SA’s future is mostly grim
They call economics the dismal science. At present, scenario planners seem to be in a competition to see who can be the most depressing. Frans Cronje of the Institute of Race Relations sees a sliver of light
President Jacob Zuma is very much in power, he will remain in power, and there’s an infrastructure that will survive after him. As a result, SA’s democratic rights and freedoms will be increasingly shot down. This is the central view of Institute of Race Relations CEO Frans Cronje. He suggests four potential scenarios for SA’s future in his new book, A Time Traveller’s Guide to SA in 2030. Two of them are dismal; one is partly positive and one extremely so — his "Rise of the Rainbow" scenario. In this happily-ever-after rainbow nation, South Africans find common political ground by 2030 and by unleashing the energies of the private sector end up prosperous, free and stable. Needless to say this is not the way Cronje thinks the future is most likely to pan out. In fact, he believes that SA’s future as a free and open constitutional democracy may already have reached the point of no return. "It’s been a gradual process of the white-anting of institutions while one man and his faction ...
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