FORMER South African President Thabo Mbeki recently launched a sharp critique of the governing African National Congress (ANC) for failure to address what it has labelled the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality.
Mbeki, who led the party from 1997 to 2007, said the government seemed to have no plan to address these problems, warning that rising poverty and hardship, poor governance, and mounting lawlessness could see South Africa erupt into its own version of the “Arab Spring”.
The “Arab Spring” uprisings which swept across North Africa and parts of the Middle East more than a decade ago, led to the overthrow of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Many of the protesters were young and educated and had become disillusioned by the corruption and patronage that benefited only political and economic elites.
A common feature of these uprisings was that the existing constitutional orders had become so delegitimised that they simply collapsed
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