The African National Congress in South Africa: Reflecting on a Hollow Liberation

 The African National Congress in South Africa: Reflecting on a Hollow Liberation

The African National Congress held celebrations for its 113th anniversary on January 11.  Its origins are as a struggle movement against the apartheid regime in South Africa, and as a partner to workers and allied with the country’s communist party. Its contemporary status is as the ruling party of the country for the past 30 years, having recently lost its majority share of the vote in recently held general elections. The ANC has been accused of “selling out” on its promise to foster the creation of an equitable South Africa for all by the South African Communist Party (SACP) with which it is formally allied. Perhaps its recent loss of political dominance is a condemnation of this failure to deliver on its mandate. It has now entered into a coalition government with other parties including longtime official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance.

During the struggle in the 1980s as a liberation movement, the ANC recognised that in order for South Africa to truly “belong to all who live in it” social freedoms alone were not sufficient, that tied to these social freedoms was an economic agency that hitherto the apartheid government had, through policy and violent action, denied to the majority of South Africans. This speaks to an initial vision of a different type of economic order to accompany the move towards democratization, outside of the type of capitalism that operated in Apartheid South Africa, which saw social welfare and job protections alloted to the white minority while still prioritizing industrialization and relatively free markets.

Other prominent voices outside of the ANC who were part of the liberation movement, had also recognised the inextricable link between the achievement of social freedoms along with economic liberties, and the restructuring of the economy that would be necessary for a more equitable distribution in a free South Africa. Joe Slovo, prominent anti-apartheid activist lawyer, and member of the SACP during the struggle for liberation, made the insightful observation that

“It’s not difficult in South Africa for the ordinary person to see the link between capitalism and racist exploitation, and when one sees the link one immediately thinks in terms of a socialist alternative.”

The party still regularly refers to itself as a liberation movement, and this nostalgia seems misplaced given their position of power to turn rhetoric to action as the ruling party; their failure to do so stands in contrast to its claims of remaining a liberation movement in what it terms a “renewal phase”. At their anniversary event, they chose to point the finger at the official opposition party who govern one province, the Western Cape, on a provincial level. 

As of 2025, the SACP is somewhat estranged from the tripartite alliance, and is seeking to run independently of the ANC come the next local government elections to be held in 2026. Citing the “abus[ive]” nature of the alliance as it stands, the SACP’s general secretary reaffirmed the party would run apart from the ANC. One of the few parties with a communist platform, the ANC’s shift to adopting neo-liberal policy beginning as early as the presidency of Thabo Mbekhi and his adoption of liberal GEAR policy, has deepened the rift in terms of policy direction, with the SACP remaining firm to a vision of a National Democratic Revolution, that envisions socialism as a basis on which to establish economic and social policy for South Africa.

The ruling party’s policy decisions over the past 30 years have resulted in a stagnating economy; by National Treasury’s own estimates, weak growth of 1,1%  was expected for 2024; as it stands the youth unemployment rate sits at 45,5%. In terms of predicting what future policy direction the party might take alongside its coalition partners, a good measure is its track record thus far. Consider for instance the austerity measures that the National Treasury had begun enacting even prior to the coalition formation, and the continued deepening of austerity and prioritizing debt stabilization. It is apparent the party will be continuing on the trajectory of liberalization of the economy, and creating further spaces for privatization, if the the unbundling of state owned energy producer ESKOM is any indicaiton, along with “de-risking” measures to incentivize corporate investment. State institutions continue to struggle to deliver services while the wages of their workers and available posts continue to be cut as a part of austerity measures.

The ruling party has chosen to enact economic policy that as evidenced by rifts between it and its alliance partners, does little to bring material difference to the majority of formerly disenfranchised black south africans and does nothing to enhance the social freedoms that were hard fought for when the ANC could be truly said to have been a liberation movement.

Beginning in the 1990s they would lead negotiations into a political future for South Africa that would guarantee the enshrining of social freedoms that the apartheid government had repressed. South Africa came into its liberation from the oppressive apartheid regime at what Francis Fukuyama termed “the end of history”, amidst a wave of globalisation, democratization and a strong unipolarity that ensured the dominance of what became known as the Washington Consensus.  The Washington Consensus, emanating from the powerful nation of the United States, can be seen to be a guiding idea that would come to influence fiscal policy worldwide, as countries including South Africa moved to align themselves with its overarching macroeconomic principles: privatization over nationalisation, liberalization of markets and stabilization via “fiscal discipline". 

In contrast, during the struggle, the ANC pushed for a pan-Africanist and people-focused economic framework, one that more closely aligned with their tripartite alliance partners, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Union’s (COSATU) underpinning values, of aiming for democratic socialism rights for workers, and nationalisation as a means of redistributing wealth.

The ANC has often made reference to itself, as an actor, as both party and country, often switching indiscriminately between the two and not making as clear a distinction. Party decisions had ramifications for the nation, whether that be in choices of leadership, or policy decisions. During their period of historic dominance, the party line has been that they continue to be a liberation movement. 

Given we stand more than 30 years on from the end of the oppressive apartheid system, it is time to ask: liberation from what? And 30 years on, as it is weakened, will it still attempt to hold onto its fading valor?