South Africa’s political drama and World Cup 2010

By Clive Leviev-Sawyer
September 25, 2008
 

The South Africa official 2010 mascot, a leopard known as Zakumi, with Danny Jordaan, CEO of the Local Organising Committee during a launch in Johannesburg on September 22 2008. Fifa opted for a leopard for the showpiece football tournament's first visit to Africa. ‘Zakumi is young, vibrant, energetic, smart, self-confident, sociable and ambitious, but also warm-hearted,’ Jordaan said at the televised launch.

The cabinet announced on September 25 2006 by newly-elected president of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe includes the reappointment of highly respected finance minister Trevor Manuel – a move that will reassure the markets and, on another issue – and no small one for the country – help to address concerns about the country’s preparations to host the football World Cup 2010.

Motlanthe, who in the ruling African National Congress is the deputy to party president Jacob Zuma, announced his cabinet soon after his swearing-in ceremony in Cape Town. Just one of the ramifications of the ousting from power of now-former president Thabo Mbeki was that two top office-bearers closely linked to World Cup preparations quit in solidarity with Mbeki.

One was finance minister Manuel and the other deputy finance minister Jabu Moleketi, whose portfolio included a key role in managing state money to ensure the success of the World Cup. Moleketi chairs the 2010 Technical Co-ordinating Committee, which is overseeing the new physical and transport infrastructure ahead of the football tournament.

Both Manuel, finance minister since 1996, and Moleketi, in office since 2004, are highly respected for their roles in handling South Africa’s treasury. A finance ministry spokesperson, speaking ahead of the formal election of Motlanthe as president, said that the two “want to make it clear that they are ready to serve the new administration in any capacity that the incoming president deems fit”.

While Manuel kept his job, a move probably not unconnected to the negative market reaction when it was announced that he had resigned in the wake of Mbeki’s departure, the official list of the new cabinet posted on the website of the South African presidency did not include Moleketi’s name. But then, it did not include the post of deputy finance minister at all – an intriguing omission and one that holds out the possibility that Moleketi could return to the post.

Steady hands and solid policy will be needed not only in getting stadiums and other infrastructure ready, but also to move to keep the budget challenges of the World Cup 2010 under control. Already the budget has climbed close to six times initial estimates, to a current about $1.7 billion.

The issue of South Africa’s spending on World Cup 2010 is not without complications. While the event offers the country the possibility to add to its prestige as a host of international sporting events – notably already including the Rugby World Cup and the Cricket World Cup – and will serve in terms of job creation and potentially good tourist publicity, spending on the World Cup must compete with other priorities.

This is inevitably tied in to expectations about a possible change of direction in a country that will now be firmly under the political leadership of Zuma. Mbeki became vulnerable politically for several reasons, principally among them that the “neo-liberal” (in the terminology of detractors) economic policy followed after the advent of democracy in 1994 has done too little to help the country’s poorest.

A major part of Zuma’s political base in the ruling party is those who want to see stronger and deeper interventions by government to more actively work against poverty. If he is to secure his position at the top of South Africa’s political pinnacle, Zuma will have to be seen to embarking on a vigorous war against poverty. Concerns are that this will put Zuma on a rapid road to redistribution of wealth, against the relative fiscal conservatism followed under the Mandela and Mbeki administrations.

While the Mbeki administration and ANC-led provincial governments have been open to attack from the opposition, meaning in real terms attacks from the right, about the handling of money and preparations for World Cup 2010, the huge spending on stadiums and related big-ticket items for the football event could expose it to criticism from the left.

Given the ANC’s commanding majority in the national parliament and most provincial parliament’s, it can afford to shrug off criticisms from the Democratic Alliance, the country’s largest opposition party, which has no real chance in the foreseeable future of unseating or even substantially taking away large slices of support from the ANC. But any attack from within the constituency of the poor that is the base of Zuma’s support would be a far more serious matter, especially if World Cup 2010 spending got as far as being portrayed as “bread and circuses” spending.

And this notwithstanding the fact that, overwhelmingly, South Africans are fanatics about one sport or another, with football by far enjoying the majority following.

The question of South Africa’s readiness to host the World Cup was a serious enough one and needed no political drama to compound it. With violent crime a continuing serious problem, the country has had to issue regular assurances about the security of events.

Further, severe problems in power supply that have led to rolling blackouts in all areas of the country, including major cities that will be the venues for matches, have led to wry jokes about a World Cup By Candlelight. Again, South Africa has sought to assure the world of football – to say nothing of its own people – that the energy problems will be solved before June 2010.

There is more. According to a report on September 24 2008 on miningmx.com, South African downstream producers have been hit by steep increases in steel prices, with hikes ranging between 60 and 80 per cent this year.

“Among other large consumers of metals, contractors working on the new stadiums countrywide for the 2010 Soccer World Cup say they're being squeezed by the prices they have to pay to complete the projects,” the website reported.

The biggest questions naturally include infrastructure. South African website news24.com quoted Stanlib economist Kevin Lings as saying that the time of political change meant that there was a policy vacuum at the moment which needed to be urgently addressed.

Normally, when there was a change in government, the incoming administration made it very clear what their new policies were, Lings said. This was not happening in South Africa and was highly problematic for the markets. He emphasised that the replacement of ministers would have an effect on government programmes already in place.

“I am worried about the disruption of initiatives in government departments that are starting to deliver after years of struggling to get off the ground. This is a big risk. Programmes might stall at the critical phase. Examples are government's infrastructure spending programme, including the 2010 World Cup,” Lings was quoted as saying.

All of these questions are being raised amid the serious challenges facing the South African economy. The country has enjoyed its longest period of economic expansion over the past nine years, with annual growth averaging five per cent over the past four. But growth is expected to slow in 2008 because of cooling consumer demand on higher interest rates, slower world growth and electricity shortages.

News agency Reuters noted that inflation in South Africa had surged to record levels, driven largely by rising international food and fuel costs, but was likely to ease in 2009. This would enable a new government to begin cutting interest rates from current five-year highs.

Keenly aware of concerns that the changes in the cabinet, likely to be followed by other significant changes elsewhere in the country’s executive, would compound concerns, South African and international sports officials have rushed to issue new assurances.

Fifa has said it is confident that changes to the South African government will not affect the nation's hosting of the 2010 World Cup. Fifa said it had held talks with ANC president Zuma.

The BBC quoted Fifa’s director of communications and public affairs Hans Klaus as saying that the changing political situation in South Africa was “something we are watching very closely”.

“[Fifa president] Sepp Blatter has been in touch with Mr Zuma’s people, as well as those of Mr Mbeki, in the past week. Both of them, as well as Nelson Mandela, agree the World Cup must go ahead.

“What has happened in South Africa is not what we would have expected, but we don't want to comment on the political situation - we work with the local organising committee board,” Klaus said.

Fifa would be in contact with the new administration under president Motlanthe.

“There are some government people on the local organising committee who may change, but this has been the situation in previous World Cups, we are not too concerned at the present,” Klaus said.

An earlier report in the International Herald Tribune quoted Zuma, after meeting Blatter during the Fifa president’s visit to South Africa earlier this month, as promising “the best Fifa World Cup the world has ever seen”.

In a lengthy statement on September 23 2008 to South Africans after the resignation of Mbeki and pending the new administration, Zuma repeated his message: “Most importantly, we will be hosting the 2010 Fifa World Cup. We will support our government to make the World Cup a huge success”.

Leaving aside the fact that South Africa's Bafana Bafana, the national team, is shaping up to be the worst home team in the history of the event. Everyone agrees that there is not a day to be lost in constructing 10 stadiums, as well as new transport and accommodation infrastructure, the IHT said.

At the close of his four-day visit to South Africa, which predated the drama around the resignation of Mbeki and many of his cabinet, Blatter said: “I am very pleased with what I have seen over the last few days, in particular in the stadiums. The progress being made is good. With all the guarantees and assurances given by the political authorities, I am convinced that, together, we will bring the Fifa World Cup to a great success”.

Danny Jordaan, the anti-apartheid activist whose CV includes having been a provincial cricket and football player, the latter briefly with professional status and who moved on to a career as a sports administrator before being appointed chief executive of the Local Organising Committee, said: “When the Fifa president was in South Africa in June last year he told us he wanted to see more picks and shovels at our World Cup stadiums. Now, when he has returned he has seen stadium roofs being erected and seats being installed.”

* Clive Leviev-Sawyer, currently Editorial Director of Sofia Echo Media Ltd, was a political correspondent and parliamentary editor in South Africa from 1994 until 2001.

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