The party as the state

Something remarkable happened in South Africa in May. Only days before the municipal elections on May 18, communities in Ficksburg, Free State, were protesting fiercely against the poverty of service delivery by their local municipality—but when their opportunity came to eject from office those against whom they were demonstrating, they re-elected them.

The same happened throughout the country. Communities that protested against deficient performances of councils controlled by the African National Congress returned the same party which they accused of neglecting them.

This was in contrast to the counsel given by the Catholic bishops in the pastoral letter issued in March, which called on the electorate to ask the key question: “Have things improved or got worse in your area since the last municipal election?”, and vote accordingly.

There will be many reasons why people continue to vote for parties which have failed to serve them. Traditional and deeply entrenched party loyalties, based on history and race, seem to be fundamental in South African voting behaviour.

It is also apparent that most people in Ficksburg and in other poorly-run municipalities have no confidence that opposition parties would be any more competent or motivated to serve the poor.

But the phenomenon points to another truth: many South Africans, perhaps a majority, seem content with the notion that the ANC-led alliance is the only legitimate party in government. So even if the ANC’s deficiencies are so glaring as to prompt ferocious protests, the perceived alternative is not a change of party, but a different set of ANC functionaries.

This ties in with the ANC’s own apparent vision of itself as the state. The ANC takes it as seld-evident that top state positions must be filled by the deployment of loyal cadres from its own ranks, a practice that is regarded as undesirable in many democracies.

And so, in most regions of South Africa, opposition politics are not played out in parliament or at the polls, but within the structures of the ANC and its alliance partners, some of which have unaccountably positioned themselves as “kingmakers”.

The electorate that is not active or influential in ANC structures—which is the majority—will be presented with effectively only one choice of president in the next national elections. And while that is of no benefit to our democracy, the electorate seems to be content with that arrangement.

The ANC cannot be asked to change this. It is every political party’s objective to rule into perpetuity (or as President Jacob Zuma once put it, “until Jesus comes back”).

It is not the sign of a healthy democracy, however, when the future leadership of the country is determined by the internal intrigues of a few individuals, based not so much on the priorities of policy or ideas as on the quality of personal relationships and the expectation of rewards for dispensing political support.

And when the alliance that backs an individual is as broad as it was in Polokwane in 2007, when Mr Zuma was ordained to become South Africa’s president, then there will likely be factions whose disappointment at not receiving what they expected finds expression in new rancorous intrigue.

Since the moves to unseat Thabo Mbeki from the presidency gathered pace in 2006, the perpetual instability within the ANC has done little to serve the nation.

Right now, the party’s functionaries are positioning themselves to back the faction that they think will emerge victorious from the ANC’s national elective conference next year. Some will justifiably be concerned that a wrong move will see them purged, as many Mbeki loyalists swiftly were after Polokwane. All this gets in the way of the ANC’s mandate to do what they were elected for: to govern.

Whatever the outcome of the ANC’s internal power struggle, the party will almost definitely win the next election, regardless of its presidential candidate.

It is indeed remarkable that a large proportion of the electorate invests such trust in the ANC that it returns the party into power even when it has failed. So now it is time for the ANC to forgo internal warfare and self-aggrandisement, and justify the trust the voters have invested in the ruling party.