The ANC is facing challenging times and needs to position itself strategically in the configuration of the political spectrum, says political analyst Andre Duvenage.
He said the configuration of the ANC had far-reaching ideological implications.
“The ANC has deflected from the core strategy of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) and there’s no doubt that the Democratic Project and the NDR are not always aligning with each other.
“The class in terms of the black consciousness groups aligning in class terms is causing problems for the ANC, who try to align themselves with groups like the Democratic Alliance (DA) with a stronger liberal and social democratic type of orientation,” the analyst said.
Duvenage said it was difficult for any party to keep in contact with its constituents for more than 30 years.
He said there was a great chance that the ANC won’t be able to connect with its constituency after this year.
Meanwhile, independent analyst GoodEnough Mashigo said the ANC was never really a socialist organisation nor did its policies stand to benefit the masses of the country.
Mashigo said the missionary project of the founders of the ANC was not about creating a conscious class of a conscious people but creating a middle class.
“We need to understand the middle class by its physiological definition and which is a class between the top and the bottom. The bottom is the working class and the top is the economic elite.
“The ANC was meant to be an organisation that is there in the middle between the poorer and the rich. That is why it’s used to talk about social democrats, so there was never a time the ANC was really a party that espoused a social or class project,” he said.
Mashigo said the true nature of the ANC emerged after 1999 when it introduced policies such as Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear), which gave the state the sole control of economic business.
Mashigo said the ANC never lied to people that it was going to advance socialist type of of policies, citing Gear as an example.
Parties like the EFF and the uMkhonto weSizwe Party had accused the ANC of selling out by entering into a Government Of National Unity (GNU) with the DA.
However, the party’s secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, said both parties were showing tendencies of ethno-nationalism, backwardness and inconsistency in what he said was a betrayal of their people.
Defending the ANC’s decision, Mbalula said the party garnered a 40% majority, which meant it needed other organisations to be able to govern.
He said the ANC was never a black party like Azapo and the PAC.
The perception among the majority of South Africans and some in the ANC were not happy with the ANC and DA alliance.
Saturday Star