By Donwald Pressly*

Voters in Britain have ‘backlashed’ the elites by voting for BREXIT. They voted against the conventional wisdom of economists, bankers and politicians from the mainstream political parties. Some polls suggest that we could havePresident Donald Trump in office in the United States. Trump has trumpeted ‘anti-Wall Street’ and anti-Washington sentiments. Even though he is a dollar billionaire, he has presented himself as at-one with the people, an ordinary man’s man.

Here in South Africa one can sense the resentment to the elites. Even ANC supporters phone into radio stations and hector about President Jacob Zuma’s profligacy with public money – all R240-odd million of it on Nkandla. During the local government election campaign, pictures of ANC luxury motor vehicles sporting ANC colours against a backdrop of shacks have popped up on Facebook.

Jacques Peretti, the man behind a new BBC documentary, The Super Rich and Us, is a transfixing study of the power of the superbly rich and what impact it is having on Britain. Whereas a while back the super-rich had about 10 percent of the GDP, now they have nearly a quarter of it. Great swathes of London’s property has been snapped up by these people, who have turned their apartments into what one housing official called ‘safety boxes’ in the sky, rather than in the bank. The super-rich have made it impossible for middle-income earners to own property in London – let alone the working class. Economists like Thomas Piketty argue that positive economic growth figures just dress up economic failure. For the bulk of the population, their share of the GDP is declining. The super-rich are mopping up all the economic growth and more.

What does this have to do with the local government elections in South Africa? Perhaps South Africa doesn’t yet have the British super rich problem. We have billionaires yes, but how much of the economy do they have? Have we developed a resentment towards them as there appears to be in Britain? Perhaps not yet. We are not throwing grenades at the homes of bankers. Well not yet. We are not yet throwing stones at the Rolls Royce of the head of the bank of Scotland or whatever the equivalent capitalist is here. Perhaps we did a practice round at Marikana mine in 2012.

Only the Economic Freedom Fighters is rhetorically anti-capitalist and roundly anti-establishment. As a populist party it is hard to understand exactly how they would achieve poverty reduction, although of course, it is much required. But they have started to galvanise against political elites – like Jacob Zuma – for misuse of public money. It is just a short step to take to mobilise political action, possibly even violent, against economic elites. Polls in SA indicate that the EFF will get up to 12% of the vote in Wednesday’s local government poll. This is twice the percentage the party garnered in the national election in 2015. Every vote this party gets will be a vote against the elites, the super-rich, the propertied class.

Even that figure – 12 % or so – is not alarming at this stage, but it indicates that South Africa will be reflecting an anti-elite political stance of a significant number of voters. If the EFF can provide an alternative to chasing economic growth without destroying the assets of the middle class and the wealth of the super-rich, it may make a positive contribution to our future. But a radical plan that can work to achieve good equitable economic results appears to be absent at this stage.

South Africa is doing the backlash thing, in part. But arguably we are not yet doing the fully-fledged backlash against perceived capitalist hyper-exploitation just yet. We are in the starting blocks though. We are in for a rough ride.

• Donwald Pressly, editor, Cape Messenger