Polokwane, where the Jacob Zuma tsunami swept Thabo Mbeki out of the African National Congress (ANC) presidency last December, was an extraordinary event, bringing about not just a change of government in South Africa, but a regime change. As the New Oxford dictionary explains, the word regime has authoritarian connotations: "a system or planned way of doing things, especially one imposed from above." Like Mbekism.

This article is an attempt to explore the identity of the 'new ANC' - whether it will evolve into an democratic government, or turn into a regime. Much sooner than most of us expected, rifts are appearing, and predictably they are over economics. Zuma, for example, has been doing the rounds of business leaders and foreign governments, assuring them that "nothing will change," implying that under his presidency the country will continue Mbeki's orthodox, market-friendly policies. By no means is this what others in the Zuma camp want. Asked just what his policies would be, Zuma did a cop out - he would leave it to the ANC to guide him.

Where agreement does exist, it is that the Tripartite Alliance, founded in the mid-1980s (ANC, Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu), SA Communist Party (SACP) must be 'reconfigured'. Zuma's interpretation of this is that "While we work together in practice, each component of the alliance is an autonomous entity. No alliance partner can dictate to and seek to control others." (Mail & Guardian May 10 2008).

This is what Mbeki used to say, and while it mfight sound right for the new ANC, is it right for Cosatu, SACP, ANC Youth League, and Young Communist League as well? Will the new hierarchy, the six office-bearers at the top of the 86-member National Executive Committee, create the new regime? Does the hierarchy sense that the turmoil it is inheriting - "xenophobia," Zuma's weekend warning that "the rising cost of food is a time bomb that could result in uprisings," etc. - requires a return to Mbeki -style centralization and control of all the "levers of power" (as indeed Cosatu seems to believe - see "Vavi's interview" below)?

Economics define identity
The identity of the new ANC will be defined by economics. This is written in stone. How imminent then is the kind of warfare that opened an unbridgeable chasm between Mbeki on one side and Cosatu-SACP on the other? Just as Cosatu put Zuma in his place for communicating the good tidings to business leaders that "nothing will change," so Gwede Mantashe (secretary general in the new hierarchy) has put Cosatu and the South African Communist Party (of which bizarrely he is also chairperson) in their place.

In Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC, recalling the negotiations that took place in the early 1990s over what kind of South Africa would be configured by the ANC when it took over in 1994, William Gumede wrote: "Both Mandela and Mbeki were convinced that for a black government to gain respect in the West, it needed to follow economic and social policies modelled on those of Britain, Germany and the United States. Mbeki and others of his generation had seen African and Eastern European socialism in action, and wanted nothing to do with it."

The Tripartite Alliance is a different creature today. Cosatu and the SACP reject whole chunks of Mbeki's orthodox economics, and it is in ideological clashes with these partners that the ANC will reveal its hand. Below are extracts from frontline battle exchanges between it and its allies (if that is what they turn out to be). These exchanges go a considerable way to identifying the key areas of difference. Anyway, pressures from the black townships - over xenophobia, food shortages, unemployment, scarce public resources, etc. - could force changes in mindsets. The ideological clashes that took place 15 years ago are still there, even if in their early beginnings. [For an informed piece on the "developmental state" under debate in the Tripartite Alliance, see Karima Brown's Business Day article, "Glimpse into the shape of government after Mbeki").

Vavi's interview
In late February this year, Cosatu's secretary general, Zwelinzima Vavi, declared that in future "the cabinet, the presidency, premiers, mayors and strategic staff such as the DGs, who play a critical role in the interpretation and implementation of the policy, are people loyal to the ideas of the workers and the poor." There is more than a whiff of Stalinism about this.

In an interview with the (UK) Financial Times last December, Vavi scoffed at Zuma's assurances. Far from 'nothing will change,' he said, everything would change. Assessing Zuma, Vavi remarked: "When we say we support him (Zuma), we are not seeing him as a messiah who will solve all our problems."

Vavi was even blunter about Finance minister Trevor Manuel who, the FT had suggested, "is seen abroad as a man who has delivered fiscal discipline and macro-economic stability." Vavi retorted: "I don't like the policies he has been pushing. When I talk about marketers having a hand on the industrial policy of this country, he was in charge. We don't like the fiscal monetary policies he has pursued. We don't like boasting about a budget surplus." [Manuel's departure from politics (likely) would send tremors through the business community].

Naming the economic issues on which he believed there would have to be significant change, Vavi said: "The crisis of unemployment...their plight will be made a priority...a national emergency...the huge inequalities that exist. I am absolutely frustrated that we have seen jobless growth...Flirtation with neo-liberal policies in 1996 has been absolutely disastrous...We allowed the marketers to take charge of important departments and all they knew was that South Africa had to be exposed to the chilly winds of competition. They cut tariffs even faster than was required by the World Trade Organisation...In the process they undermined the process of growth itself, the manufacturing sector."

"We should have deliberately shifted the economy away from capital-intensive sectors to labour-intensive sectors...looked at the beneficiation of mineral resources...While I support the need for (Zuma) to go out and assure people, the biggest guarantee is to give South Africa hope for the future. Once they have lost hope and think their issues have been put on the back burner permanently then you will have instability."

Cosatu's priority tasks, as Vavi sees them, are: to bring down the up to 38 percent unemployment ("a national crisis") in spite of economic growth, fiscal policies that deliver low inflation and budget surpluses when spending is what the poor need, "huge inequalities," "flirtation with neo-liberal policies," the need to shift the economy from capital to labour intensive sectors, excessive tariff cuts, etc.

Mantashe rebukes Vavi
But just as Vavi repudiated Zuma, so Gwede Mantashe, secretary general in the ANC's hierarchy, warned Cosatu, as well as his own SACP. Mantashe told Cosatu not to meddle in the ANC's affairs. If it and the SACP thought they could use Zuma as a Trojan horse to take over the ANC, they could forget it. [To this an SACP member retorted: 'We will not achieve our goals through Gwede. We will look to the other 15 communists that serve on the NEC to campaign].

Mantashe's interview with the Mail & Guardian on March 14 2008 is one of the most significant to appear since the ANC's ousting of Mbeki. He drew lines in the sand: boundaries Cosatu (1.8 million affiliated members) and the SACP (50,000 paid-up members) should not cross in their relations with the ANC. Cosatu was a trade union federation and should see itself not as Zuma's manipulator, but as a "vibrant, independent labour movement." Any attempt to take over ANC leadership positions would be "disrespectful, unprincipled and opportunistic."

If Cosatu wanted to "mess them [the ANC] up", the ANC could do the same to them. "You created the impression that you created kings and princes and therefore in return you want to be rewarded. It is the most dangerous thing. It is actually bordering on an ultra-left approach to politics that implies (they) will just come in and take over. It doesn't work in real life."

Referring to Cosatu's and the SACP's resistance to privatisation of parastatals, Mantanshe said it was not necessary to nationalise First National Bank, Anglo Platinum or Sasol (oil-from-coal). It could have its own state-owned mining company and bank. Also, the ANC would continue with inflation-targeting and budget surpluses. Public Enterprises minister Alec Erwin (an Mbeki man who will quit politics next April) makes a similar suggestion: the state could create its own enterprises instead of nationalising existing parastatals. Mantashe touched on another controversial issue: labour flexibility (creating a lower paid tier of labour to absorb some of the jobless).

Assessing Motlanthe
But writing in the Mail & Guardian (March 13, 2008), Ebrahim Harvey, political commentator, former Cosatu trade unionist and Witwatersrand University doctoral candidate, raised a question mark over the hierarchy; in particular, over Kgalema Motlanthe (ANC secretary general under Mbeki, now deputy president in the hierarchy and seen by many as a moderate). Harvey says he has interviewed Motlanthe seven times since 1999, and while he (Motlanthe) had been "buffeted by the winds of neo-liberalism...I see a far more forthright socialist emerging...My interviews last year and early this year make it very clear that Motlanthe has moved to the left...The new Motlanthe welcomes the radicalisation in the ANC and sees no reason why anyone should try and arrest it."

Harvey added: "But the key question we must confront is: will Motlanthe go the way of most former labour leaders when they enter government? I don't think so. The key drivers for a radical agenda within the ANC will be secretary general Gwede Mantashe, communist leader (SACP chairperson) Blade Nzimande, and himself."

Mantashe's interview tells a different story. He is determined to ring fence the ANC's allies in the Tripartite Alliance. Over recent years, Mbeki was in permanent conflict with Cosatu and the SACP, and Mantashe does not want this to repeat itself; but he wants the ANC recognised as the majority political party, ready to debate with its two allies, but not beholden to them.

On the other hand, if Harvey is right, the staggering fact is that the new ANC will be shaped by two top communists and a socialist (whom he identifies as not likely to sell out in the way some other trade union leaders had done). They would genuinely move leftwards, but not try to impose their degree of leftward movement on the ANC.

Are selected members of the SACP now the ANC's think-tank? Or is the unfolding situation more subtle than that? There seems to be more in Mantashe's interview than meets the eye.

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