It appears every factional battle inside the African National Congress (ANC) leads to formations of splinter political parties chipping away at the flesh of ANC, reducing its membership and support. ANC internal factional battles are extremely costly: they lead to fragmentation and the formation of splinter political parties.

Corruption is the leprosy that is devouring the ANC internally. As factions form inside the ANC, they mark the initiation of splinter political parties. Factions leave the ANC with chunks of members and ANC voters.

I interpret this as mainly because of the lack of democracy in the parliamentary electoral system since 1994.

When the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) faction left ANC in 1959, it was mainly due to ideological differences. The founders of PAC were against the Freedom Charter, proclaimed in 1955, especially the preamble, which states that South Africa belongs to all those who live in it, black and white, and that no government can claim authority unless it is based on the will of the people.

The ANC under Chief Albert Luthuli was an important part of the compilation of the Freedom Charter, and later adopted it at the 1956 conference. Robert Sobukwe, PK Leballo, and Zeph Mothopeng were not impressed with the Freedom Charter, considering it a sellout document. The PAC left with a chunk of members and supporters. The PAC was more popular in Africa than the ANC in the early 1960s. The ANC was seen in Africa as a liberation movement collaborating with whites.

During this period the ANC had no state power, with no financial resources at its table. The departure of Africanists was not motivated by greed nor access to the state coffers but ideological differences.

Group of Eight

Then came the expulsion in 1975 of the Group of Eight led by the Makiwane brothers, Tennyson and Ambrose. The departure of the group did not go with substantial support and impact on the ANC. The ANC was not in charge of the state nor employment opportunities, and had no access to state coffers. The split was not motivated by money but by ideological differences, mainly mistrust of other races.

After 1994, with the ANC in government and having access to the state budget, the dynamics inside the ANC changed. The struggle for ANC power also became the struggle to access the treasury’s resources, the ministries’ budgets, state-owned enterprise budgets, municipal budgets, and so on. The fight for the ANC office was embedded, fused, and conflated with the fight for the Union building because of the ongoing parliamentary electoral system created in 1993, which subordinates the interests of citizens in making choice of members of parliament and local councils to the appointment of alumni by respective political party headquarters. Winning the ANC internal elections at the national conferences became equivalent to winning general elections for the Union building.

Nelson Mandela won the ANC leadership election in 1991 and became president of South Africa in 1994; Thabo Mbeki won the ANC leadership election in December 1997 and became president of South Africa in1999; Jacob Zuma won the ANC leadership election in December 2007 and became president of South Africa in 2009; Cyril Ramaphosa won the ANC leadership election in 2017 and became president of South Africa in 2018.

As a country, South Africa was placed at the mercy of internal party votes instead of the will of citizens of the republic. The fundamental flaw of the current Constitution was in placing the state power at the hands of the party HQ and not the voters of South Africa. The confluence of these parliamentary electoral laws and ANC internal electoral laws catapulted ANC delegates at the national conference into the driving seat at the Union Buildings, without a word from the citizens.

First Post-apartheid Split

The first post-apartheid split came when General Bantu Holomisa was expelled after stating that Stella Sigcau, the former prime minister of the Transkei, was implicated in a corrupt relationship with Sol Kerzner, a white South African business magnate and owner of the Southern Sun Hotel Group. The apologists and sympathisers of Stella Sigcau moved for Holomisa’s expulsion. Holomisa then left with ANC supporters and formed the United Democratic Movement, a new party that he formed together with Roelf Meyer, a former defence minister in the apartheid regime. The principled general was expelled to appease Stella Sigcau, a former Bantustan premier; so much for the principles of ANC leadership. The split was caused by conflicting attitudes towards corruption, with most ANC members supporting the standpoint of General Holomisa but the leadership supporting Sigcau. Under Holomisa, the UDM won 3.42% of votes in the 1999 general election, equivalent to 12 seats in the National Assembly. This was just a tiny slice of former ANC votes.

Then came the factional battles between Mbeki and Zuma, which led to the formation of the Congress of the People (COPE) after the ANC's Polokwane conference in December 2007. COPE left with a chunk of ANC members and 7% of the national vote, equivalent to 30 seats in the general election of 2009. This factional battle was for accessing state power – the treasury and the resources of the state. It had nothing to do with serving the interests of the people.

Then came the clash between Zuma and Julius Malema, the president of the ANC Youth League, which led to disciplinary action against Malema, the man who was earlier prepared to die for Zuma and was now at loggerheads with him. Malema was expelled from the ANC for sowing divisions within the ANC and bringing the party into disrepute, calling for regime change in Botswana. Derek Hanekom, the chairperson of the National Disciplinary Committee, found Malema guilty of bringing the ANC into disrepute and ordered his expulsion for five years. The matter was taken to a national disciplinary committee appeal chaired by Cyril Ramaphosa. Ramaphosa endorsed Hanekom’s decision and Malema was expelled in April 2012.

Malema and Floyd Shivambu, his deputy, decided to form a new political party rather than serving five years’ probation. They formed the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) as a political party using the policy of the ANC Youth League — economic freedom in our lifetime — as their launching thrust. The EFF left with a chunk of ANC Youth League members and their supporters. In the first general elections thereafter, the EFF got 6% of the votes, equivalent to 25 seats in the National Assembly. This was a thick slice of ANC support.

On the surface it appears that Zuma is the ANC-killer but in reality, it is the accumulated internal corruption and incompetence administered by the various ANC governments from 1994 till today that is the major cause. Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) took away 15% of the ANC vote in the last general election. It would be a false assumption to think that the 15% who voted for MKP would have voted for ANC if there was no MKP.

The truth is, Zuma formed MKP after his ANC slate and faction lost elections internally. This was especially when his former wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, lost in an election in the 2017 Nasrec Conference after DD Mabuza swerved and supported Ramaphosa instead of Dlamini-Zuma.

Does this mean that every factional battle inside the ANC will lead to another split and the possible formation of new political parties? That would be trimming and reducing ANC support to the bones.

Omry Makgoale is a prominent South African anti-apartheid veteran and former leader of the historic 1976 Soweto Uprising. He subsequently joined the ANC's armed wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe(MK), serving as a bodyguard to Oliver Tambo and an MK district commander.