COMMUNIST ANC NOW OPEN ALL TAPS TO CHANGE SA INTO A SOCIALIST STATE

Sovietisation a big threat to rule in SA'
April 02 2008 at 08:54PM
By Deon de Lange

Recent moves by the ANC under Jacob Zuma to assert the party's supremacy over the government of President Thabo Mbeki is an assault on the Constitution, says SA Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) chief executive John Kane-Berman.

Presenting the SAIRR's yearly country profile, "South Africa Mirror 2008 - Post-Polokwane", in Cape Town this week, the former Rhodes scholar warned that this "Sovietisation" of the political system will undermine multi-party democracy and reduce parliament to a rubber stamp of the ruling party.

"The ANC's intention to rule the country through a politburo comprising the 87 members of (its) National Executive Committee is an assault on the Constitution, which subordinates parliament only to itself and provides that cabinet ministers are accountable to parliament," he said.

If MPs are to represent the ANC - and not constituencies - then the ANC should pay their salaries
"If MPs are to represent the ANC - and not constituencies - then the ANC should pay their salaries," he quipped. Another effect of "Sovietisation" was for "the state to become the property of the party".

Quoting statements by the new ANC leadership - that the party is the "strategic" and "only" centre of power - Kane-Berman said "opposition parties will no longer be able to witness, let alone participate in, the political decision-making process in the politburo that intends now to rule the country".

Zuma recently told the media that Mbeki can no longer make serious "governance" decisions since he no longer serves on the party's senior leadership.

"Once the ANC has consolidated control over the legislative and executive arms of government, it will no doubt turn its attention to the third arm, the 'untransformed' judiciary," Kane-Berman said.

The chief executive also slammed the ANC's decision to disband the Scorpions as "direct interference with the rule of law".

'Social grants were made possible by the very macro-economic policies introduced by President Mbeki'
He expressed concern about the "increasingly lawless behaviour" of vice, likening recent raids on student pubs in Stellenbosch and last year's raid on undocumented immigrants at the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg to the behaviour of apartheid-era policemen.

On the economic front, Kane-Berman predicted that, while the country was unlikely to suffer the catastrophic economic collapse that has been witnessed in Zimbabwe, recent events and the latest statistics point to the danger of a "steady downward economic spiral" threatening future stability.

Initially, the macro-economic stability and the Budget surplus achieved under Mbeki will cushion the economy to prevent the see-saw economics witnessed under apartheid, he said.

And while the massive increase in social grant spending over the past decade has increased the income levels of the poorest South Africans, an economic slowdown - and the associated drop in tax revenue - will put a lot of pressure on the fiscus, he cautioned.

Referring to the ongoing electricity crisis, Kane-Berman suggested that this "catastrophe Eskom and the cabinet have inflicted on the country" now made a slowdown of the economy likely.

He also said that despite the criticism Mbeki has endured from organised labour and the SA Communist Party for his "so-called neo-conservative macro-economic policies", it is with these policies that Mbeki has turned South Africa into a "welfare state".

"It is a great irony that social grants were made possible by the very macro-economic policies introduced by President Mbeki and for which the left has attacked him ... they should be thanking him," he said.

One in four South Africans now receives a social grant and the SAIRR report shows that grants have contributed three times more than work-related remuneration to the improved income situation of the poorest citizens.

Other sobering statistics suggest "major, major problems" in a number of key government policy areas, including education, safety and security, housing and unemployment.