ANC's future lies in active and activist structures

The calamity of the elections outcome facing the ANC is not just about the loss of state power, but a verdict passed on forms of organisation and conceptualisation of power by the ANC in the post-1994 period.

Without going into a long rendition of the glorious past of the ANC, it is important to note the historical source of ANC strength. It is not an oversell or exaggeration to highlight mass mobilisation as the engine of the ANC's popularity and more importantly, its legitimacy as the people's movement.

To a large degree, what the ANC considers its so-called strongholds today can in fact be traced to mobilisation efforts of the generation of the 1970s to the early '90s. Where every member of a household understood intimately the objectives of the mass democratic movement, understood the particular organisational and political challenges of the times and, importantly, the line of march.

The outward expression of this was observable during calls for mass boycotts or stay-aways, rallies of organisations linked to the mass democratic movement and the likes.

They represented the true strength of the movement and gave it an upper hand in the negotiation process. Of course, this was all aided by the oppressive system of the times, where there was one common enemy, aApartheid.

Fast forward to 1994 and post, one of the most glaring developments was the erosion of this capacity and mass mobilisation character of the ANC and its alliance partners.

The preoccupation was the growing importance of the state and its capacity relative to the ANC as an organisation. To an extent this became a major point of discourse in the years immediately following 1994.

As we reflect on 30 years of democracy and more importantly the epoch-making elections, where the ANC has lost its parliamentary majority, one cannot help but draw parallels between the mass-based ANC and that of today. Accounting for the evolution of time, one glaring observation is the disconnect between the ANC as an organisation and the people.

The relationship today seems to reside between the people and the state. The ANC only being factored in the equation as the governing party under who the state has collapsed.

But the ANC as an independent social force in between elections has largely been muted, except leading up to national elective conferences. The second is the quality and role of ANC structures context at a sub-national level, particularly at branch level.

ANC branches are no longer that glue of communities, where everyone knew if there was a community problem you had to find a comrade and they would make sure it was sorted.

Instead what you have today are internally oriented branches that are activated for internal elections of leaders, deployment processes or local and general elections. The current branch of the ANC, as described, certainly serves the purpose for internal processes. However, it comes short when it has to start engaging with the broader community for election purposes. Fundamentally, because they have lost the position of being drivers of ANC legitimacy among the people as agents of social organistation and activism.

So, today what we have is an ANC that lives among communities but the voter turnout is less than 60% for a general election. Where there are more than over13-million eligible voters that simply did not register. Meaning they did not see the need to participate in the democratic process.

One could attribute this to the despondency of the voter based on the state's performance but another angle, which I chose here, is the absence of the ANC as a community-owned organisation that is independently able to engage its direct community on local questions of development.

Outside of the closed networks of ANC comrades where the daily reference to each other is the term "leadership", nobody sees them as leadership. Reflecting the diminished social standing of leadership.

As the ANC attempts to navigate the difficult waters of establishing a stable coalition government, that will above all serve the national interest, it will be well-advised to remember its history and source of strength.

Through deliberate deviation, I want to make the point that at the centre of the idea of national interest is a popular state whose primary intent is to address the historical legacies of apartheid capitalism, while developing state capacity that will propel SA into a modern and dynamic industrial economy.

Almost all coalition options for the ANC present it with at lest one or multiple headaches. If it is not former president Jacob Zuma's MK Party demanding the recusal of President Cyril Ramaphosa in the formation of the new government, it is the more complex policy tensions between it and the EFF and DA as potential partners.

If the ANC chooses to go with the DA it immediately has to contend with a coalition that has divergence on NHI, foreign policy, the state's role in the economy and much more on macro-economic policy. It is safe to say that this will almost take us back to the policy tensions prevalent almost 25 years ago with Gear. If the ANC chooses the EFF, it will need to contend with the EFF's "nationalise everything" approach.

As pragmatic as the choice of coalition partner is, the national executive committee of the ANC will undoubtedly have to contend with these potential policy tensions and ensuring a state that has a semblance of policy coherence.

As an illustration of the importance of these policy tensions, let us consider one of the many coalition options on the table.

There is one perspective that suggests that the ANC goes with both the EFF and the DA. It is presupposed on the idea that the most immediate threat to SA's democracy and its constitutionalism is Zuma's MK Party, while appreciating that the DA's liberal outlook is the greatest stumbling block to transformation. The proposal is also premised on avoiding collaboration between the EFF and MK in the opposition benches.

It also minimises the damage of going into alliance only with the DA and the perception of the ANC drifting to the right.

Within this coalition arrangement, the ANC's centrist policy posture is envisaged to provide middle ground between the DA and EFF, thus acting as a cushion to the two extremes. The advantage being that it gives you a numerically strong coalition where the withdrawal of a single party would not automatically collapse the government. A crucial buffer for stability.

With this option, the most important instrument that needs to be created is policy coordination between the three parties on an ongoing basis.

Whether the ANC takes this or any other option, with the EFF, MK or DA, the policy coordination function will be central to the stability of the government.

In all this, there is one thing the ANC should not neglect in finding a policy equilibrium with any of the potential partners it goes into coalition with. The importance of having an active and activist ANC through its structures.The future of the ANC lies less in the choice of coalition partner and their ideological orientation.

Whichever of the options the ANC takes, it must go back to its mass mobilization character and rethink the state-party conceptualization of power.

• Dr Sipuka is chief of staff at the African Union Development Agency – Nepad. He writes in his own capacity.