The ANC and SACP have agreed to continuous consultation and to strengthening the broader ANC-led alliance
The recent national congress of the trade union federation, Cosatu, communicated two contradictory messages. The subject was whether it should remain in the alliance with the governing ANC or turn towards a strictly workers’ party.
Zingiswa Losi, who was re-elected president of the federation, was adamant that workers have their best ally in the ANC government. No other party in government, Losi insisted, can possibly do better than the ANC in relation to worker’s rights.
Some of Losi’s colleagues, however, held a different view. They were not as convinced that the ANC could still be relied upon as a champion of workers’ rights. Only objections from other unions, citing lack of a mandate from their members, prevented the matter from being tabled at the congress for voting.
Those in favour of a vote, however, could not be silenced entirely. The compromise was that a special congress be convened early next year to address the subject. Though deferring the discussion and possible vote, the workers still made their feelings clear. As if to signal the outcome of the proposed special congress, they refused to have Gwede Mantashe, the ANC’s chairperson, address them.
The former general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers and a one-time leader of the South African Communist Party (SACP), Mantashe had gone to deliver a message on behalf of the ANC. That is customary practice. Never before has an ally not been allowed to deliver a message at a conference and booed off the stage — in particular a person who was once one of their own, a former trade unionist and communist.
This points to the depth of Cosatu’s disillusionment with their ally in government. Does that mean it is poised to cut ties with the ANC? The answer to this question lies partly in recent history.
This question is not new. It came up sharply in the mid-2000s. Then it was precipitated by what the leftist allies believed was an ANC shift towards a conservative policy regime, under Thabo Mbeki’s administration. This was marked by privatisation, outsourcing, rightsizing of the bureaucracy and a decline in public expenditure.
Mbeki seemed indifferent to pleas from the ANC’s leftist allies. Rather than heed them, he dismissed them as pseudo-Marxists and mooted cutting off ties with their organisations. Pushed out into the cold, without any indication that they’d ever have any influence, or presence, in an ANC government, the SACP contemplated leaving the alliance to contest elections independently. The subject was debated at the SACP’s 2007 conference.
Although feeling despondent at the prospects of ever influencing the ANC, there was an equally strong sentiment against contesting elections. Jeremy Cronin, the SACP’s then deputy general secretary, was particularly doubtful of the viability of going it alone. Contesting elections, Cronin warned, required more than just a resolution. It would need, among others, financial resources and the ANC was unlikely to make it easy for the SACP to become a formidable opponent.
Essentially, Cronin advised that the SACP had a better chance at remaining relevant within the alliance than outside, contesting against the ANC in elections. That warning held sway, but not because of the gloom promised by leaving the alliance.
What was more persuasive against the SACP contesting state power was the prospect of a Jacob Zuma presidency. Both Cosatu and the SACP were at the forefront of that campaign, touting Zuma as the kind leader they needed to return the ANC to being a “disciplined force of the left”.
Others in leftist circles, especially Mazibuko Jara of the SACP, poo-pooed the suggestion, pointing out that there was nothing about Zuma, in his entire career, that had shown him to be a leftist. They cautioned that Zuma would be worse than Mbeki. Unlike Mbeki, they argued, Zuma was culturally conservative and unscrupulous. For pointing out the truth, Jara and many more like him were kicked out of the SACP.
Within a year of the Zuma presidency, Jara was vindicated. One of Zuma’s fiercest supporters, Zwelinzima Vavi decried Zuma’s regime as “parasitic”. Vavi was not alone in noticing the predatory nature of what was supposed to be a “leftist victory”. His comrades did, too. But, unlike him, they kept quiet. They were now inside the very monstrosity they purported to detest.
None raised the idea of cutting ties with the ANC, as they had done during the Mbeki administration, on account of the supposed “indifference to the poor”. Yet, promises of the Polokwane victory hardly materialised. When asked about what happened to the promise of “decent jobs”, Gwede Mantashe, then ANC secretary general, quipped: “i-job, yi-job” — a job is a job.
The plunder and obvious sham that was the Zuma presidency was never a reason enough for office-bearers in both the SACP and Cosatu to want to leave the alliance. Instead, they hounded Vavi out of the federation for repeatedly pointing at the scam. Not only was Vavi driven out, but Cosatu would also go on to suffer a split — opting to rather suffer a split than disown the monstrosity they had birthed and admit complicity.
Some local SACP leaders, however, couldn’t hold back in the face of disarray. Faced with a dissolved council at the Metsimaholo municipality in the Free State in July 2017, they appealed to their national office for permission to contest the by-election in November 2017. They reasoned that the provincial ANC, then under the firm grip of premier Ace Magashule, could no longer be entrusted with the public purse.
Municipalities throughout the province were floundering because of plunder. The national office agreed and, for the first time, the SACP contested elections. Three of its local leaders were elected councillors, but none of the parties won an outright majority, forcing a coalition government. The SACP became part of the coalition and the party’s Lindiwe Tshongwe was elected mayor.
Even that brief, solitary taste of victory hasn’t convinced the SACP to contest elections. A large part of that reluctance stems from the uncertainty of victory. The experiments in the past two elections have been a disaster. Among the parties that contested the 2016 local government election was a left-leaning party, the United Front (UF). The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) was central in the formation of the UF, even though the party sought to be inclusive of other civil society formations.
That Numsa was at the centre raised hopes that the UF was likely to register most success in the Eastern Cape, especially around the car manufacturing centres of Gqeberha and Monti. It didn’t pan out that way. The UF got only one seat in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro. By the following election in 2021, the party had disappeared.
The failed experiment didn’t deter Numsa. Informed by the failure of the broad-front of left-leaning formations, Numsa now resolved to try a strictly workers’ party, the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party (SRWP). Formed in 2019 with the union’s general secretary, Irvin Jim, as the convener, the SRWP could only manage to get roughly 25 000 of the votes cast in the 2019 national election.
For a union that boasted about 300 000 members, the performance was hopelessly dismal. It is unlikely that the SRWP will contest the 2024 election. The workers’ party is possibly dead, alongside the United Front. Workers have a low appetite for a party of their own.
Frankly, South Africa’s former anti-apartheid organisations have succumbed to Robert Michels’ iron law of oligarchy. Michels argued in 1911 that over time, political parties and trade unions cease being controlled by members, because power is increasingly concentrated around leaders and officials.
These leaders develop interests totally unrelated to those of their members. They use the organisation for the fulfilment of their own interests. They cease being revolutionaries and become career politicians and bureaucrats more concerned about their own livelihoods.
Today the radical-sounding Jim has apparently turned into a dictator. Numsa’s recent conference was nullified by a court because he wanted to disqualify certain leaders from contesting office. He insisted on the conference going ahead even after the court had issued an order barring it.
The irrepressible appetite to stay in power seemingly has to do with the Numsa Investment Company (NIC). There are reports of unaccounted funds and Jim has protected the chief executive, Khandani Msibi, and the NIC from thorough scrutiny. Numsa is not the only union with an investment arm mired in financial impropriety. Some have downright evaded accounting to union members with the protection of union leaders.
The SACP is not about to break away from the ANC and challenge its former ally at the polls. Nor is Cosatu likely to take that resolution. The uncertainty over individual leaders’ career prospects outside of the alliance is just too dreadful. And workers are not keen on their own party. So, don’t hold your breath.
Mcebisi Ndletyana is a professor of political science at the University of Johannesburg and co-author of a forthcoming book on the centenary history of Fort Hare University.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.
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