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National levelAt the national level, ANC foreign policy was confounded by two factors: a lack ofresources and the new democratic political environment. The demands of economicdevelopment at home had to be balanced with the demands of an activist foreignpolicy in defence of human rights and towards promoting democracy. Conceptionsof the national interest had to be subjected to democratic scrutiny as one importantcomponent of a progressive foreign policy. In addition was the suggestion that for asociety characterised by inequality, foreign policy should take a low priority in theallocation of national resources, giving higher priority to distributive justicedomestically. 368It is generally underestimated, or underplayed, just how contingent were thenegotiations and transition processes in South Africa. Southall has noted thatpredictions about post-Apartheid South Africa’s foreign policy were ambitiouslypredicated on the assumption that democracy was assured. Neither analysts norpractitioners took into due account the extent to which South Africa’s incrementalmoves toward a democratic dispensation (and of which type) that was at no pointirreversible, had an impact on the type of foreign policy the country was able topursue. 369 This view provides a valuable insight into why South Africa’s ‘humanrights’ foreign policy gradually became one of measured pragmatism, in response tovarious domestic economic imperatives, from investment opportunities, to fundingprospects for the ANC. It also provides some idea of the resource mobilisation andextraction challenges posed for the ANC by its assumption of power in a countryalmost on its knees economically, and in dire need of social and political reform. Asan indication, between 1985 and 1994 South Africa was a net exporter of capital.The country declared a debt standstill in 1985 and faced an unfriendly internationalenvironment in the last days of apartheid, with IMF loans drying up and thematurity structure on older loans shortening owing to political pressure from the USanti-apartheid lobby. The country ran a current account deficit of some R2bn in368 Alexander Johnston, “Democracy and Human Rights in the Principles and Practice ofSouth African Foreign Policy”, in South Africa’s Foreign Policy: Dilemmas of a NewDemocracy, eds., Jim Broderick, Gary Burford and Gordon Freer (Houndmills: Palgrave,2001): 16.369 Roger Southall, “The New South Africa in the New World Order: Beyond the DoubleWhammy”, Third World Quarterly, 15, No.1 (1994).159