A fortnight ago British voters elected the Labour Party to form a new government after rejecting the Conservative Party. The Tories, who had been in government for 14 years, lacked fresh ideas to dig the UK out of a deepening cost-of-living crisis and the self-inflicted wound caused by the decision to leave the EU.
When it was announced that Labour leader Keir Starmer would form the next government there were celebrations worldwide in left-leaning circles. Starmer’s victory was even sweeter for the fact that it came just two years after the historic return of Luiz Lula da Silva to the presidency of Brazil.
In SA, on the other hand, the left is on its knees with no sign of recovery on the horizon after the May 29 general election. There was no cause to celebrate Labour’s victory as an inspiration to revive the left here.
More depressing is the realisation that there appears to be no strategy and plan to resuscitate the left in SA. Most employed people have turned their backs on trade unions, which used to be the backbone of the working class. The two largest and most established federations — the ANC-aligned Cosatu and the SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) — are in decline, and it appears that the newer Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union (Amcu) has also reached its peak.
Worse, in the past week Jacob Zuma’s MK party formed a labour union, further fracturing the already badly divided and weakened labour movement in SA. The jobs bloodbath in the country is surely evidence of labour’s chronic failure.
On July 19 the two supposedly left-wing parties in the National Assembly — Julius Malema’s EFF and MK — dashed any remaining hopes that the left may have a credible agenda beyond bluster.
It is true that there were few fresh ideas in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address at the opening of parliament. It was also dispiriting to listen to his response on Monday.
The Thursday night address was an opportunity for the newly formed MK and 10-year-old EFF to show that they can be a credible alternative to the ANC-led unity government, which is in effect a centre-right coalition.
Face backlash
The glue that binds the GNU is fear of the EFF and MK — the core of the so-called Progressive Caucus getting a foot in the door of government. When the ANC realised it would face a backlash from many of its supporters if it got into bed with the DA it decided to co-opt eight other smaller parties and call it a government of national unity.
The GNU rhetoric, which remains flimsy, is that it seeks to promote constitutionalism and avoid the need for what the DA labelled an ANC-EFF “doomsday coalition”. On July 19 DA leader John Steenhuisen renamed the Progressive Caucus the “Breakers”, as opposed to builders.
The glue that binds the GNU is fear of the EFF and MK — the core of the so-called Progressive Caucus getting a foot in the door of government.
The two senior GNU partners — the ANC and the DA — share a common stance in their support for the National Development Plan (NDP) as a guiding vision (not implementation plan) of SA’s socioeconomic fortunes.
Regarding the Progressive Caucus, the addresses of Malema and MK parliamentary leader John Hlophe were disappointing and revealed two disturbing things.
While there were no walkouts and other political theatrics at the opening of parliament, both party leaders played the man, not the ball, and they offered no substantial alternative.
Hlophe, the impeached judge president of the Western Cape, called the GNU a sell-out formation, and Malema essentially called Ramaphosa an original sell-out. His address was personal, anecdotal and unhelpful.
A day before the debate the Progressive Caucus announced at a press conference what brought them together — other than isolation by the ANC. Yet the envisaged common vision and minimum programme of co-operation failed to emerge.
Ugly mistress
The SA Communist Party, an ANC alliance partner, has been paralysed by these developments. Having been outplayed in the GNU formation, it has, as previously, opted to not walk away from an ally that no longer holds dear the cause of the left. The party continues to be treated by the ANC as an ugly mistress.
Outside parliament the broader elements of the left are in a similar disarray. Community-based struggles are fragmented and largely leaderless. The crises that affect the poor most are not being tackled in an organised fashion: electricity (load-shedding and the chaotic switch-offs of paying small businesses and households that come with “load reduction”), water and the cost of living.
These are serious issues, alongside the crime, corruption and lawlessness crisis that has long afflicted SA, and their resolution should be at the core of SA’s left agenda and campaigns.
The main problems of SA’s left revolve on the following issues: ideologically unreliable leaders (they talk left and walk right); a lack of strategies and tactics to achieve the left agenda; and — most important — they lack policy-making capacity. The latter is fatal.
An example is the EFF. Unlike the ANC, all the EFF’s top leaders are in parliament, councils and provincial legislatures. Running headquarters and campaigns are seemingly part-time occupations.
This crisis is also an opportunity for supporters of the left. SA finds itself with weaker accountability mechanisms for the executive, and a weaker opposition. All the oversight parliamentary committees have been divided among GNU partners. The executive is in effect overseeing itself.
Leadership and policy-making capacity are required from genuine left forces. The establishment of genuinely left-leaning policy think-tanks could help inject much-needed substance to the discourse in and outside parliament.
• Dludlu, a former editor of Sowetan, is CEO of the Small Business Institute.
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