A split in the ANC, which is inevitable, will either lead to the total demise of the currently all-powerful governing party or at least result in a substantially reduced party that will be unlikely to be able to govern SA without being in a coalition.
In the post-World War 2 period, most African liberation movements that dominated their countries slid back because of corruption, incompetence and irrelevance. They lost power, in most cases never to return to power again. Some split into ever smaller groupings until they disappeared into oblivion, to become only a footnote in history. In other cases they won power, but only through coalitions, and never with absolute majorities again.
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The most optimistic future for the ANC that emerges from the conflict between the centrist social democratic wing led by Cyril Ramaphosa and the left populist Ace Magashule wing is for the party to lose its majority in the next national elections but remain in power through a coalition with an opposition party. The Magashule camp, if it loses the current tussle, is likely to form its own populist party. Of course, the Magashule populists could possibly mobilise enough provinces, branches and members to topple Ramaphosa at the coming ANC national conference.
Then it is very likely that the Ramaphosa centrists will be forced to leave the ANC, making the Magashule ANC a purely left populist party. A future ANC breakaway by the Magashule camp or the Ramaphosa camp would represent the most substantial breakaway since the end of apartheid as it would truly split the ANC down the middle, unlike previous breakaways, which were splits from the ANC’s flanks.
Either way, neither a Ramaphosa-led centrist ANC, without the Magashule populists, nor a Magashule-led populist ANC, without the Ramaphosa centrists, is likely to be able to secure electoral majorities in the future without entering into coalitions. Furthermore, there is a real chance that a break in the ANC could just be the start of many more splits thereafter, whether they are Ramaphosa-led or Magashule-led, which would propel the party to lose power totally, never to return to power again.
A breakaway of the Magashule left populists may prompt a separate future breakaway from either the whole or part of the SACP and Cosatu, which would sit ideologically uncomfortably within a centrist ANC but would not join the left populists under Magashule.
Similarly, a part or the whole of the SACP and Cosatu may not gel with a Ramaphosa-led ANC also and may, in the scenario of a Ramaphosa ANC, cut ties with the party. The Ramaphosa-Magashule, left populist versus centrist social democratic split should have happened in 2007. The election of Jacob Zuma as ANC president in 2007 postponed the inevitable split between centrists and populists.
Ramaphosa’s election as ANC president also pushed back a split. Ramaphosa himself pursued a “unity” strategy, making compromises with the populists to keep the fractured ANC united, pushing back a split further.
The Ramaphosa-Magashule, left populist versus centrist social democratic split should have happened in 2007
Before his ejection as party leader, the centrist former president Thabo Mbeki tried to force the left and populists out of the ANC in his attempt to make the ANC a more effective governing party with centrist policies. However, left populists under the leadership of Zuma battled it out with Mbeki for control of the ANC.
Zuma and the populists won. In the left populists’ takeover of the ANC led by Zuma at the party’s 2007 Polokwane conference, only a small section of the Mbeki centrists group left to form the Congress of the People, with the remainder, like Mbeki, their spiritual leader, remaining uncomfortably in the ANC.
The subsequent breakaway by then ANC Youth League president Julius Malema was a youth splinter from the populist wing of the party. The core ANC remained, with the adult populists under Zuma firmly in control of it. Similarly, the breakaway of the National Union of Metalworkers of SA was a far-left splinter from the ANC’s left flank. The bulk of the ANC’s left flank remained intact; so too the ANC.
African liberation movements like the ANC, in their fight against colonialism or apartheid, build broad fronts which range from African traditionalists and Marxist-Leninists to free marketeers.
In power, governments need one set of policies, not a multitude of conflicting policies ranging from Marxist-Leninism to the free market. To be an effective governing party it must have one set of coherent policies and shed groups that have ideologically different outlooks.
Whatever the outcome of the Ramaphosa-Magashule conflict, it will be the death of the ANC as we know it.
• Gumede is associate professor, School of Governance, Wits University, and author of 'Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times' (Tafelberg)
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