For more than three decades, former ANC president Oliver Tambo’s exemplary leadership held the organisation’s “broad church” together in exile during the most difficult times of its 112-year history. But over the next three decades, epic leadership failures resulted in three breakaways from the party — by COPE in 2008, the EFF in 2013 and uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) in 2023.
In 2009, COPE received 1.3-million votes, but the ANC still got 65.9% of the votes due to a strong showing from KwaZulu-Natal, as former premier Zweli Mkhize reminded me. COPE eventually imploded and many of its members rejoined the ANC. But the decision of the ANC, then led by Jacob Zuma, to expel Julius Malema was wrong.
During the watershed election last week, the ANC’s share of the vote plunged to 40.2%, a huge decline of 25.7 percentage points from the high in 2009. There are two reasons for this decline.
The GDP growth rate collapsed to 1.2% a year in 2009-2023. The number of unemployed thus soared by 6.1-million to 12.1-million. The sixth administration, led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, also gave us six years of darkness in unprecedented power blackouts.
The ANC cannibalised itself and lost votes to the EFF and the MK. The combined share of votes of the ANC and its two offshoots was 64.3%, just below the high in 2009.
There is no upside to an ANC-DA coalition for the ANC and South Africans, except for a rally on financial markets that will fade as quickly as the “New Dawn” did. For many ANC members, a coalition with the DA would be crossing a red line. There will be another split and the ANC will become a 30% party.
Most South Africans find it offensive that financial markets should have a veto over government’s economic policies and dictate the composition of coalitions. The government can counter the effects of capital flight. It can do nothing and let the currency depreciate. The Reserve Bank can intervene in financial markets as it did at the start of the pandemic. It can also implement capital controls.
Betrayed values
An ANC-DA coalition would also entrench the failed austerity policies with a new fiscal rule that will cause a guaranteed GDP growth rate of not more than 1.2% a year. This will result in rising unemployment and deepen the economic crisis. The logical way forward is an ANC-EFF-IFP coalition during the first stage, to be followed by intense engagements with the MK party.
The ANC has betrayed its values and moved too far to the right in terms of economic policy. The EFF’s Floyd Shivambu as deputy finance minister — I asked him if he would take the job — would be an antidote to the National Treasury’s intransigence and irrational austerity policies. There is no reason the ANC cannot meet the EFF halfway on issues such as land, mines and outsourcing.
A coalition with the EFF would be the equivalent of a company that takes a minority share in a competitor, which has an unassailable lead in another market, ahead of integrating it into its own operations in a few years. The ANC has lost the youth market and members of the black middle class, who are angry with it for going soft on transformation. A tie-up with the EFF would eventually grow the ANC.
For the establishment commentariat, MK has replaced the EFF as the new swart gevaar. But most of the 2.3-million people who voted for the party love their country and are disappointed by the ANC’s shocking inability to deliver jobs and quality public services. Demonising millions of South Africans, including half of the population of KwaZulu-Natal, is dangerous, and this is how civil wars start. Mkhize says, “We must reduce hostilities and start engaging MK members to get closer to us again.”
• Gqubule is research associate at the Social Policy Initiative.
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