IMRAAN BUCCUS: New pact suggests left-wing has little chance at the polls

Reports that an alliance of self-described “Left” parties — the PAC, Azapo, ATM and BLF — are set to run on the same ticket in next year’s election, is just another indication of the sorry state of that side of the political spectrum in SA.

Post-apartheid SA has never produced a leader who could rally the Left in the manner that US senator Bernie Sanders did in the US, for example, or Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. The Left in SA has never even had a credible party on the ballot, let alone produced a leader such as Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who might actually have a stab at winning power. 

The new SA alliance is actually a new low for the Left, which has never had a viable electoral strategy since 1994. The PAC has a noble history — it is the organisation that led the Sharpeville protests in the 1960s and produced the great leader and intellectual Robert Sobukwe. But it has never enjoyed popular support since Sharpeville, and is now little more than an irrelevant talkshop that seemingly goes through the motions largely to keep the name of a once historically significant organisation alive.

The PAC’s election results since 1994 have been dismal. Its best performance was in that first democratic election, when it achieve a little more than 1% of the vote. Since then it’s got fractions of a percent, with a pathetic 0.19% in 2019. But while it has no significant support it can at least claim to have once had a history of being a Left nationalist formation. 

Dismal performance

This is also true of Azapo, the socialist group that came out of Steve Biko’s Black Consciousness Movement. But its performance in the democratic era has been every bit as dismal as that of the PAC, its best result coming in the 2004 election with 0.25% of the vote. In the last national elections it garnered a pitiful 0.07%.

Everything students in universities are taught about politics would indicate that SA should be among the countries in the world most receptive to the message of the Left, if not revolutionary social upheaval. Yet even under the current dire circumstances, including mass youth unemployment and widespread poverty, the PAC and Azapo have failed utterly to appeal to the electorate.

The July 2021 riots began as protests over unemployment, poverty and hunger before descending into nihilistic, criminal mayhem. But while mass looting of food reveals a deep social crisis, these riots, unlike the Arab Spring, never took a political direction.

One could argue that the almost 30-year failure of Azapo and the PAC to connect with existing popular organisations and struggles — including the trade unions and the Abahlali baseMjondolo shack dwellers’ movement — is much like the dismal failure of the various Trotskyite sects to win popular support after the Russian Revolution, a result of a self-defeating arrogance on their part rather than the electorate being unreceptive to the ideas of the Left. 

There is an argument to the contrary, occasionally made in these pages by columnist Peter Bruce, that South Africans are simply an inherently conservative lot. There are two reasons why I believe this is not necessarily the case. The first is that millions rallied behind the trade unions and UDF — both left-wing in orientation — during the 1980s.

The second is that SA’s biggest popular organisations that are not political parties — Abahlali baseMjondolo and the country's biggest trade union, Numsa — are both firmly of the Left. Numsa identifies as Marxist-Leninist and runs Marxist political education for its shop stewards. Abahlali baseMjondolo identifies with “a living communism” and starts all of its meetings with the singing of the Internationale. 

Given that this implies that significant numbers of South Africans are at least amenable to the ideas of the Left, the failure of established left-wing groups such as the PAC and Azapo to win support is even more pitiful. 

The SACP has a far larger membership base than the PAC or Azapo but its refusal to extricate itself from the ANC has destroyed its reputation as a genuinely left-wing party, and it is unlikely that it will ever be a player in electoral politics in its own right.

Unlike the PAC and Azapo, the EFF has a gift for winning media attention and likes to portray itself as being on the Left, but in reality it is little more than a group of opportunistic carpetbaggers who flip-flop whenever it suits them.

Leader Julius Malema has supported Jacob Zuma, opposed Zuma and then supported him again. His party has even flip-flopped on issues such as xenophobia, and as a result its credibility is in steady decline.

Numsa found that it was unable to simultaneously run a large union undertaking regular strikes and start a left-wing political party. Meanwhile, though Abahlali baseMjondolo leader S’bu Zikode is probably the most morally consistent and serious left-wing leader in the country, and it is possible that this could win the organisation support beyond its shack dweller membership, he has been steadfast in keeping well clear of electoral politics.

That leaves us with the ATM and BLF, both small, odious organisations started as fronts for Zuma and the Gupta brothers. The BLF notoriously had some of its positions and pronouncements scripted in London by the thankfully now defunct Bell Pottinger, which had a history of supporting politicians such as Margaret Thatcher and dictator Augusto Pinochet.

The BLF has also endorsed the full range of conspiracy theories associated with the Trumpian right in the US, such as the Bill Gates Covid vaccine chip and 5G magnetising nonsense. Twenty years ago its leader, Andile Mngxitama, was seen by some as an interesting young intellectual. Now he is a figure of ridicule. 

The claim by the ATM and BLF to be left-wing is equally ridiculous. A mixture of rabid African nationalism and kleptocracy is most certainly not left-wing politics. On the contrary, it is predatory politics, more Jean-Claude Duvalier or Mobutu Sese-Seko than Lula.

The decision by the PAC and Azapo to form a pact with the ATM and BLF is therefore the end of any credible claim on their part to be organisations of the Left, which means there will be no genuinely left-wing party on the ballot in SA next year. 

A theory floated from within one of the tiny Trotskyist sects last year held that the SACP, Numsa and Abahlali baseMjondolo were about to form an alliance, but nothing has transpired. Speaking to insiders in all three organisations it is clear that their memberships were never even consulted, let alone this marriage being approved.

In fact, both Numsa and Abahlali baseMjondolo flatly refuse to even engage with anyone associated with the ANC. In the case of Abahlali baseMjondolo, whose members have been murdered at a terrifying rate over the years, it would clearly be impossible for there to be any sort of alliance with an organisation like the SACP that is joined at the hip with the ANC.

The collapse of the left in SA has been total. No analyst can give a cogent explanation as to why this is so, but it is undeniable.

• Dr Buccus is a postdoctoral fellow at the Durban University of Technology and senior research associate at Auwal Socioeconomic Research Institute.