Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

Is the African National Congress’ internal reckoning coming? I have for years argued that the ANC’s tripartite coalition of the ANC itself, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and the South African Communist Party (SACP) is, in the long run, untenable. The ANC is a party of the left and always, to be sure, but it is not far enough to the left for COSATU and the SACP. And while those two constituent parts have always seen themselves as coequals, the reality is that within the ANC, they do not hold the cards of power. The ANC, for right or for wrong (and I think generally though not perfectly for right) has chosen not to forsake liberal market economics in favor of far-left redistributionist policies. It certainly has not embraced a command economy or any form of African Socialism, even rhetorically.

And so it seems almost certain that at some point COSATU and SACP will break away and form their own party. The emergence of the Congress of the People (COPE) as a potential (but not yet actualized, as we saw in the recent elections) opposition force might make matters more complicated, but since COPE does not appear to be pushing leftward (and might be going the other way), the coast is still clear for a party from the left to emerge from a fractured ANC coalition.

Such a schism would not be without its problems, of course. COSATU and the SACP do not necessarily want to break away. They would much rather change the ANC than leave it, especially as leaving would require giving up on the access of power. A new COSATU-SACP party might move the center of gravity in South African politics to the left, but that shift would not take place overnight, such a party would never become the sort of monolith that that ANC has been, and many prominent folks might find themselves in the political wilderness. Nor would the ANC want to see such a defection from within the ranks of the tripartite alliance. Why become a party with 55%, 50% or 45% of the vote by breaking up when you can maintain 60+% simply by figuring out how left and center can live together?

Because breaking up may be hard to do, but the alternative is sometimes impossible, especially in the long run. COSATU and SACP have been at the throat of the ANC for some time, and this civil war shows little sign of cooling.  The power structure of the ANC may want to work things out, or at least pay lip service to doing so, but as the coming months progress, the ANC might discover that it is best simply to have as amicable divorce as is possible.  For as much as the left is growing sick of the ANC center, the ANC center (which by any political definition or schema is center-left, and quite comfortably left at that) is getting pretty sick of the left too. The difference is that the ANC holds the strongest cards now and for the foreseeable future.

Today’s presentation of the South African budget will go a long way in determining whether and for how long the various segments of the ANC alliance will be able to paper over their differences. COPE and the Democratic Alliance are both afraid that the ANC are going to cave in to the leftists, with COPE skillfully positioning itself as a de facto official opposition party, a title that the DA currently holds, though I doubt highly that there will be another national election after which the DA continues on as the second-largest party in government.

Increasingly the breakup of the ANC coalition may become a matter of when, not if. While perhaps bad for the ANC”s stranglehold on unquestioned power, and while such a dissolution will almost certainly be heartbreaking for those with a sense of history, it may well be good for South Africa as a whole. After all, one couple’s breakup almost always represents someone else’s opportunity, and not all relationships are meant to endure.