After ten years of remarkable political stability, our country is now experiencing  considerable stress.  Most of the institutions of  government remain a stable  arena, but governance, in the sense of how parts  of the  administration function,  is showing unexpected strain.

Within  a short period, the Deputy President of the country was removed from office and is now to be charged, the Director General of Intelligence was dismissed, the head of Public Prosecution was suspended, and now the Commissioner of Police is  facing serious charges.

In the political arena, six of the top personalities in the ANC  stood for election and failed, most Ministers also failed to make it onto the National Executive, and a brand new National Working Committee has been put  in place.

There may be no connection between these events, but they are a clear signal that all is not well in some of our important institutions.  This is a time for deep reflection on  the performance of government and the ruling party. New Agenda, like all other public fora, cannot ignore these developments and must participate in these reflections.

Firstly, it is necessary to  go beyond the debate about personalities, important as that may be. Secondly, it is apparent that there has been a clear  swing in the mass movement in favour of a more people-oriented programme and style of implementation. Thirdly, the focus  of government on fiscal austerity, inflation targeting, and  structural adjustment generally,  has failed to  generate the economic momentum needed to overcome world -record levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality.

Delegates at Polokwane readily agreed that substantial advances have been made with social reforms, but these reforms have not been transformative to the degree anticipated, and have not sufficiently  altered the basic conditions of existence of millions of our people.

This failure was born out by the debate about rural development. While the extension  of social grants has benefited  rural households, it is now widely conceded  that government has had no defined policy on rural development for the former homelands, and this after thirteen years of ANC rule! If ever there were grounds for serious complaint, it is this failure to meet the  goals of the Freedom Charter. Fortunately, the Economic Transformation Committee produced a remarkable document on rural development, which  provides an excellent basis for implementation.

What seems to have added fuel to the fire of resentment about government’s performance is that in every major policy speech and document, the government continues to claim the  continuity of policy from the Freedom Charter, to the RDP, to Gear, to present budget surpluses. Yet as conference documents conceded, inequality has increased, violating the  principle of the Freedom Charter “The People Shall Share in the Country’s Wealth”.

All these concerns explain the repeated demands for a Developmental State, not merely as a policy objective, but as a reality for the mass of our people who  want to experience the extension of developmentalism to them wherever they are. The commonly used expressions “people-centred” and “people-driven” found in so many ANC declarations, has to become a reality.

The ANC January 8 th Statement seems to have taken this on board and calls for “ a coherent strategy for a progressive developmental state.”

The message from  Polokwane is stark. Implementation of development policy is urgent. This is  why New Agenda is publishing, in this issue, so many papers from a seminar on the Developmental State held towards the end of 2007. We trust that it will help to galvanise action in this direction.