Why faith in military rule remains misplaced, irrespective of how SA’s elected civilian governments perform

Key topics:Rising South African support for military rule amid declining faith in democracySANDF politicisation, incompetence and corruption weaken its legitimacy and capabilityMilitary regimes historically perform poorly and threaten rights, stability and governance.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..By Craig Bailie*.The latest Afrobarometer survey findings show that, for the first time in over 25 years, more South Africans support military rule than oppose it. The portion of survey respondents supporting military rule has risen significantly from 28% in 2022 to 49% in 2025. The growing sentiment in favour of military rule in South Africa exists within the broader context of how South Africans perceive democracy. The same Afrobarometer survey found that “Fewer than half of South Africans prefer democracy over other kinds of government” and “seven in 10 South Africans are dissatisfied with the way democracy functions in the country”. South Africans who prefer other kinds of government to democracy and who are unhappy with the results of so-called ‘democratic’ governance are more likely to support military rule as an alternative to successive, poorly performing, elected civilian governments. Moreover, contrary to what one might expect from an entirely theoretical perspective (that is, in a democracy, or an aspiring democracy, the education system will be increasingly attuned with democratic values, thereby contributing to the shaping of citizens who support democracy), the Afrobarometer survey found that support for democracy in South Africa decreases with, not without, education. .Possible reasons why South Africans are increasingly in favour of military rule.Aside from how South Africans perceive democracy, other factors related to the contemporary nature of civil-military relations in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent could help explain the growing support for military rule. One such factor could be awareness among South Africans of the resurgence across Africa of the military overthrow of civilian governments, irrespective of how military governments perform after coming to power. In October, the military seized power in Madagascar, and more recently, in November, Guinea-Bissau experienced its ninth in a history of coups and attempted coups. According to John Chin, “events in Guinea-Bissau…represent the 11th successful coup in Africa since 2020”. A second, related factor could be the popular support for Burkina Faso’s young military leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, whom I have written about here. Note, for example, the Afrobarometer finding that support for democracy in South Africa is lowest among youth aged 18 to 35. Thirdly, a lack of South African Police Service (SAPS) capacity amid growing lawlessness in South Africa has, among other reasons, led to an increase in the domestic deployment of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). Contrary to informed analysis, including the research findings recently presented at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS), which discourages domestic military deployment, calls for the internal use of the SANDF continue. In the last month, academically embattled Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane requested SANDF deployment to deal with extortionists in the province, while in the Western Cape, Cape Town crime fighters and civic organisations have called for SANDF deployment to assist with combating gang-related violence. To the degree that South Africans, rightly or wrongly, view the internal deployment of the military as necessary and successful insofar as they establish order, these deployments could encourage support for military rule. Finally, could the willingness among some of South Africa’s military leaders to challenge their civilian authorities, or their deliberate or unintentional portrayal of military leadership as being more autonomous than it actually is or ought to be (thereby challenging the norms that govern military professionalism and democratic civil-military relations), have something to do with growing support among South Africans for military rule? This question becomes especially pertinent when the challenges directed from military leaders point to real or perceived civilian political leadership failures in a context where support for democracy (and by implication, elected civilian leadership) is declining, South Africans are “sick to death of persistent corruption by politicians”, and where, according to Afrobarometer findings published in 2021, people trust the army more than several other South African institutions (including the courts of law, the public protector, religious leaders, the president, the Electoral Commission, Parliament, the ruling party, and opposition parties). In February this year, SANDF Surgeon General, Maj Gen Ntshavheni Mapaha, politely and cleverly challenged political leaders about their failure to fund the SANDF in a manner he believes necessary for national security. In November, while addressing audiences in Tshwane, Chief of the South African Navy (SAN), Vice Admiral Monde Lobese, implied that those with the authority to decide on defence funding (namely, civilian political leaders) may be benefiting from the crimes affecting South Africa’s national security, that would otherwise be more effectively regulated if South Africa had a better-resourced military. It is possible that Chief SANDF General Rudzani Maphwanya’s political remarks during his visit to Iran earlier this year (something I write about further down), and reports of his alleged defiance of Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Angie Motshekga, over the reinstatement of an Air Force Colonel, can distort the views South Africans have about the role and place of the military relative to the elected civilian government. The Centre for Risk Analysis has suggested that, because the Afrobarometer survey was conducted over the period in which KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi confronted corruption during a press conference, while wearing a camouflage uniform and surrounded by masked police officers bearing semi-automatic weapons, when South Africans are frustrated with corruption, the conference could have skewed survey data. Even if this were so, and South Africans who saw or had knowledge of the press conference wrongly understood it to involve the military, placing the SANDF in a positive light, it doesn’t change the fact that some or all of them were willing to support military rule as a result. To the degree this misperception existed, it reinforces the need for improved education in South Africa. .Democracy and education in SA.At least four related observations can be made about the Afrobarometer finding that support for democracy is relatively low across South Africa’s educated groups and, more significantly, that there is less support for democracy among South Africans with secondary and postsecondary education than among citizens with primary or no formal education. The last of these observations takes into consideration the growing support for military rule among South Africans. Firstly, the negative relationship between education and support for democracy challenges any claim that South Africa’s education system has developed the critical mass of democratically minded citizens fundamental to the success of any national democracy-building project, especially necessary after formal apartheid. Without democratically minded citizens, democracy cannot exist, and whatever exists that is rightly considered democratic cannot be sustained. Instead, and this is the second observation, it reinforces the arguments made here, here, here and here, for example, that South Africa’s post-1994 education system has restricted rather than advanced democracy. Thirdly, and more specifically, it questions the existence, reach and/or effectiveness of civic education programmes in South Africa, beginning with those implemented early enough to have had an impact on Afrobarometer’s latest survey respondents, including their sentiments about military rule. The question about civic education in post-1994 South Africa is one I have considered before. Finally, alongside the finding that more South Africans now support rather than oppose military rule, the fact that support for democracy decreases with education raises the question of whether civic education curricula in South Africa should include a basic introduction to Civil-Military Relations (CMR) – that subject that considers the relationship between a country’s armed forces, the government, and the rest of society. Such a component of any civic education programme would be valuable if only because it would help correct wrong thinking, irrespective of whether South Africa is presently at risk of a coup. It could form part of a broader focus on less preferable governance systems, and cultivate understanding among learners about, for example, the purpose of the armed forces, the role of the military in a democracy relative to an elected civilian government, and the track record of military rule in Africa, if not globally. .Reasons why faith in military rule is misplaced.Whatever the perceived failures of South Africa’s democracy and the real failures of the country’s education system may be (let’s not confuse the failure among South Africans to elect democratic leaders with the failure of democracy), and whatever other reasons there may be why more South Africans are willing to place their hope for better governance in the military, any notion that the SANDF will govern better than an ANC-led government, or any government for that matter, is misplaced, for at least four reasons. .The SANDF is, in some sense, an extension of the ANC.There are pockets of excellence within the SANDF who, by virtue of their excellence, will keep their historical and/or contemporary political affiliations and positions, whatever they may be, private, so as not to interfere with their professional military duties. On the other hand, the SANDF of today will be an extension or reflection of the ANC to the degree that its members, beginning with its leaders, have, across the organisation’s history (beginning in 1994), remained or become politicised and actively pursued ANC or ANC factional interests (including those interests now residing with MK Party) and/or to the degree that the ANC’s toxic leadership culture has permeated the organisation. Stephen Grootes recently wrote, “In some awful ways, the state of our intelligence and security institutions is a direct reflection of the state of the ANC.” When assessing the politicisation of the SANDF, several factors must be considered. Expectedly so, after the members of the apartheid-era South African Defence Force (SADF), the next biggest group to be integrated into the post-1994 SANDF was from the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). The ratio of ANC-aligned to non-ANC-aligned members in the SANDF would have increased to the degree that “white” members who left the force weren’t ANC-aligned, and “black” South Africans who joined were. Furthermore, from a leadership perspective, one must consider how many ANC-aligned individuals have occupied seats on the SANDF’s Military Command Council (MCC) since its inception. The MCC is the SANDF’s highest decision-making body, consisting of the Chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Military Health Services, Joint Operations, Defence Intelligence, Logistics, Human Resources, Staff, and finally, Chief SANDF.The political positions or loyalties of any military’s membership are inconsequential if the organisation maintains a high standard of professionalism. Whether this is true of the SANDF is questionable. Writing in 2019, about the SANDF’s transition from a warfare to a welfare agency, Dr Greg Mills argued that any government would be “fearful of making 50,000 SANDF members redundant, especially when their skill sets are limited and level of politicisation high.” .In the context of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s call for professionalising the public service in early 2021, defence analyst Helmoed Heitman commented on the SANDF, saying, “there have been some strange, even very strange, senior appointments.” He continued, “Officers involved in promotion boards complain their recommendations are too often ignored and appointment decisions seem to be taken somewhere outside the SANDF and the Department of Defence (DoD)”. Heitman agreed with President Ramaphosa about professionalising the public service, saying “It has to go all the way – the civil service, SANDF, SA Police Service (SAPS) – the lot”.Speaking about the new appointments to the MCC in 2021, shortly after Heitman’s commentary, retired Joint Operations Division Chief of Staff, Major General Mlindeni Sibango, referred to the exclusive appointment of former MK members as dangerous and “bound to negatively affect the moral fibre of the SANDF”. He said, “It appears the Military Command Council (MCC) is solely the preserve of former uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) members…I would have expected the approach to appointing SANDF leadership to be wider than one component of the integrated forces disregarding candidates with merit from the other six forces.”General Sibango, who was still occupying his position as Joint Operations Division Chief of Staff during the Battle of Bangui in the Central African Republic (CAR), is also known for his call for an independent investigation into the SANDF deployment to that country, under the suspicion that the mission “was intended to serve personal and political party interests rather than the national interest”.In 2020 and again this year, the respective SANDF Chiefs, General Solly Shoke and his successor, General Rudzani Maphwanya, warned soldiers to steer clear of party/personal politics, suggesting a lack of political non-partisanship among soldiers broadly, if not only within the MCC. General Shoke gave his warning after former Chief of Defence Intelligence, Maomela ‘Mojo’ Motau, had “invited current and retired SA National Defence Force (SANDF) generals to an ANC Cadres’ Assembly to take stock of the governing party,” effectively inviting SANDF leadership to get involved with party politics. The written warning General Maphwanya issued soldiers in July this year proved ironic, even hypocritical, when, in the following month, he made political pronouncements on South Africa’s foreign policy towards Iran during a visit to the country. Even if, as Ivo Vegter has argued, General Maphwanya’s statements were consistent with the position of the ANC and the South African government, as a uniformed member of the SANDF, it wasn’t for him to make them. Democratic Alliance (DA) Defence Spokesperson, Chris Hattingh, demanded “the general face a court martial for ‘gross misconduct’, ‘breaching military neutrality in Iran’, ‘reckless political freelancing’ and ‘a flagrant breach of the SANDF Code of Conduct’. Nevertheless, Minister of Defence Angie Motshekga has said, “there were no grounds for Maphwanya to face any disciplinary steps for his remarks during the Iran trip” because, according to her, “Maphwanya did not flout the Defence Act 42 of 2002”. Citing politicisation in the context of the ongoing Madlanga Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, Political Interference and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System, Stephen Grootes has argued for a complete overhaul of South Africa’s security apparatus, including the SANDF. Even if one were to disregard the above-mentioned considerations, can one be so naive as to think that the ANC’s cadre deployment, with implications for many, if not all, state institutions, hasn’t affected the SANDF? .The SANDF struggles to fulfil its existing tasks and duties.Without entering the debate about what the SANDF’s primary and secondary tasks should be, or how it ought to be repurposed, if at all, the fact remains that the SANDF struggles to fulfil its existing tasks and duties, from maintaining base security and looking after soldiers before, during, and after deployment, to domestic policing and effectively engaging in armed combat. The last of these struggles is not necessarily through any fault of the combatants themselves. As a former Grahamstownian, the recent story of a Makhanda man who died while searching for scrap metal on the SANDF 6 SA Infantry Battalion premises, when an unexploded ordnance detonated, caught my attention. Reports indicate that the military base in my former hometown has remained largely unfenced since as early as 2021. Even though the unnamed victim was trespassing on a restricted area, his death, along with the deaths and injuries caused to others because of the unfenced base, speaks to the risks, including for civilians, that accompany poorly secured military installations in South Africa. Poor security at SANDF bases is a matter that the country’s Defence Force Service Commission flagged in 2021. Since then, AfriForum (here and here), the DA (here and here), and the Economic Freedom Fighters (citing recent student protests at the University of Fort Hare) have been among the actors calling for enhanced security at SANDF premises. The SANDF cannot be expected to secure South Africa’s borders and engage effectively in foreign operations, let alone govern the country, if it can’t secure its own installations. A defence force that cannot execute its official mandate, in whole or in part, is not a defence force that South Africans should look to as a substitute for successive, underperforming civilian governments. .An organisation marred by corruption and incompetence.One may retort that the SANDF is struggling to fulfil its existing tasks and duties due to inadequate funding or what some, including Vice Admiral Lobese, regard as deliberate underfunding, and that this would change if civilian political leadership gave the military the funding it needed to run a tight ship. Whatever the merits of arguments for and against further financing of the SANDF are, the notion that the SANDF’s dilapidated state is solely the result of budgetary constraints places responsibility squarely on those authorised to give the SANDF more money. This neglects consideration of the important matter of SANDF leadership culture, including how leaders manage the funding they do receive, and absolves military leaders of accountability. Earlier, I cited the permeation of the ANC’s toxic leadership culture through the SANDF as a second possible reason why the SANDF would be an extension or reflection of the ANC. This toxic culture is characterised by several related traits that broadly involve bad stewardship. These traits include self-interest, narrow-mindedness, exclusivity, factionalism, corruption, and incompetence.It is a culture more entrenched and pervasive than the one it broke with at least as far back as the ANC Polokwane Conference of 2007 – a leadership culture that Associate Professor at the Allan Gray Centre for Values-Based Leadership at the UCT Graduate School of Business, Peter Camaren, ascribes to ANC leaders Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, and their like-minded compatriots; one characterised by professionalism, diplomacy, discipline and devotion to public service. .There are elements of SANDF leadership culture that have less to do with the size of the SANDF’s budget allocation and more to do with financial mismanagement and the absence of virtuous leadership character. Consider, as evidence of this, a collection of news reports on the SANDF, accessible here, that speak to a less-than-desirable organisational culture SANDF leaders have helped shape and/or maintain. Furthermore, South Africa’s Parliament recently heard that “corruption and fraud is widespread in the DoD”. During a presentation to Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans (PCDMV) in mid-November, South Africa’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI), more commonly known as the Hawks, disclosed 14 cases it is investigating in the Department of Defence and Military Veterans (DoDMV). The cases, some dating as far back as 2009, “were passed to the Hawks in the wake of seemingly stonewalled investigations by Military Police (MP).” For further SANDF lessons on what the poverty of leadership character and competence looks like, including the lack of care military leaders can have for their rank-and-file subordinates, read Chris Hatting’s account of how the SANDF has been drained by decades of bad leadership, including neglect. Observations and findings outlined in his article, including those of the Auditor-General, speak to the entitled, arrogant and wasteful leadership (Or is it just sheer ignorance?), epitomised in Major General Edward Mulaudzi’s instruction earlier this year, for a military truck to drive 1,200km from Oudtshoorn to his home in Pretoria, to remove two tree stumps..Militaries aren’t meant to govern.Even if the SANDF were the best-led, trained, equipped, and most professional military force in the world, effective and efficient in all it did, any faith in its ability to govern better than a civilian government, whether democratically elected or otherwise, would remain misplaced.Writing in 2003, Patrick McGowan summarised the record of military governance in Africa: “Military rule is by definition authoritarian and is often very corrupt…and the historical record shows that military rulers ‘govern’ no better than elected civilians in Africa, often much worse.” Reinforcing McGowan’s empirical observations, Samuel Daly writes that “Militarism, or rule by soldiers, is a form of government where military objectives blur into politics, and the values of the armed forces become the values of the state at large.” A military government needn’t be corrupt, but the otherwise negative record of military governance in Africa and other parts of the world exists if only because, in broad, modern terms, the military is designed and purposed for armed combat. In narrower terms, the military is responsible for defending a country and its citizens against foreign aggression. An organisation of this kind is necessarily hierarchical and authoritarian. In other words, while citizens should expect military leaders to take charge of the everyday operations that prepare the armed forces for war, or security operations more broadly, they should not expect the same leaders to govern successfully beyond the professional bounds of the military institution. The military environment does not automatically prepare military leaders for the latter. Expectedly so, experience, including in the coup belt stretching across Africa’s Sahel region, shows that when militaries move beyond the bounds of what they’re intended for and get involved with activities not aligned with their core mandate, like taking over national government, for example, security against armed aggression suffers, along with human freedoms. Writing about recent coups in Africa, Igor Ngima observes that “in spite of their popularity and stated justifications, the coups have failed to bring about stability and have exacerbated human rights and economic conditions.” Another analyst, Santino Calcagno, describes the coups as “A Step Forward for Decolonization and a Step Backwards for Human Rights”. Therefore, in addition to concerns about governance capacity and security against armed aggression noted earlier, the risk of human rights violations documented in research by Professor Lindy Heinecken in the context of the domestic deployment of the SANDF would increase if the SANDF ruled an entire country. Instead of looking to the military as a substitute for broken civilian governments, effectively promoting governance through the barrel of a gun, South Africans should return to the ballot box and use the democratic process to elect a democratic government. Understanding why faith in military rule is misplaced will take us one step closer to doing just this. .*Craig Bailie spent more than ten years working as a DoD employee, lecturing on political science at the South African Military Academy before launching Bailie Leadership Consultancy.

Why faith in military rule remains misplaced, irrespective of how SA’s elected civilian governments perform

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