The future is not left: Clearing the FOG.

The future of the ANC, once a professed force of the left, is now in jeopardy. Shaped by the geopolitical dynamics of the Cold War and the West's lack of support, the ANC was compelled to align itself with the left. However, its roots in the African liberal elite would later resurface, leading to a more liberal than leftist trajectory. The achievement of universal franchise in 1994 and the 1996 Constitution's promulgation necessitated a review of all alliances formed during the anti-colonial and anti-apartheid struggle, signalling a need for reconfiguration. 

From within, the ANC's professed broad-church character contradicts various ideological orientations. The battle for its ideological soul has intensified since it gained access to state power. Externally, it continues to face mounting pressure from the geopolitical nodes of the West and the East. More acutely, the global, overtly supported by RSA's economic establishment to secure the ANC as the substrate of the global liberal order in Africa has been gaining unprecedented momentum. At stake for the ANC is its survival as the substrate of South Africa's political power architecture and staying true to what those who control how much power remains with them expect from it. 

 

While "we the people" are legally the ones determining the ultimate destination of political power through our votes, there is an inconvenient truth of this power being vulnerable to the influence of the organised from within "we the people". Funded interests, civil society formations, political parties, narrative creation platforms, and other human coalitions have nurtured a liberal South Africa. The in-ANC rhetoric has also compromised the battle to keep RSA left, not its actions where it matters. 

 

The establishment of the post-2024 GNU, out of which the SACP became the first casualty of the consolidation of liberals, is a demonstration of the resilience of the liberal order decades after its symbolic triumph of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. RSA is in a mode of governance that vigorously affirms the virtues of the liberal order and reverses whatever gains, if any, by the way of a non-liberal order. The occupation of the economic policy centre by the private sector post-2017 has gradually recalibrated the narrative of RSA as an investment destination. The purging of the strategic policy centres of 'cadres' whose rhetoric is incongruent with the norms of the liberal order has seen shoots of change the West is comfortable with. 

 

The rise of conservative economic thinking within the ANC is the surest sign that the liberal order is rising in RSA. The strategic blunders of the left, including allowing its ideological basis to be bastardised by mavericks and authoritarian tendencies promoting leaders of the new opposition complex, have liquidated the left's political and social capital, at least among the breed of voters RSA has spawned post-2017. The left is on record as having previously declared the new opposition complex's leader its candidate. If the nine-waisted-years theory is valid, they can't be absolved of colluding. The left is either in retreat or receding into oblivions of a special type, including having to be tested through a poll to see if they have ever had self-standing societal support. It is crucial for the left to regain its societal support to survive and thrive in the future. 

 

Assuming the SACP represents it, the left is now in a state where it must fight an election against the ANC that has some of its influential leaders as appointed Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Premiers, MECs, Mayors, and Councillors. To say that the benefits of being in the national, provincial, and municipal executive at the pleasure of the ANC for those on the 'left' is a means to other ends and not an end in itself is not a semantic quibble; it is a profound moral issue for the entire leftist agenda in RSA. With the cost of leaving the ANC for many on the left being so significant to contemplate, the choice of staying left will be difficult to take as a person. Even in the face of clear tactical signals auguring the onset of a tripartite alliance split, many left political leaders, occupying significantly influential executive positions in organs of the state, hew to the belief that they will not be affected by the diminishing future of the left until it is too late.

 

In the ANC, the future is not left. At best, it will be an away-from-the-left hybrid. The SACP conference might be the catalyst required for the dominant yet undeclared liberal order defending substrate within the ANC to end a prolonged period of coexistence with their illiberal 'comrades'. The lived experience of South Africans, if it does not change sooner and quickly, might spur the poor and unemployed, the natural constituency of leftist rhetoric, to protest the internal ideological shifts within the ANC, deeming it capitulation or sellout. The left must take a stand against the liberal order to ensure its survival and relevance in the future. 

 

As argued in another rendering, the democratic alliance, which has the DA as a member and South Africa calls it the Government of National Unity, is igniting a realignment of political power. The ANC 2025 National General Council, if it is held, the 2025 National Dialogue process, the 2026 National Municipal Elections, and the 2027 ANC National Conference will be the milestone events before the rapture. The liberal order seems to be winning the battle. With 40% minus those that would have left with the SACP, the ANC faces a liberal future in a coalition with other liberal orders pursuing formations. It will be nearly impossible for the DA, Action SA, and all other parties in the liberal fold to mount a successful campaign against a renewed liberal party, ANC. 

 

A mystique surrounds the notion of poverty breeding leftists in societies. In Africa, by contrast, vintage leftist politics and orientation are very much a creature of colonialism as the non-leftist options Africans have toyed with outside their indigenous systems. This is factual and not a euphemism that alternatives to being left are just. Since the dawn of democracy in 1994 and formally in 1996, South Africa as a state has never been gone. At best, left was a rhetoric to galvanise electoral support in an economically unjust environment. To the extent that the rhetoric return a requisite breed for the continuation of the liberal order, it was good to deal with the reality of political bargaining. 

 

For a hypothetical recovery of the left back into the centre of RSA politics to occur sometime shortly, enough uncertainties exist to make the outcome of such a possibility somewhat unpredictable. One cannot simply assert that the left's numerous nostalgic advantages guarantee a return. If there should be a recovery strategy, its essence should be an integrated defence, and its deterrence must be to avoid ideological combat with the ANC as long as possible without risking further aggression and without condoning or tolerating the aggression that has already occurred from the conservative forces it coexisted with. Like the MK Party did, going it alone in elections, which is inarguably equivalent to starting a new party to contest elections, can often have critical punitive effects quickly. Still, it might have a much more mixed track record if the goal is a reversal of lost hegemony. It might be freezing already out there. Ignoring the political economics of what sustains and still sustains the left, which should be a routine part of planning, is not only wrong-headed, but it might also be dangerous for the left. 

 

This rendition holds no brief for the liberal order, nor is it opposed to it. It is a reflection to spur an honest discourse beyond the FOG.