The opposition’s best chance in 27 years

THERE are probably only three ways South Africa can survive as a modern, mixed-economy, non-racial democracy. The ANC will reform itself and retain power, implode and possibly have to share power, or it will be voted out and lose power.

The first option is the least likely. It was always somewhat farfetched to believe President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government could root out cadre corruption, repair hollowed-out state institutions, and install a pro-growth economic framework. Pushback from within a party that increasingly resembles a criminal Mafia is just too strong.

And recent events have stacked up further evidence against the “internal renewal” option.

Ramaphosa stood down the police during the public violence because he was afraid of a bloody confrontation involving the Radical Economic Transformation (RET) wing of his party. As for the jailing of Zuma, we find it was possibly all a charade. A weekly newspaper reports, quoting three unnamed sources within the ANC, that not only did the national commissioner of prisons consult Ramaphosa before overturning the refusal of the Medical Parole Board to release Zuma, but the plan had been in place for a long time.

It quotes an unnamed KwaZuluNatal ANC leader: “There was an instruction from the top to let Zuma out. When he was arrested, we all knew he was going to be released before his time ended. It was all a plan in motion.”

If the ANC is incapable of reform, the question is whether the tension between the reformists and the RET gang will result in the party simply fracturing. Probably not. Whatever Ramaphosa’s failures as president of the republic, he has functioned well as president of the ANC. He has repeatedly stated that his primary goal is to keep the party intact and he has done exactly that.

Neither faction, despite mutual loathing, can afford a party split. To retain power would mean an alliance with either the EFF or the DA.

Aside from the fact that the ANC would struggle to meld its liberation history with a predominantly minority, liberal tradition, there is the issue of corruption.

The DA has consistently proved itself to be an honest governance party which, to many in the ANC, defeats the main reason for winning political power.

The EFF, which is essentially the ANC in red overalls, would be a much better fit. It has the revolutionary rhetoric down pat, drawing its inspiration from Marx, Castro and Gucci.

And as the VBS Bank scandal has shown, it has no effete reservations about stealing the widow’s mite or the orphan’s portion. Its socialist stamp of approval is available for sale or hire by any multinational conglomerate or foreign power with the requisite funds.

The problem is whether the EFF has enough support to give such an alliance with part of a split ANC an electoral majority. It may well.

Measured against the 2019 national election, ANC support has dropped from 58% to 49% and the DA has dropped from 21% to 18%. The EFF has increased from just under 11% to almost 15%.

Perhaps, after 27 years, we are at last moving slowly towards some kind of denouement.

The ANC can’t and won’t reform. If it did split, its preferred alliance would most likely be the EFF, skewing the balance of power in such a government towards a radical, black nationalism, with disastrous implications for South Africa.

That leaves us with the last option: starting to turf the ANC out. To do so, the more centrist political parties – the DA, Freedom Front

Plus, IFP, Congress of the People, ActionSA, OneSA, and Good – will have to perform markedly better in November’s municipal elections.

Against a weakened, financially and morally bankrupt ANC, this is the best chance the opposition will have had in 27 years.