If you want to know where South Africa is headed economically and politically, forget the ANC. If anything shows that the party’s ability to shape and implement policy has almost totally collapsed, it is its annual January 8 celebrations.

If you were an investor interested in South Africa’s policy direction in 2005, you would have rushed to the FM’s first edition of the year to glean what the party’s annual January 8 statement had said — and meant. It would have been a prudent move because the ANC dominated the government with a 70% majority and its then president, Thabo Mbeki, had the admirable habit of implementing many of his party’s policies...

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