John Endres' BNC#9 message: SA: the patient that wants to be cured

A speech to a BizNews conference argues South Africa is better placed for radical free-market reform than Britain, because its young population, median age 29, has less invested in the status quo than Britain's ageing, risk-averse electorate. New IRR polling shows ANC support below 50% in every core constituency ahead of the local elections, with jobs, corruption and crime consistently outranking race-based issues as voter priorities. A separate IRR diaspora survey finds over half of South Africans abroad remain open to returning within 15 years. The address concludes that South Africa's democracy is finally being forced to answer to this shift in sentiment..By John Endres*.The following is the text of my contribution to the Biznews Conference #9 at Champagne Sports Resort in the Drakensberg yesterday.I’d like to start my talk today by quoting from a tweet, lightly edited. See if this sounds familiar …“We have shit water companies so we buy bottled water. (Shout out to Thirsti.) We have rubbish police so we hire private security. We have terrible healthcare so we pay private hospitals instead. Our roads are littered with potholes nobody fills.The tax burden is heading for its highest sustained level since the 1940s. The service level is the worst in living memory.You are not overtaxed or underserved. You are actually BOTH, simultaneously, and the gap between the two is where your standard of living went. The state has become a subscription you cannot cancel and cannot use.”That sounds like South Africa, but it is actually a tweet about the UK, posted on 7 August by the user @rollinghedge. The tweet was reposted over 4,000 times and got over 12,000 likes.The reason I bring it up is because the last time Alec [Hogg, founder and editor of Biznews] had me on his show, I had just returned from the US and UK. I presented Alec with the daring thesis that I was more bullish on South Africa than on the UK.I elaborated on the theme in a piece I wrote for the IRR’s opinion and news portal, the Daily Friend (Why I’m more bullish on South Africa than Britain).The point I made in my piece was not that things are better in SA than in the UK. We are far poorer, have higher unemployment, higher crime and an infrastructure base that is smaller and degrading faster than that of the UK.And yet… if I imagine a Gedankenexperiment where South Africa and the UK elect radical free market reformers to lead the country, people whose agenda it is to take the gloves off to create a pro-growth environment, boost investment and get the economy growing – my money would be on South Africa rather than the UK.This might strike you as odd. But consider: the UK is the patient who does not want to be cured.Britons have become very comfortable with trading their freedom for their safety. Taxes are high, but the state takes care of you. You can get arrested for posting unsavoury opinions on social media (and many people do), but at least this protects you from being exposed to the unsavoury opinions of other people. Electricity and fuel may be expensive, but you are paying more to protect the planet from climate change. The supermarket won’t let you buy razor blades without staff authorisation for fear that you might use them to attack someone.Now imagine trying to introduce reforms in a society like that. I think that even the most determined reformer would run into a brick wall. People in the UK have become used to giving up their freedom for safety. Any reformer who tried to sell the message that if you want more growth, you need to vote for more freedom – which means accepting more risk – would quickly be shot down.And it is true: freedom is dangerous. It is risky. Things can go wrong. There will be some winners and some losers. The more established you are in life the more worried you will be about any threats to what you’ve got. According to the UN the median age in the UK is 41 years. In France it is 42 years. It is 47 years in Germany and 48 years in Italy. No wonder people are risk averse.Now think about South Africa. Here, the median age is 29 years. Most people in their twenties don’t have mortgages, pension funds or significant savings. What’s more, our economy is stagnating and our economic freedom rating is mediocre and falling.So South Africans have much less reason to protect the status quo and much more reason to change the current approach for something better. This is the patient that does want to be cured.That is something we have been hearing a lot about at this conference. The talks by Geordin [Hill-Lewis, leader of the DA], Duduzane [Zuma, Deputy President of the uMkhonto weSizwe Party] and Prince [Mashele, political analyst] all touched on it. Christo Wiese also touched on it in his fireside chat with Alec. Dissatisfaction with the ANC and frustration at the status quo is mixing with a desire to change things and a belief that our country is capable of so much more than it is currently delivering.I’d like to throw another thought into this mix. Some previous speakers brought up the diaspora: South Africans who have left the country for greener pastures. By some estimates, around a million people have left the country in the last 25 years. That trend is continuing.Every single one of those people who left or is planning to leave represents a loss to South Africa. How do we get them to come back?At the IRR we’ve just conducted a diaspora survey on this very question. We asked overseas South Africans to complete a questionnaire. Over a thousand answered and here is some of what they told us. Note that this was not a representative survey, but its results line up with the findings of a diaspora survey conducted by the UCT Liberty Institute, which were published earlier this year.In our survey, the two main reasons given for leaving South Africa were economic opportunity (39.8%) and safety concerns (30.2%). This was followed by 6.8% who were worried about race relations.When we asked participants what they thought about the state of SA they were pessimistic. 81.4% of respondents had a negative overall impression of South Africa today and 73.7% felt SA was moving in the wrong direction. Compared to a year ago, 58.7% felt more pessimistic about South Africa.And yet 52.5% were open or very open to moving back to South Africa in the next 10 to 15 years. What is preventing them from doing so?The top concern about the state of South Africa was crime and safety (38%) and corruption (32%). In third place was jobs and economic growth, mentioned by over a quarter of respondents. This closely matches what we find in our surveys of South Africans in South Africa.The top three things respondents thought would have the biggest impact in improving South Africa were honest and cost-effective government (40%), more opportunity regardless of issues like race (25%), and faster economic growth and job creation (21%).What does this tell us?It tells us that across South Africans abroad and South Africans here in South Africa there is a convergence. Answering the question of what will produce a better life for South Africans at the same time answers the question of what will bring South Africa’s diaspora back home. As Christo Wiese said, it’s actually simple: you’ve got to do the basics right. Keep focused on the big picture without losing sight of the detail.What are the prospects that we can actually get it right?I would argue that those prospects are better than you might think. There are several reasons why I believe that.Let me start with some fundamentals. South Africa is a country with strong freedom of speech and a democracy that allows people to express their preferences by voting for one of a wide range of political parties, and, most importantly, to vote a bad government out of power.This is not just important because it sounds nice. It is important because it is essential as a mechanism for managing differences, which exist in every society. And it is important because it allows for course correction – something that is much more difficult in more authoritarian countries.If we get a course correction, in which direction will it point? Again, our polling gives us some indications.For almost two decades, we have been asking South Africans what the top two priorities are that they want the government to address. The first-ranked item has been jobs for as long as we’ve been running this poll. Items 2 through 5 were all related to the rule of law and law enforcement. In order, they were: illegal immigration, the abuse of women or children, corruption, and crime or safety and security.Those are followed by a slew of service-delivery-related issues like water, electricity education and housing. Only then, at the very bottom of the list, do you get to the more ideological issues that dominate the headlines: BEE, land reform, racism, inequality.What this means is that what South Africa’s voters are looking for is perfectly normal and reasonable. The fact that they are not getting what they want is leading to frustration – and it is the main factor driving the decline of the ANC in survey after survey.That brings me to the outlook on the local government elections. Here I rely on data recently gathered by the Social Research Foundation and The Common Sense, which conducted a poll among over two thousand registered voters last month, in July.For ANC strategists, the most concerning finding is that support for their party has dropped below 50% in every core constituency. Among rural voters, it is 39%; among black voters, 36%; among township residents, 32%. In established suburbs – so among middle and upper middle class voters of all races – ANC support is at 3%.That is the big picture. It explains why ANC support was found at 34% nationally. While results at the level of municipalities will vary, things are not looking good for the ANC in the metros where we have numbers. In Johannesburg and eThekwini, the ANC is on 18%. In both places it is outpolled by the DA, which is at 42% in Johannesburg and 23% in eThekwini. In Tshwane, the ANC is at 32%, with the DA eleven points ahead at 43%.So the shift that is happening will be a continuation of the 2021 election result. There, the ANC dropped below 50% for the first time, coming in at 46% nationally. Coalition governments proliferated across the country – there were 66 hung councils and today over a third of South Africa’s 257 municipalities are governed by coalitions.After the 2026 elections that number will increase. The DA will be the largest party in more of those councils than it currently is. But governing these places won’t be easy – many coalitions have been unstable and service delivery has suffered as a result.But all of this reflects how our politics is shifting. To understand the direction, let me add a few more data points from our 2026 polling.We asked people if the government should continue using apartheid-era race classifications to decide who should qualify for business and job opportunities. Here, 70% of respondents said the government should not continue to use race in this way. Among black respondents, 64% also said this.We asked respondents which of the following two statements they agreed with: “The government should focus more on social grants.” OR “The government should focus more on job creation.” 81% of all respondents, and 81% of black respondents, agreed with statement two: the government should focus more on job creation.When we asked people if they were getting value for money for the taxes we all pay, 61% said they were getting bad or very bad value for money. Not surprisingly, 56% thought the overall tax level should be cut, and 57% thought they personally should be taxed less. I think Dawie Roodt might have something to say about this [today]. As an aside: which political party is campaigning on a tax-cutting platform? Can you think of any?There is one more finding I must share with you. We wanted to know if it was true, as is often claimed, that South Africans will only ever support a black person to be president. As a practical example, lurking in the background: does the DA need to have a black leader if it wants to have a chance of leading the government?Here is the result we got in our survey: South Africans were almost exactly equally divided on the question. 47.4% agreed and 47.7% disagreed.But then we asked a follow-up question. This was asking people about whom they themselves would vote for. Here is the question: “Think about the kind of person you would support to become the next President of South Africa. Which one of the following three options best describes your position?” The response options were:I will only support a black person to be PresidentI would prefer to support a black person to be President, but I am open to other optionsI will support the best person to be President, regardless of their raceHere was the result: 23% of respondents said they would only support a black person to be President (29% of black respondents). 11% would prefer a black person but were open to other options (13% of black respondents). And a whopping 66% said they would support the best person regardless of race, and that included 58% of black respondents.And with that, let me start wrapping it up. I know that many of you are optimistic about South Africa. But your optimism is mixed with uncertainty and anxiety. You want to know why you should be optimistic. And you are looking for reasons that go beyond the obvious, like our $2.5 trillion mineral endowment, our strategic location at one of the world’s maritime chokepoints, our status as the only industrialised economy in sub-Saharan Africa or the good weather.So why should you be optimistic? Not for the obvious reasons I just gave you. Those have been true for decades and haven’t saved us. The real reason is simpler: South Africans, on the whole, are sane. They want work, safety, honest government and a fair shot regardless of race. And our democracy is finally forcing the politicians to listen.For thirty years it didn’t. One party could take the sane majority for granted and still win. That is over. The ANC is below 50% and heading lower, coalitions are spreading, and no party can build a majority anymore by ignoring what ordinary people want..Read more:.MAILBOX: Why Cape Town voters deserve better from the DA.This is the patient that wants to be cured, and, unlike Britain, young enough to survive the treatment. The medicine is growth. We think South Africa can grow at 7%, reached step by step over five to seven years. At that rate the economy doubles in a decade. A child starting school today would finish it in a country twice as rich.At the IRR we’ve done the work: the Blueprint for Growth series of policy papers and draft laws ready to use – the No More Race Laws Bill, the Value for Money Bill, the Growth and Employment in Mining Bill, the Right to Own Bill. The plans exist. What has been missing is the will to use them. And that is what is now starting to change.Your optimism is not naïve. It is a bet on the good sense of your fellow South Africans. For the first time in thirty years, our politics is being forced to pay that good sense its due. Help us make sure it does..*John Endres is the CEO of the Institute of Race Relations (IRR). He holds a doctorate in commerce and economics from one of Germany’s leading business schools, the Otto Beisheim School of Management, as well as a Master’s in Translation Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand. John has extensive work experience in the retail and services industries as well as the non-profit sector, having previously worked for the liberal Friedrich Naumann Foundation and as founding CEO of Good Governance Africa, an advocacy organisation..This article was first published by Daily Friend and is republished with permission..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 every morning on 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.

John Endres' BNC#9 message: SA: the patient that wants to be cured

Related Stories

Is Johannesburg slipping out of the ANC's hands for good?

BizNews Edge: Second prosecution boss falls at Madlanga Commission; ANC heads into a tough November

Roelf Meyer can't stop the US refugee exodus - and shouldn't waste his time trying: Corrigan

Drones, helicopters and armoured vehicles: SA business mobilises as anti-migrant deadline looms