Growing ethnic nationalism threatens our democracy

“We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” – British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston in 1848.

THE rise of Jacob Zuma's MK Party and the rivalry between MK and the EFF have significantly shifted South Africa’s political dynamics back toward Africanism or black ethnic nationalism and away from the Freedom Charter’s non-racialism – a shift that is now also a strong factor in the factional battles within the ANC.

At its conference in Kabwe, Zambia, in June 1985, the ANC officially declared itself more inclusive than merely a black nationalist party, deciding that white, coloured, and Indian members could also serve on the national executive committee.

This aligned with the preamble of the 1955 Freedom Charter, which stated that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, Black and White", a principle that led to a split and the formation of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) in 1959.

After his release in 1990 and during his presidency, Nelson Mandela embodied this culture, as reflected in the preamble to the 1996 constitution: “We, the people of South Africa … believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.”

Favouring white South Africans

Ethnic nationalists have since broken away from the ANC: the EFF in 2013 and MK a decade later.

Both direct their attacks on the ANC at Cyril Ramaphosa, who continues Mandela’s non-racialism approach. Both unapologetically advocate only for the black majority.

Both parties accuse Ramaphosa of favouring white South Africans and being in the pocket of white capitalism; both claim that the government of national unity (GNU) is actually a “white project”.

Last week, Zuma said in an interview with the Sunday Times: “I don’t understand this business of black and white, brothers, mothers, fathers and sisters coming together because they [white people] are free, and we are not free.” He also said: “People must vote for the truth, and they must vote for the interests of a black person.”

The EFF will hold its national elective conference in two weeks. The party has been severely weakened after several senior leaders had defected to MK.

According to sources close to him, Julius Malema believed before the May 29 election that his party would achieve close to 20% support, but it dropped to 9,5%. According to opinion polls, the defections of deputy leader Floyd Shivambu, Dali Mpofu and others have pushed the party’s national support down to around 6%.

This week, Malema told the media that the bleeding has now stopped, but he still does not trust his comrades who knew in advance about Shivambu’s “betrayal” and failed to inform him.

His sweet talk and teas with Zuma are now over, and the knives are out. He claims Zuma did nothing for the black majority during his presidency. “We are not going to sell the future generation for the dreams of an 82-year-old man who is corrupt to the core.”

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Malema’s dilemma is that he cannot outradicalise MK as he had with the ANC over the last decade – his former MP, Mzwanele Manyi, has now called the EFF a “fake revolutionary movement”. Moreover, MK has a solid ethnic base among Zulu speakers, which the EFF does not.

MK’s declared policy that the constitution must be torn up, that traditional leaders should be involved in the national legislature, and that parliamentary supremacy should replace constitutional supremacy is more radical than anything the EFF has proposed.

Malema should therefore realise that the EFF’s usual disruptive theatre politics no longer work. He will need to come up with a completely new approach or continue to decline until it is swallowed by MK.

ANC stalwart Mathews Phosa writes in his recently published memoir, Witness to Power: “My view is that the ANC will decline further in the years leading up to the next general election. The MKP will flourish as long as government dithers on delivery, and in the process, Julius Malema’s EFF will steadily lose support.”

Ramaphosa’s choice now is either to appease the ethnic nationalists within the ANC or to push through with the GNU of which the DA is the main partner and make it work. He cannot do both.

A governing partnership between the ANC, MK and EFF, as advocated by the SA Communist Party, Cosatu and the Panyaza Lesufi faction, would inevitably mean the end of economic pragmatism, fiscal discipline, property rights and collaboration with the business sector.

It would be a blow to the rule of law and the status of the judiciary.

This would severely undermine economic growth, business confidence, service delivery, and the fight against corruption.

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ANC would be whole again

The “old ANC” with its 60% plus support would then be “whole” again – the three parties collectively garnered 64% of the vote in the May election, while the ANC secured 62% in 2014 – but the collapse of the economy and service delivery would be blamed on the ANC, potentially making MK the largest party after the 2029 election.

(This assumes a suitable successor for Zuma can be found in the meantime. He would already be 86 years old by 2029, if he is still alive. MK has thus far been built around him, although there are efforts, especially by Shivambu and Mpofu, to prepare the party for a post-Zuma era. (Zuma’s bizarre refusal to accept that the ANC has the right to suspend him from the party is part of his dream of “taking back” the ANC.)

During his first term as president, Cyril Ramaphosa was terrified that the ANC would split if he confronted Jacob Zuma’s radical economic transformation (RET) faction. He not only allowed them to get away with murder but also appointed some of their ringleaders to senior positions.

This has backfired badly. They broke away anyway and formed the MK Party, forcing the ANC down to 40% of the national vote in the election.

Now it seems Ramaphosa is again afraid of the faction that would rather see a coalition government exclusively with black nationalists. Afraid that if he corners them, some might also defect to MK.

But this hesitancy might hurt him again. This faction is strongest in Gauteng, with premier Lesufi as the leading figure. They are quickly making such a mess of the provincial government and the three Gauteng metros that it will cost the ANC dearly in the local elections at the end of 2026.

If Ramaphosa tolerates Lesufi and company as the tail wagging the dog for much longer, they will make things difficult for him and his GNU project when the ANC holds its national general council (NGC) early next year. (The NGC is a policy review meeting held between the five-yearly national conferences.)

♦ VWB ♦

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