Recent political changes in South Africa drive home the accountability message and this is one of the reasons the country will not become another Zimbabwe, said Professor Steven Friedman from the Centre for the Study of Democracy on Wednesday.

He was speaking at the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry's annual convention at the Johannesburg Country Club and noted that if citizens did not have the "muscle" to ensure governments accounted to them, then governments could govern in any way they liked, as was the case in Zimbabwe.

"What is happening in many African societies is groups of citizens are acquiring enough muscle to hold governments to account," he said.

"Unless you have a situation where groups of citizens and enough organisations and interests within the society to prevent government from doing what they want, then there is little reason governments should serve citizens in those situations," he explained.

He said things were, however, changing in very difficult and potentially exciting ways.

Holding on to power

He said the good news was Ghana and to a certain extent Nigeria had seen fairly smooth transitions, but this progress was trying to be prevented from happening in countries like Zimbabwe and Kenya, where they tried to hold on to power by violent means, leading to human tragedy.

"But it is progress as you have groups saying we want you to serve us and we are not going to serve you any more," said Friedman.

He said the relevance of this for South Africa was that a sitting president had been removed legally and without violence.

"The precedent has been set that you can remove a president and nothing untoward happens — that sends a message to anybody in power that if you do not look after the people who put you in power, you can be removed," said Friedman.

"Zuma and Motlanthe will know there is no guarantee they will be voted back into office — it creates an accountability that wasn't here before."

"We have not yet got to the stage where pressure to change is coming from the majority of voters — that is something that has to happen over time" he added, noting that the key pressure group remained the executive of the ANC, which contrary to many views was not made up by a majority from the left wing.

A breakaway inject accountability

He felt that a new breakaway party could inject some accountability into the system, but he was "quite sceptical" whether this party was really going to get the kind of traction to give anyone in the ANC "sleepless nights".

"Remember, you need half a million voters to get ten seats in parliament — that puts it in perspective," said Friedman.

But as with any change, he noted that this held risks.

"It puts us in a more risky situation for a while than we were before."

Friedman pointed out that political parties in SA had geographic bases.

"When it is destabilised things can get a little rough for a while — it can create rough politics and we need to be aware of that," he said.

"But the risks are certainly a plus as you can't sustain an effective democracy unless you have this accountability and politicians shaken up in this way — but it may mean politics is nastier and more difficult — but that is a process we have to go through."

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