Time+for+left+wing+to+make+exit,+Sparks,+Star



=Time for left wing to make exit=


 * The Star, Johannesburg, September 7, 2005**


 * By Alistair Sparks**

If Cosatu, the South African Communist Party and other members of the ANC left care about the political stability and economic well-being of this country, as surely they must, then they ought to do one of two things.

Either they must call a truce in their vociferous pro-Jacob-Zuma campaign and await the outcome of his trial before deciding what to do next, or they should leave the ANC-led alliance right now and form themselves into an opposition political party.

To carry on as they are, waging a struggle within the ruling alliance which neither side can win before the next ANC national conference in two years’ time, can only inflict immense damage on the country and themselves.

The government will be paralysed by one of the most protracted internal political battles in modern democratic history.

President Mbeki himself will be turned into a lame duck as he becomes immersed in the infighting, and the country’s image as a stable democracy will be seriously damaged.

Picture the scene when Jacob Zuma makes his first appearance in the Durban High Court next month. We have been promised demonstrations whenever he appears, so there will be toyi-toying outside the court with angry speeches and anti-Mbeki slogans – and with TV cameras from around the world rolling out this footage of South Africa’s apparent return to political instability.

Then picture that “rolling mass action” going on for two years.

Imagine the impact on foreign investors who are just beginning to emerge from years of scepticism and coming around to the view that we are a stable society after all and an interesting emerging economy in which to invest.

Nor should anyone underestimate the possibility of violence breaking out in the combustible atmosphere of KwaZulu Natal, where the Inkatha Freedom Party is undergoing a split with the breakaway of its erstwhile chairman, Ziba Jiyane, and the provincial ANC is in turmoil over the axing of their favourite son.

It makes for an explosive cocktail in the most volatile of all our provinces and poses the question of whether this is really the time and place for Cosatu and its allies to whip up a populist storm?

And what if, at the end of it all, the Left finds their man is convicted?

That would leave them exposed as rebels without a cause, political campaigners without a candidate, and agitators who damaged their country for naught.

So why not call a truce and await the verdict? If Zuma is acquitted, the Left can then bring him forth as their vindicated champion. If not, perhaps they can seek another.

But if they are unable or unwilling to do that in the interests of the country, then let them make the break now. It would be the honourable course, and in any event, the alliance itself is already dead in the water.

By accusing Mbeki of heading a political conspiracy to destroy his deputy, as the leftists have done, they have not only challenged his authority but impugned his integrity.

They have implicitly accused their leader of interfering in the judicial process, violating the constitution and breaking the law.

No political movement can survive that. Even if there is a temporary peace agreement, it surely points to what a divorce court would call an irretrievable breakdown of the relationship.

The alliance has, in any case, served its purpose. It was formed as a coalition of many different elements who shared the common purpose of ending apartheid and bonding our fractured nation together to stabilise the new democracy.

That achieved, the raison d’etre for the coalition’s existence has ceased to exist and the time has come for it to disband and its different elements to go their separate ways.

The ANC is no longer a liberation movement. It is now a political party with the task of governing a country in accordance with the policies the electorate has mandated its leaders to implement. For their part, the alliance partners represent their own specific constituencies – Cosatu the union members, and the SACP presumably those of the ideological Left.

And if they feel the ANC is no longer serving the interests of those constituencies, then they should break free and do so themselves.

This would be in the best interests of their constituents and the country.

The point is that 11 years of democracy have changed South African society as much as they have changed the purpose of the alliance.

One of the most striking features of these years has been the rapid emergence of a black middle class; indeed a whole new class restratification is beginning to overlay the racial stratification of the past.

As this happens, the fast-growing multiracial middle class is spearheading our economic growth as its members take advantage of low interest rates to buy homes, furniture, appliances, cars, clothes and the like, producing a boom in the property and retail sectors. It is also impacting on our politics as the reshaping of our class structure produces new constituencies Black South Africa has lost the uniformity of interest which forged the coalition when all were suffering the same oppression. Now black society is diverging into separate middle and working class interests, forming different political constituencies. This has created a fault line that runs through the alliance and renders it outdated and illogical.

By adopting such policies as GEAR and partial privatisation, the ANC under Mbeki has chosen to position itself behind the burgeoning middle class as the engine of economic growth, hoping that, in John Kennedy’s analogy, the rising economic tide will raise all boats.

This makes the ANC essentially a centrist party, which is not to say it has lost its traditional and emotional concerns for the working and unemployed classes, but politics, especially in government, is about making choices and Mbeki’s ANC has done just that. In the process the left-wing alliance partners find themselves out on a limb.

It is an unhealthy situation, for we now have a sizeable left-wing constituency that has no proper representation in Parliament. They have representatives there, but those representatives are locked into government through the alliance and are not free to oppose government policy in the legislature. The most they can hope for is to have insider access to the policy decisions of the leadership – which is what they are complaining they do not have.

In fact, Parliament itself is distorted by the alliance arrangement. It means all the opposition parties in Parliament are to the right of the ANC while the main opposition constituency is to the left.

Because of that the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, while it plays an effective watchdog role is not a realistic alternative government.

Meanwhile the true opposition, which could be an alternative government, cannot perform that restraining role because it is part of the regime.

The logical solution is for the left-wing partners to quit the alliance and go their own way. One can appreciate that they are reluctant to do so because government is where the jobs are and after years of struggle their members don’t want to forsake the opportunity for career advancement.

But they can’t go on having it both ways.


 * From: http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=225&fArticleId=2866883**