The ANC, still the largest party in Parliament but no longer in the majority, has stated publicly that it needs to renew, or it will perish.
It has learnt well from its predecessor in government, the National Party, which adopted a similar slogan shortly before its demise: “Adapt or die” as a slogan has the same themes as “renew or perish”. The National Party did not adapt sufficiently, or quickly enough, to avoid its demise as a political force in SA. It remains to be seen whether the ANC will share the same fate.
The imperative that operates in the circumstances in which the ANC finds itself is to renew in a way that appeals to voters and to do so at a pace that is sufficiently rapid to avoid the alternative – the demise that a lack of renewal will surely entail, as has been predicted by Dr John Endres of the SA Institute for Race Relations (SAIRR) https://dailyfriend.co.za/2025/04/03/the-anc-is-facing-electoral-oblivion/.
Like the National Party in the previous century, the ANC has been in the process of splintering over the years. The UDM, Cope, EFF and MKP all have leaders and members who were once supporters of the ANC. Their change of political allegiance might be reversed if the ANC renews itself in ways that appeal to its former members. Interestingly, the MKP and EFF, the two largest splinters, have not been willing to join the GNU which is led by the ANC and comprises ten parties big enough to earn a seat in Parliament. Both the MKP and the EFF joined the DA in voting against the budgetary plans of the ANC on 2 April 2025.
Unlike the National Party, the ANC has never been the dominant party in a sovereign parliament. While it did enjoy political dominance between the 1994 and 2024 elections, that dominance has always been tempered by the supremacy of the Constitution in the new SA. The impact of that supremacy on politicians and their policies, conduct and on the laws they make is profound. Without parliamentary sovereignty, the politicians are constrained in what they do in government. The Constitution rules, the politicians must govern within the limits of constitutionalism and the rule of law. Fealty to the rule of law requires that a legitimate purpose of government is served by the actions, decisions, appointments and laws that the government of the day puts in place in SA.
Hanker after the past
The MKP would prefer, if it can secure the necessary majority (which is unlikely), to revert to parliamentary sovereignty with a house of traditional leaders helping to call the shots, in much the same way as was done in the old SA. It is the only party to hanker after the past in this manner. It also includes “African royalty” as one of its internal party structures. The MKP is currently the official opposition. It is the largest party not to join the GNU. It says it will not do so while Cyril Ramaphosa is President.
The EFF, a leftist Marxist-Leninist party, was formed by Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu in 2013, in the wake of their expulsion from the ANC during the presidency of Jacob Zuma, who is now president of the MKP. Ironically, the EFF also declined membership of the GNU. Whether that position will hold remains to be seen.
What then is the ANC to do to achieve the renewal it so craves?
After thirty years of driving its strategy and tactics according to the tenets of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) without bringing the revolution to a successful conclusion, it behoves the ANC to reconsider its attachment to the principles of the NDR, many of which are deeply and darkly inconsistent with the principles of the Constitution by which SA is ruled.
The Constitution prescribes that any conduct and any law that is inconsistent with it is invalid. The ANC has lost many legal battles on the field of contestation between the NDR’s values and the requirements of the Constitution. Policies, laws, regulations and more (even the appointment of an NDPP or two) have been struck down by the Courts in public interest litigation. Repeatedly so.
Genuine desire
If there is a genuine desire to renew, then, arguably, the most effective and efficient way to do so would be to abandon the NDR and instead take constitutional values and requirements more seriously. This would involve the ending of cadre deployments of those loyal to the ANC in the public administration and the state-owned enterprises. This issue is the topic of litigation that is pending in the Constitutional Court. It also features in the Public Service Commission’s new proposed legislation. The values and principles by which both the public administration and the state-owned enterprises are governed are set out in Section 195 of the Constitution. They do not include, on any reasonable interpretation, the deployment of cadres loyal to the ANC in their ranks.
The lingering attachment of the ANC to the NDR is difficult to understand. While it may have been learned and studied by the exiles of the ANC during the struggle, they have surely noticed that the Soviet Union is no more and that none of its components, including Russia, persist in governing along the lines of the NDR. It is true that for many, adherence to the NDR is akin to an article of religious faith, not easily abandoned. However, if renewal is the name of the game, the NDR must surely come under scrutiny by the ANC, perhaps by workshopping its abandonment with Russian allies who have already abandoned NDR precepts and principles with no regrets.
Revolutionary vote
Clinging to the NDR is counter-productive for the ANC, given the spread of parties like the MKP and EFF (the third and fourth largest parties in Parliament) who are also in the market for the revolutionary vote. Thus far they have not been helpful to the ANC in any way, including in the contentious budget debate in which the minnows and the ANC narrowly defeated the second, third and fourth-largest parties in Parliament.
It is not the case that the ANC is unaware of the deficiencies in the system as implemented over 30 years through the socialistic lens of the NDR. This is what was debated in December 2022 by the ANC itself at its 55th conference, at which the following resolution as regards its NDR strategy and tactics was adopted:
Unless we urgently deal with the pressing problems of the people in general, and the motive forces of the NDR in particular, the transition to a National Democratic Society will be aborted and the forces opposed to change will be victorious.
6.8 These problems include the following:
• chronic poor performance of the economy and the resultant high rates of unemployment, poverty and inequality;
• the collapse of many municipalities and poor maintenance of infrastructure across government, undermining service delivery;
• the energy crisis undermines growth, investment and job creation efforts and further hampers delivery of education, water, healthcare, safety and other social services;
• rising cost of living makes it difficult for households to meet their most basic needs such as food, transport and clothing;
• increasing levels of lawlessness, criminality and violence, including gender-based violence and racism erode social cohesion gains made over the years.
6.9. In summary, the developments on the domestic front point to the conclusion that the NDR is facing grave danger: unlike in the earlier period of our transition to democracy, the balance of forces is shifting away from the progressive force and the motive forces are getting demoralised and demobilised. For reasons outlined in the Renewal Commission document, the ANC-led democratic movement is increasingly losing the strategic initiative and moral high-ground, while counter-revolution is gaining confidence about the possibility [to] remove the ANC from power and ultimately derail the transformation of South Africa.
Rebranding the ANC as a post-NDR entity fits in with its role in the GNU. It is also noteworthy that the ANC is the only political party of any substance that both serves in the GNU and supports the NDR.
Doing things differently
Renewal, when taken seriously, involves doing things differently. Persisting with faith in the NDR after so many schisms and setbacks at the polls is surely not a productive strategy. As coalition politics are the future, the ANC ought to be aligning its thought patterns with those of the parties with whom it is in coalition. So far, this has not been the case, hence the mud-wrestling over the budget, the Expropriation Act, BELA and the NHI. If the ANC persists in clinging to the failed, outmoded, ill-advised NDR, its demise as a dominant force in SA politics will be of its own making as much as anything the opposition is able to conjure up for voters.
Replacing the BEE system with what the SA Institute of Race Relations calls EED (Economic Empowerment for the Disadvantaged) is likely to improve the popularity of the ANC among the poor, who will be the direct beneficiaries of the EED system. It could become an antidote to ANC failure to remember the lot of the poor in crafting the 2025 budget: especially the VAT increase and failure to address bracket creep (which leaves wage-earners with less in their pay packets.) BEE was originally foisted on the ANC by big business as part of the “liberation dividend”. It has become a vehicle for corruption in the form of tenderpreneurism, capitalism of the ugliest kind, a culture of entitlement, and very little redress for genuine disadvantage. The least disadvantaged who happen to be politically connected to the ANC have been the major beneficiaries of the BEE system. This has been noticed by the genuinely disadvantaged, and they don’t like it. So they stop voting ANC, and either boycott elections or vote for some other parties both to the left and the right of the ANC.
Anthea Jeffery of the SA Institute of Race Relations has done a great deal of research internationally into the voucher systems used elsewhere to streamline delivery of housing, healthcare and education. The voucher system is fair; it works and it ought to commend itself as a suitable replacement for BEE. Affirmative action is never meant to be permanent. After decades of BEE, it is time for it to be replaced.
Reform is the third R in the trilogy. Increasing the capacity of the criminal justice system to deal with the ghastly consequences of corrupt activities is long overdue.
The ANC knows this. Its highest decision-making body between conferences is its National Executive Committee. In August 2020, it issued an urgent instruction to the cabinet that was in place during the Sixth Parliament, and which was dominated by ANC cabinet ministers. The instruction called for a single, stand-alone, independent, specialised and permanent body to deal with corruption. This resolution of the NEC has not been acted on by government, either at cabinet or parliamentary level.
Not new
The notion of a body outside the control of the executive to deal with corruption is not new. In March 2011 the Constitutional Court ordered that such a body of trained specialists, independent in its structure and operations, resourced in guaranteed fashion and secure in its tenure of office, is needed.
Despite the binding nature of the court findings, no such body has ever been formed.
It is certainly not in line with the NDR’s striving for “hegemonic control of all the levers of power in society” to allow as important a function as countering the corrupt to be allocated to a body that is outside the control of the executive and reports to Parliament (as the existing Chapter Nine Institutions do) instead of to a minister (as the NPA does).
Some say that too many top ANC members fear the creation of that body and quietly work to prevent its formation. It is true that 97 senior ANC members are named by the Zondo Commission as suspects in the corruption that was part of state capture. But the ANC has many more than 97 members, and those who are not corrupt or named as suspects should surely make their voices heard in ANC decision-making processes. To decline to be tough about getting on top of corruption is to allow the perception to grow that the ANC is so corrupted that it cannot face the attention that such a body would surely give it. This will impact negatively on the popularity of those in the ANC who have not shared in the spoils of state capture, BEE, tender-preneurism and generally in the “it’s our turn to eat” syndrome that has driven so many emergent African states to failure.
Rule of law
The acid test of the ANC’s commitment to the rule of law comes when its representatives in Parliament are required to vote on the two private members’ bills introduced by the DA’s Glynnis Breytenbach, to establish and enable a new Chapter Nine Anti-Corruption Commission. This will tick all the boxes created by the Constitutional Court in 2011, and lead to the happy state in which all the international anti-corruption treaty obligations which require SA to keep just such a body are met.
An ANC unwillingness to so reform would signal the death of the party as a force to be reckoned with in SA politics. Its failure to support the bills will be seized upon in future elections as proof positive that the ANC is soft on corruption, a band of kleptocrats and unworthy of the support of any self-respecting voter in SA.
Three Rs: Renew the foundations, replace the system of BEE with EED, and reform the criminal justice administration. And thus comply with what is in any event a binding and enforceable judgment of the highest court in the land.
Or perish.
[Image: https://www.anc1912.org.za/0]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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