This article focuses on the establishment and disowning of the Macro-Economic Research Group (MERG) by the African National Congress in the lead up to the formation of the democratic dispensation of 1994 and the first elections, overwhelmingly won by the ANC which still forms the national government of South Africa. Considerable emphasis is placed on the politics of the ANC and to a lesser extent the general situation of the South African economy rather than by dissecting economic debates alone. MERG was a relatively lone substantial voice calling for real structural and institutional changes in the economy, ultimately rejected by the ANC at the behest of business.