I would say that the USA had quite substantial capital, ample and varied resources, and developed infrastructure to take advantage of those resources.
By Nosmot Gbadamosi Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief. The highlights this week: Kenya’s William Ruto visits Washington, Burkina Faso’s military leaders extend their rule until 2029, and Ghana’s 1-year-old art prodigy. Have feedback? Hit reply to let me know your thoughts. South Africans Head to the Polls 
People wait in line to cast their votes in Alexandra township on May 29 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Chris McGrath/Getty Images The May 29 election in South Africa could be historic. For the first time since apartheid ended 30 years ago, polls predict that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) will fall short of the 50 percent needed to govern alone. Rolling power cuts known as load shedding, record unemployment, crime, and a lack of water are key election issues. Many voters’ grievances center on the ANC’s inability to provide electricity, water, and transportation. But there are broader political issues at play: President Cyril Ramaphosa’s tenure has not reversed the legacy of state corruption that tainted his party under former President Jacob Zuma. In 2022, a judicial inquiry detailed the widespread looting of state coffers under Zuma and concluded that Ramaphosa should have done more to prevent the graft while he was Zuma’s deputy between 2014 and 2018. “There was surely enough credible information in the public domain … to at least prompt him to inquire and perhaps act on a number of serious allegations,” the inquiry report stated. Ramaphosa’s own “Farmgate” scandal, involving an alleged heist and undeclared cash found in a sofa, will be the least of the party’s worries. The joblessness rate hovers at about 32 percent; GDP per capita has dropped from $8,800 in 2012 to $6,190 in 2023, around the same level as in 2005; and 47 percent of South Africans rely on state welfare. Xenophobia is also rampant. Politicians have blamed African migrants for the country’s economic stagnation and high crime. Herman Mashaba, the leader of the ActionSA party and a former mayor of Johannesburg, suggested in a post on X in December that foreign nationals who run convenience stores use their businesses to run illicit drugs and bring in counterfeit money. The Patriotic Alliance, founded by Gayton McKenzie—a former convict who served time for armed robbery—has pledged the mass deportation of foreigners living illegally in the country. McKenzie has stated that all of South Africa’s problems stem from foreigners and that he would bring back the death penalty. Despite being banned from running for office by the Constitutional Court, Zuma could be a significant election spoiler as well as a symbol of the ANC’s failure to tackle corruption, since he remains out of jail. He fronts uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), a new opposition party named after the armed wing of the ANC during the anti-apartheid struggle. MK is expected to take votes away from the ANC in Zuma’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa’s second-most populous) and possibly even win the largest share of votes there. Another splinter group eroding the ANC’s votes is the radical left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the country’s third-largest party, formed by expelled leaders of the ANC’s Youth League. The EFF, led by Julius Malema, accuses the ANC of having failed to deliver on its anti-apartheid goals and focuses its messaging on the inequality that persists for Black South Africans around land and jobs. The party has suggested nationalizing almost all institutions and redistributing land without compensation for white South Africans—who still hold 72 percent of the country’s farmland, although they make up just 7 percent of the population. The EFF’s 2024 manifesto promises to expand social housing in white-owned areas “to promote full integration and social cohesion.” The “ANC has notched more land reform failures than wins, and these failures are hurting it,” Michael Albertus wrote in Foreign Policy. The largest opposition party, the center-right Democratic Alliance (DA), led by John Steenhuisen, believes that it will achieve its most significant gains this election. The DA has governed the only province not controlled by the ANC, the Western Cape, and its capital of Cape Town since 2009. A recent survey by the Brenthurst Foundation and the SABI Strategy Group found that about one-third of South Africans believed the Western Cape was the best governed province. But the party is widely perceived as representing the interests of minority white South Africans. The DA’s first Black leader, Mmusi Maimane, was elected in 2015, but he quit just four years later, and with an all-white leadership currently, polls suggest that the party will achieve only 22 percent of overall votes. Steenhuisen’s critics say he has ignored the overwhelming issue of racial inequality in South Africa. He opposes race quotas in the workplace—introduced by the ANC—and has pledged to create new jobs, end power outages through greater privatization, and make labor unions pay a deposit before they can strike. The DA has also shown support for Israel—an unpopular position that will likely cost it votes at a time when Pretoria’s vocal pro-Palestinian stance at the International Court of Justice has won South Africa praise from many across the globe. By contrast, the ANC has pledged to intensify calls for boycotts and sanctions against Israel. The ruling party has also pointed to South Africa’s role in the BRICS grouping as encouraging international investment and offering a counterbalance to U.S.-led Western dominance. Recognizing that it will not win alone, the DA has formed a pact with 10 smaller opposition parties and has not ruled out a coalition with the ANC. The ANC may lose its overall majority but keep its grip on South African politics. More than 70 parties are on the national and provincial ballots—and 52 on the national ballot—but as Sazi Bongwe wrote in Africa Is a Country, “small parties with big plans abound” yet the “absence of a credible, emancipatory alternative to the ANC has come to signal the black, impoverished majority’s entrapment within the sordid status quo.” Analysts suggest that the ANC, if it drops below the 50 percent threshold, will likely look to partner with a smaller party on the center-left, such as Rise Mzansi, led by former newspaper editor Songezo Zibi, which has promised better health care and clean water. If it manages to form a coalition without making many concessions to its major rivals, the ANC could still emerge from this election as a somewhat battle-scarred winner. |
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You try what they do and see how fast your the next Martha Stewart…..
Communism was tried by the Puritans for one season out of food insecurity issues. There was a common farm and everyone was to work it and share in it. Gov. Bradford said, the season the practice was discontinued, "It was amazing to see those who, formerly, had complained of physical infirmity such that it would have seemed inhumane to force them to work, now industrious in their own plots." Perhaps not a perfect quote, but absolutely to his point. No one wants to work hard for a bunch of shirking "takers." So nobody ever does under communism. Venezuela isn't the only poster-boy!
Just a mildly amusing historical footnote about soviet agricultural overproduction. Or at least I find it amusing.
