Does it exist? What should it be? As with all new beginnings, the questions come in gallons, and the answers in pints.
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At the convention at the weekend, I asked a colleague what she thought about the breakaway group and she said its real significance was a shifting of South African politics from pivoting on race to pivoting on class. There is a lot of truth in that, but I suspect it may be more complicated.
For me, the dramatic part of the conference came from an unexpected quarter, from former Unisa vice-chancellor Barney Pityana — who I understand has not actually agreed as yet to become formally part of the new grouping.
But his speech was the one that got the crowd on its feet. It was full of great lines, such as : “Change is not just something that is dreamed of in America by Barack Obama.”
The core of his argument was not about economics or politics, but morality, accountability and the quality of leadership — several not very subtle finger-pointing exercises at you know who. He reminded the delegates how Mandela had faced down “bully boys” who had sought to exact violent revenge for the arrest and trial of his former wife Winnie. “Where were they (the ANC leadership) when similar threats were made in support of Zuma?” he asked. In fact, “where were they” was his constant refrain. Really, it was a speech of Shakespearean quality.
But the point is that however much we would like to simplify the breakaway as a split along class lines — with the ANC representing essentially the working class, and the new party being supported by the aspirant emerging middle class — it’s slightly harder to do when you see it in action.
Economic policy was almost nowhere in the discussions, but the electoral system was everywhere, with widespread support for a part-constituency system and a directly elected president.
I’m increasingly wary, anyway, of class analysis as a basis of political divisions. It has some value, but in many ways class divisions are an outdated and at times positively misleading method of political understanding. In the US, working-class voters typically vote Republican. In India, the left-wing parties are supported not by industrial workers, but by rural, subsistence farmers.
You can slightly see this problem coming to life in the new movement. The leaders, their supporters and the ideas they expound do not actually sound much like a middle-class grouping. Actually, to tell the truth, they sound a lot like the ANC, or at least the ANC of the Mandela era: a party of cohabitation, co-operation and ubuntu. The event had that wonderful hippy-like quality; you half expected people to start dishing out flowers.
It’s so much like the ANC of yore, I wonder whether the biggest problem for the new group might be distinguishing itself from the ANC. And that brings me to the tricky question of what their economic policy might be, and also what influence it could have.
The influence question is easily answered, since its influence will be directly proportional to its support, and the best of luck to anybody who thinks they can answer that question at this point.
The “what” question is more intriguing.
Given its focus on co-operation and decency, the new party might try for something like an agnostic approach to economic policy in an attempt to contrast itself with the gnostic, ideologically driven style of the new ANC.
There are some who claim the ANC’s policy has not changed, or won’t change, or shouldn’t change. Personally, I think people who think this should pay more attention and try to be less gullible. Leading South African Communist Party (SACP) members now claim their huge new influence over policy is all about functionality.
But with a new party suddenly emerging on the ANC’s right, in the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies, they would say that, wouldn’t they? So now, butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. “To be left wing is not a matter of being market-unfriendly,” says SACP deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin writing in Business Day.
This is breathtaking from the deputy head of an organisation that is constitutionally dedicated to the “principles of Marxism-Leninism whose universal validity has been proven by historical experience”. I think my university lecturers will be surprised to learn that Marx and Lenin were “not market-unfriendly”, but personally, I’m delighted at Cronin’s damascene conversion.
The point is that this is the nature of the new terms of political engagement and this perhaps is the real significance of the emergence of the new party.
At last, the middle ground reigns supreme. The centrifugal forces have been checked, not a moment too soon. Now, parties of the left must look to their right and parties of the right must look to their left. Now, with any luck, policy will be decided by argument, not on the basis of faith. Now, for most South Africans, to vote will be to make a decision. Politics is no longer about affiliation; it’s about choices. – allAfrica.com