Make or Break, by Richard Calland

Make or Break: How the Next Three Years will Shape South Africa's Next Three Decades, by Richard Calland. Penguin Random House South Africa Zebra Press. Cape Town, South Africa 2016. ISBN 9781776090761 / ISBN 978-1-77609-076-1

In his book Make or Break, Richard Calland presents scenarios for South Africa's future, showing how the next three years are the most critical since long, and how South Africa can set itself on a path to either success or failure.

Richard Calland  

How Zumas grave 9/12 miscalculation reset South Africa's political trajectory

It was around 10:30 p.m. on 4 August 2016 when the penny began to drop for the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC). At the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) national results operations centre in Pretoria, a crisis meeting was hastily convened. Four of the ANC s most powerful people gathered in the area where each political party is given one small desk with one desktop computer - in the world of the IEC, all parties are equal. ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte had been there for hours and the strain was starting to show; she was becoming increasingly irascible. Towering over her diminutive figure, the suave treasurer-general, Zweli Mkhize, surveyed the carnage on the big electronic scoreboard above them as it revealed the big hits the ANC was taking in the 2016 local government elections. Mkhize's long black leather coat, combined with his natural hauteur, made him look alarmingly like a Nazi general, while Jeff Radebe, minister in the presidency and the party's chief Mr Fixit, sported a large, square American-style baseball cap. 'Let's find a quieter place,' murmured ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe. The room they found was indeed quieter, away from the hurly-burly of politicos and journalists milling around the main area, but it had windows, like a goldfish bowl. They were joined by loyal apparatchik Andries Nel, deputy minister for cooperative governance and traditional affairs, the department responsible for local government. Minutes earlier, Mantashe had stood joking with Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Dali Mpofu and Floyd Shivambu. Now there was no trace of a smile as Nel flicked repeatedly on his iPad, briefing the stony-faced group - which included three of the ANC 'top six', Mantashe, Mkhize and Duarte - on the emerging car wreck of an electoral result. I could not take my eyes off of them; there is something totally mesmerising about seeing a big, powerful political party in a state of shock after it has suffered a resounding electoral setback. 'It's a crisis meeting,' admitted one of the people who had led the ANC's campaign, but who was now excluded from the conversation. 'It won't be the last. We have been given a lot to think about.' 'We've had worse moments,' the likable ANC chief whip, Jackson Mthembu, reminded me as he passed by shortly afterwards. 'And we always bounce back.' But will they? 'They're finally admitting that he is a liability,' observed United Democratic Movement (UDM) leader Bantu Holomisa. 'The only question is whether they can find a way to remove him.' The 'he' is Jacob Zuma, the leader of a ruling party whose share of the national vote has fallen 10 per cent from the previous local government elections in 2011, and 8 per cent from the national election in 2014, to just under 54 per cent in a stunning result that is guaranteed to inject new life into South African electoral politics. But how did we get here? The origins of this significant loss of power, specifically Zuma's, and the resultant 'reset' of South Africa's political trajectory, reach back to December 2015... They may now find themselves in different political parties, but Yunus Carrim and Floyd Shivambu have more than their party political origins in common: they share a wicked sense of humour and contrarian instincts. [...]

This is an excerpt from the book Make or Break: How the Next Three Years will Shape South Africa's Next Three Decades, by Richard Calland.

Title: Make or Break
Subtitle: How the Next Three Years will Shape South Africa's Next Three Decades
Author: Richard Calland
Genre: Current affairs
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Imprint: Zebra Press
Cape Town, South Africa 2016
ISBN 9781776090761 / ISBN 978-1-77609-076-1
Softcover, 15 x 23 cm, 208 pages