideological chameleon to regain the trust of vast swathes of the population.
South Africa’s day of demonstrations
Amid rolling blackouts and a slumping economy, the Marxist-linked Economic Freedom Fighters Party called for a national day of protests Monday, putting law enforcement on high alert.
The EFF, the country’s third-largest party led by longtime leader Julius Malema, is largely backed by poor Black South Africans, many of whom live in townships, as well as younger voters who feel they haven't benefited from the ruling African National Congress Party’s tenure in the post-apartheid era. Indeed, around one-third of South Africans are out of work and the economy is slated to grow by just 0.3% in 2023, down from 2.5% in 2022.
President Cyril Ramaphosa mobilized more than 3,000 troops nationwide in anticipation of mass protests. But turnout was lower than expected, prompting Malema to claim that the government was blocking buses transporting protesters.
The EFF “will still claim the wall-to-wall media coverage around the protests as a victory,” says Ziyanda Sturrman, a South Africa expert at Eurasia Group.
None of this is good news for Ramaphosa, who, after a series of political scandals, looks set to lose his parliamentary majority in next year’s general election. Still, Stuurman notes that if the ANC falls just below the 50% threshold, several small parties have already put their hands up to join an ANC-led coalition.
Trump vs. prosecutors
Former US President Donald Trump faces possible legal challenges on multiple fronts. The state of New York could charge him with fraud for alleged hush money payments to a porn star. The Justice Department could charge him with many suspected crimes related to efforts to overthrow the result of the 2020 election as well as the misuse of hundreds of classified documents recovered by the FBI from his Florida home. Prosecutors in Georgia could charge him with election fraud as part of his alleged effort to overturn that state’s 2020 election result.
If Trump is indicted, he’ll likely present himself for charges, while also calling for protests. He would then be released on bond pending trial, and it’s unlikely that any trial in any of these potential cases would take place in 2023.
Trump would continue his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. There’s nothing in the US Constitution to prevent him from being elected president. His fate would remain with voters. If elected, his presidency would begin in court. In theory, a president could pardon himself for federal crimes. That would have to be tested. But no president can pardon state-level crimes, like those he might be charged with in New York and Georgia. In short, prosecutors and Trump may be about to steer American politics into uncharted waters.
Colombia: Is Petro’s “total peace” going to pieces?
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro took office last year pledging to reach a negotiated “total peace” with the country’s various armed and criminal groups. But on Monday that strategy took a big hit when he was forced to suspend a three-month-old ceasefire with the fearsome Clan del Golfo (Gulf Clan), the Andean region’s most powerful narco-trafficking outfit. The Clan had allegedly attacked an aqueduct and opened fire on police officers.
The move puts Petro in a tough spot — ramping up military action risks escalating a conflict he was elected in part to end peacefully. But allowing cartels to run riot isn’t an option either.
The setback comes amid a broader season of discontent for Petro: a corruption investigation of his son, the departure of several key coalition ministers, and an approval rating that is net-negative barely six months since he took office.
Petro, a former guerilla who is the country’s first left-wing president, has made an effort to build bridges across the political spectrum so far. But his critics worry that if the going gets tougher, he might resort to a more populist style that could be explosive in a country as polarized as Colombia.
A woman cooks by a candlelight during one of the frequent power outages in South Africa.
South Africa struggles in the dark
Things are dark in South Africa right now, both metaphorically and literally. Though not new, rolling blackouts have worsened in recent months, disrupting every aspect of daily life. With the situation near breaking point, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a state of disaster in recent days, which allows the government to bypass bureaucratic hurdles to get stuff done.
Why are things so dire in Africa’s most industrialized country, and what’s the government’s plan – if any – to fix it?
Lights out. The current crisis is centered largely on South Africa’s collapsing state-run electricity grid, which relies on coal for 85% of its generation capacity. Blackouts and load shedding occur when demand outstrips supply, forcing the utility company to cut access – which has been happening regularly for years.
Meanwhile, Eskom, the state-owned energy company, which runs 90% of the country’s electricity, has long been plagued by government corruption, cronyism, and mismanagement – most of which occurred under President Jacob Zuma, who is now facing a host of corruption charges. Consider that since 2007, no fewer than 14 people have been tapped to lead the energy agency, and they have left Eskom in rough shape, with the body now $26 billion in the red.
“Over the last 15 years there’s really been a deterioration in being able to add generation capacity to the national grid – or adding new sources of capacity whether that's nuclear or renewable energy,” says Eurasia Group expert Ziyanda Stuurman.
While the problem spans the African National Congress’ time in power, which has been plagued by corruption scandals, energy access has long been an issue in South Africa. “The problem stretches back to South Africa's history of apartheid,” Stuurman says, adding that “electricity provisions were never made available to the majority of citizens in the country.”
What’s more, as a result of political meddling and cumbersome bureaucratic hurdles to approving new contracts, some South Africans are left in the dark for up to 15 hours a day. Indeed, things have gotten so bad that morgue operators say that bodies are decomposing faster than they can bury them.
There are also growing concerns over food security. Case in point: South African poultry farmers were forced to cull 10 million chickens because abattoirs couldn’t function amid constant power cuts.
Clearly, the failing power grid is having a big impact on domestic productivity. But economic output is also being curtailed by yet more crumbling infrastructure: the railway system.
Road to nowhere. The state-run freight railway system (never a sexy topic) is also in tatters. The system, called Transnet, is in such bad shape due to years of government underinvestment and corruption that companies are having to turn to alternate transport systems – like trucking goods to Mozambique. Indeed, one forensic auditor told a government commission that “Transnet accounted for 72% of all irregularly awarded contracts” during Zuma’s time in power.
This dysfunction of the freight system is a catastrophe for South Africa’s robust mining sector, which is having a rough time getting goods to export terminals on the coast. And as metals, gems, and minerals account for most of South African exports, the state’s failure to fix the transport system is also having a downward effect on the entire economy. According to one South African academic, lost coal exports as a result of transport delays cost South African companies around $4.7 billion last year, while South Africa’s central bank now estimates that the economy will grow by just 0.3% in 2023, down from 2.5% in 2022.
But why is the government so hesitant to give up any control of these state-owned enterprises and let the markets do their thing? “Given the history of apartheid and particularly the neglect of poor Black and working-class communities in South Africa,” Stuurman says, “there’s a fear that inequality would be exacerbated if and when privatization of electricity generation and supply comes into force.”
So what’s the plan? The government says that dealing with the energy crisis is priority number one and has set out steps to reduce load shedding. This includes cutting red tape to attract more private investment by reducing the timeframe for authorization of new contracts to 57 days, down from more than 100. However, the problem is, as Stuurman points out, that there are now at least four different ministries charged with overseeing power grid reform, which hardly consolidates the process.
The geopolitics of it all. Given that Africa is a frontier in the ongoing rivalry between the US and its rivals – Russia and China – Washington is vying to play fixer in South Africa, having previously committed, along with European allies, $8.5 billion to help South Africa's green transition. Still, Pretoria needs much more than that to get itself out of its deep hole.
South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Viewpoint: Is it a make-or-break year for South Africa’s president?
Eurasia Group's Africa Director Shridaran Pillay looks at the year ahead for President Cyril Ramaphosa.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is struggling to resolve numerous deep-rooted problems in South Africa: high unemployment, low economic growth, rolling electricity blackouts, and the wage demands of public-sector unions that continually threaten to derail public finances. But to effectively deal with these challenges, he first must shore up his own political position.
At the ruling African National Congress’s elective conference in December, Ramaphosa will try to obtain a new term as party president and place close allies in other important positions. That would allow him to unify a divided party, press ahead with needed economic reforms, and continue with an anti-corruption campaign aimed at reforming the ANC's image ahead of the 2024 election and sidelining opponents to his agenda.
Internal party tensions are mounting ahead of the December event. This week, Ramaphosa’s opponents struck back with allegations of money laundering leveled against him by former intelligence chief Arthur Fraser. A member of the Radical Economic Transformation faction of disgraced former president Jacob Zuma, Fraser charges that Ramaphosa sought to cover up the theft of a large amount of undeclared cash from his wildlife farm in 2020. Ramaphosa denies any wrongdoing, but members of the RET are calling for him to step down, and there will be a police investigation. Moreover, the allegations may further tarnish the president’s anti-corruption credentials after an inquiry into corruption under Zuma implicated several of Ramaphosa’s close associates earlier this year.
Fortunately for the president, the arrest this week in the UAE of two key players in the corruption schemes that proliferated under Zuma will deflect some of the attention away from the allegations made against him by Fraser. The detention and expected extradition to South Africa of Athul and Rajesh Gupta is a victory for Ramaphosa’s pledge to bring corrupt figures to justice and could lead to revelations that will further damage the RET.
The charges against Ramaphosa and the arrest of the Gupta brothers will capture much of the political focus in the months ahead. The allegations against Ramaphosa may represent the RET faction’s last good chance to oust him. Zuma is unlikely to wield much influence at the December elective conference; the litany of corruption cases filed against him has resulted in his isolation from ANC politics and the decline of his once-powerful faction. The RET, in fact, has been leaderless since the suspension of ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule over corruption charges, and any attempt by the faction to challenge Ramaphosa’s reelection is probably doomed to fail. It is possible, however, that Ramaphosa might have to accommodate the RET by awarding it some leadership positions in order to truly unify the party.
Ramaphosa has built a reputation as a patient strategist who plays the long game. Since assuming office in 2018, he has quietly moved allies into key positions. He has also rebuilt state prosecution capabilities and the party disciplinary mechanism to deal with those accused of corruption. This has helped him remove many of the opponents to his plans to implement a new style of governance. Similarly, he secured the passage of new party bylaws that prevent those accused of corruption from running for party leadership posts.
Yet he has made only incremental progress on the governance and economic overhauls needed to solve problems, such as the lack of access to electricity and water, that have sapped support for the government and the ANC. His efforts on this front have been undermined by a weak cabinet and the need to cater to the interests of the ANC elites he relies on.
That is why the December elective conference is shaping up as such an important test. If Ramaphosa can overcome the latest allegations against him and place allies in the majority of the other five leadership positions up for election in December – deputy president, chairperson, secretary-general, deputy secretary-general, and treasurer-general – that would allow him to focus on his plans to make government more accountable and reinvigorate the economy.
If he fails, he would be forced to continue his delicate balancing act of advancing reforms while maintaining party unity. The country’s problems would fester, public discontent would mount, and the ANC would be at risk of losing its ruling majority in the 2024 elections.
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