Nothing radical about the ANC’s new ‘radical policies’: analyst
Despite littering its policy documents with references to “radical” changes, the ANC’s policy documents aren’t anything new, and give no solid indication to where the party is heading.
In a note to investors on Monday (13 March), research analyst at Nomura, Peter Attard Montalto provided an overview of the ANC’s political policies as per the documents released on Sunday.
The documents are to be discussed at the party’s policy conference being held at the end of of June 2017, where policy resolutions will be formed and sent to be voted on at the elective conference in December.
However, while there was frequent use of the term ‘radical’ throughout the document, no individual area particularly stood out as radical in terms of new thinking and the likelihood of implementation, Attard Montalto said.
“Comments on land reform were largely unchanged, with a nod to the need to ensure the key issue of food security, but stick with the existing policy to move the land transfer
process to ‘equitable and just’ from ‘willing buyer / willing seller’ – but no mentions of
constitutional change or uncompensated expropriation,” the analyst said.
“Eskom’s capital structure received a brief mention as it was trailed before the weekend.
The ANC however is clearly still at loggerheads on the issue and so a review of the
capital structure has been proposed – with no any particular shift to split it.”
The only really interesting note to come out of the documents was that the Presidency should take control of the overarching political structuring of budget allocation from the National Treasury, which would be relegated to implementation and technical advice.
“This is not a wholly new policy – it has been proposed in the government in recent years – however it has broken into the public domain with new life after its inclusion this
weekend,” Attard Montalto said.
Ultimately, the policy documents spoke to a more pressing issue – the next president of the ANC.
According to Attard Montalto, the policies mentioned are only as important as the one who will be driving them forward, putting much of the debate around who will next be leading the ANC.
“As with implementation of wider policy – it all comes down to who is in the Presidency after this December,” the analyst noted.
“It is important to realise these documents have been written by a series of ANC leaders and technical committees that are on the whole more anti-Zuma.
“In a split ANC, such views do not represent the majority of the NEC or the bulk of cabinet members in our view. It would likely still be a minority view after a Zuma faction win in December,” he said.
Attard Montalto said there are two ways of looking at the ANC’s policy documents:
“First, there has been no shift to a more radical populist policy and that is a positive; and second, these represent but one partial view from a factionalised ANC, where the results of December are key.”
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