Is a suitable socialist influence possible post Polokwane?

The victories of the so called Polokwane revolution provide a very exciting and rather challenging political and economic juncture in our country. Exciting because it is common knowledge that the victors are precisely the victors due to the unflinching desire for change and we know that change is good. Sometimes change is necessary.
I use the word “challenging” because of the difficult policy decisions that will soon face the current ANC leadership.

Undoubtedly, the Polokwane Revolution provides the space for those who were (are) allegedly sidelined by the Mbeki government as a result of his so called centralization of power. Apparently, the platform for more socialist biased influences within the policy making and interpretation space is more suitable now than ever. Effectively, the “true patrons for the poor” are now - more than ever – able to entrench their victory through implementation of policy positions that they’ve been preaching ever since GEAR policy was “forced” down on them. And these policies are meant to be the silver bullet to the challenges we face, as the nation.

Although some of those policy positions - emanating from the Polokwane Resolutions - are noble and necessary to create a more developmental state (e.g. a Rural development policy) and will probably result in the improved materiel lives of our people – if wisely implemented - a word of caution will, however, be apt.
It is easy for anyone not to overlook the possibility of macroeconomic populism in this country, especially after next year’s elections. Now that the propagators of the more interventionist and socialist state are effectively in power, the temptations of implementing the less stabilizing economic policies and spearheading the more populist policies will be high. This mainly will be driven by the current global economic turndown, higher inflation, hence resulting to a protracted tightening monetary policy stance.
It is highly unlikely that the ANC leadership will continue supporting the current neoliberal economic policies (particularly fiscal and monetary policies) while its alliance partners are busy marching against escalating inflation (which means less buying power for members of its alliance partner, Cosatu) and pushing for a review of the current monetary policy framework (inflation targeting).
If indeed it does not continue with such policies (at least partially), it might create an even more unequal society as that would lead to more inflationary pressures.
In my view, if the current ANC leadership realizes the need to depart from the current economic policies, it has to do that very carefully. Although the more interventionist and more socialist policies are, indeed necessary (and/or inevitable) to enhance the rapid fight against poverty in this country, it is my view that they need to be implemented parallel to the current “stabilizing” policies – at least to a certain extent - given our vulnerability to the world economic events.
Furthermore, I tend to support Jeremy Cronin’s view that this country needs to invigorate its Agricultural policy and perhaps split the Agricultural and the Land Affairs departments into two different entities, especially in the light of the exogenous causes of the rising food prices and the importance (and delicacy) of the land issue in this country.

Therefore, for socialist policy influence to have sustainable impact in the contemporary South Africa, I believe that the propagators thereof need to appreciate the intricacies and trade-offs that accompany policy decisions. This will be a better approach as opposed to playing with the feelings of the poor people of our country by making them believe that there’s a silver bullet to the challenges of relative and absolute poverty we’re currently facing.