Foreign Policy Blogs

The ANC Doth Protest Too Much

For a party that claims “We are not shaken, we are unbreakable and we are indestructible,” the African National Congress sure is spending a lot of time disavowing being shaken, broken, or destroyed. And it is planning to spend an awful lot of time and resources fighting the right of the breakaway faction of the ANC to call itself the “Congress of the People” (COP).

The COP, meanwhile, is spending its time and resources on the perhaps more prosaic work of actually garnering support, especially in those provinces where it looks to have enough strength to take over political control, whether on its own or in coalitions. The Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Western Cape and North West have shown signs that for all of the ANC's bluster, it may not be the only game in town any more.

 

Author

Derek Catsam

Derek Catsam is a Professor of history and Kathlyn Cosper Dunagan Professor in the Humanities at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. He is also Senior Research Associate at Rhodes University. Derek writes about race and politics in the United States and Africa, sports, and terrorism. He is currently working on books on bus boycotts in the United States and South Africa in the 1940s and 1950s and on the 1981 South African Springbok rugby team's tour to the US. He is the author of three books, dozens of scholarly articles and reviews, and has published widely on current affairs in African, American, and European publications. He has lived, worked, and travelled extensively throughout southern Africa. He writes about politics, sports, travel, pop culture, and just about anything else that comes to mind.

Areas of Focus:
Africa; Zimbabwe; South Africa; Apartheid

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