It is becoming possible, at least after an alcoholic beverage or two, to discern two broad pathways for SA towards 2050.
Socioeconomic and political conditions will continue to generate widespread discontent with governing parties. Stagnant per capita incomes, decaying infrastructure and the normalisation of corruption are all well established and cannot be significantly reversed for many years.
In the first scenario, a broadly constitutionalist and economically orthodox coalition will continue to govern, albeit with great fluidity in its composition in the run-up to elections. Such a pact will embrace centrist elements from what is now the ANC and representatives of the urban middle class and others represented by the DA.
By contrast, in the second scenario a more populist coalition will capitalise on discontent to secure a fleeting national majority. This quite different pact will bring about a reconfiguration of the constitutional order and engage in hazardous economic experimentation.
While the focus of much analysis has been the fragility of the government of national unity (GNU), we also need to consider the viability of a coalition-building project among groupings outside the frontiers of the unity government, the MK party and the EFF.
Scholars are at loggerheads about the EFF’s policy proposals — is it fascist, proto-fascist, predatory, populist, right wing or left wing?
MK has fully grasped the centrality of coalition building, repeatedly urging “the unity and unification of all progressive political parties” to fight against “white minority rule in SA”. The EFF repeats a similar mantra about the people at large battling “white monopoly capital”.
However, there are several reasons why such coalition-building will prove difficult. Opposition parties need to campaign with strong messages to motivate the six out of 10 eligible voters who do not vote. Scholars are at loggerheads about the EFF’s policy proposals — is it fascist, proto-fascist, predatory, populist, right wing or left wing?
Some anthropologists even describe the EFF as amorphous regarding class and identity, or an “intense, confusing amalgam”. The study of MK has set off on a similar path, and scholars may well find another amorphous amalgam.
Yet there are clear messages that cannot easily coexist within a coalition of “progressive forces”. MK seethes with resentment at immigrants, demanding trained locals replace imported skills, stronger border security and “respect for SA African laws”. The EFF is still all hug-a-foreigner.
The red-tops question Western conceptions of democracy, which they believe should be “aligned with” versions ostensibly practised by traditional leaders. MK goes much further, demanding greater authority for tribal monarchs and chiefs, deference to their arbitrary power at national level, and the establishment of constitutional patriarchy.
MK is socially conservative in a way the EFF simply cannot be, as is exemplified by its open determination to repeal same-sex marriage legislation and its slightly less open bigotry.
The two parties share another important feature that divides them: ethnic and regional heartlands. Indeed, the MK party’s vote share in the 2024 elections, concentrated in KwaZulu-Natal, set back the EFF’s efforts to build out of its traditional strongholds.
Where regional or ethnic divisions affect voting, they complicate coalition formation. A big party leader must recruit allies to solicit votes, resulting in coalitions between ethnic and regional blocs. These deals are brokered by leaders who buttress their base by distributing resources to activists and voters. This results in parties dominated by charismatic leaders who ostentatiously distribute the spoils of office to their followers.
Of course, MK and the EFF don’t have many spoils to distribute. Their leaders dominate their parties and seem unlikely — or unable — to concede control over their constituencies to one another. One of them also has a limited life expectancy. All of this means coalition building may prove beyond the capabilities of the leaders of the progressive forces.
• Butler teaches public policy at the University of Cape Town.
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