Frans Cronje’s bold prediction: Is the GNU South Africa’s last hope? – Mike Berger

Mike Berger critically engages with Dr. Frans Cronje’s analysis of South Africa’s political landscape, especially his recent interviews on Alec Hogg’s BizNews. Cronje, a respected political strategist, highlights the country’s fragile governance, ANC’s decline, and the potential for coalition politics to either stabilize or fragment the nation. While Berger commends Cronje’s optimism about South Africa’s resilience and economic opportunities, he challenges his admiration for opportunistic figures like Gayton McKenzie and Julius Malema, warning that political theatre and self-interest among elites threaten real democratic progress. Berger argues for a broader, more inclusive vision of renewal that can bridge South Africa’s divides.

Mike Berger

Dr Frans Cronje, a political strategist and risk analyst, has become a feature on Alec Hogg’s BizNews channel and is undoubtedly influential both at the popular level and within the corporate world. It’s thus worth taking a closer look at where he stands and the wider milieu within which he operates.

Cronje currently heads what he terms a ” political and economic advisory firm” providing strategic services to both governments and powerful corporate interests. His curriculum vitae is impressive and varied. Notably, he was with the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) for almost two decades before branching out to found his own consultancy aimed primarily at the big corporate and probably political market.

His firm is a member of a thriving fraternity of similar organisations which go under various names, from geopolitical consultancy services to scenario planning. These, and many others, compete with individual journalists, the popular media, the military establishment, specialist financial magazines and online platforms like Bloomberg, and independent commentators on Substack or in academia.

I was motivated to write this article primarily by Cronje’s recent pronouncements on the Biznews site. When any relatively high-profile geopolitical analyst provides an assessment of future political events, they are also to some extent influencing the choices being made by the audience. In this way, such a prognostication becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy with a greater or lesser impact on future events. Furthermore, analysts come with their agendas, preferences and prejudices like the rest of us, even though these can be mitigated by their professionalism and experience.

My intention here is to respond to some assertions and emphases in Cronje’s recent podcasts which I think are relevant to the South African and global situation.

Cronje’s Narrative
Dr Cronje’s basic message in his recent interviews goes something like this:

South Africans of all races are overwhelmingly not radicalised, nor especially racialised, and share in the dream of a democratic, rule-based politics. Thus the persistent governance failures and corruption of the ANC eventually broke through the liberation aura and ethnic loyalties which sustained them till now, as reflected in the ANC’s precipitous decline in the last election.

Secondly, the GNU is really a coalition between the DA and the ANC. The disastrous alternative is the ANC getting into bed with the EFF and MK, thereby precipitating a meltdown into radicalism and fragmentation. This was averted by the mutual decision to enter into a coalition.

A positive climate for foreign investments has been created, though a wait and see attitude still prevails. Corporate South Africa itself has substantial reservoirs of liquidity in excess of R1 trillion, which could and should be invested.

The ANC’s energy minister has made the ‘brilliant’ decision to build our short-medium term energy grid on the back of coal which provides the foundation for our economic recovery.

The currently predicted GDP growth rate of 2% is inadequate to generate the jobs needed to reduce our disastrous unemployment figures from 33% (a probable under-estimate) to something like 5%. Thus it is vital that we focus on growth. This needs the South African corporate world to stand up to ANC policies which undermine growth and business confidence, while also being prepared to put their own money into kick-starting economic activity.

Finally, cautious man that Cronje is, he points out that the looming elections and the choice of a new ANC president present unpredictable booby-traps along the road to recovery. In the course of his podcasts, he was also at pains to talk up the strategic genius of Gayton McKenzie of the Patriotic Alliance, Zuma, Malema and assorted other ANC functionaries schooled in the ‘no-nonsense’ Marxist-Leninist school. He went further and gently scolded the DA for its undue pro-Western bias and, by implication, lingering liberal sensibilities. Eina!

There is much to be applauded in Cronje’s approach. He understands that South Africans, despite their democratic leanings, are also influenced by history, tribalism, socio-economic context, local factors, educational attainment, and many other factors which are not going away in a hurry. He talks of multi-generational and aspirant middle-classes and urban versus rural voters as voting blocs which should be nurtured by their respective parties: the DA and ANC.

On that basis, he sees a balance of power between the DA and the ANC, and cautions against the temptation to aim for electoral dominance. I find that quite an interesting proposition, which runs counter to the general tendency of politicians to grow their party at all costs. It seems such a natural thing to do, but when one looks around, say at the USA in particular, the emergence of an intensely competitive two-party system has resulted in the polarisation and destabilisation of American society.

Managing these challenges within democratic systems is a tall order and there are similarities as well as differences between our two countries. The former include the fact that we’re both young and diverse with a formal commitment to constitutional democracy and individual dignity, freedom and responsibility. The short term for that is Western Civilisation (WC).

Despite what seems like a broad popular commitment to WC within South Africa, it is apparent that there are sufficient cleavages to offer aspirant warlords more than adequate opportunity to mobilise coalitions around ethnicity, ideology, and mutual benefit.

There is an important but fine line between creative churn and destructive chaos. Cronje promotes the GNU as a promising South African initiative, managing differences without leading to social breakdown. I think this is true, and that we must grasp this opportunity to find our way out of the canyon of history.

But to do this we must understand our potential partners, and this is where I believe Cronje comes unstuck.

Gaps in the Narrative
There are two minimal assumptions underlying democratic politics on which the whole complicated edifice rests: firstly, that the political and bureaucratic elites which steer the ship of state at our behest (as expressed through free and fair elections) will follow the mandate provided by their voters and, secondly, that they have the interests of the country at heart.

These are related but not identical. If these are not adequately met, the entire political domain is nothing less than Kabuki theatre in which aspirant warlords (or Mafioso politicians if you prefer) go through the motions of democracy while ruthlessly pursuing their own interests. This is not simply a figure of speech in South Africa, and many other struggling democracies, but a daily political reality. Unless it is relentlessly called out, we’re being played for suckers.

In this perspective, Cronje’s admiration for the ‘strategic brilliance’ of Gayton McKenzie, Zuma, Malema and other ANC-aligned politicos rings false and jarring.  The following quote from @nicolaashanekom (aka Sensei) on the Daily Friend puts it well:

The combination of the Tripartite Alliance, EFF, and MK represent the communalist majority at 65% of voters. The capitalist minority, led by the DA, is struggling to hold on to 20% of the vote. For every free-market sailor who is frantically trying to plug holes on the hull of this Titanic, there are three communalists who are stealing critical parts of the hull to sell as scrap metal.

Generations of communalist voters lived their lives at the bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. For them, the concept of the future does not exist. Their entire focus is on short term consumption, that comes to the detriment of long-term sustainability, as described by “The Tragedy of the Commons”.

While those higher up on the Hierarchy of Needs have situational awareness and are able to anticipate the looming catastrophe, those at the bottom are fighting each other, not over access to the life rafts, but for the opportunity to steal parts of the hull before their compatriots beat them to it.

While I share Cronje’s reservations about UCT sociologists circa 2024 (and New York Times pieties) I certainly don’t share his fondness for assorted political Mafioso. He praises Gayton McKenzie’s ‘brilliant’ strategic vision and lauds Malema’s red berets as ‘strategic genius’ even though the use of symbolic artefacts (plus rallies, dancing, public theatrics with rousing speeches of victimhood and revenge) to inflame the masses has been around forever.

Che Guevara insignia, the keffiyeh and images of masked, hooded warriors are the standard stock-in-trade of wannabe revolutionaries focused on self-glorification and power. Radical chic hasn’t done much for the ordinary Cubans, Palestinians, or the Iranians and will do nothing for the black people of South Africa other than to plunge them into deeper misery. 

I’m making a song and dance about this for a number of reasons: 

It’s not a binary choice between ‘UCT sociologists’ and greedy political opportunists (or outright psychopaths). Cronje should be at pains to make these distinctions clear.

Talking about the ANC patronage network as the ‘aspirant middle class’ does not quite cut it. Middle class is more than money in the West. It includes the values of personal integrity, hard work and social responsibility which are conspicuously lacking in the ranks of the ANC political aspirants and cadres.

The other ANC/MK constituency, tribal rural black people, cannot be the foundation of a modern society, and we need to ease their entry into the market economy and the culture which sustains it. Neither of these two parties sees this group as anything other than voting fodder, or to be used to threaten enemies. I see no reason why either of these two constituencies should be off limits to the DA in principle – though the practical difficulties are considerable.

Taking a wider view, democracy as a workable political philosophy is under critical threat from a host of authoritarian regimes ranging from the seductive Chinese model to international criminal syndicates, fascist theocrats, and opportunistic tyrants. Africa is not exactly a shining light in this respect.

What we need in this country is to find a way of unifying ALL our people around a common vision of social solidarity, personal integrity and responsibility and opportunity. As I see it, only the DA has seriously and consistently represented this vision in South Africa. It remains to be seen whether parties like the Patriotic Alliance, ActionSA, Build One South Africa, IFP,  or segments of the ANC can make the transition from rent-seeking coalitions to becoming  genuinely democratic parties.

Closing thoughts
Of course, these remarks can be classified as hopelessly naive. All democracies have elements of Kabuki theatre, where elites run the show with occasional wary glances at the  electorate to ensure they’re on board at the next election. One cannot manage the mind-numbing complexity of a modern state in a globalised world based on the volatile whims of an under-informed, over-emotional electorate.

Such elites, whether politicians or bureaucrats, will have interests and loyalties of their own which are not aligned with those of the voters. Furthermore, they may be in mutually advantageous partnerships with elements of civil society. However, the minimum required is that these competing interests do not override those of the State for which they are responsible. 

This can hardly be said to be true of South Africa, as summarised by Terence Corrigan in a recent series of articles in the Daily Friend – see here, here, and here. For the majority of our politicians, their vision begins and ends with the gravy train which they hope to keep on track, with handouts and hand-ups from allies of convenience inside or outside our borders.

But primarily by virtue of the South African corporate sector, the DA, the basic common sense of the SA electorate and a small but significant Ramaphosa-led ANC faction, outright state failure has not occurred. A fair though possibly charitable interpretation of Cronje’s recent interviews is that he wishes to nudge South Africa towards stabilisation by emphasising its abundant opportunities, resilience, and common sense. But it is unlikely this will be achieved by talking up ANC opportunism into strategic brilliance.

Leaving this aside, in my view the weakness of the State has had an unexpectedly benign outcome. It has compelled South Africans into a ‘self-help’ mode based on personal initiative and corporate partnerships which has led to a complex mosaic of unequal development, not fully captured by Corrigan’s statistics. But I believe this is compatible with Cronje’s and Corrigan’s perspectives.

Such a partly decoupled network of ‘enclaves’ is somewhat more stable than it looks. The question is whether the GNU can build on this while simultaneously converting or excluding the most irresponsible and opportunistic elements within our political class. If this can be achieved, perhaps we have a path to renewal. If we have insight and tenacity, this long and tortuous road may be the only road to our salvation.

PS: Since the writing of the article, Cilliers Brink has been fired from his position as Mayor of Tshwane, courtesy of an ANC-ASA alliance voting against the DA in the city. Of course, we could all see it coming, and Alex Hogg and Frans Cronje devoted an interview to the prospect just before the news broke. Cronje took it seriously saying that should the DA get the boot it will be a small ‘crack’ in the GNU edifice with the potential to spread into a chasm by the time of the new ANC elections for President in 2027.

I’m not surprised. Maybe disappointed, but not surprised. So South Africa soldiers on.

Dr Mike Berger has a BSc and MBBCh from the University of the Witwatersrand, and a PhD in Biochemistry from Mayo Clinic/University of Minnesota in the United States. He is a contributor to the Daily Friend.

https://www.biznews.com/rational-perspective/2024/10/04/frans-cronje-gnu-mike-berger

This article was first published on the Daily Friend.