Do MK and the EFF walk the talk?

The threat of “leftist” politics in parliament in the form of the EFF and MK Party is exaggerated. If anything, the two parties — which together account for about a quarter of parliamentary seats — are fishing from the same political pond, making them potential competitors rather than collaborators. And besides, they’re leftist in name more than anything else, say political analysts.

As Lukhona Mnguni, acting director of the Rivonia Circle think-tank, explains it: “Broadly speaking, South African politics are not ideological. They are driven by personalities and interests and then people find a language that they believe, a language that may very well mirror ideological positioning but is not necessarily ideological.”

By way of example, he refers to MK — a party he calls “an absolute externalisation of the ANC”. Consider how the party uses ANC paraphernalia and symbols in its meetings and rallies; this is “not a party that is trying to define itself outside of the ANC”, says Mnguni. “But it has to have a capturing political propaganda that gives a language to people who are dissatisfied with the ANC to turn against the ANC, but with a very ANC-esque vehicle.”

And so you have a party that talks Left — only, it walks Right, wanting “queens and kings, barons and emperors” ruling over the working class. “They want to repurpose a system of lords and serfdom long fought [against] by working-class families and poor people,” Mnguni says.

He adds: “Some of the people who [formed MK] had opportunities to ascend to the highest structures of the ANC — [Jacob] Zuma, for example, was president of the ANC. It cannot be that he has suddenly woken up to being the embodiment of the liberation of black people.”

The University of Johannesburg’s Steven Friedman is more scathing, describing MK as “the opposite of what constitutes a leftist party”.

We might have a few prominent black businesspeople, but nobody believes that the levers of the economy have moved from white people to black people

—  Steven Friedman

He situates the party within South Africa’s history: when the British were in charge, the business establishment was British, he explains. When the Afrikaner nationalists took over in 1948, they made sure there was a strong Afrikaner establishment.

“The 1994 settlement did not deal with that. We might have a few prominent black businesspeople, but nobody believes that the levers of the economy have moved from white people to black people.”

MK, he says, is a response to that. “You have people saying through the MK Party: ‘We are demanding a piece of the action. We also want to be people who are able to pull the economic levers.’ They are saying there is nothing wrong with corporate executives earning salaries that could keep three NGOs going for 10 years, as long as they are the guys getting it.”

Like Mnguni, Friedman refers to the language the parties are using. Though he wouldn’t place MK and the EFF in the same box, they both use “leftist-sounding rhetoric when addressing the plight of poor and marginalised black people”.

Only, he believes you can distinguish a left-wing party by considering issues from the perspective of a single mother bringing up two children in a shack, and then assess whether anything it says would benefit her. When it comes to the EFF and MK, “the answer in my view is clearly not, because what they are concerned about — both of them in different ways — is that there are still very severe obstacles to black people in business and in the professions, and that is what they want to change.

“I am not arguing that should not happen. It is obviously an important issue. But that to me is not left-wing because it does not propose greater social equality. It is not interested in a single woman bringing up two children in a shack.”

They [MK] want to repurpose a system of lords and serfdom long fought [against] by working-class families and poor people

—  Lukhona Mnguni

What of the EFF? It arrived on the political scene on the back of strong leftist rhetoric, and though it has softened its public approach, it maintains its position on land expropriation without compensation and the nationalisation of mines and the financial services industry.

However, its broader ideological positioning is less clear, says political analyst Ralph Mathekga. The party has styled itself as being left of the ANC, but hasn’t embraced a specific leftist tradition, such as Cuban-style whole ownership of the means of production or China’s state-led market economy.

In any event, in Friedman’s view, it’s not enough for a party to say it’s left-wing just because it wants to eradicate poverty.

“What I find interesting about EFF and MK proposals is that it’s all about ‘transfer power to us’,” he says.

“[MK parliamentary leader John] Hlophe says: ‘Take out the land clause in the constitution and we will decide who gets land and who does not.’ You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that if those laws go, if there is no constitutional protection, we all know the land will be distributed to buddies. That is why we have laws, to prevent this from happening.

“Credible left-wing programmes don’t say: ‘Let us decide what happens and everything else is irrelevant detail.’ They say: ‘We are going to introduce the following measures to benefit the following people, who happen to be people living in poverty. The programme is giving us the power to make decisions and we will make sure that those decisions are made in the best interests of the people we are concerned about.’”

To this extent, he believes no party in South Africa apart from Durban-based shack-dwellers association Abahlali baseMjondolo can credibly say it is speaking on behalf of the poor. And as evidence that the poor are on their own, he points out how the ongoing murder of Abahlali leaders hardly arouses the outrage it would if these were killings of middle-class formations.

MK creates an existential crisis for the EFF in the short term. The EFF will have to find its footing in terms of how it differentiates itself from the MK

—  Lukhona Mnguni

Practically, though, what does it mean to have two relatively prominent parties in parliament claiming to represent largely the same constituency?

According to Mnguni, the arrival of MK in parliament, particularly its choice to have impeached judge Hlophe as its leader, could force the EFF to rethink its decision to temper its rhetoric and behaviour.

He believes Hlophe may resonate “more than [Julius] Malema” with a segment of the politically disgruntled black elite, who self-identified with the historical struggle for the restitution of land and for black dignity.

“MK creates an existential crisis for the EFF in the short term,” he says. “The EFF will have to find its footing in terms of how it differentiates itself from MK, with the possibility of eclipsing MK and creating possibilities for growth.

“It may very well be that in terms of winning over the public and convincing the public of their relevance in light of a more radical player, MK and EFF do not co-operate but instead are in conflict with one another if the EFF is to survive at all.”

Like Mnguni, Mathekga believes the arrival of MK on the scene could cause the EFF to have a rethink. “The EFF could ask themselves how they rebrand themselves. They might think about moving towards where they think the ANC is abdicating [its responsibilities] and infuse a little bit of radicalism and nationalism,” he says.

For Mathekga, the question is whether there is even space for leftist politics in South Africa. He warns that South Africans have a low appetite for extreme politics, left or right, and they showed this on election day. That could shift the behaviour of parties themselves and how they engage.

“Once you compete in electoral politics, you are taking the position you have taken and almost subjecting it to a scientific evaluation [by voters],” he explains. “If it gets rejected, you are going to play according to the rules to adjust.

“The democratic process is biased towards moderation. Whether you like it or not, once you start participating in democratic elections, you are going to moderate because the system is wired for concession and moderation.”

Still, in Friedman’s view, the fact that South Africa doesn’t have a true leftist party is something those further along the political spectrum should be concerned about rather than celebrate.

“If you are affluent, you may have the knee-jerk stance that says: ‘Thank heavens we don’t have a left-wing party, because they will make my life miserable.’ But if you look at the past 100 years, you are far better off dealing with a credible left-wing party that makes clear demands than where these things land up in all sorts of places, whether it is industrial [action] or crime and other symptoms which occur when people don’t have a voice.”