In defence of factionalism – political differences are not always divisions

THIS week it was the turn of Sizwe Mchunu, the DA leader in KwaZulu-Natal, to deny the obvious.

Macingwane (Mchunu’s clan name) told Independent Newspapers he had no knowledge of factions within his party.

This in spite of there being an official complaint from his comrades in the party that he was leading a faction and using social media to lobby for re-election as the provincial head of the DA.

He need only read newspapers to know Mbali Ntuli and Zwakele Mncwango want to replace him as the party’s leaders, come the April 25 conference. You have to feel for Mchunu. Opposition parties and we in the media love stories about there being different thought factions in a single organisation and milk this for all it’s worth, hence Mchunu and others’ discomfort on hearing about camps.

Even the ANC in Durban claims to be united, despite its members taking to the streets to march against their regional chairperson, James Nxumalo, who they effectively accuse of using underhanded methods to get elected.

Nxumalo, Mchunu, Julius Malema and President Jacob Zuma must not take it personally that there are those in their own parties who would overthrow them. Politics is about acquiring and keeping power, so politicians should expect others will want to usurp theirs at some point.

A party whose members have different ideas about who should lead the party, and where, is a healthy, vibrant and democratic party.

I can see why many leaders would be uncomfortable with this.

South African politicians and society are obsessed with “unity”, hence being termed a “factionalist” is a form of being politically assassinated.

One day South Africans and their political parties will appreciate that differences are not necessarily divisions and that those of similar thought tend to gravitate towards each other.

When they do they will also appreciate that having factions is not in itself a bad thing. Any party that has more than 10 members but does not have at least two factions (those happy with the status quo and those unhappy with it) should be worried.

Factions are the first proof that the party is not made out of automations who only think the official party thought.

The trouble with factionalism in ruling parties in general, including in SA, is that it is often founded on gathering those with the same economic interest in who becomes leader rather than on ideological bedfellows.

It is hard to say, for example, what ideological differences Nxumalo and his rival Zandile Gumede have.

Opposition parties need not suffer from the same stigma attached to factionalism since they do not have any patronage to dispense. But they must show what they would do differently if they were in control.

The Cosatu-Numsa divide is a perfect example of tension that gives those who choose sides a clear picture of what they would get by making their preference known. It is a pity that too is bogged down by the weight of “unity”.

Cosatu and its affiliates that support Numsa are wasting a good crisis by choosing to de-legitimise those they do not see eye to eye with instead of finding ways to keep this tension healthy.

Except when created for the obvious undermining of the organisation’s reasons for existence, factions can show that party individuals share the same ends, but differ on how to get there.

This can only be good for an organisation or party’s outlook since it means that it will have the benefit of many perspectives before arriving at a conclusion.

Any organisation without contrarian thought is bound to degenerate as a consequence of intellectual inbreeding which, as biologists have known for ages, results in recessive traits in the clan.

Such organisations might last and even thrive for a while but ultimately they implode under their own weight.

The Nationalist Party and the Soviet Union’s Communist Party are examples of parties that discouraged, even punished dissent that ultimately withered away.

Surely some Nats and Communists saw that their projects were not sustainable but were too afraid to colour outside the party line. Look at them now.

They thought the same thoughts and died the same political deaths.

Factions are themselves created by the failure of political parties to accept that there is no one truth. The idiom that if two people think identically, one of them is unnecessary, holds true for politics as for any other social environment. Instead of wishing divergence of thought away, political parties must explore ways of making the differences work for it.

Differences, like variety of thought are to be celebrated, not swept under the carpet. They are the spice of life.