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Nick Wrack looks at what lies ahead after the South African The new South T HE FIRST EVER elections in South Africa COSATU open to everyone marked a tremendous victory for the South African masses, especially the black African working-class whose revolutionary determination has destroyed apartheid system. Through the 1980s the black proletariat demonstrated repeatedly its defiance to their brutal racial exploitation by a privileged white minority. In rent strikes, boycotts, education stayaways, but most of all through a semi-insurrectionary wave of strikes and the formation of independent trade unions organised in the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), elections.
Africa the workers and youth shook the South African ruling-class to its core.
The South African state and its monopoly capitalist backers were faced with a mass movement which threatened to sweep away every particle of the oppressive apartheid system, and with it the rule of capitalism itself. When increased repression failed to hold back this tidal wave of opposition the ruling-class was forced to look for a different way to carry out their exploitation of the South African working-class. The more far-sighted representatives of capitalism understood that unless reforms were granted they could lose everything. They therefore sought to win over the pro-capitalist elements in the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) to a programme which dismantled racist apartheid laws but ensured the continued domination of the monopolies.
The ANC has a predominantly middleclass, African nationalist leadership, which has embraced the market and is opposed to socialism, with a mass base amongst the working-class and rural masses who look to it for their liberation. The ideas of socialism and of nationalisation retain strong support amongst the organised working class within The ANC leadership, headed by Nelson Mandela, dropped all talk of socialism and nationalisation in the course of the negotiations with the previous De Klerk government, to demonstrate their acceptability to the capitalists as the rulers of the 'new' South Africa.
For this reason the elections mark a victory, but not a complete victory, for power still remains in the hands of the same capitalist class as before, albeit with black faces at the head of the government. The social liberation of the South African working-class is a task still to be accomplished. South Africa • 7
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he working-class suporters of the ANC in ¡ATU and the rest of the black masses have I these elections to throw off almost 350 years hite domination. But they are also looking to new ANC-led 'government of national unity' to ver massive improvements in their living conns. The ANC's Reconstruction and Development gramme (RDP), drawn up together with lela: DeKlerk 'one of Africa's greatest sons'. SATU and the South African Communist Party, seen by the ANC's supporters as a promise to = jobs to the 47% presently unemployed, to dicate low pay, to build homes for the millions , live in shacks without electricity or running er.
HE ANC WON a massive victory in the elections but there was undoubtedly largescale fraud in the results in which the ANC leadership has been complicit. The ANC dership aimed from the beginning to achieve a anced' government, incorporating the National ty (NP) and Inkatha. Mandela made clear his ef at not achieving the two-thirds majority ich would have allowed the ANC to draft the v constitution on its own, saying "I am very ›py that... we have got 62% and not 66%, which uld have enabled us to write our own constitu- 1". By careful engineering of the votes the ANC sured that it failed to reach this crucial breakough figure, giving themselves the excuse to put their supporters that they have to get agreement m the other parties for any constitutional inges. Likewise there was no doubt fiddling to sure that the NP, the original architects of apartd, got just over the 20% needed to guarantee Klerk a place as one of the deputy presidents. indela paid tribute to De Klerk as "one of the 'atest sons of Africa".
The new government contains the most pro-capiist leaders of the ANC, mainly coming from the te which developed in exile away from the influse and check of the ANC activists on the ground. & oh Afric It also includes six NP ministers including Pik Botha, the former foreign minister, and Derek Keys who retains his job as minister of finance. The majority of the ANC ministers are quite acceptable to South Africa's capitalists. Winnie Mandela, who still retains a base within the ANC and who has been critical of the concessions made by the ANC leadership in the course of the negotiations, has been given a deputy minister's portfolio in the hope of curtailing her criticism and undermining her support. The government as a whole is clearly one designed to serve the interests of the bourgeoisie. The ANC's failure to win in KwaZulu/Natal, with the 50.3% victory there for Buthelezi's reactionary Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), has had a demoralising effect on the AN activists who have been waging a battle against Inkatha, with up to 15,000 killed over the past decade. The vote for Inkatha was larger than anticipated precisely because of the conciliatory approach adopted by the ANC and especially Mandela towards it. Mandela promised to recognise the constitutional legitimacy of the Zulu king and was prepared to make massive concessions to Buthelezi. Had the ANC gone onto the offensive against Inkatha in the election campaign and refused to make any concessions Inkatha could have been completely marginalised in the voting. In addition there was massive manipulation of the vote in Natal to guarantee an Inkatha victory. Despite opposition to the fraud by more militant sections of the ANC, the ANC leadership has given instructions that the result should be accepted in the interests of 'national unity and to prevent a new wave of violence. But how can there be unity with these vicious thugs who have collaborated with the South African state in waging a civil war against supporters of the ANC, in an attempt to weaken the forces of the South African revolution? In accepting the result the ANC has saved the IFP and Buthelezi from complete disaster. The vote gives Inkatha three places in the cabinet, including home affairs (to Buthelezi) and the ministry of corrections, with control of the prisons. Those ANC activists in prison for fighting against Inkatha will take no comfort from this appointment. The new government contains the most pro-capitalist leaders of the ANC.
It will not be in the interest of Inkatha to wage a new offensive in the short term because this would only unleash a huge reaction from the working-class, emboldened by the ANC victory at national level. However, Inkatha will try to use their control of Natal to consolidate their strength
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and lay the basis | lot to sort out, they will say, we must give it time. for future attacks against the working-class.
The ANC also lost in the Western Cape although here it was their failure to win over the Coloured population that enabled the NP to gain a majority. Although the Coloureds were themselves a misuffering nority discrimination der apartheid the NP played on their fear of being a minority under black majority rule. The vote was more anti- ANC pro-National Party.
The new provincial president is Hernus Kriel, the former law and order minister responsible for repression and brutality, in whom the Coloureds can have no confi- HE BOURGEOISIE RECOGNISES T the NP can no longer fulfill its past role as the main capitalist party. The far-right Freedom Front of Constand Viljoen received barely more than 400,000 votes for the idea of a white Afrikaner homeland forces to the right of this in the neo-Nazi AWB are pitifully small. The bourgeoisie are now looking to turn the AN into their own party replacing the National Party as the main party of South African capitalism.
To do this, however, will take skill and caution on their part. The ANC will have to deliver some reforms or else the reaction from the masses will be swift and the ruling class understands this. Reforms will be carried out. It is likely that there will be some investment by international capitalism. Aid has already been promised by the US and Britain. The economy is showing signs of a certain recovery and some aspects of the RDP will be started. However, on the basis of the economy remaining in the hands of big business and run in its interest, against the background of the weakness of the world economy, there is no possibility of the aspirations of the South African masses Initially the working-class will show the ANC-led government a large degree of patience. There is a But this time will not be unlimited. The black workers will expect to see immediate changes in some things, and an indication of change in others. Already there has been a ten-day long strike of gold miners over the dismissal of a shop steward; strikes have broken out among provincial government employees, and ambulance workers in Pretoria walked out in protest at the proposed privatisation of the city's emergency services. Workers will see the election result as an opportunity to improve their position at work immediately. In a limited series of actions over the last few months the 280,000-strong National Union of Miners has indicated its intention to force concessions from the private mining companies.
Cyril Ramaphosa, general secretary of the ANC, has been left out of the cabinet. No doubt the ANC leaders hope he will be able to restrain COSATU which will inevitably come into conflict with the bosses and with the government. The government has already argued for COSATU to accept lower than the minimum wage to help fight inflation but such a policy will be opposed by the COSATU shop stewards and rank-and-file. The basis for future conflict between the working-class and the government it has brought to power can be seen already. Tensions are likely to widen when COSATU launches its public sector union at the end of June, which is expected to draw in up to 150,000 civil Although the new government will attempt to carry out the RDP and may go some way in doing so, it will not be able to carry out anything like the steps needed and expected by the black masses. Inevitably the aspirations of the South African working-class will be reflected in struggle and be expressed through COSATU. It will be through COSATU that the question of a new Workers' Party will be once again raised. During the elections this debate was put to one side as the overwhelming majority of the black workers and youth saw their task as getting the biggest possible majority for the ANC. With the ANC now in power the need for an independent party of the working-class will become more and more apparent to the most militant workers. It is most likely that COSATU would form the basis for such a party. The ANC itself will suffer splits under the impact of the class struggle with the working-class activists striving to throw off the dead weight of its pro-capitalist leadership. The ANC election victory marks the end of one stage of history with the dismantling of apartheid and the end to the national enslavement of the black South African population. But it also marks the beginning of a new stage, one in which the working-class will move again and again to capture the full gains of the struggle for which so many tens of thourands of lives have been given. That can only be through the socialist revolution, when not just white minority rule but capitalist rule is swept away for ever.
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