The terrain on which we are operating

The character of the ANC must be determined by the nature of the core tasks that confront the national democratic revolution (NDR) in our country in any specific historical time.

The democratic breakthrough of April 1994 was an important moment in our liberation struggle. Over the past three years, the ANC, as the national ruling organisation, has succeeded in opening and directing a huge process of transformation that will certainly be drawn out in character.

Even with the 1994 democratic breakthrough and the enormous transformation that is underway, the legacy of centuries of colonial oppression, and decades of white minority rule, continue to be the reality that defines our society.

The character of the ANC is informed by the over-riding, strategic imperative of overcoming the consequences of this legacy. In our 1994 Strategy and Tactics document, we continued to place ourselves within an ongoing struggle for national democratic transformation.

It is also the legacy of colonialism and minority rule, that defines both the key tasks and also those social forces which are most likely to be the motive forces that will drive forward the struggle for transformation.

These core, strategic considerations inform the ongoing national liberation movement character of the ANC.

But what is meant by the ongoing “National Liberation” Character of the ANC?

The continuing national liberation character of the ANC relates to what has already been noted ­ the defining reality of our society is the continuing legacy of colonialism and white minority rule. This legacy still impacts upon every aspect of our society. It impacts upon the ways in which black people in general, and Africans in particular, are differently affected by everything, ranging from unemployment, to literacy, to life expectancy levels. The ANC focuses its energy upon mobilising around the aspirations and transformation objectives of this historically oppressed majority. We also celebrate and continue the traditions of liberation struggle we have led through this century.

The national liberation character of the ANC is the foundation of a true (as opposed to a superficial and cosmetic) non-racialism. Our rootedness among the historically oppressed, and our determination to focus on the struggle to overcome the legacy of minority rule, is not based on an ethnic or racial exclusivism. On the contrary, the ANC has always promoted non-racialism and the idea that South Africa is a home for all its peoples. Any genuine democrat and any genuine patriot in our country, white or black, should appreciate that the central democratic and nation-building tasks of our situation relate directly to the struggle against the historical racial oppression of the majority of our people.

What is meant by the ongoing “Movement” Character of the ANC?

The movement character of the ANC relates to many factors. These include:

• our commitment to a mass approach line, that is, the belief that the people of our country must be their own liberators. The tasks that confront us require the active involvement of popular forces. This movement tradition, which can be referred to as the masses in movement, is continued in our present commitment to a people-driven RDP. It is found in our attempts to develop, in the new conditions of our country, many new forms of popular activism and governance (ranging from community policing forums, to participatory local government budgeting, to work-place forums). The ANC, particularly through its branch-level structures, must attempt to be an active political force in the daily lives of our people. In brief, the ANC seeks to be more than a party of mass support, and more than an electoral machine. It also seeks to be a movement of mass participation;
• the movement character of the ANC also relates to our long established traditions of building a “broad church”, an “hegemonic” organisation that does not seek to define itself in exclusivist, or narrow ideological terms. The ANC has been, and necessarily remains, home to a variety of progressive ideological currents ­ nationalist, Africanist, socialist ­ and of a variety of different classes and strata, all united behind a common commitment to national democratic transformation. The multi-class, multi-strata character of the ANC does not, however, mean that the ANC neglects the significance of class. The ANC is a multi-class/multi-strata movement with a bias or leaning towards the black working class and the rural and urban poor. This bias is based on our conviction that it is these social forces that make up the major motive force for ongoing transformation. This bias does not, however, mean that we give up a broader leadership role in regard to other social forces. In particular, the ANC seeks to organise and win over to the national democratic struggle, the emergent black middle and upper middle strata and capitalist strata. More broadly the ANC, from its base amongst the historically-oppressed, seeks to provide a broad leadership over the great majority of South Africans;
• our movement character also refers to the style in which, for many decades, the ANC has functioned. We have attempted to be a force for cohesion in the centre of a broad range of allied organisations, mass democratic and community based structures. We have, as the ANC, not undermined the ideological and organisational independence or autonomy of these organisations, but rather to interact with them, and fuse or combine their energies, constituencies and diverse capacities into a common national democratic purpose.

But has nothing changed?

Does reaffirming the national liberation movement character of the ANC mean that nothing has changed over the last decades, and especially over the last three-and-a-half years? Of course not, many things have changed.

Major changes include:

The shifting class and strata realities in our society. While the overwhelming majority of poor, unemployed and marginalised people in our society are black, the last few years have seen the rapid development of a new black, upper middle-class. The gap between the richest ten percent of blacks and the majority has grown very rapidly. Many of the ANC`s leading cadres have benefited directly from these new realities. The promotion of tens of thousands of formerly oppressed is a progressive development, but it does need us to be thoughtful on this issue. We must ensure that the ANC continues to represent the interests of the great majority, and not, narrowly, those of an emerging new elite. What is now needed is not a “poorer the better” moralising outlook. Rather, we must ensure that both ideologically (in the values and policies we develop) and organisationally, the new powers, wealth and privileges do not become an end in themselves, but are used in the service of the national democratic struggle. The best means for ensuring this strategic objective is keeping the movement, mass participatory character of the ANC. This is the best antidote to the danger of our organisation being transformed into a narrow, professionalised machine, enjoying support, but not empowering mass participation.

New international realities. In the midst of our own rapid, negotiated transition, the international forces were changing around us. The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet bloc. This has introduced new dynamics, and new possibilities into our continent. We need to review and partly redefine what is meant, relative to these new realities, by the national democratic project. It is a review that must also take into account, not just a changed global balance of forces, but the historical record and lessons to be learnt from the national democratic project in other African (and Asian and Latin American) countries. Again, it is not a question of abandoning our national liberation heritage, but rather, on the basis of our historical experience, and very significant continental and international prestige, playing an active international role in the development of movement to movement, party to party solidarity for reconstruction, development, democracy and national self-determination.

The changed international landscape includes the major crisis of socialist societies in the 1989-1991 period. As the ANC we cannot just ignore this reality. While the ANC is, ideologically, a broad-church, all ANC members have a stake in ensuring that the socialists in our ranks, and the socialist formations (like the SACP and COSATU) with which we are allied, conduct an open and intelligent process of socialist renewal ­ learning from the lessons of recent history. It is interesting to note that the relative revival in electoral politics of left and socialist forces, from India, through much of eastern Europe, to Italy and France, Mexico and Japan, in the latter part of the 1990s, has been accompanied by considerable organisational creativity. Broad fronts, green/left parties, coalitions and the inter-facing of electoral parties and progressive social movements have been important features. In many respects, our national experience of movement and alliance politics, far from being “something of the past”, might have much to contribute to progressive politics of the next century.

But the most important changes with which, organisationally, the ANC must come to terms, relate to the new terrain on which we are operating. These are the challenges of contesting elections in the context of a multi-party dispensation, and of assuming responsibility, as the ANC, for governance.

The new challenges of elections and governance

Amongst other things, these new tasks demand that there are multiple forms of participation and organisation within the ANC. Of course, long before April 1994, we had to meet this kind of challenge. The armed struggle, underground work and exile conditions required an organisation that was highly disciplined, with a clear chain of command, in which there was a network of full-time cadres in the machinery. On the other hand, those very conditions coupled with the imperatives of our people`s war and mass mobilisation strategy, required a high degree of localised initiative and independence on the part of our cadres, and also a much wider range of active participation from our broader membership and support base. It also called for creative ways of working within, leading, but also learning from, a wide network of allied formations.

But do the imperatives of multi-party elections not mean, as some have argued, that we should radically change the character of the ANC? Should the ANC not become:

A centre-left election party?

In this debate, terms are often thrown about loosely. The “movement” structure of the ANC is contrasted with a “political party” structure, and so forth. We should not be dazzled by terms, or become stuck in a debate that is just semantic. However, often in this debate, assumptions are made about the “modern”, “centre-left”, social democratic party. It is therefore useful to consider, in general terms, the contemporary evolution of typical centre-left parties in the advanced capitalist countries since these are often held up as models.

The “modern” political party, at least in its centre-left versions, in many of the more established democracies, characteristically evolved out of the mass trade union movements in the second half of the 19th and the early part of the 20th century. The party emerged as the electoral wing of the labour movement. Initially, it was the labour movement that was better resourced. The party derived its finances and much of its cadreship from the trade unions. Its policies were often also considerably determined by the labour movement.

In time, this relationship between the labour movement and the centre-left party became less close. The party, especially where it was elected into office, developed an independent capacity and a growing independence from its social movement origins.

This independence was deepened (and was even necessitated from the perspective of electoral politics) by the changing social and class landscape of the advanced capitalist countries. This changing landscape involves the following:

• there has been a decline in the relative size of the unionised, blue-collar (largely male) working class;
• this change is fostered, in part, by the mass media, by the growth of the service and public sectors in the economy, and by new social identities. Voting habits have therefore become more complex. For related reasons, other progressive social movements have assumed prominence. They include women`s, students` and youth movements, peace movements, minority rights groups, life-style movements ­ like gay rights ­ ecological movements, solidarity movements, etc. The relationship of these progressive movements (many of them designated as a “new left”) to the established centre-left party has been quite complex;
• international economic trends towards financial globalisation have also undermined the capacity (or reduced the willingness) of centre-left parties to hold national capital to social accords. This has undermined the capacity to deliver on welfare, and thus weakened the credibility of these parties in the eyes of their former core, trade union constituency.

In the context of all of these changes, the trend has been for many of these centre-left parties to become much more narrowly focused on elections, using the professional techniques of the mass media to win, not activists, but supporters/voters. The core of the party becomes a relatively small professional group, specialising in media, image projection, polling, policy-making and fund-raising. The party leadership, when not in power, gravitates to the parliamentary caucus and shadow cabinet. When in power, it is the cabinet itself which dominates the party. The party is not really the leader of a broad movement. Social movements (the trade unions, but also the “new” social movements) interact with the party more as lobbyists and pressure groups and less as part of a single movement (for reconstruction, or transformation).

When the forces in the media here in South Africa, push the ANC to transform itself into a “normal political party”, it is usually something like the above scenario that they have in mind. It is a scenario that fails to locate the ANC within the particular challenges and possibilities of our own national situation. It is also a scenario that often greatly exaggerates the state of health of “normal” political parties elsewhere in the world.

THE ANC AND ELECTIONS

The ANC has, correctly, sought to professionalise its capacity to fight and win elections. We need to constantly improve on this capacity. This requires dedicated and year-round attention to mass media messages, the projection of key leadership personalities, constant polling, and all of the techniques of modern, multi-party electioneering. However, these must complement and be woven into our movement character as opposed to supplanting it. They must be integrated into ongoing movement work, our mass programmes of action, our cadre development, and our branch work.

The ANC has to meet the challenges of contesting and winning elections. But this is not the sole, nor necessarily the most important function of the ANC`s political machinery.

Above all, we must remember that:

• South Africa is not a typical, and relatively stable, advanced capitalist country, where elections are sometimes won or lost on the basis of tax policy, or percentage points in a budget deficit reduction programme. We are confronting a huge challenge, a massive transformation effort of reconstruction, development and nation building. Multi-party elections are an important, but not the most important, political reality of our society at this time; and, fortunately,
• the ANC does not confront the same, diminishing, “natural constituency” problems that typical centre-left parties in the advanced capitalist countries encounter ­ which is not to say that we should be complacent about always retaining our electoral support.

The South African situation has its own specifics. This does not mean that we should ignore the rich legacy of lessons and experiences that we can gain from many quarters. But it does mean that we should not be dazzled into becoming a “normal political party”, because there is some universal law about this. Nor should we assume, as much as the media constantly insists, that until the ANC splits into a centre and a left, we will not have a “healthy, normal opposition”. Ours is not a normal situation, and the situation will not become “normal” simply because we copy what are assumed to be the party political delineations of the advanced capitalist countries.

The ANC, Legislatures And Government

Besides elections, an even more challenging area for the ANC in the post-April 1994 period has been how to relate to, and co-ordinate our efforts within the legislatures and a range of government structures (cabinet, ministries, security forces, provincial government, parastatals, local councils).

We have addressed this question in many forums, including at the ANC NEC`s January 1997 lekgotla. We will not repeat in detail the many resolutions taken and suggestions made at these forums. At the core of them are the following positions:

• the constitutional structures of the ANC must assume an overall political, strategic primacy over the legislative and governmental institutions in which we are located;
• this basic position of principle should not, however, be interpreted in a mechanical way. The range of decisions and responsibilities, the policy-making capacities, and the sheer pressures on legislatures and government institutions will often far outstrip the capacity of ANC constitutional structures to make a meaningful and timeous contribution. It is, therefore, a question of overall strategic leadership that is required from the ANC, and not a detailed, hour by hour intervention. Nor should we pretend that the definition of what is routine and what is of broader policy significance is easy, or likely to be undisputed;
• to ensure the effective development and implementation of ANC policy, it is also critical to strengthen ANC caucus structures in cabinet, legislatures, and wherever appropriate;
• for the same objectives, the policy-development capacity of the ANC needs to be greatly strengthened.

For the purposes of our National Conference we also need to debate structural arrangements that can strengthen the interaction between ANC constitutional structures and governmental and legislative institutions.

There are two possibilities:

• while the ANC in both the National Cabinet and National Assembly happen to be well represented in the present NEC, this is a matter of chance. Just as there is formal representation on the NEC from the Leagues, should we not consider, for instance, having formal representation on the NEC from the ANC National Assembly caucus?
• on the other hand, but with the same principle in mind of ensuring the broad representativity of the ANC`s leading structures, we could consider placing a cap (a limitation) on the number of Ministers, MECs, MPs and MPLs in the NEC. In the current ANC NEC, comrades from government and legislatures are in an overwhelming majority, to the detriment of greater representativity from the ANC organisational structures and the broader movement.

The Tripartite Alliance

The character of the ANC, as we have already noted, is partly shaped by its role as the leading formation in a broader alliance and a still broader mass democratic movement.

The alliance, like the ANC itself, is in the first place, based on the objective social realities of our country. South Africa is a society in which the great majority of our people have been (and remain) the victims of sustained national oppression, but in which the majority class force is the working class. The deep interconnectedness between national and gender oppression and class exploitation remains the core objective circumstance underpinning the tripartite alliance.

The alliance is also based on the strategic union of the three component formations. The strategic assessment of the leading socialist party in our country (the SACP), and of the largest trade union federation (COSATU), is that the socialist and working class struggles cannot and must not be separated from the national democratic struggle led by the ANC. The ANC`s alliance partners accept, and campaign for, a perspective of a common, national democratic struggle, requiring broad national unity of purpose in the face of the immense challenges confronting our country. Both alliance partners seek to win socialist and working class forces over to the ANC-led movement. Naturally, both parties will also seek to propagate their ideological and class perspectives within the movement. This is natural, but they must also be expected to do so in a non-sectarian and non-exclusivist manner.

We have already noted the underlying, objective social realities behind our alliance, and the broad national strategic convergence of the three alliance partners. However, an alliance also requires a clear programme of action. Such a programme is contained in the RDP. In the past three years we have not always succeeded in giving practical, programmatic and organisational expression to our strategic alliance. As a result, issues which have divided us, like government`s macro-economic strategy (GEAR), have assumed a prominence that is out of proportion to the realities of our situation. The macro-economic debate is a serious debate, but ours is not a “macro-economic” alliance, and agreements or disagreements on an issue like this should not be allowed to obscure the huge process of transformation which we are working towards. Nor should it obscure the vast areas of common interest and strategic agreement amongst us. In the coming period, the alliance needs to develop a much more concrete and shared programme of action around which we build our organisations, and our cadres.

If governance has added many new possibilities and also complexities to the tasks facing the ANC, it has also brought new challenges to the broader alliance. As members of a governing party, for instance, leading ANC cadres now find themselves playing the role of managers/employers of tens of thousands of ANC members/supporters, and also of organised COSATU affiliated public sector trade unions. The inevitable tensions in these new realities do not have to become unresolvable contradictions. Still less do these tensions have to lead to an “inevitable break in the alliance”, as some of our opponents hope. On the contrary, these kinds of challenges underline the need for an effective alliance that is able to manage and negotiate sectoral perspectives and interests within the wider context of a common national democratic transformation struggle.

Our alliance is an alliance of independent, autonomous formations that have a shared interest in each others` strength and well-being. We do not expect one or another alliance partner to submerge its interests or perspectives. Debate within our formations and between them is natural and to be welcomed. We do, of course, expect such debate to be conducted in a constructive and comradely way.

But our independence as formations should not be thought of as an indifference to the realities within our respective organisations. The ANC, for its part, has a direct interest in supporting its allies and their organisational and policy-making capacity. In particular, the development of an alliance-wide cadreship and the strategic deployment of ANC cadres across the range of alliance and MDM formation is critical for the ANC itself, for the alliance and mass movement, and for the coherence of our national democratic struggle.

The leading role of the ANC in the present historical circumstance (a circumstance that is likely to remain over a long period) is based on the centrality of the national democratic tasks confronting all progressive forces in our country. It is not a “pre-ordained” role, nor is it a leadership that can simply be asserted and then bureaucratically enforced. The chairperson of an ANC branch is not, automatically and by definition, the “leader” of the alliance in a particular locality. Leadership is something that has to be built, nurtured and earned in a continuous way.

The capacity to play this leadership role is not the sole responsibility of the ANC. The SACP and COSATU have every reason to help the ANC in developing this capacity. There are situations where an ANC structure at the local level, for instance, may fail to play a unifying and leading role. It may fall to a COSATU local to take up the process of rebuilding democratic forces in that particular locality. This task should not be undertaken in the spirit of “taking over from” and “displacing” the ANC, but rather in helping to rebuild an ANC that is capable of assuming its historical role.

Summary

The more than three years that have passed since the democratic breakthrough of April 1994 have confirmed that the ANC must constantly adapt and renew its character. The character of our organisation is not some timeless reality. But these past three years have also confirmed that the ANC, in assuming new responsibilities, must do so with a sense of the relevance of our historical and organisational experience.

The ANC is a broad movement, at the heart of a complex series of alliances and mass democratic formations. It is a movement that is capable of winning elections and of governing with discipline and coherence. In this ANC we have an organisational reality that may well be an important model for progressive political organisation in the coming century.