Political Division in South Africa (Redux)
Stop me if this sounds familiar: Recently prominent South African political leaders met away from the country’s major metropolitan areas in order to determine future leadership. The divisions were stark and clear and the leadership campaign tightly contested between two men, both of whom have their supporters and their detractors.
Welcome not to Polokwane 2007, but rather to the ANC Youth League’s (ANCYL) annual national conference at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein. Some of the dynamics from the meetings in Bloem took on different characteristics from the internecine fighting of their parent organization. For example, in Bloemfontein both of the major factions had supported Zuma, as did the ANCYL constituency generally. But much else was up for debate in the leadership contest pitting Julius Malema (who received 1 883 votes) against Saki Mofokeng (who received 1 696). Malema’s allies swept the top five leadership spots, despite the fact that the voting results were similarly close in the winner-take-all contests.
Is this the future that the ANC can look forward to over the next generation? Constant infighting and bitterly divisive conflict? Perhaps, but quite likely not. The current divisions in South Africa are not permanent, do not have to be etched in stone. Still, the proceedings in Bloemfontein were intense enough to rouse Kgalema Motlanthe, deputy president of the African National Congress, to criticize the “state of disorder” that characterized the ANCYL meetings.