ZIYANDA STUURMAN: Left is stuck amid shift to centre in GNU

It could easily be argued that the 10-party, ANC-led coalition government formed after the May 2024 elections shifted the balance of power in SA’s political system from the hard left to the centre in a matter of days. Once it became clear that the ANC was not going to retain its majority, the Jacob Zuma-led MK party looked like the clear winner against a backdrop of several parties stagnating or being in decline across the political spectrum. 

One could spend the rest of this piece arguing about whether MK is a leftist party at all, but taking the cue from the party’s “big government, small business” policies in its manifesto, it would be harder to place it elsewhere.

That aside, the party’s trajectory places it in the same boat as other parties and blocs whose ideology is clearer. Given that MK lost more by-elections than it won in its power base of KwaZulu-Natal in the second half of last year — even in wards where it outperformed the ANC in May — it is safe to say that MK’s momentum has stalled.

Similarly, the EFF is still reeling from its election day losses and its decision to stay out of government, save for a few loose agreements at the local government level in Gauteng, the Eastern Cape and elsewhere. And with the passage and implementation of legislation, regulations and policies designed to open access to the private sector in the energy, electricity, logistics and water sectors facing little resistance, it appears that there is little to no influential hard-left bloc remaining in the ANC.

If all of the above is true, where does the political left go from here?

Before the general election, the ANC wielded what was probably its last clear majority in parliament to pass a raft of laws aimed at wooing voters and silencing critics who say the party has forgotten its socialist roots. The National Health Insurance Act, the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act and now the Expropriation Act are clear examples of this. Implementation notwithstanding, MK, the EFF and whatever is left of the progressive caucus in parliament (notably smaller after the PAC and the UDM left the group to join the national coalition) will find it harder to argue that the ANC has failed to turn its manifesto proposals into government policy.

So far, what MK and the EFF have been successful in doing is reviving a private member’s bill first drafted by EFF leader Julius Malema in 2020. The bill is intended to abolish private shareholder ownership of the Reserve Bank and to curtail its independence in crafting monetary policy. This is hardly a bread-and-butter issue for most South Africans as the connection between the Bank’s ownership, independence to make policy, inflation and interest rates is tenuous but it is so far the only meaningful action both parties have co-operated on in parliament.

And even then, it is doomed to fail by simple political arithmetic: the EFF and MK’s combined 82 seats in parliament against the 10-party coalition’s 287 seats make it highly unlikely for the bill to pass in the National Assembly if it proceeds past the public says phase.

Outside parliament, once-powerful and influential hard-left blocs with influence on the ANC’s policy- and decision-making processes are struggling to adjust to the new paradigm.

Cosatu’s swift rejection of a grand ANC-DA coalition in the hazy days after the election results were declared undoubtedly created the coalition and cabinet we have now, while simultaneously creating a scenario in which a reform-obsessed ANC works with an anxious but ultimately pliant DA, buttressed by a group of partners happy to simply get stuck into their various governance portfolios.

Cosatu’s diminished influence mirrors that of the SACP. The latter has been more vocal in its rejection of the coalition government and the DA’s place in it. SACP leader Solly Mapaila spent months railing against the decision to work with the DA, explaining the SACP’s view of the EFF and other parties as more desirable governance partners and ultimately making the most serious threat yet of the SACP going it alone in elections.

While the SACP has contested elections only once before, in the Metsimaholo municipality in the Free State in December 2017, its effect was undeniable. The SACP fielded its own candidates, winning 8.7% of the vote and arguably weakening the ANC, which won 34.6%. The hung council was dissolved again in 2020 and though the ANC now holds the highest number of seats, it did not win a majority in the November 2021 local government elections and it may never do so again.

Amid all the personalities, personal animosity and political history between all the parties and blocs on the Left, perhaps the only reasonable answer to the question at hand is that the Left isn’t going anywhere, for better or worse.

• Stuurman is an independent political risk analyst.