Are we better off without the ANC? Plus five talking points from ‘Vrye Weekblad’

South Africa is not in a good space, writes Piet Croucamp. Had it been a patient, Mzansi would have been in Baragwanath’s casualty ward. Columnists who focus on even the most positive political scenario cannot ignore the conflict, poverty and violence.

As a political party, the ANC is in a sorry state. Opposition parties are not really cutting it either. There is currently not a single party that can convince black South Africans that it is an alternative to the corrupt ANC. South Africans who see the liberation movement as a historical political home do not really have alternatives at the voting station.

But there is still enough sociological conservatism in our communities to avoid a repetition of the violent conflict of the 1990s. Then, thousands died in the bitter conflict funded and fuelled by the apartheid state security apparatus and enforced brutally by ethnic leaders and the ANC’s rural warlords. Currently, the majority of violence and political murders are as a result of political rivalry within the ANC. That doesn’t mean old conflicts with new agendas won’t rear their heads, but the political dynamics have changed. 

The question is rather, what will replace the political liberation theology. An even more important question is whether the new regime can convince the working class of the value of a healthy private sector, and the unemployed that state involvement will have to be limited to being a temporary social safety net. Any party that wants to replace the ANC will have to convince South Africans to think differently about the state and the economy.

That doesn’t mean Mandela’s political home will necessarily disappear from the scene. The day will come when they will have to shout from the opposition benches. This is, almost without fail, the route every other post-colonial regime north of Mzansi has taken. So too will the ANC. 

But will we be better off if the political dragon that is the ANC has been pulled under the waves of contradiction? Not necessarily. It is highly likely that the ANC will leave behind a scrapyard of conflict and despair and that no new political elites will emerge to lead us to the promised land of our constitution. But we are better than the ANC and our current political leaders. We’ll survive the ANC, because survival is, despite our weaknesses, in our genes. 

Read the full article, and more news, analysis and interviews in this Friday's edition of Vrye Weekblad. 

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