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The African National Congress and the Regeneration of Power

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The African National Congress and the Regeneration of Power THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS AND THE SUSAN BOOYSEN THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS AND THE Published in South Africa by: Wits University Press 1 Jan Smuts Avenue Johannesburg www.witspress.co.za Copyright © Susan Booysen 2011 First published 2011 ISBN 978-1-86814-542-3 (print) ISBN 978-1-86814-553-9 (ePDF) ISBN 978-1-77614-166-1 (open Web PDF) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978. Edited by Dick Cloete Cover design and layout by Hothouse South Africa Printed and bound by Ultra Litho (Pty) Ltd Contents Preface xi SECTION 1 ANC MOVEMENT-PARTY IN POWER1 CHAPTER 1 Introduction: ANC pathways to claiming, consolidating 2 and regenerating political power The ANC and the regeneration of power 5 Conceptualisation of political power in relation to the ANC 6 Mapping the ANC’s pathways to power 13 Conclusion 22 Annexure to chapter 1 – Mapping the ANC’s power trajectory, 27 1910-2011 CHAPTER 2 Aluta continua, from Polokwane to Mangaung 33 The birth and the limits of the ‘new ANC’ 34 A break with post-1990 ‘leadership determination’ 39 Polokwane as ANC ‘war’ 41 Lessons from the president of plots and conspiracies 45 ANC Youth League – king-makers, foot soldiers and agent provocateur 49 The arms deal, Polokwane war and the haunted ANC 51 Times of ambush and conquest – case study of the construction 57 of an ANC elective conference victory Forward to Mangaung 70 Conclusion 74 VI SECTION 2 ANC POWER AND THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE 85 CHAPTER 3 The ANC and its pillars of people’s power 86 People’s power in South Africa 88 People pardoning the ANC, repeatedly 92 The paradox of poverty, unemployment and ANC power 94 ANC in election mode relating to the people 108 The seeming paradox of democratic centralism and people’s 116 participation Conclusion 119 CHAPTER 4 Power through the ballot and the brick 126 The chain of protest triggers 127 Protest as ‘bargaining’ with the ANC for better governance 129 Frequency, spread and periods of protest 131 Five peak periods of protest and evolving complexity of protest 134 Period one – 2004-05: Protest as local election bargaining tool 137 Period two – 2007: National and provincial delivery grievances 140 Period three – 2008: Xenophobia and the dark side of lapses 143 in local authority Period four – 2009-10: ‘Rights activism’ protests 146 Period five – 2011: ANC candidate-revolt and ANCYL protests 150 Hierarchies of reasons for protest – configuration of unfolding waves 156 Government’s efforts at corrective action 162 Conclusion 165 CHAPTER 5 Participation and power through cooperation, complicity, 174 co­optation Regenerating power through variations on the theme 175 of participation Status of people in public participation in South Africa 178 Changing presidential orders and variations in public participation 180 Inclusive mapping of public participation in South Africa 182 Government-sanctioned public participation 185 Unsolicited, spontaneous and protest participation 196 Conclusion 200 VII SECTION 3 ANC IN PARTY POLITICS AND ELECTIONS 209 CHAPTER 6 Power through elections – serial declines, but the centre holds 210 Elections and the ANC’s power project 212 Fourth term and the confluence of electoral and public 213 institution power The ANC and ‘opposition politics’ beyond party politics 217 How elections work for the ANC 217 ANC power in four sets of national-provincial elections 223 Synthesis of ANC power through participation in legitimate elections 235 Why South Africans vote ANC 236 ‘Two worlds’, ‘extended liberation movement dividend’ and 239 ‘parallel democracy’ Conclusion 241 Annexure to chapter 6 – ANC performances in four sets of 247 provincial elections, 1994-2009 CHAPTER 7 Floor­crossing and entrenchment of ANC electoral supremacy 259 The tumultuous party political setting 261 Alliance formation, floor-crossing and electoral systems 262 Three rounds of power shifts through floor-crossing 267 Round one: Floor-crossing moving the earth 267 Round two: NNP remnants for sale, legal scramble to protect 276 electoral bases Round three: A weak and discredited show 279 The fates of floor-crossing parties 283 Conclusion 284 CHAPTER 8 Subjugation and demise of the (New) National Party 290 Antecedents to the NP as ‘virtuous negotiator’ 292 Benchmarks in a drawn-out decade of decline and disintegration 294 Three consecutive NP identities in ANC-controlled South Africa 300 Identity one: The re-invented post-1994 NP 301 Identity two: Schizophrenic about-turns in the DA and 306 ANC flirtation Identity three: Subsumed into the ANC 308 Post-mortem of NNP demographic and ideological positioning 311 When did the NNP die? 312 Conclusion 313 Annexure to chapter 8 – Comparative NP and ANC 320 power trajectories VIII CHAPTER 9 Countered and cowered Congress of the People (Cope) 325 Affirmation and negation of ANC power 326 The struggle for predominance and identity 327 Externalising internal opposition 330 Ebb and flow of Cope’s challenge to the ANC 331 Cope’s ideological and policy counter-positioning to the ANC 340 Refuge in collaboration, alliances and reconciliation? 342 Conclusion 344 Annexure to chapter 9 – Development of Cope and counter 352 actions by the ANC SECTION 4 ANC POWER AND STATE POWER 357 CHAPTER 10 State institutions as site of struggle in ANC wars 358 The ANC in command of the state 360 State as site of intra-ANC struggles 362 Periodisation of the ANC in relation to the institutions of 367 state power Mandela period – early capture of state power (1994-99) 367 Mbeki period I – ANC control and elaboration of state structures 369 (mid-1990s-2004) Mbeki period II – interregnum of contest and paralysis (2005-08) 369 Zuma period I – repopulating and taking control (2008-09) 370 Zuma period II – new cycles of contest (2009 onwards) 371 Cadreship, deployment and hegemony 373 Select institutional domain wars 379 Comrades in business and state-business 387 Conclusion 392 CHAPTER 11 Between centralisation and centralism – the Presidency 404 of South Africa Presidents negotiating the balance between state and party power 405 ‘Reinvention’ of the Presidency – continuity and change in the 410 Zuma presidency Presidential dominance, presidency centralisation and centres 414 of power Clusters of influence on policy and governance 418 Recasting the architecture of coordination, integration and planning 430 Conclusion 436 IX CHAPTER 12 Policy, pursuit of the ‘turn to the left’ and the paradox 444 of continuity Mapping the succession-policy contestation interfaces 446 Unfolding debates and discourses on ‘left turns’ in ANC policy 447 Policy results in the time of Zuma 452 Intersecting ‘dual centres of (state) power’ and ‘centre of 463 (alliance) power’ Conclusion 470 SECTION 5 CONCLUSION 479 CHAPTER 13 ANC at a critical conjuncture – movement, people, 480 elections, governance Stocktaking of the four faces of ANC power 481 Synthesis and implications for the regeneration of ANC power 492 Acronyms 499 Index 504 XI Preface Enter the ANC world In the 20 years of transitional and confirmed democratic politics in South Africa I tra- versed two worlds, having been both direct observer and analyst-researcher, and occa- sional research participant in the processes. First, there is the world of the African National Congress (ANC). When one enters the marquee in Polokwane, the ‘hallowed halls’ of Gallagher Estate, Esselen Park or the Durban Convention Centre for ANC elective conferences, National General Councils (NGCs), policy conferences, or South African Communist Party (SACP) and Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu) gath- erings, one finds the profound, emotive experience of struggle ethos, movement mobil- isation against the forces that restrain and prohibit faster progress, and politico-intellectual engagement to explain and propel the present and the future. There is a sense of representat ion of the people and the advancement of the national democratic revolution, albeit in the contexts of elections and modern government. A profound awareness in the movement of the responsibilities that come with being a spoke in the wheel of democratic centralism is omnipresent. Internal debates to advance the project of far-reaching transformation are embraced. The outside environment is often seen as hostile, embodying forces that continuously threaten the mission of the ANC as liberation movement-party. The ANC frequently faults that outside world for disregarding the impact of apartheid-racism and colonialism, and the profound progress that the ANC has recorded since 1994. Protection, consolidation and extension of gains made in the time since the early 1990s are as paramount as the projection of the tasks that remain. It is a central charge for the ANC not just to demonstrate connection with the masses, partly mediated by branch and regional structures, but also to persuade the people that the project of transformation is on track. In ANC parlance, this is the time of the ‘national democratic revolution’ and there is continuous progress. At times, such as in the aftermath of local government election 2011, there is pro- found trepidation that this world of the gradual revolution is becoming the subject of voter apprehension and that scrutiny in the electoral inter-party battleground is grad- ually penetrating the inner sanctum of the ANC’s deep relationship with the people. XII Role of the author­analyst and the thread of ‘political power’ The other world is that of critical observation and analysis. Here the observer-researcher needs to negotiate the route between counter-truths, using both confidence and root- edness to link trends and occurrences. The world of critical observation constructs the bigger picture and discerns the trends, assessing how the building blocks of the ANC’s hegemonic power project of close to a century have materialised in the period in gov- ernment power.
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