ECONOMICS AND LEADERSHIP
GAVIN KEETON: Malaysia has new lessons to teach ANC about revival
FW de Klerk’s decision in February 1990 to release Nelson Mandela and unban the ANC caught most people by surprise. For the ANC it meant negotiating an acceptable constitutional settlement and developing — almost from scratch — the economic and social policy framework it wished to implement when democratic elections were eventually held. Think-tanks and policy workshops produced a series of policy documents culminating in the Reconstruction and Development Programme, which became the party’s 1994 election manifesto. Searching for effective programmes in a world where the collapse of the Berlin Wall had discredited the centralised government-controlled policies towards which the ANC had traditionally lent, many of its policymakers found inspiration in the economic and social successes of Malaysia. Like many of the Asian Tigers, Malaysia had achieved rapid economic growth through policies in which the government played a leading role in what became known as the "developmental state". ...
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