BRICS: WILL THE TAIL WAG THE DOG

On March 31st 2016, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, conveying the unanimous and scathing decision of the full bench of the South African Constitutional Court, ruled that President Jacob Zuma and the National Assembly had violated the constitution in challenging and ignoring the binding remedial action of the Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, in relation to Nkandla.  In effect President Jacob Zuma had breached the Constitution.

Speaking publicly for the first time after the ConCourt’s decision, at the Serious Social Investing Conference in Johannesburg, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng argued that if there was ever a time to embrace ethical leadership, that time is now. 

Not to be outdone, former President Thabo Mbeki argued that the Constitutional Court made a critical contribution in terms of the evolution of South Africa’s democracy by clarifying the meaning of a ‘Constitutional Democracy’ in South Africa. Mbeki quotes the ConCourt directly:

 Certain values in the Constitution have been designated as foundational to our democracy. This in turn means that as pillar-stones of this democracy, they must be observed scrupulously. If these values are not observed and their precepts not carried out conscientiously, we have a recipe for a constitutional crisis of great magnitude. In a State predicated on a desire to maintain the rule of law, it is imperative that one and all should be driven by a moral obligation to ensure the continued survival of our democracy.

 President Zuma has survived a motion to impeach in Parliament for flouting the Constitution, but the groundswell calling for his resignation is rising inexorably as individuals and groups both public and private have weighed in.  Crucially, on 11th April, the ANC Gauteng Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) held a special meeting to receive a detailed report on the ConCourt’s judgement, and in an official statement declared that ‘our President comrade Jacob Zuma should reflect deeply and do the right thing to resolve the unprecedented crisis that the ANC currently faces’.  

Whether Zuma takes the hint or not, has South Africa not once again led from the front through the ConCourt decision?

When reviewing the BRICS model, we can argue that it has evolved from an analyst’s acronym to a formalized network with complementarity in terms of trade and manufacturing to a geopolitical role with the aim of shifting the global locus of power through international institutional reform.  The BRICS most notable development to date has been the establishment of the New Development Bank with an initial share capital of $100-billion. 

When analysing the BRICS, however, one must also compare the state development model that largely underpins BRICS to the neo-liberal model that largely informs the developed world.

During the ‘Great Recession’ as the developed world not only succumbed to the burden of institutional and sovereign debt, but also to low growth and the pains of austerity, the BRICS nations revelled in the heady air of high growth and rampant development.  But of late the milk has soured somewhat as growth is stalling. 

In China, the 13th Five-Year Plan, unveiled on March 5th 2016, is designed to avoid the dreaded ‘middle-income trap’ by making a successful transition to a new growth model as GDP slows. In the remaining BRICS nations, concern surrounds anaemic growth, and in the case of Brazil, the worst recession in more than three decades.

But what of ethics? 

Documents leaked from Panama name family members of the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, and two other members of China’s elite Standing Committee, Zang Gaoli and Yunshan as part of an elite profiting from offshore accounts.  India, regardless of the efforts of Prime Minister Narenda Modi, is mired in corruption, and the Panama Papers appear to confirm President Vladimir Putin’s corruption on a huge scale.  And today, April 12th, a 65-member congressional committee voted 38 to 27 to recommend impeachment of Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff over claims that she manipulated government accounts ahead of her 2014 re-election.

I shall therefore end with a set of questions.  Can states, which function institutionally through a developmental state model, avoid corruption?  Has Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng proved the rule, or has the decision of the ConCourt, regardless of Zuma’s reaction, not heralded a new era that can be the mortar and foundation of a new BRICS movement?