A recent ruling by the State Capture Commission, established to investigate corruption in South Africa, has found that the ‘cadre deployment’ policy of the African National Congress (ANC) is both unconstitutional and illegal. The implications of this finding are serious as they stand to upend the ANC’s long-held political strategy, one which stretches back to the mid-1980s, when the party was still operating against the minority rule white-supremacist South African government as part of the anti-Apartheid movement. Cadre deployment has involved the appointment of party ideologues in every part of South Africa, including the bureaucracy, state-owned enterprises, and other agencies regulating institutions like education. The policy has been in place since the ANC’s landslide electoral victory in the country’s first democratic election with universal suffrage in 1994. The ANC sought to cement its rule with this policy to ensure a robust transition to liberal democracy. Nevertheless, the ruling is not only correct from a legal perspective, but also a positive force in a country crippled by corruption and inefficiencies worsened by cadre deployment. Fundamentally, the ANC’s use of the policy represents an ideological incoherence, demonstrated with its juxtaposed attempt to implement a so-called ‘developmental state,’ whose main tenets are inherently incompatible with cadre deployment. To better understand why this contradiction matters, an assessment of both cadre deployment and the developmental state is necessary.
In 1985, a conference was held by the ANC in which the party first declared that a cadre deployment policy would be needed to uphold the ‘revolution’ against the Apartheid government of South Africa. By 1996, the policy had been formalized and was understood as a process in which ANC ‘cadres,’ meaning a “a cell of indoctrinated leaders active in promoting the interests of a revolutionary party,” would be placed in all centers of power, including the economy, education, and media to ensure the party’s control over the country. The party wanted to ensure that its policies were implemented properly, believing that only their “army of cadres” could faithfully execute the will of the movement. However, South Africa is not the only country to have used cadre deployment. Political parties in the United States regularly replace civil service officials to align the bureaucracy along certain party lines. Although some view cadre deployment as a positive force, one study has shown that the policy has normalized rampant corruption, “ruined the capacity” of municipalities to deliver services, and has led to stagnation of vision, competence, and skills to implement policy. Fundamentally, the overt politicization and nepotism which now defines the bureaucracy violates the key tenets of the developmental state that the ANC is simultaneously endorsing.
The developmental state model can be understood as a form of economic governance. This means that the state interacts with the national economy in specific ways and through specific institutions to ‘guide’ economic growth. For a developmental state to operate correctly, it must have at least two characteristics: a developmentally-minded elite who are motivated by the welfare of the country over personal gain, and the establishment of a politically insulated, autonomous, professional, and capable bureaucracy which ‘pilots’ economic growth. Both are absent in this case. First, the absence of appropriate leadership is exemplified by decades of so-called ‘leadership’ by corrupt officials, the epitome of which being the notoriously-corrupt Jacob Zuma, the former President and ANC leader. This has seriously impaired the function of the government. Even the party itself has a history of careerism and patronage which has harmed the ability for strong, competent, and non-corrupt leadership to emerge: a central pillar of the developmental state. Secondly, the absence of a capable and insulated bureaucracy is a function of cadre deployment. The policy has led to the use of levers of the state for the narrow economic interests of deployed cadres, fueling patronage and corruption. Because cadre deployment is inherently modeled around the idea of having loyal party members occupying key positions, loyalty is essential above all else. As a result, competence has become secondary—it represents the “rejection of meritocracy in the country’s public service,” as characterized by Terence Corrigan of the South African Institute of Race Relations. It is a contradiction of the “developmental state aspiration of South Africa.” While Mr. Corrigan raises an important point, only placing competent people at the helm of the institutions of the country is not enough to align the civil service with the tenets of the developmental state. Fundamentally, the developmental state requires an ‘autonomous’ and ‘politically insulated’ bureaucracy, one which can act independent of the ANC. Simultaneously, its decision-making must be upheld by the party, being free of any undue influence by politicians who may wish to dole out resources to allies. Any interference of this sort would harm the bureaucracy’s developmental agenda. In a developmental state, the ‘state’ is separate from the ‘regime’—in other words, the bureaucracy is separate from the ANC because the party chooses not to appoint sycophants to civil service positions. The ANC does the opposite.
With this understanding of both cadre deployment and the developmental state, both policies appear negative in the eyes of some. One may criticize both the corruptive nature of cadre deployment and the unaccountable nature of the developmental state model. Although the model has an excellent track record of impressive economic growth among multiple East Asian countries and a select few African countries, they are known for their unaccountable and sometimes inequitable natures. Nevertheless, the ANC advocates, at least in name, for this model. Ultimately, the party demonstrates its dissonance by advancing two contradictory policies, both of which on their own may, at best, be unpalatable for a liberal-democratically-minded electorate and at worst a long-term destructive force. A policy status-quo could spark future and more deadly waves of unrest similar to the riots South Africa witnessed in the summer of 2021.
The ANC has continued to advance fundamentally contradictory policies. This continued political disjunction is damaging the ability of the party to provide South Africans what they truly deserve: peace, security, development, and democracy. At best, the party’s position can be viewed as one of incompetence. At the same time, I believe, like Dr. Damian Ukwandu of the University of Johannesburg, that the party and its leaders are acting cynically for the purpose of political self-preservation. Dr Ukwandu argues succinctly that the ANC’s use of the developmental state is merely a “fashionable slogan for the government to use” and is pure “politicking” since actually implementing a developmental state is not only extremely difficult but would fundamentally mean the end of cadre deployment—something the ANC doesn’t seem particularly interested in abandoning even in the face of legal reality.
Many South Africans struggle every day to make ends meet. When talking about policy and politics, it can be easy to forget the people who must live under the outcomes of these debates and discussions; real people who have families to care for and mouths to feed. If the country is to solve the legacies of Apartheid, like massive inequality, underdevelopment, weak governance, and insecurity, the ANC must rectify this policy incoherence lest the country continue on a path of instability and uncertainty.
William Gilbert is in his fourth year at McGill University, pursuing a B.A. Joint Honors in Political Science and International Development. He is a staff writer for Catalyst. He is particularly interested in structural transformation for economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa.