It will be a devastating blow to the ruling party, the working class and the poor in particular, if the rumoured split becomes a reality, writes Sibusiso Magwaza.
Depending on which side of the political spectrum you sit, the looming split between the ANC-SACP will signal the end of political dominance by the ANC and herald the government of coalitions in South Africa. Without the working class constituted largely by the SACP and Cosatu, the ANC will struggle to truly identify itself with the poor and the working class.
The alliance founded on a common commitment to the objectives of the National Democratic Revolution and the need to unite the largest possible cross-section of South African society seems to have hit a snag of late.
While the SACP and Cosatu contest elections under the banner of the ANC, they still remain partners of independent organisations with their own constitutions, membership and programmes. This leaves the SACP and Cosatu with a bitter pill to swallow when their members confront them on the failure of government to implement some of the workers’ demands. With the exception of building houses for the poor, providing water, infrastructure and a bouquet of social grants, the ANC has not adequately covered what workers can consider to be their bread-and-butter issues.
The question of labour brokers continues to be a thorn in the flesh of alliance leaders because instead of banning the labour brokers, the ANC decided to regulate them. The Gauteng’s e-tolls continue to perpetuate poverty, and attempts are being made to extend them to the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
Attacks on the general-secretary of the SACP by the youth league of the ANC and subsequent Fees Must Fall campaign, with a call by the ANCYL president for Dr Blade Nzimande to be fired; open confrontation and assault of SACP members in Mpumalanga; a call by the SACP to revoke the citizenship of the Gupta family, which seems to be very close to some senior members of the governing party; the assassination of SACP members at Inchanga and other issues that remain unresolved between these alliance partners seem to force these long-standing comrades apart.
A call made by KZN SACP chairperson James Nxumalo, for the ANC to intervene in the disputes at Inchanga has fallen on deaf ears. These issues and public spats have remained unresolved to such an extent that most SACP members who felt marginalised by the ANC list process during the local government elections stood as independents, thus legitimising a call made by other provinces for the party to contest state power on its own.
There is a difference in opinion about this looming split. Some argue it will expose the SACP for its “parasitic tendency” of hiding behind the ANC, but the fact is the ANC may come out as the biggest loser. Relations within the tripartite alliance were strained when Thabo Mbeki was still president of the ANC.
Managing this relationship is proving equally difficult for Jacob Zuma. It was then Cosatu general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and the SACP’s Blade Nzimande who were at the forefront of every criticism directed at then deputy president Jacob Zuma, from his much-publicised rape case and corruption case, right up to the Polokwane elective conference where Zuma emerged as president of the ANC.
While Vavi has since been expelled by Cosatu, Nzimande as current minister of higher education no longer seems to enjoy the relationship envisaged due to his close proximity to the president.
When political organisations were unbanned in the early 1990s, the ANC, SACP and Cosatu agreed to work together as a revolutionary alliance.
The alliance was centred on the goals of the National Democratic Revolution, the establishment of a democratic and non-racial South Africa, economic transformation and a continued process of political and economic democratisation.
There is no doubt that much has been achieved over the years, but there seem to be more and more voices of discontent from both the ANC and SACP.
In some instances, leaders of the alliance have been vilified on public platforms, booed and verbally attacked.
The latest cabinet reshuffle seems to have made a serious dent and planted a seed of mistrust, especially when the former finance minister and his deputy were fired. There seems to be very serious contestation in the powers vested in the ANC president on hiring and firing ministers.
This has left a bad taste in the already poisoned relationship. Voices within the SACP are growing louder that the party must contest state power alone. Four provinces have already made this call to their party, but the question is: Who will be the biggest loser between the ANC and SACP?
Gwede Mantashes’s assessment of the divorce during the late Chris Hani Memorial lecture is that if the SACP serves divorce papers on the ANC “it sounds revolutionary, it sounds left, but the next possibility is that it divides the electorate base and splits it between the party and the ANC, and both will lose power”.
These warnings are not hollow and the level of disagreement is gaining momentum in such a way that the SACP, known to be the vanguard, has turned out to be one of the fiercest critics of the governing party.
Issues at the centre of discontent are the Gupta family, cronyism, state capture, factionalism and gate-keeping, to such an extent that it has made a call for the state president to step down, and this call was followed by Cosatu.
It seems to be unimaginable that after 2019 the ANC could be out of power, but signs are beginning to appear, when you consider that it has already lost big metros which were the bedrock of its support. Most analysts have predicted that the expected divorce in the alliance will be after the next SACP conference in June, and this could signal the departure of the governing party from the Union Buildings.
TheANC appears to be in denial that things are not all right - instead they embrace the narrative that all the problems the country is facing, including the double downgrades to junk status, are engineered by white monopoly capital. It is in denial that it lost significant support right across the country - instead it says its supporters did not go to the voting stations.
The governing party does not accept that the country-wide service delivery protests are genuine, they blame a third force. It is in denial that close to 70000 people who marched through our major cities calling for the president to resign are genuine - it sees this as racist. Even the possibility that the SACP might serve them with divorce papers before the end of this year is treated with contempt.
This year has been recognised as the year of OR Tambo, a man who united the liberation movement and delivered it intact after its unbanning during the 1991 ANC elective conference. But deputy secretary-general of the SACP Solly Mapaila, speaking in Cape Town, said a critical factor with the OR Tambo administration was that it had managed to accept and acknowledge the mistakes it had made. He said that would need to be the first port of call for the current administration, but he was not convinced the party was prepared to do that.
The jury is out as to whether the party of today and its current leadership will live up to the notion of self-correction, honesty and transparency. Based on numerous areas of co-operation between the ANC and SACP, taking into account that both have been working together since the dawn of democracy and have won all elections decisively, it will be a devastating blow to the governing party and the majority of the working class and the poor in particular, if this talk of split is to be a reality.
Considering the huge drop in electoral support during the August elections to below 54% for the first time, it is clear that without the SACP and Cosatu the outcome will be catastrophic.
But it is not yet too late for the ANC, especially its president, to reconsider the current trajectory of the party that has resulted in this entrenched factionalism, and to be open to ideas from the alliance partners. Otherwise the governing party stands to be the biggest loser. It will be very sad to see the split of the alliance which was forged in the trenches some 50 years ago and Zuma will be accused of breaking it.
* Magwaza is the former deputy director, communications manager and speech writer in the Office of the Premier (KZN). He is a presenter and political analyst at Vibe FM (94.7).
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.