South African President Jacob Zuma has ridden the crest of a wave of popularity.
A survey of 3500 South Africans carried out between October and November 2009 indicated that on a scale of zero to 10, Zuma's popularity had risen from 6.1 to 7.6. The largest increase came from minorities – Indians, Coloureds and Whites, as profiled by the market researchers – who pushed Zuma's approval from 2.3 to 5.4 points. The ANC is also increasingly popular, registering a 71% rating (Ipsos Markinor 2010).
In part this reflects relief that Zuma has proved to be an open, listening president with a common touch, rather than the aloof, paranoid Thabo Mbeki, who was unceremoniously deposed at the ANC's Polokwane conference in December 2007. Zuma is just as at home dancing in leopard skins as he marries yet another wife, as he is in a dark suit, mixing with international business leaders at Davos. It is a remarkable skill. Having said that, it is clear that Jacob Zuma is struggling to hold together his increasingly fractious Alliance partners from the trade unions – the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the (relatively unimportant) civic organisation, the South African National Civic Association (SANCO).
This tension reflects many things. The inability of the opposition (weak as it is) to hold the ANC to account in parliament means that the real debate has shifted to inside the Alliance. There is a struggle for influence that is both personal and political. Much is at stake in terms of jobs for friends and family, lucrative contracts and access to government funding. This has led to the most overt forms of corruption and cronyism creeping into the ANC and the government. Hardly a week goes by without some or other example being revealed in the press.
It is a problem that the ANC now acknowledges. As ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe put it in his report on the state of the party to the National Executive Committee meeting held between 15 and 18 January 2010 (Mantashe 2010):
Ascent to power also impacted negatively on the outlook of the African National Congress. The main weakness that our movement must confront is the ‘inability to effectively deal with the new tendencies such as social distance, patronage, careerism, corruption and abuse of power. The lack of policy for dealing effectively with the intersection between holding office and business interest is fast corroding the moral authority of our movement in society’. The fact that this debate has now been opened is in itself positive.
Perhaps the most honest assessment came in a searing indictment by the SACP delivered last December at an SACP special national congress held in Polokwane. Blade Nzimande, the Communist Party general secretary (and Minister of Higher Education and Training) speaking on behalf of the Central Committee, began his analysis with a blistering attack on the failure of the government to resolve the underlying problems facing ordinary people:
We need to help our movement and our country understand a major paradox, a cruel irony. Why, after more than 15 years of democracy, after 15 years of many earnest efforts, after 15 years of some real advances … why do we still live in a society in which the legacy of apartheid appears to be constantly reproduced and even expanded? In 1994, unemployment in SA was at crisis levels of around 24%. So why, 14 years later towards the middle of last year, after what was heralded as a decade and more of ‘unprecedented’ growth, and BEFORE the current recession began to hit our economy … why had we only managed to bring unemployment finally down to roughly the SAME figure of 24%? In 1994 our RDP [Reconstruction and Development Programme] document estimated that we had a housing shortage of 3 million. Over the past 15 years the state has built 3.1 million low-cost houses for the poor. So why is the housing shortage STILL almost the same as it was back in 1994? Why do we seem to be going around in a circle? Why is our GINI coefficient, measuring income inequality, still stubbornly amongst the very highest recorded in the world? And why does inequality remain so dramatically racialised in our country? This Congress must pose these awkward questions [emphasis in the original]. (SACP 2010)
The ANC now finds itself with at least three factions competing for influence within the party, government and the wider Alliance. These can be characterised as firstly the Left (the Communist Party and the unions), and secondly the Right (ANC traditionalists, Africanists who resent the influence of ethnic minorities and the ANC Youth League [ANCYL], led by its mercurial president Julius Malema). Finally, there is a group around President Zuma, who is attempting to hold the middle ground, with repeated but increasingly ineffective calls for unity.
Just how bad this in-fighting has become can be judged by statements from the Communist Party accusing Malema of ‘proto-fascism’ – surely one of the worst epithets in the Left's lexicon – and the ANC Youth League threatening to settle matters on the streets.
An evolving conflict
Late last year reports surfaced suggesting that the ANC Youth League had decided to try to replace Gwede Mantashe as Secretary General of the party with someone more to their liking at the party's next conference in 2012. The Deputy Minister of Police, Fikile Mbalula, was mentioned. This was part of the Youth League's campaign to regain control of the ANC from what it sees as the dominance of the SACP. Mantashe – in addition to holding one of the top positions within the ANC – is chairman of the Communist Party.
There is, in effect, a low-intensity war between the Right in the ANC and the SACP. Most frequently this goes on behind closed doors, but the conflict is increasingly visible.
The issue that triggered an outburst of insults was the question of whether to nationalise South Africa's mines. It might have been assumed that this would be Communist Party policy, but although the SACP might wish to go down this road one day, it certainly does not believe this is the right moment. So the party's general secretary, Jeremy Cronin, wrote a paper opposing the ANC Youth League's proposal for taking the mines into state ownership. The Youth League's plan was a typically ill-thought-out suggestion, made on the hoof, and designed to attract attention. Cronin said as much, describing the suggestion – made by the League's president, Julius Malema as an ‘off-the-wall sound bite’.
Malema replied, describing Cronin's position as ‘openly reactionary’. He went on to say that Cronin (who is white) was siding with white supremacists, and describing him as a ‘white messiah’. Communists were stung into action, attacking Malema's remarks as ‘disgusting’ and ‘racist’. Others went further. The SACP's Western Cape provincial secretary, Khaya Magaxa, said that Malema's statement smacked of ‘spoilt, gangsterist, thuggish and cynical behaviour’. Cronin himself appeared to apologise, but only made matters worse by saying that he didn't realise that Malema ‘had such a delicate skin’.
The gloves were clearly coming off. Allies, who came together to overthrow Thabo Mbeki, were falling out with each other.
As one perceptive columnist put it: ‘Within the ANC, the centre has shifted leftwards, while a new “right” is becoming increasingly vocal in its support of traditional social values and opposition to socialist economics.’ This Left–Right division pits African traditionalists against the Left, which unites elements within the trade unions and the Communist Party.
There is a populist, right-wing element in the ANC that includes people such as Tony Yengeni (who was jailed briefly for corruption) and Malema. Opposing them are ANC leaders aligned to the SACP, who have more influence within government than ever before. They include such figures as Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies, ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe, Deputy Transport Minister Jeremy Cronin and Deputy Local Government Minister Yunus Carriem.
Until late last year these differences had really been spats between allies. Most of the remarks had been made off the cuff and did not appear to represent fundamental divisions. In December 2009 this changed with the SACP congress. Two set-piece speeches laid out in detail the Left's attack on the Right within the ANC.
Blade Nzimande accused the Right of attempting to reassert the power they had lost when Mbeki was ousted. This alliance of right-wing and traditional elements within the ANC, and their business associates, had formed what the Left terms ‘the 1996 class project’ (Nzimande 2006). This refers to Mbeki's key economic policy – the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy – the neoliberal economic policy introduced by Finance Minister Trevor Manuel in June 1996. It was seen by the Left as a decisive move away from the ANC's commitments to a more radical agenda. They have continued to denounce the ‘1996 class project’ ever since.
For the SACP these conservative forces had been dealt a blow with Mbeki's defeat, but not a terminal defeat. Some right-wing elements within the ANC left to form the Congress of the People (Cope). Others remained within the movement and are accused of attempting to isolate and challenge the role of the Communist Party. As Nzimande put it (Nzimande 2006):
[This] anti-communism/anti-SACP tendency has been informed and influenced by ascendancy to state power and prospects of being part of (albeit a compradorial) emergent black sections of the capitalist class. In other words, whilst the anti-communism of the pre-1990 era was informed by a petty bourgeois ideological reaction to communism, the post-1994 anti-communism has been informed by the new emergent class interests accompanied by very real prospects of using state power or accumulated dependent BEE [Black Economic Empowerment] capital to capture our movement. After the political dislocation of the 1996 class project, the new tendency has become more desperate, more brazenly Africanist, but without a coherent ideological outlook. Instead the new tendency is opportunistically using the historical documents and positions of our movement to try and assert its new positions (e.g. an opportunistic use of the clauses of nationalisation in the Freedom Charter and the vulgarisation of the characterisation of our revolution as that seeking to liberate blacks in general and Africans in particular).
Interestingly the seeming desperation of the new tendency is also influenced by the desperate conditions of BEE capital in the light of the current global capitalist crisis and its impact on South Africa. What in fact appears as an articulation of the progressive clauses of the Freedom Charter is immediately betrayed by the naked class interests of trying to use the state to bail out dependent BEE capital. Ironically, but not surprisingly, the bail out for black capital simultaneously becomes the bail out and strengthening of white domestic capital upon which the former is entirely dependent.
Nzimande went on to attack those in the Youth League who had been courted by notoriously corrupt white businessmen like Brett Kebble, who had finally arranged his own assassination when his business empire was crashing down about his ears. ‘This new tendency has its roots in what we might call “Kebble-ism” – in which some of the more roguish elements of capital, lumpen-white capitalists, handed out largesse and favours and generally sought to corrupt elements within our movement in order to secure their own personal accumulation agendas,’ said Nzimande.
The Communist Party was now openly attacking Malema and his associates for being corrupt politicians whose favours had been bought in exchange for an opulent lifestyle.
But there was one final insult to be hurled. Malema and his ilk in the Youth League were accused of ‘proto-fascism’ (Nzimande 2006):
We do not use the term proto-fascist lightly, nor for the moment should we exaggerate it. However, there are worrying telltale characteristics that need to be nipped in the bud. They include the demagogic appeal to ordinary people's baser instincts (male chauvinism, paramilitary solutions to social problems, and racialised identity politics). They also include the turning of politics into ‘spectacle’ (the German Marxist Walter Benjamin once said that socialists politicise theatre, fascists do the reverse – turning politics into ‘theatre’ - usually of a melodramatic kind). This, in turn, reinforces the nature of the relationship between ‘leaders’ and their popular base – the latter become ‘spectators’, who clap and cheer in admiration at their patrons, and boo and jeer at rivals. The mass base is mobilised on the basis of being perpetual ‘spectator-victims’ – not protagonists, not collective self-emancipators. Above all, however, it is the nature of the still rudimentary class axis at play here that should send out early danger signals. None of this means that we should simply abandon those involved in this tentative class-axis – the buffoonery is a source of increasing embarrassment to their current or erstwhile patrons and we should work to win over those BEE elements who have been tempted to explore this dangerous and ultimately self-defeating project. Likewise, the great majority of young militants who have flirted with this style of long nights of long knives in bottom-baring conferences, with symbolic coffins for rivals, are not beyond constructive engagement. However, it is only a principled and broad-based worker-hegemony that can reconfigure these forces into a progressive project.
The Communist Party has accepted the leadership of the ANC during the National Democratic Revolution phase of our revolution. We moved away from seeing the ANC as just a bourgeois congress. Communists contributed in shaping the ANC into a revolutionary liberation movement that abandoned its loyalty to the British crown and became anti-imperialist.
All the members of the Party are expected to be active members of the ANC. In the ANC structures we must resist all attempts to relegate us into second-class members who serve at the mercy of other members. We must not be apologetic for being communists because we are put under pressure that we get elected to positions in the ANC to serve strong lobbies. There is an expectation that we will be the hardest working cadres of our movement in line with the reputation earned by our predecessors. This will distinguish us as not being entryist in our approach, where we wait in the wings and seize the opportunity to take over the ANC. Those who claim that there is a threat of a communist takeover in the ANC want to project us as being engaged in entryism. We must never play into their hands by proclaiming our own communist candidates in ANC elective conferences. Communists in the ANC are not communist members of the ANC, they are members of the ANC. When we campaign for them we must do so because they deserve to be elected through their hard work. (Mantashe 2009)
Confrontation
The scene at the Communist Party conference was set for a showdown. This was the atmosphere into which the ANC delegation arrived, including ANC national executive committee members Tokyo Sexwale, Tony Yengeni, Billy Masetlha, Sicelo Shiceka and Julius Malema. They were a delegation from a fraternal party, but they found themselves booed and jeered by SACP delegates when they were introduced to the congress.
When Malema walked into the conference hall at the University of Limpopo, the delegates started singing Asiyifun' i-agenda yamaCapitalists (we don't want a capitalist agenda). For Malema, who is notoriously thin-skinned, but who demands and receives respect, this an extraordinary affront.
When the conference adjourned for lunch, Malema walked up to the stage and confronted Mantashe, who was chairing the meeting. ‘I was asking for a platform to engage as a guest. I was to speak not on the political report but on the reception [that the ANC got]. We were insulted in front of the country’, he protested. Mantashe told Malema: ‘You [Julius] are asking for something wrongly.’ Mantashe also told Malema that he [Mantashe] was not at the congress as the leader of the ANC, but in his capacity as the SACP national chairperson. By now, Yengeni and Masetlha had joined Malema in the protest.
This prompted Malema to turn to Masetlha and ask: ‘Where is Tokyo?’ [Sexwale – the most senior ANC member at the conference.] ‘We are leaderless. The secretary-general [Mantashe] has just denounced us. He told us that he is not here on behalf of the ANC. This delegation is leaderless,’ he said.
The Young Communist League (YCL), which had promised that they would ‘meet fire with fire’ in defence of the SACP, described Malema as a ‘drama queen’. Recalling Malema's description of Jeremy Cronin as ‘white messiah’, the National Secretary of the YCL, Buti Manamela, told delegates at the conference that those who insult the SACP and its leaders would be treated accordingly. ‘Those who continue to call our leaders racist should never have illusions of receiving red-carpet treatment in this congress,’ he said.
Soon the incident, and the humiliation inflicted on Malema, were circulating via the electronic media including SMS text messages and Facebook. Seething with anger, Malema and his associates stormed out of the conference. Malema then sent a chain of text messages to ANC and youth leaders, calling on them to ‘defend’ the governing party. ‘There are no roses in a war, we are called upon to defend the ANC,’ his SMS text said.
He sent an SMS to Jeremy Cronin saying: ‘If you thought you have taught me a lesson, wait until you see what is coming [in] your direction.’ Cronin went on national radio to acknowledge that he had received some threatening SMS messages, but said he did not believe Malema had been the sender. ‘I can't actually believe they are from Julius Malema, but they are signed “Julius Malema”. I find it hard to believe that he would send [them].’
Meanwhile, the ANC Youth League branches were circulating messages declaring their support for Malema. The Western Cape branch secretary, Tandi Mahambehlala, said in the statement that the booing invoked ‘disgust and disappointment’. ‘We call on the SACP to stop convening forums posing as constitutional meetings only to find out they are meant to insult the leadership of the ANC.’ The Northern Cape's provincial secretary, Dikgang Stock, said the booing was ‘calculated and premeditated anti-ANC behaviour. The manner in which they attempted to humiliate our hard-working ANCYL president, Comrade Julius Malema, and member of the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) Comrade Billy Masetlha, leaves much to be desired and it is a clear indication of how the SACP views our relation to them as the ANCYL and the ANC.’
Fallout
The question now was whether Jacob Zuma would attend the conference. In the end, despite attempts to persuade him to boycott the event, he did make an appearance, and spoke. His message was, as ever, unity.
Zuma said that many organisations and alliances fall apart because their members were too ‘vociferous’ in their statements. But this would not happen here, he assured his audience. ‘The reason we are able to hold this Alliance together’, he said, ‘is the traditional focus on discipline, unity, respect for the autonomy of each partner and the respect for each member of the Alliance component regardless of their position in the movement.’ ‘We have also always said that the unity of the Alliance is paramount under the leadership of the African National Congress,’ he said.
But the matter has not been laid to rest. Malema has neither forgotten nor forgiven the insults he has suffered. He is more determined than ever to unseat the most senior Communist within the ANC, Gwede Mantashe, when the next ANC conference is held in 2012. At an ANC national executive meeting held in January 2010, Malema is reported to have asked: ‘Positions are contested in the ANC. Why can't [Secretary General] be contested?’ This would fly in the face of Zuma's warning at the ANC executive committee meeting in September 2009 for members not to begin premature lobbying for the 2012 conference.
Who runs the economy?
These conflicts have reflected ideological differences within the ruling Alliance. They are matched and interwoven by conflicts over the direction of policy. One of the key accusations made against Thabo Mbeki was that he had eliminated the Left's influence on economic policy with the development of the ‘1996 class project’.
With the arrival of the Zuma presidency in May 2009, the Left believed that its day had come. Yet soon there were disquieting signs that at least in the area of economic policy little was to change. Trevor Manuel, South Africa's long-serving Finance Minister, was elevated to serve in the Presidency. Manuel was regarded by the left as a key supporter of the ‘Washington consensus’ and a leading conservative.
The battleground was drawn around a green paper on national strategic planning, which was released by Trevor Manuel (Republic of South Africa [RSA] 2009). The paper was rejected by the union movement. COSATU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said ‘The green paper on national strategic planning reflects a massive turf battle in Cabinet.’ The unions accused Manuel of attempting to sideline their key ally in government, Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel.
Union leaders expressed concern that Patel would be outflanked by conservatives in the Cabinet, leaving the left without real authority. Patel had no budget, which adds to fears that he could end up in much the same position as former COSATU General Secretary Jay Naidoo. Although appointed as the reconstruction and development minister by the then president, Nelson Mandela, Naidoo became a paper tiger with little or no influence on the government.
COSATU's concerns that Ebrahim Patel was being sidelined led to demands for him to be given new powers. The union movement's president Sdumo Dlamini is quoted as saying bluntly: ‘We envisage a situation where micro- and macro-economic policy is guided by the Economic Development Minister and nothing else.’ COSATU urged Patel to move with haste to assemble his team. ‘In so doing, he must make sure to pick the best minds within the movement, so that he begins the long process of undoing the policies of the 1996 class project,’ another reference to the Mbeki government's conservative economic policies.
While the Left was fighting its corner, so was the Right. The Youth League president decided to open something of a can of worms by questioning just who should be the real beneficiaries of the post-apartheid settlement. Malema commented that the ANC's national democratic revolution emphasised the liberation of blacks in general and Africans in particular. He attacked what he called ‘minorities’ in the cabinet, particularly those serving on the economic cluster of ministries. Malema was referring to Pravin Gordhan, Ebrahim Patel, Rob Davies and Public Enterprises Minister Barbara Hogan. Malema also alluded to the appointment of Gill Marcus to replace Tito Mboweni as Reserve Bank Governor. All are either Indian or white. All are on the left of the Alliance or members of the Communist Party.
Jacob Zuma was forced to intervene. He said: ‘The ANC has always balanced its very deep non-racialism and the liberation of blacks in general and Africans in particular – there's never been any contradiction. You cannot use “Africans in particular” to reverse the clock.’ Asked whether Malema needed political education, Zuma said: ‘He is young, he is still learning.’
But the argument didn't go away.
The Communist Party came to the defence of the ministers, issuing a statement saying it was pleased that senior ANC leaders had rejected ‘opportunistic attempts to play an ethnic card’. It went on: ‘While ugly, white chauvinistic attitudes persist in many places, sometimes brazenly and sometimes subliminally, and should be fought at all times, a counter, narrow Africanist chauvinism simply reproduces and feeds its counterpart. Such trends must be nipped in the bud.’
In November 2009, the Alliance met in a three-day weekend retreat to try to thrash out these testing issues. As the ANC Secretary General, Gwede Mantashe put it when he emerged at the end of the meeting to address the media, the weekend had been ‘long, complex and difficult’. In essence the ANC had stamped its authority on its Alliance partners, asserting its right to lead them and to decide on their main policies.
The ANC's partners were forced to back down from their demand to have Trevor Manuel barred from becoming chairman of the envisaged National Planning Commission. In reality this had already been decided by the ANC during the last meeting of the party's National Executive Committee, which met on 9 November 2009. A statement was then agreed, saying (ANC 2009):
- 1.
There should be a National Planning Commission (NPC) in government to coordinate and align the work of various government departments;
- 2.
The Commission will be chaired by the Minister responsible for NPC in the presidency;
- 3.
External experts will constitute the NPC; and
- 4.
All proposals of the NPC will be presented to our governance structures including Cabinet, for interaction and endorsement.
Trevor Manuel, now Planning Minister in all but name, would almost certainly have refused to settle for anything less, but the issue still had to be hammered home with the Alliance. The run-up to the summit had been dominated by a war of words between the unions and the ANC over what the labour federation described as Manuel's attempt to give himself ‘imperial powers’ to drive the state's economic development policies.
COSATU claimed that if the recently published government green paper on national strategic planning is adopted in its current form, Manuel would have ‘super’ ministerial powers while Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel, who is a former trade unionist and the current darling of the Left, would be rendered redundant.
The federation wanted either President Jacob Zuma or his deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe, to head the commission. But, following three days of heated debates, COSATU and the SACP finally gave in. ‘In particular, we agreed that there is a need for the NPC to be located in the Presidency, which will be chaired by the minister in the Presidency for the NPC (Trevor Manuel) and whose main responsibility will be to ensure integrated strategic planning across government,’ the Alliance partners said in a joint statement.
The ANC Secretary General, Gwede Mantashe, said that the decision meant the debate over Manuel's role ‘is now settled’. COSATU president Sdumo Dlamini agreed: ‘We support the call that the NPC should be located within the Presidency. It is now settled. It's no longer an issue.’ At the same time he insisted that there were issues ‘that still remain which need to be nuanced and worked on’ relating to the NPC.
In another victory for ANC traditionalists, COSATU and the Communist Party also abandoned their claim for equal status with the ANC in setting government policy and making appointments to office. The dispute arose early on in the weekend deliberations, when COSATU General-Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi proposed that the Alliance should be ‘the centre of power’, and not the ANC alone. This would have meant that the ANC could not decide government policy and appoint ministers and senior officials to positions without seeking the approval of its allies. In the end this was abandoned, with even the Communist Party's Blade Nzimande forced to admit that: ‘It's an ANC-led alliance.’
The ANC's strange Alliance
Although the Alliance is probably one of the best-known political formations in South Africa, it is remarkably little studied. What, for example, are its origins? What are its rules and regulations? Who are its office-bearers? To none of these questions is there a ready answer.
Having said this, some aspects of the Alliance are clear enough. Firstly, it goes way back in history, beyond the formation of COSATU, since the first relationship was between the ANC, SACP and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU).
Founded in 1955, SACTU was the labour arm of the ANC until 1961 when the ANC was banned, and although SACTU was never itself illegal, so many of its leaders were detained and killed that it effectively ceased to exist in South Africa itself. It was only with the rebirth of the unions after the 1973 Durban Strikes and the founding of the Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU) that labour once more had an organised voice.
Even then, the question arises, when did FOSATU's successor, COSATU, replace SACTU as the third element within the Alliance? Was this agreed when Jay Naidoo led a delegation to visit the ANC in Lusaka in February 1986? Or did it come later? Formally the two organisations met several times. It was only in March 1990 that SACTU finally accepted the inevitable and was phased out (COSATU and SACTU 1990).
One of the most explicit outlines of the relationship between the three parties within the Alliance came in the speech by Oliver Tambo given in London in July 1981, on the 60th anniversary of the SACP (ANC 1981):
The relationship between the ANC and the SACP is not an accident of history, nor is it a natural and inevitable development. For, as we can see, similar relationships have not emerged in the course of liberation struggles in other parts of Africa.
To be true to history, we must concede that there have been difficulties as well as triumphs along our path, as, traversing many decades, our two organisations have converged towards a shared strategy of struggle. Ours is not merely a paper alliance, created at conference tables and formalised through the signing of documents and representing only an agreement of leaders. Our alliance is a living organism that has grown out of struggle …
This process of building the unity of all progressive and democratic forces in South Africa through united and unified action received a particularly powerful impetus from the outstanding leadership of Isitwalandwe Chief Albert J Luthuli, as President-General of the ANC. The process was assisted and supported by the tried and tested leadership of such stalwart revolutionaries as Isitwalandwe Yusuf Dadoo and Isitwalandwe the late Moses Kotane, revolutionaries of the stature of J.B. Marks and Bram Fischer …
Within our revolutionary alliance each organisation has a distinct and vital role to play. A correct understanding of these roles, and respect for their boundaries has ensured the survival and consolidation of our cooperation and unity.
As stated in its programme, the SACP unreservedly supports and participates in the struggle for national liberation led by the ANC, in alliance with the South African Indian Congress, the Congress of Trade Unions, the Coloured People's Congress and other patriotic groups of democrats, women, peasants and youth …
There is one other useful indication of how the Alliance is meant to operate. This was provided by Joe Slovo in a now defunct publication, the World Marxist Review (Slovo 1987). In it he explains at some length how the ANC cooperates with the SACP:
The alliance between the ANC and our party has very deep roots in our South African condition. There are no secret clauses and no hidden agenda in this alliance. The stability and closeness of the relationship and the participation of individual Communists in the leading echelons of the national, trade union and other mass movements has its roots in our party's historically evolved style of work in relation to the mass movements. We have always respected and defended the independence, integrity and the inner democratic processes of the mass organisations. To act otherwise is to suffocate them as creative organs and to confuse manipulation with leadership.
Slovo then goes on to say that the fact that the Communist Party's aim is socialism, while the ANC's is not, has not inhibited this relationship. He concludes:
Our alliance with the ANC coincides with this approach; it is not and should not be premised on the acceptance by the ANC or any other anti-racist force of socialism as the ultimate liberator. We have every reason to believe that in a truly democratic South Africa the advance towards real social emancipation may well be settled in debate rather than on the streets.
Tensions continue
So far the tensions indicated above, which led to the intemperate exchanges between Malema and Cronin, and the ANC and Communist Party youth wings, have remained no more than verbal exchanges. But the differences have not gone away.
On 1 February 2010, the ANC Youth League president, Julius Malema, told the media following a meeting of the organisation's executive: ‘Anybody who has taken a posture and has defined himself as against the ANC Youth League … such an individual runs the risk of losing the support of the Youth League.’ Far from abandoning its policy of nationalising the mines, the Youth League has issued a formal statement calling for this to be implemented (ANCYL 2010):
Guided by the aims and objectives of the Freedom Charter, the ANC Youth League conceptualisation of Nationalisation of Mines is that it should result in the ‘the democratic government's ownership and control of Mining activities, including exploration, extraction, production, processing, trading and beneficiation of Mineral Resources in South Africa’. Mineral Resources refer to all the more than 50 non-renewable precious, industrial and chemical stones extracted from Mines in South Africa. This includes but [is] not limited to Gold, Platinum Group Metals, Chrome, Coal, Manganese, Diamond, Copper, Metals, Aluminium, and many other Minerals.
We specifically emphasise that Nationalisation of Mines includes the following:
- 1.
Should be accompanied by a thorough transformation of state-owned enterprises.
- 2.
Not generalised nationalisation, as it can assume various forms: it can be 100% public ownership, or 51% or more owned by the state, or established through partnership arrangements with the private sector.
- 3.
Will involve expropriation with or without compensation.
- 4.
Not meant to bail out indebted Mining Corporations.
Conclusion
This article has concentrated on the relationships within the ANC-led Alliance. This is, after all, the body that contains the real power brokers in South African society, whether in Parliament or in wider society. At the same time it by no means exhausts the political landscape. There is the role of the official opposition, where the Democratic Alliance under Helen Zille now controls the Western Cape and continues to mount a vigorous intellectual critique of the ANC's control of the country. The Democratic Alliance that she leads is also involved in cautious talks with other opposition organisations (including the Independent Democrats and the Congress of the People) to find a more effective form of opposition to the government.
There is also a vigorous press and a state-controlled and troubled, but still at times effective, public broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation. The universities and think tanks provide essential independent advice and analysis. Business and other interest groups continue to operate and can, at times, influence government thinking.
The real question, however, is who will in time come to provide a voice for the voiceless – who will represent the millions in the squatter camps and impoverished rural areas that have voted with such enthusiasm for the ANC since 1994? The opinion polls suggest that they still hold the movement in high regard and with considerable affection. But anecdotal evidence indicates a waning of ANC support.
When other movements have sprung up they have, at times, found the ANC a vicious opponent. On 26 and 27 September 2009, a gang of armed men attacked the Kennedy Road shack-dweller community, an informal settlement in Durban. They chanted pro-Zulu and anti-Pondo slogans, threatening to kill the leaders of the shack-dwellers' organisation, Abahlali baseMjondolo. The gang that carried out these attacks was allegedly organised and led by local and regional ANC leaders, who received the support of the local police. When called, police arrested not the ANC attackers but 12 members of Kennedy Road Development Committee, Abahlali's local affiliate. The situation has been condemned by the churches, with one pastor describing South Africa as ‘a one-party state’ (Taruona 2010). Abahlali may, in time, grow to become a potent force. But at present it is one of a myriad of local organisations attempting to represent the poor – ground that the ANC and its allies have by no means abandoned.
The real contest at the present time is within the Alliance. Divisions, described above, now run deep and there is an evident hostility between Left and Right within the movement. At the same time it should be recalled that the ANC managed to survive decades of exile without suffering the kinds of splits that left other liberation movements fragmented and powerless. The glue of this heritage is strong, as are the ties of patronage. Jacob Zuma is an extraordinarily skilled politician with a history in the ANC's intelligence arm, and is unlikely to be taken unawares by the difficult road that lies ahead.