South Africa’s ruling party has favoured loyalty over competence – now cadre deployment has come back to bite it

PROFESSOR DIRK KOTZE

CADRE deployment is one of the best-known policies of the African National Congress (ANC), which has governed South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994. And many of the party’s woes over the past decade can be traced back to it.

The concept of “deployment” has a strong military association. Conventionally, it is about tactical deployment of troops or infrastructure during military operations. In this instance it is used to describe how the ANC places people in strategic positions at various levels of government.

“Cadre” refers to a dedicated, highly motivated and trained member of an organisation or party. Not all members of such an organisation are, therefore, cadres. During its years as an underground organisation when many of its members were in exile, the ANC used the term to describe members who were ideologically schooled in party thinking. The term is much more loosely applied today.

Cadre