Democratic South Africa at its worst was preferable to apartheid South Africa at its best, yet its deficits and fault lines were frightening.

This was not for a lack of policy proposals and adoption. More than 17 years of policy action had brought extensive change, yet fell far short of both the ideals of the Freedom Charter and the 1994 humanitarian benchmarks. Change was differential, as evident in race-class-gender permutations. Policy debates shifted over time. They veered between statements of ‘change pending’, ‘good policies, but failures on implementation’, ‘Mbeki-ites failing the people’, ‘improve representation and accountability by representatives’, and ‘root out corruption’, to the muted ‘new initiatives in the Zuma administration’, ‘implement the Polokwane resolutions’ and ‘we did not know’ (about severe conditions on the ground circa local election 2011). The ANC was conflicted between when to claim policy successes and when to acknowledge failures. The ‘challenge’ was to get replacement and supplementary policies adopted, while building state capacity and public sector integrity and dedication to unambiguously serve the people. It was a tall but unavoidable order. Without realising it, the ANC in the longer term would be increasingly dependent on propaganda and manipulation of popular consciousness to secure continued belief in it and to renew its power.

Concerted policy implementation would have been much more achievable in South Africa, had policy not also been at the heart of political contestation – frequently being the code or proxy speak for contests and lines of division. Simultaneously, significant players clamoured for positioning to direct and control policy. The substantial intra- ANC and intra-Alliance contests clouded policy pursuits. Policy was a form of political combat in party and in state, central to the ANC succession battles in the 2009-onwards Zuma administration, and it became a proxy strategy in campaigning for Mangaung 2012. In the Polokwane round it was situated amidst intense turmoil and potential instability, mostly to do with leadership replacement. For some, Polokwane was the moment to get policy change; others used accusations of policy failure and advocacy as a vaguely defined instrument to get leadership turnover.