Do ANC’s ‘radical forces’ have the belly to break away?

Are we witnessing the birth of a new political party? Is this the beginning of the much-spoken-about major splitting up of the ANC that will reconfigure our political establishment? There have been many predictions of an ANC break-up before, I know. Whenever Zwelinzima Vavi and his comrades at the old Cosatu House at 110 Jorissen Street in Braamfontein threw a hissy fit over yet another neo-liberal budget speech by then finance minister Trevor Manuel, there was talk of “the Left” forming its own party to challenge for power. That never happened. Vavi did walk, yes, but he did so almost alone, with most of his red-T-shirtwearing erstwhile comrades staying put within the tripartite alliance.

Others would argue that COPE was that moment. But the experience didn’t last long and many of those who had left the ANC to establish COPE following the ruling party’s decision to recall then president Thabo Mbeki from office are now back within the fold.

And then there is the EFF. It was not a breakaway in the true sense of the word considering that Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu had been out in the cold for a while, having been expelled from the ANC, when they set up the red berets. But the party did eat into a chunk of the ANC’s constituency and can be largely credited with the ANC’s poor showing in a number of metropolitan areas during the 2016 local government elections.

There is something, though, about a grouping within the ANC that calls itself the “Radical Economic Transformation (RET) forces” that has the hallmarks of a political party in the making. I am certain that many of those loyal to this grouping would protest at the suggestion that they have intentions of breaking away since they claim to be the true custodians of the former liberation movement’s values and objectives.

But their activities are those of people who no longer have any allegiance to the ANC, its president, Cyril Ramaphosa, and his national executive committee (NEC). The other day there were social media messages doing the rounds calling on “RET forces” in ANC branches to bombard Luthuli House with letters demanding that a national general council (NGC) be convened as a matter of urgency to discuss the Ramaphosa-led NEC’s apparent failure to implement “radical” resolutions adopted at the party’s Nasrec conference. These would have included things like “nationalising” the Reserve Bank and enforcing land expropriation without compensation.

At the NGC, the self-styled RET forces hope to use this alleged failure to implement resolutions as grounds to recall leaders and have them replaced by a caretaker structure, even though, constitutionally, the NGC does not have such powers.

The campaign, one hears, did not enjoy much support and Luthuli House hasn’t been flooded with calls for such a gathering from branches.

And then the bizarre Ace Magashule warrant of arrest story “broke” on social media. Despite the Hawks saying the whole affair was a hoax and that the arrest of the ANC secretary-general was not imminent, some of the RET forces saw it necessary to stage a protest outside Luthuli House “in defence of the SG” and to accuse other party leaders of using the Hawks and other state agencies to persecute Magashule.

Another detachment of the same forces, a day later, staged a march to the state capture commission demanding that deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo recuse himself as the chair of the commission. They went further to demand that the commission, despite its establishment having been endorsed by the Nasrec conference, be disbanded.

Clearly there are irreconcilable differences between this grouping and Ramaphosa over where the party and the country should be going. Judging by political developments within the ANC in recent months, the president enjoys the support of most party structures and the RET forces are now on the margins. All their recent efforts to upstage him have ended in failure. If this trend continues, it is clear that when the NGC eventually takes place, post-Covid, the RET forces would be posing no serious threat to the president and the like-minded.

So the only viable options left to this grouping would be either to succumb to the hegemonic grouping within the ANC or leave and set up its own stall elsewhere. Succumbing looks unlikely as it would mean accepting that some of the RET forces’ icons would have to go to jail for corruption.

But breaking away has its own risks, not least of which is ending up on the opposition benches with no access to state resources and patronage.

Can these “radicals” survive that? I have my doubts.