It has been a common refrain from analysts and some business leaders that we should not expect much to happen in SA until general elections on May 8 — not from the government nor from the investment community.
With such widely divergent outcomes in the offing, sometimes it is good to see what people with skin in the game, so to speak, are betting on. If the currency market was going to be any guide, the message would seem to be keep calm and carry on. This could cause some of the revelations of wrongdoing from the various commissions of inquiry finally to translate into prosecutions and jailing of culprits. The last point is a bit dubious, to say the least.
That would mean the ANC being pushed so far to the left that destructive policy on everything from land reform to the independence of the Reserve Bank ensues. That would be a disaster. A credit downgrade would definitely follow, and outflows from the country’s bond markets would cause the rand to crash and bond yields to surge.