New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s recent primary victory provides South Africa’s progressives with a stark, universal lesson: sometimes, facing a flawed political party head-on rather than giving up is the only way to change it. (@ZohranKMamdani/X)
The progressive movement faces a strategic conundrum following the most divided election in South Africa since 1994.
Many activists and up-and-coming leaders who want to see change in South Africa are turning their attention away from the African National Congress (ANC) and toward the recently established uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party or the expanding number of independent political parties.
New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s recent primary victory provides South Africa’s progressives with a stark, universal lesson: sometimes, facing a flawed political party head-on rather than giving up is the only way to change it.
By taking on the establishment head-on rather than separating from it, Mamdani, a democratic socialist, overcame the odds and defeated the staid Democratic Party machine/establishment in New York City. His campaign ran through the Democratic Party, not alongside it.
Mamdani established a coalition of working-class, immigrant, and middle-class populations by leveraging the party’s infrastructure, name recognition, and primary system.
He overrode the party’s conservative and centrist tendencies by using its resources, system and exposure.
This provides a key mirror for progressives in South Africa.
With its growing involvement in neoliberal economic policies, elite patronage networks, and political deterioration, the ANC is now a shell of its liberation past.
Progressives who worry about the long-term deterioration of working-class interests are alarmed by the party’s partnership with the market-friendly Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Government of National Unity (GNU).
However, progressives may prematurely reject the only party that still has a national grassroots infrastructure, emotional resonance with older people, and the historical legitimacy of liberation.
The ANC is no longer, by default, a people’s movement, much like the Democratic Party in the United States. It is not, however, irredeemable.
Progressives in South Africa need to consider whether it would be more successful to start an alternative party from the ground up in a nation where established parties are favoured by election laws or to challenge the ANC from within to restore it to its founding principles based on the Freedom Charter.
There are good reasons to exercise caution. Bureaucracy, corruption, and factionalism plague the ANC.
The Democratic Party is in a similar position. However, Mamdani’s campaign demonstrated how progressive insurgents may take advantage of establishment flaws to create class-aware, socially conscious groups inside entrenched systems.
This does not imply giving in to the leadership of the ANC. It entails facing it — with intention.
Imagine neighbourhood activists, trade unionists, youth leaders, and progressive organisers launching ANC primary challenges in one ward after another.
Consider a return to branch-by-branch, region-by-region democracy inside the party.
This might restructure the ANC as a contested space for ideological regeneration rather than as a weakened institution clinging to power. Additionally, it would strategically thwart the ANC-DA alliance’s perilous ascent, which may solidify a neoliberal consensus and drive the working poor away.
In the event that progressives do not claim this space, the right will – both inside and outside of the ANC.
Instead of paving the way for freedom, the fall of the ANC may pave the way for something much more sinister: a right-wing populism akin to MAGA in South Africa, with regressive, anti-immigrant, tribalist, and anti-poor rhetoric.
This threat is real and already apparent in the rhetoric and stance of new conservative voices. Progressives need to oppose this from both an ideological and a tactical standpoint.
Nostalgia is not the reason for retaking the ANC. It has to do with power. Power in elections. Authority over policy.
Power of narrative. It’s about realising that, in the hands of the people, political brands — even damaged ones — can be transformative instruments.
“We didn’t win because the machine got better — we won because we built our own machine inside of it,” Mamdani stated in his victory speech.
Progressives in South Africa must now choose between storming the tent and rebuilding it from the inside, or continuing to build outside it. There is more at stake than just politics. They are existential.