For all of the attention paid to the emergence of the Congress of the People (COPE) from prominent disenchanted members of the ANC. And for all of my assertions that a party like COPE represents a far likelier long-term challenge to the ANC than the Democratic Alliance (DA) the reality is that in my entire time in South Africa I am not certain I participated in a single discussion about COPE that I did not initiate (not that South Africans are clamoring to discuss the DA in great depth either).
I still believe that it makes a lot of sense for COPE to forget about the flashbulbs and boom mics that come with the quasi-celebrity that running against the ANC brought in a national campaign and instead to focus on developing a party infrastructure and a raison d’etre beyond simply wanting an alternative to the ANC or to Jacob Zuma. The politics of personality that have defined South Africa since well before the ANC party meeting in Polokwane in December 2007 surely cannot continue top linger forever. Or at least COPE needs to move beyond personality and beyond politics to developing legitimate policies within the political context. Alas, right now the party is characterized by infighting and by what seem to be existential crises.
Meanwhile the unions continue to flex their muscles. For the last few weeks the biggest story has been a strike by medical workers, including, most prominently, doctors. Now tens of thousands of construction workers are set to strike , threatening serious disruption of the frenzied building campaign for the 2010 World Cup. As always with unions in South Africa it is impossible to tell where the undeniably legitimate claims end and the politics of COSATU begin.
It’s always a good idea to assume that politics are never buried too deep beneath the surface in South Africa. And we should all be prepared for 2010 to serve as a nice little political football, as it were, for the next year.