SS Course 2009: The Road to the 2009 General Election: Economic Policy and the Party System

Course 191
Date: Tuesday 20 January
Time: 1.00 pm
Full Price: R54,00 Staff: R27,00 Reduced: R14,00
***Tickets are on sale at the door only if seats are available: R60,00; staff & reduced (on production of cards): R32,00.

The Road to the 2009 General Election: Economic Policy and the Party System

Presented by Zwelethu Jolobe, Department of Political Studies, University of Cape Town

By definition, political transitions are moments of uncertainty. Whether they involve regime change, intra-party succession, or occur at the end of electoral cycles, they enable new political interests and ideas to contest existing interests. They can either be incubators for new policy ideas and visions for the future, or they can confirm existing perspectives and policies. The ANC’s Polokwane conference was an intra-party transition on the eve of South Africa’s fourth post-1994 electoral cycle. While the election of Jacob Zuma as party president arguably created a vacuum in national government leadership, a key question is whether this has set the stage for changes in economic policy. Markets continue to speculate whether Trevor Manuel and Tito Mboweni’s market-friendly policies could be replaced by COSATU and SACP interests, given the political capital the alliance invested in the Polokwane rebellion. Could this herald a ‘decisive shift to the left’?


This lunch-time lecture will analyse the main trends in electoral policy-making since 1994 and will examine whether Zuma’s victory at Polokwane signifies the development of a new economic programme favouring the ANC’s alliance partners. It will conclude by sketching a possible scenario for the post-2009 era.