THE SOUTH AFRICAN OPPOSITION VS THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS: WHERE DOES SOUTH AFRICA STAND?

Like never before, our national parliament and other provincial parliaments have recently become a hive of political squirming. Doubtless, this has in part been occasioned by the arrival of the recently formed Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). The EFF has carefully crafted a strategy to become a distinct force to be reckoned with in parliament so that the people of South Africa - especially the poor and the working class - can see it as an alternative to the ANC. They seem determined to achieve this objective by any means including anarchy. This is by no means surprising if one merely looks at the genesis of this party and the political outlook of many of its leading protagonists.

Astoundingly the Democratic Alliance (DA), not to be outdone, has joined the EFF's anarchist bandwagon. The DA's strategy seems to be rested on the belief that if they were to support the EFF's unruliness, they will at least remain relevant to the black majority and that its status as leader of the opposition in parliament will not be eclipsed by the arrival of the rowdy EFF. This strategy seems like a double-edged sword for the DA because whilst it benefits it in the short term, it will certainly cause it greater harm in the mid to long term.

We say this because the DA is objectively known in South Africa as a well-oiled political opposition machine that has put the ANC on its toes for a long time in parliament. This they have done by successfully challenging the ANC to account on a variety of matters that are of particular concern to the public. The DA's steadfastness on properly researched topics to demand accountability from the ANC in Parliament has been a hallmark of its success in parliamentary opposition benches. This has been silently acknowledged and admired by some even within the ANC itself. This new strategy of working with the EFF in parliament to embarrass the ANC may well obliterate the DA's achievements in parliament.

If one carefully examines the EFF - beside it being an infantile political weapon of mass destruction -it is more like a Freedom Front Plus' (FF+) prototype in terms of its political and ideological extremism. The EFF and FF+ are just two sides of the same coin because their political demands and proposed solutions exclude everybody else in South Africa. Theirs is simply right-wing political syllogism!   

If the DA weds itself to the EFF it will eventually become a battered right-wing spouse of the EFF with no liberal credentials to speak of. The DA will find it difficult to explain to its constituency why it has now become a confused right-wing junior partner of the EFF. The only writing on the wall will be that: in their quest and desperation to attack and embarrass the ANC, together with their obsession with the aging President Zuma, the DA lost its political and liberal credentials and credibility at the altar of the EFF's right-wing junta!

The less said about Mr. Ndakunceda Wena Bantu Holomisa's United Democratic Front (UDM) the better. Suffice it to say though that anything militaristic will sound better to UDM's leader given his military proclivities. The militarization of parliamentary politics sounds better to Holomisa because it helps him indulge in some past time military nostalgia. Otherwise his UDM is no factor nor force at all in the national political spectrum.

What of the mighty ANC?

Following some rowdy but interesting scenes in parliament recently, the ANC resolved to reciprocate fire with fire. It unleashed Minister of Sports Fikile Mbalula to launch an unprecedented verbal attack on the opposition parties who dared to move a vote of no confidence to the current Speaker of parliament, Honourable Baleka Mbete. Minister Mbalula did a very good job in using denigrating language to reduce these opposition parties to mere counter-revolutionaries that are hell-bent on hating the ANC. Other than that we got nothing from the honourable minister.

The ANC further issued a statement calling the opposition parties counter revolutionaries intent on changing the Constitution by stealth and on derailing the revolution. Some of its leaders in the provinces also weighed in to castigate the opposition as unruly anarchists that are determined to project the ANC in a negative light by attacking its deployees in parliament including President Zuma.

Of note was the article written in the Daily Dispatch 22/09/2014 by the provincial Secretary of the ANC in the Eastern Cape, Oscar Mabuyane. In this article the ANC provincial secretary follows the same line in rebuking the anarchist behaviour of the opposition parties and accused the Daily Dispatch of siding with the opposition. One could not help but notice palpable anger in the tone of all these communications by the ANC. If there is so much anger amongst the leaders of the ANC regarding the behaviour of the opposition in parliament, then we should all be worried.

This anger can easily turn into the bloody confrontations we all wish to avoid at all costs. No sane leader of the ANC should wittingly or unwittingly propagate for the angry intolerance of the voices of the opposition. The legal and constitutional parliamentary framework created under the ANC government is recognized by almost all. This in itself is an outstanding achievement of our democratic order.

If the ANC shows irritation when the opposition becomes rowdy in demanding accountability from our deployees in parliament, these opposition parties will look for other public platforms to raise their grievances. They will go directly to the people and raise the very issues they are supposed to raise in parliament. What will follow are violent conflicts to the scale and proportions unimagined before. That we can ill-afford.

We do not at all support the use of insults directed at any member of parliament by anyone. Such behaviour should be dealt with in terms of the parliamentary rules. We cannot be making much about such incidents as they are a normal misbehaviour in any vibrant parliamentary debate. That is precisely the reason we have parliamentary rules to deal with cases of deviant behaviour when they occur in parliament. We do not need to have the Secretary General of the ANC issuing angry statements about such incidents because that has a potential to poison the entire political landscape. 

In fact any serious political player from whichever side of the political spectrum should know that politics is about power. In this connection all political parties will do whatever they have to and within the constitutionally permissible parameters to contest this political power. Parliament being a terrain and site of power will inevitably become a battleground for such political contestation. Absolutely nothing wrong with that!

The ANC has itself identified parliament as a site of struggle to push for a progressive and radically political transformation agenda. This it intends to do by using both its persuasive and numerical power to push legislation that augurs well with its stated political intention. By identifying parliament as a site of struggle than of jubilation is to precisely recognize that we will not have it easy given the inimical agenda of the opposition parties to ours. To a large extent this will constitute a struggle of opposites than unity of opposites.

Instead of running around trying to reduce parliament into a dormant political elephant we should be dealing with our own subjective weaknesses that have exposed us so severely to the opposition. We all know what these subjective weaknesses are but we decide to pick a destruction to avoid dealing with these weaknesses.

The ANC has been riling under the severe strain of a strong presidential center that has marshalled considerable resources to do anything to protect this center. All of us have collectively closed our eyes hoping that the strain visited on our organization by the incumbent president will just go away. Unfortunately it will not and instead things are to get even worse.

The Integrity Committee that will be tabling its work to the ANC Working Committee will have failed in its duties if did not look at the whole issues that surround President Zuma and their negative impact on the ANC. In fact, it would be just another political organ selectively to punish political opponents.

It is time to ask the question: where does South Africa stands in all this? South Africa is at a crossroad between progress and disaster. To save it from disaster and pull it back onto the path of democratic progress will need strong, dynamic and fresh activists that have not sold their soul to the highest political bidder. There are many of these activists both within the ANC and within our country. They just need to summon the courage of their convictions and do the right thing.

Mzukisi Makatse is a member of the ANC writing in his own personal capacity.

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