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Left-wing forcesNow the ANC also faces attack from outside its Alliance ranks
The march of the Left in South Africa is intensifying on all sides. Not only is the ruling African National Congress (ANC) having to contend with a growing and serious Left-versus-centre confrontation within its own party and alliance ranks, as well as a bid by its left-wing allies to strengthen their position, it now also faces an onslaught from a new formation of left-wing organisations from outside its own ranks.
Nationally, a large number of left-wing organisations and communities not forming part of the ANC-led alliance are to launch the Conference of the Democratic Left (CDL) in March next year.
While that in itself could already present the ANC and the alliance – consisting of the ANC, Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu), SA Communist Party (SACP) and the SA National Civics Organisation (Sanco) – with a significant problem in the face of delivery failure and spreading delivery protest riots, a similar provincial organisation is being established with strong support in the backyard of the ANC and its allies.
A large number of organisations and communities on Sunday gave the idea of a provincial version of the CDL in the Eastern Cape a resounding endorsement at a first mass meeting to launch such an organisation there.
The CDL basically strives to bring together marginalised communities and left-wing organisations on a single platform for solidarity, dialogue and mass action. It is particularly the latter that should have the ANC alliance worried.
Disaffected and volatile communities that have recently increasingly resorted to mass action to protest the lack of services and delivery in townships around the country, as well as the failure of the ruling ANC to improve the lives of its supporters in any significant way, could provide fertile recruitment ground for the new movement.
Since the months leading up to the April general elections, the Eastern Cape has increasingly become polarised, with centre-right political parties hiving off a large part of the ANC’s previously guaranteed support in the province. Now the non-alliance Left is also mobilising, leaving in the middle an increasingly weakened and vulnerable ANC currently in conflict with its own allies.
Traditionally, the ANC and its allies have enjoyed some of their strongest, most unified support in this province. But no more.
Monday’s meeting in Grahamstown brought together representatives from a wide range of communities and organisations such as the Rural Development Movement and the Unemployed Peoples’ Movement, which resolved to organise a provincial CDL early next year. The organisers behind the national CDL movement are also currently on a countrywide tour to consult with communities and organisations.
Two of the key organisers behind the movement – which seeks to establish a new, unified and strong left-wing political party – are Mazibuko Jara, former SACP spokesperson and editor of "Amandla" magazine; and Vishwas Satgar, a former Gauteng provincial secretary of the SACP.
The two believe that a new left-wing political party is required to mobilise the masses and unite all the left-wing organisations in South Africa. This became necessary when the SACP, according to them, abandoned its own programme of mobilising people at grassroots level and instead has resorted – through its alliance with the ANC – to using the state as a means to organise people.
Jara says President Jacob Zuma has not broken with former president Thabo Mbeki’s “pattern of subordinating progressive reforms in favour of capitalist profitability”. He says this points to the Left being vulnerable to the inordinate power of capital, while a president, no matter who it is, is vulnerable and can become increasingly unaccountable to popular interests.
He further says: “There is a deepening inequality, many people live in permanent poverty and millions are unemployed for most of their adult lives. Women continue to suffer from social oppression, violence and poverty. The very ecological and biophysical conditions for our human existence are under threat. Retrogressive ideologies in our society are gaining ground: we are going back to ethnic identity, we have retrogressive notions of womanhood, we have seen the rise in the power of undemocratic rule of unelected chiefs. The state is dysfunctional, corrupt and fraudulent. The state seems unwilling to confront the economic system that produces all these crises. Together, none of these socio-economic problems can be addressed by a South Africa that reproduces capitalism. These problems require solutions that go beyond capitalist accumulation.”
However, history does not favour the formation of new left-wing movements in South Africa, with several past efforts having come to naught. In addition, Jara and Satgar are aware of the problems they face, with Jara saying “the Left movement outside the South African Communist Party is weak, fragmented and disorganised", and that the “majority of the people in South Africa still look up to the ANC as their only hope and anyone who wants to start a new Left party must take this into account”.
However, conditions in South Africa for a new left-wing formation may presently be more conducive than ever before with rising discontent over delivery, the absence of strong, clear and unified national political leadership, and with the ANC being weakened severely and threatened from within.
Nonetheless, the SACP is concerned about the rise of the CDL. That much is clear from the recent rather vitriolic attack on the CDL and its leaders by SACP general-secretary and ANC national executive member, Blade Nzimande, and Young Communist League (YCL) secretary, Buti Manamela.
Meanwhile, the CDL has gained prominence within marginalised communities in recent months when its members were attacked by alleged ANC activists in the offices of Abahlali baseMjondolo in Kennedy Road settlement in Durban (during which several people were killed).
It has also successfully launched an interim branch in the Western Cape, where its public meeting on the proposed new National Health Insurance (NHI) was attended by activists from a wide range of organisations such as the Cosatu-affiliated National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), the Public And Allied Workers’ Union (PAWUSA), the People's Health Movement, the Treatment Action Campaign, the Social Justice Coalition, the Lorna Mlofana Campaign, the SA Medical Association, the New Women's Movement, the Delft branch of Sanco, and others.
Consolidation and reallignement of existing political forces is a much attractive business proposition than a new establishment. A CDL and a new party in my view will be a waste of people's emotions and reduce the current political developments into ward politics.
Our country has progressed and the phase of our revolution in the Global politics has been complex and profound. Never should we undermine the strenght of our current political environmnent in shaping total emancipation of our people. New parties are a no-no.