The disasters of dominant-party capture from within

Single-party dominance and the uncompetitive electoral politics and political system that produce it are a problem because the dominant party becomes desensitised to the needs of the citizenry.

However, the damage may extend to democratic institutions, resulting in institutional uncertainty. When the single-party dominance coincides with the internal instability of the dominant party, as is the case with the ANC, the rot infects both the state and society in a manner that compromises national security and sovereignty.

In the period prior to a democratic breakthrough, the consolidation of dominant interests and creation of new opportunities for these interests becomes an imperative for forces inside and outside the liberation movement that is on its way to becoming the dominant party after the inaugural democratic elections.

In this regard, it is important to capture the political elites before and after the democratic breakthrough. The first thing that must be achieved is to make sure that the old elites have a voice within the dominant party. These voices must reach a point where their interests, and those of the old elites, become inseparable in accordance with the Gramscian idea that you do not have to be in power to wield power.

The new political elites must identify with the interests of the economic elites of the old order and must, therefore, make sure that the government adopts “pragmatic” economic policies.

Also, the emerging political elites must align themselves with the interests of the old security establishment given the fact that some in that security establishment were handlers of some leading figures in the former liberation movement. For this to work, those in the former liberation movement who resist attempts to capture the state, policy processes, the liberation movement and its leaders, must either be prevented from rising to the top echelons of the new government or be neutralised.

Former liberation movements are captured not only by external forces but also from within by cabals, cliques and factions. And sometimes the dominant party is captured by an alliance between internal and external forces. For the agenda of the external forces to succeed, the former liberation movement must remain strong and its centre must be controlled by leaders whose world view has become the same as that of their handlers outside the former liberation movement in its guise as the dominant party.

This sense of control is important because instability is bad for business and may create opportunities for hostile groups within the party to seize control and take the government in a different ideological and policy direction. In some cases, this may be a group of populists who seize power on the back of nothing more than a rhetorical commitment to the promise of a radical departure from the extant policy course. In this situation, things become even more dangerous and unstable when factions, cliques and cabals inside the dominant party seek to defeat their opponents by entering into Faustian pacts with the enemies of what was once a revolutionary cause.

Once this happens, the dominant party and the state become dens of iniquity that are populated by collaborators, handlers, crooks, looters and political con artists. It is where the ANC is today. For me, the decade since Polokwane has been a decade of ignominy. This is not only because corruption has become the dominant culture in the ANC. This has been a decade of ignominy simply because too many in the leadership of the ANC are enemies of the people and the revolution.

Some among them are now trying to refashion themselves as the antithesis and moral other to President Jacob Zuma.