Of late, obituary writers have had a field day heralding the demise of the ANC, especially since its poor showing in the local government elections.
The governing party itself would do well not to blame media coverage or inadequate campaigning time for its losses. Instead, it should reconnect with its nonracial roots and commitment to unity and democracy, and focus on turning its several conference resolutions into reality — especially those that recognise it faces an existential crisis — and call for “strategic interventions of re-engineering, renewal and regeneration”.
Other political parties and national liberation movements had also reached such nadirs. In 1983 the UK’s Labour Party garnered about 28% in the general elections, the lowest since 1918. According to a key architect of its revival, Philip Gould, Labour had become enslaved to dogma and betrayed its natural supporters.
In 2014 the Indian National Congress (INC) was thoroughly thumped by the Hindu chauvinist Bhartiya Janata Party, a drubbing to be repeated in 2019 when the INC did not have sufficient support to even become the official opposition.
West Bengal political scientist Sujay Ghosh’s reasons for the INC’s demise — “lacklustre performance on governance matters, marked by chronic corruption and indecision” — will sound familiar to ANC supporters.
While Labour and the INC may be the ANC’s soulmates, the Republican Party of the US had also suffered dramatic losses: in the 2012 elections Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama by 126 electoral votes.
In the aftermath of its losses Labour in the UK embarked on a root-and-branch modernisation of its organisation in 1985, even relabelling itself New Labour to cut itself off from its recent dismal past. In the 1997 general election it achieved a huge parliamentary majority. Despite earning the sobriquet of a party of PR and image only, it went on to repeat its electoral victories in 2001 and 2005.
The Republican Party carried out its own introspection in 2013, captured in its “autopsy report”. Whether this helped propel Donald Trump into the presidency in 2017 is a moot point.
On the other hand, the INC has been roundly criticised for not having the capacity to self-reflect.
To its credit, the ANC must be recognised for the robustness of its self-criticism. But it views its problems from the straitjacket of a national liberation movement. A century of having led a national liberation struggle has become so etched in its DNA that it cannot contemplate any other way.
Most young people do not relate to that narrative, taking the democratic order, which the ANC helped to bring about, as a given. What we do not find here is the political will to sculpt the organisation into a political party. This is a debate that has been hounding the ANC since its unbanning.
Being a political party means focusing relentlessly on winning elections to attain or retain political power to bring about the changes required. The material for this sculpting is there: thousands of former cadres alienated by the party’s suicidal internal battles, millions of supporters seething with frustration at the ANC, a national footprint second to none, and a plethora of well-crafted policies and interventions.
Being a political party will require a level of iron discipline and from leaders in particular to stay on message and behave with integrity. Flaccid internal organisational processes, in which inaction allows for corruption or gatekeeping to fester, would have to end. The ANC needs to harness the potential of the much vaunted fourth industrial revolution to improve and even democratise party decision-making processes.
Such a tightly organised party should be able to deal with its internal heretics by allowing a diversity of voices without allowing them to develop into factions. And if they do, to have the strength to shove them out.
It should be able to confidently develop constructive relations with its traditional alliance partners while being willing to go beyond them, consolidating relations with, for example, the private sector.
Otherwise, the ANC cadaver will need its own autopsy report.
• Abba Omar is director of operations at the Mapungubwe Institute.
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