As the ANC carries out its mission to transform South Africa, it will need to draw towards its ranks individuals and communities who over time come round to recognise the correctness of its positions. This should inform its approach to opposition political parties.
The outcome of the 2004 elections has raised many challenges with regard to how the ANC should relate to the various parties in the legislatures and in the broader political terrain. These challenges pertain both to the pro-active work that the ANC should do in order to meet its objectives, and the responses we need to develop in respect of these parties' own tactics. Such challenges need to be addressed within the legislatures and in the mass organisational terrain.
In addressing these issues, the movement needs to be adept at utilising the legislatures to shift the balance of forces further in favour of transformation. We should at the same time ensure that our tactical interventions - within and outside of government - conform to our strategic objectives.
The primary mission of the ANC is the transformation of South Africa into a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society. This strategic objective should be at the core of the tactics we adopt in relation to all issues.
In the context of the national and class questions, this strategic mission means uniting all South Africans - across race, nationality and class -around the project of social transformation. The ANC seeks to achieve national consensus around the core challenges facing the country: it should act as the leader of the whole nation.
The ANC's approach to these issues derives from our basic understanding that the mission of the movement has not been, and it is not, to run the system we inherited better, but to build a new system altogether, founded on the principles of democracy, non-racialism, non-sexism and equitable development. In other words, we are engaged in a cause of fundamental change - a national democratic revolution - through peaceful and constitutional means.
There are many forces beyond the ANC, both within and outside of the legislatures, who support such fundamental change. But there are also counter-revolutionary forces, which seek to block change and retain apartheid privilege under all kinds of guises, through peaceful and constitutional means. As the principal founder of, and committed to, the system of multiparty democracy, the ANC recognises the legitimate right of all these forces to exist and operate in the democratic system.
Arising from this are two critical organisational challenges: firstly, to forge a united front or people's contract around the transformation agenda; and secondly, to defeat any counter-revolutionary efforts, among others, by dissipating the energies of the forces opposed to change.
Our pursuit of a people's contract is impelled by the desire to unite all South Africans - within and outside the legislatures, members of the ANC and non-members - around the agenda of change, so eloquently articulated in our Constitution. In pursuit of this objective, we shall win over some individuals and formations into the ranks of the ANC; but there are many who will remain outside our ranks, committed to the country and its agenda of improving the quality of life of all South Africans.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE 2004 ELECTIONS
The return of the ANC with a higher majority in the national and provincial elections in April 2004 - and our accession to office in KwaZulu Natal and the Western Cape - is a critical defining character of the current situation: the ANC received 276,000 more votes compared to 1999, despite the lower turn-out. Attached to this are important considerations:
The overall outcome reflects a new confidence among the mass of the people that the cause of transformation is correct, needs to be speeded up, and that there is capacity in the ANC to ensure that this happens. In a sense, the 2004 election marks an end to the era of tentativeness and self-doubt -inversely the beginning of the era of assertion of a new confidence - within society as a whole about what needs to be done, and the role of the ANC in this process.
The immediate post-election period, informed in the main by the practical programme of government to take the country to a higher trajectory of growth and development, has confirmed the centrality of the agenda of fundamental change as the fulcrum around which to unite and mobilise society.
REALIGNMENT OF OPPOSITION SUPPORT
At the same time as the ANC has shown a greater and confident presence, the base of opposition parties has shrunk. The chairs may have been rearranged on the Opposition deck, but in absolute and aggregate terms, fewer people have identified with the causes of the various parties.
The combined vote for the Democratic Part (DP), New National Party (NNP) and the Federal Alliance (FA) in the 1999 elections was 2.71 million - all premised on explicit resistance to change. In 2004, the Democratic Alliance (DA) vote was 1.9 million. The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), which decided to forge an alliance with the DA, got 282,000 less votes than in 1999: in other words, the combined DA/IFP vote is just slightly higher than that of the combined 1999 "fight-back" alliance (which then excluded the IFP).
The 76% reduction in the NNP vote, most of which seems to have gone to the DA, signifies two important trends: firstly, the continuing appeal of the "fight back" approach among significant sections of whites, and a smaller section of Coloured and Indian communities; and, secondly, the existence within these three communities of 257,824 who steadfastly supported the explicit co-operative approach of the NNP.
With regard to the other opposition parties, the following trends are worth noting:
What needs further noting is that, except for the white community, the ANC is the party with the largest support among all the ethnic and racial communities. Further, while all the other parties reflect concentrated support in specific provinces, ANC support is spread across the country.
BROAD BALANCE OF FORCES
At the backdrop of these electoral developments, transformation in both the content and the composition of instruments of state has proceeded apace: the security forces, the judiciary and the public service. While much more work needs to be done in all these institutions, the First Decade of Freedom has seen their steady re-orientation in line with the ethos of democracy.
In the economic arena, government has asserted its authority in terms of macroeconomic management and it has started to give leadership in respect of micro-economic reform. However, ownership and control of capital remain essentially in white hands, and some of the problems in terms of rates of investment derive in large measure from this reality.
With regard to the battle of ideas, the situation can be characterised as reflecting a combination of:
South Africa also has active civil society formations, pursuing the self-interest of sectors or communities they represent. Some among them do seek to align these narrow interests with the broader challenge of social change. Others fail to reconcile these interests, and end up adopting positions that can endanger the broader cause. Yet others represent interests that are simply opposed to fundamental change.
In brief, the creation of a democratic society has proceeded well; but it rests on shaky economic foundations and its spiritual sustenance is deficient. The irony of this challenge is that, small as the support for the white-oriented opposition parties may be, these parties appeal to forces that have inordinate power and influence precisely in the spheres of economics and ideology.
MOVING TO A HIGHER TRAJECTORY OF CHANGE
The programme of the ANC on the content, direction and pace of change is captured in the 2004 Election Manifesto. The concrete and precise nature of this programme reflects the determination of the movement in a changed and changing balance of forces.
At the core of this programme is the need for intervention and leadership with regard to both the Second and First Economies: to bridge this gap, and ensure sustainable livelihood.
In government's Ten Year Review, four central proposals were made to help raise the levels of growth and development: building a social compact; dealing with the demographic and economic challenges of the transition; improving the performance of the state; and changing the regional and continental environment for the better.
The organisational challenges related to this primarily entail: further mobilisation of the motive forces of change; achieving national consensus around developmental objectives; mobilisation of those social partners with control over resources; and building a united global movement for the creation of a new world order.
APPROACH TO OPPOSITION FORCES
How then, do these observations relate to the challenge of relating to various elements among opposition parties? The task of the ANC is to unite the people of South Africa both in terms of objectives and action to build a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society. We seek to ensure, at least, that all South Africans, individually and in their organised formations, become part of the people's contract.
We also seek to dissipate any tendencies that undermine the legality and/or legitimacy of the new order. This requires creative tactical work on our part, which should include demonstrating that a "fight back" challenge to the cause of transformation does not pay; that a mind-set of co-operation in areas where there is agreement even if there may be fundamental differences on other issues is in the best interest of each political formation; and that such co-operation does not require any of the parties to abandon their identity.
Our tactical posture should, among other factors, take the following into account:
We also need to study in detail the tendency to retreat from political engagement by large sections of the white community, as reflected in the disproportionate level of voter stay-away from the polls. Two elements may be responsible for this: firstly, a few may have dipped their toes into the waters of the Rubicon and recoiled - they're in transition, still not courageous enough to support the ANC; secondly, some may have totally retreated to home and hearth in frustration that the political system does not accommodate their interests.
Whatever the case may be, a people's contract is meant to ensure that partnership manifests itself beyond the realm of electoral politics, or any "politics" at all, narrowly defined. The relatively positive attitudes among big business around black economic empowerment and the Growth and Development Summit, the changing mood among organised white workers, and the recent expressions of support by the Afrikaner business community, are good examples of this.
TACTICAL QUESTIONS ON THE FUTURE OF THE NNP
The specific questions relating to the future of the NNP need to be addressed taking into account a number of critical factors:
In this sense, the ANC found itself obliged to assist in managing the demise of the NNP. But in the broader strategic sense, the ANC is guided in this approach by two interrelated and critical principles that have informed its organisational work over the years: unite the overwhelming majority of South Africans behind the programme of change, and dissipate the impact of those opposed to change.
The public management of this realignment within the party political terrain, both among ANC members and across society at large, is critical. This pertains in part to distorted analysis which seeks to impute opportunism on the part of the ANC. In part, and most critically, it also relates to the misguided articulation by some that the processes under way reflect a redefinition of the ANC's ethos, an imagined convergence at the "centre of the political spectrum", which in turn represents the marginalisation of the left within the ANC.
It should be expected and appreciated that new adherents, especially from other political and ideological cultures, will come into our ranks with their many blemishes. As such, the ANC needs to develop strong mechanisms to manage especially large influxes of members of other political parties into the movement.
To recapitulate: The primary mission of the ANC is the transformation of South Africa into a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society. As the ANC carries out its mission, it will draw towards its ranks individuals and communities who over time come round to recognise the correctness of its positions. In the context of national democratic transformation, the ANC will grow its mass base and broaden its appeal to become, in effect, a "movement of the whole people". Yet, given its core objectives and the core motive forces to realise these objectives, the ANC is more than just a formal political party playing parliamentary politics, nor is it a rudderless colossus, seeking to be all things to all creatures.
In the words of the Preface to the Strategy and Tactics document adopted at the National Conference in 2002: "... ours is more than just a national liberation struggle because it places the interests of the poor and the role of the working class at the centre of its theory and practice. We seek to build a developmental state with capacity to effect fundamental transformation ...The ANC, as the leader of the national democratic struggle, is a disciplined force of the left, organised to conduct consistent struggle in pursuit of the interests of the poor."
This is an edited version of a discussion document of the ANC National Executive Committee produced in September 2004.
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