A few months ago, Brandan, Business Day’s cartoonist, portrayed the ANC leader as head of the party and the leader of the EFF as head of policy. This cartoon comes to mind as the ANC continues to be forced into a policy corner by the EFF. Should we start worrying about this de facto coalition between the ANC and the EFF?By way of background, the EFF is a splinter from the ANC. When it left the governing party it took three critical things with it: its more radical policies, the ANC Youth League’s machinery and, apparently, the implementing capability. There’s a growing concern among ANC supporters that the party is increasingly being captured by the EFF, without a formal pact in place and without the EFF humbling itself and returning to the ANC fold. Ahead of the ANC’s 54th national conference at Nasrec in December 2017, the Jacob Zuma faction, stung by the electoral setback of 2016, sought to regain lost ground by adopting populist policies. Just days before the conference Zuma ann...

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