As South Africa's political parties gear up for this year's likely epochal elections one of the key preparations is to begin to compile the lists of its parliamentary candidates and selection of those likely to serve in cabinet positions. The African National Congress (ANC) will warrant particular scrutiny as the party completes its transition from the Mbeki era to the (presumed) Zuma years. Last week the ANC met and pulled together a list that while unofficial, nonetheless shows how the party has to strike a balance that The Mail & Guardian explains quite well:
With the ANC's electoral list-making process nearing finality, Jacob Zuma and his top officials must walk a fine line between handing the spoils to the victors of Polokwane, keeping the losers on their side and ensuring that South Africa is competently run.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) will inevitably feel as if the post-Mbeki ANC ought to reflect increased power and stature for the left. But the ouster of Mbeki does not, in and of itself, prove that in either governance or politics, South Africans on the whole necessarily want a dramatic shift leftward. Although the actual policy divisions between the ANC and the Congress of the People (COPE) is still largely unsettled, it is likely that the debate that emerges will determine just what sort of left the country on the whole desires: the hard leftism of the COSATU-SACP-ANC, or a center-left politics of a new and formidable challenger.
One hint as to how the ANC may try to strike the balance between the myriad demands it faces from multiple constituencies is its courtship of Trevor Manuel, widely perceived as one of the most popular, capable, and accomplished government officials. Losing Manuel would be a huge blow to the ANC. At the same time, he hardly represents the kind of break from the Mbeki years for which COSATU and the SACP seem to yearn. An irony of the post-Polokwane, post-Mbeki ANC might just be that when everything shakes out, the ANC will still be divided between the COSATU-SACP alliance on the left and the centrist holdovers who have held the center of gravity in the party for the duration of ANC control of South African politics.