New South African Review 2. Paul Hoffman
political party within a liberal democracy. Nonetheless, the ANC has become the ‘dominant party’, one which dominates South Africa not only electorally but by setting the national agenda. The fundamental thrust of such opinions is that the ANC views itself as the embodiment of a ‘historical project’ whereby, as the representative of the popular will as demonstrated by the liberation struggle, it has earned the right to rule irrespective of its performance. With such a worldview, and with party interests having deeply penetrated the functioning of the state (and particularly its security organs), it is hardly surprising that it interprets criticism of the ruling party not as healthy or normal but as originating from reactionary (read racist) motivations or, if from within the popular movement, from treachery or misconception. From such a perspective, ambition and competition for high office is not normal and healthy but treacherous, if not treasonable. And it should not be forgotten that the ANC is a member of that family of African liberation movements-cum-ruling parties – among them Zimbabwe’s African National Union Patrotic Front (Zanu PF) and Angola’s Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) – most of which have abrogated democracy and trampled on human rights in their respective domains. The ANC is neither of these two corrupt and authoritarian entities. But the ANC in power (or individual members of the government, notably the minister of Defence, Lindiwe Sisulu) have displayed a disturbing arrogance, a contempt for media criticism and a total disdain for popular opinion and for parliament’s role of oversight. Worse, Zuma’s own rise to power was in the teeth of evidence that he had been deeply implicated in the corruption of the 1998 arms deal, and was achieved on the back of a populist campaign conducted by his supporters which severely compromised the integrity of the state’s security services and undermined the authority of the courts.
Nevertheless, any serious analysis of the ANC in power suggests that it is a much more complicated animal than the assessment of it as a self-justifying liberation movement implies. Overall, in its tenure of seventeen years in power, it has remained true to the tenets of electoral democracy and, as Zuma’s displacement of Thabo Mbeki as party president at Polokwane in December 2007 demonstrated, it is to a reasonable degree responsive to popular opinion – or at least that which is channelled through its own structures. But will it stay true to this tradition? How will it respond to that ultimate democratic test – the prospect of, or the reality of, losing political power? Will it follow the catastrophic Kenyan-Zimbabwean path or that of Ghana in more recent times?
The chapters that follow in this section of the New South African Review illustrate and explore the character of the ANC while also demonstrating the complexity of South African society. In their contribution, British observers of the African political economy, James Hamill and John Hoffman, discuss the suggestion initially made by Jeremy Cronin (deputy general secretary of the SACP) in 2002: that the ANC had become subject to a condition he dubbed ‘Zanufication’, meaning that under Thabo Mbeki it had come to display authoritarian and corrupting behaviours and tendencies similar to the ruling Zanu PF in Zimbabwe. Cronin had implied, further, that South Africa under Mbeki was in danger of pursuing a trajectory of political and economic meltdown analogous to what was then occurring in Zimbabwe; from such a perspective, South Africa was in danger of becoming another failing African country, with enormous consequences for the region. Hamill and Hoffman, however, indicate that there are some disturbing similarities within the ANC, notably a tendency towards political intolerance, but they also point out major differences. They note South Africa’s strongly democratic constitution ‘jealously guarded by its constitutional court … buttressed by a powerful legal profession and a highly critical and feisty media’. They point out that whereas Mugabe has established a highly personalised rule which has brusquely ignored all constitutional constraints, the ANC has not only acted to ensure adherence to its constitutional prescription that no party president should serve more than two five-year terms, but it also has in place – and has used – internal party mechanisms whereby incumbent leaders can legitimately be challenged and overthrown.
Nonetheless, Hamill and Hoffman note that the political prospect for South Africa is not simply either Zanufication or strict adherence to constitutionalism. The ANC is also the focus of Devan Pillay’s contribution, in the context of its historic development as an alliance of classes. Taking as his cue the elaboration of the theory of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) whereby South Africa’s diverse classes and races among the politically oppressed came together in alliance under the leadership of the ANC, he argues that the party has very self-consciously become an embodiment of political ambiguity and of the varying interests of different classes. Thus, whereas critics to the left of the ANC-Cosatu-SACP Tripartite Alliance now argue that the theory of the NDR provides a framework for a conservative class alliance of white and black capitalists and a black middle class to pursue market-driven policies contrary to the interests of the impoverished mass of South Africans, supporters of the alliance argue that –despite manifold tensions – it holds the political centre together, and prevents South Africa from becoming victim to a politics of blatant and unprincipled factional struggle for resources. The ANC is many things to many people. Despite its failings and faults, it continues to retain the electoral support of its historic constituencies – with the least advantaged by its policies, the working class and the poor, not yet ready to abandon the ‘party of Mandela’.
Pillay argues that, given electoral difficulties which any self-proclaimed party of the left would have in confronting the ANC, Cosatu – although disposed to establishing linkages with civil society organisations, and tendencies critical of the government – remains committed to using its experience in propelling Zuma to power to continue to push the ruling party in a direction favourable to the working class. Again, however, he observes the political ambiguity of the ANC, discussing how the SACP’s direct involvement in the Zuma government has placed it much closer to the centre of power and increasingly distant from Cosatu. From this, it is inferred, the struggles for influence, position, and policy will continue within – are indeed inherent to – the ANC. Pillay does not directly link Zuma’s personal lack of authority and decisiveness to the historic ambiguity of the ANC as an alliance of contending class forces, yet his analysis does provide an insight into why the ruling party has lapsed into a politics of paralysis, leaning simultaneously to right and left. The danger, as Pillay points out, is that South Africa may soon hit up against the limits to its present development model, and that its present failure to shift away from dependence upon the ‘minerals-energy complex’ and to develop an alternative path of sustainable industrialisation will lead, in relatively short order, to the inability to fund its extensive provision of social grants to the poor.
Does the focus by Pillay (and the left in general) upon relationships between the working class (or working poor) and the ANC betray an urban bias, one which loses sight of the fact that a huge portion of the ruling party’s constituency resides in the countryside, notably within the former bantustans? To what extent, one might ask, are traditional leaders a vital component of the ANC Alliance? And just what is the connection between the ANC and the rural poor? Leslie Bank and Clifford Mabhena, analysing the implications of the overturning of the government’s Communal Land Rights Act (CLRA) by the Constitutional Court in May 2010 on the grounds that it made it too easy for the tribal authorities of the former bantustans to reconstitute themselves (and to become, in effect, a fourth tier of government), pose such questions and provide an important insight into basis of ANC rule in rural areas, most particularly the former Transkei region of the Eastern Cape.
The CLRA had sought a compromise between a shift to individual, freehold tenure in communal areas and a retention of communal-tenure regimes, on the grounds that they offered some protection for the poor. After years of deliberation, the CLRA sought to find a balance between giving people real and secure land rights, while recognising that in some areas traditional government had continued to work effectively and that it would be counterproductive to destroy functioning systems. The Act stopped short of giving rural people individual ownership rights, proposing instead the idea of permanent rights, and also allowing for a system of ‘commonhold’, where groups took control of land as collective units. However, because this was thought by various NGOs, land activists and rural communities to provide for a reassertion of the chiefs’ power, the CLRA ended up in the constitutional court and, consequent to a contrary judgment, the government is now having to rework the law so that it conforms to constitutional principles.
Bank