From liberation movement to party machine? The ANC in South Africa

Abstract

This article contributes to a growing literature on the character of leadership, democracy and governance espoused by post-liberation governments, focusing on the African National Congress (ANC) as a political party. The article provides a brief overview of the two most common approaches to analysing the ANC's transition from a national liberation movement to a political party in an electoral democracy, the dominant party approach and what is termed the Fanonesque perspective. Neither is found to be wholly satisfactory, for largely the same reason – their tendency to present what is effectively a caricature of the ANC, by selectively highlighting features of its practices that conform to a pre-determined pathology, rather than acknowledging the ANC's complexity, variability and essentially contested nature. In developing an alternative approach, the paper draws from an earlier body of literature on single-party–dominant states in post-independent Africa that was empirically driven and comparative in nature. Such an approach can help us develop a more realistic, less sensationalist interpretation of ANC rule in South Africa.

Keywords:

• dominant party
• governance
• patronage
• democracy
• corruption
• Fanonesque

Note on contributor

Roger Southall is a Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand, and during 2013 was the Van Zyl Slabbert Visiting Professor in Politics and Sociology at the University of Cape Town. He is a former editor of JCAS and is author of the recently published Liberation Movements in Power: Party and State in Southern Africa (James Currey and UKZN Press).

Notes

1. Jacob Zuma is president of the ANC and became president of South Africa in 2009, following the ANC's victory in the country's general elections. He was re-elected in the May 2014 general elections. This paper was written after the 2009 elections, and focuses on the ANC under Zuma during his first term in office, especially the first few years of his presidency. As such, the paper does not take into account recent developments in the country; however, an assessment of post-2013 developments would not really affect the thrust of the analysis.

2. The title of Leon Trotsky's 1936 denunciation of the Soviet Union under Stalin.

3. A reference to the US Democratic Party political machine which controlled Manhattan from 1854 to 1932 through a mix of strong arm tactics, patronage and corruption

4. Forde notes in the Star article on 25 February 2010 key networks include those connected through Operation Vula, this playing an influential but shadowy role in the elevation of Zuma. A network crossing Vula and Alliance lines involves a linkage between the Zuma's second wife, Nompumelo Ntuli, and Noluthando Vavi, wife of COSATU General Secretary Zwelinzama Vavi, who share interests in a property registered in the name of Vivian Reddy, a main financial backer of Zuma with close connections to those involved in Operation Vula.