Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa June 2014 | Page 17

UPFRONT

G

iven that the ruling ANC party remains
firmly in power, with only a slight 2% loss in
support, many South Africans - jaded by the
corruption and scandals that has been the hallmark
of the current government – understandably feel
that these elections were merely a storm in a tea
cup and expect that not much will change.

Central to many of the scandals around corruption,
cronyism and cadre deployment is president-elect,
Jacob Zuma. Some analysts expect him to step down
earlier. This could be positive. Currently, second in
line for the presidency is ANC Deputy President Cyril
Ramaphosa, who will also be deputy president in the
new cabinet in charge of executing the NDP.

Fortunately, however, closer analysis reveals some
positive trends and outcomes. From a long-term
perspective on the political front, the election confirmed
several encouraging trends. The first, notes Steuart
Pennington from South Africa The Good News
(www.sagoodnews.co.za), is that there appears to be a shift
from dominant party politics to ‘coalition politics’ with the
ANC losing a few percentage points of the vote in every
national election since 2004. It is possible, he says, that
during the next five years the ANC will split along the
lines of Constitutionalists versus Cronyists.

A highly educated and experienced businessman
in his own right, who founded and built a company Shanduka Group - that now has a net asset value of
R8.8 billion, Ramaphosa also built up the biggest
and most powerful trade union in South Africa - the
National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) - and played
a crucial role, with Roelf Meyer of the National Party,

Furthermore, the DA, with 22.2% of the vote, has
grown significantly s