Amandla! talks to Sidney Kgara of Nehawu

Amandla!: A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since we last talked. Then you were talking of the SACP standing for elections. Now we have a Government of National Unity. Some people say it’s actually a coalition with the DA, masquerading as a government of national unity. A fig leaf to cover the nakedness of that coalition. How do you view what has happened and where we are? 

Some people will actually say MKP, Cope, EFF, they are factions of the ANC. So if you take it at a superficial level, you could say the vote is still to the Left.

Sidney Kgara: Our analysis is, firstly, that the overwhelming majority of South African voters voted on the Left. Meaning from the centre-left on which the ANC stands, up to the MKP and EFF. Forget about the politics of the MKP leadership. Many people who voted for MKP are probably the least likely to vote for the DA. Some amongst them would have thought that they were voting for continuity with Zuma, being sympathetic to him in the context of the ANC. I don’t even think that they necessarily agree with the semi-feudal political perspective MKP has now. Some people will actually say MKP, Cope, EFF, they are factions of the ANC. So if you take it at a superficial level, you could say the vote is still to the Left. 

But the concept of national unity is narrowly focused in relation to the DA. In essence, it doesn’t meet the criteria of a GNU, properly so-called. You can bring smaller parties, but you must also, at that superficial bourgeois level (because in that context of government, we don’t consider class), look to the EFF, look to the MKP. A key facet of the NDR was to forge a nationalist consciousness amongst the oppressed in the first place but alongside non-racialism. Clearly, beyond the racial divide, there are ethnic fissures that are yet to be overcome. 

However, in practice, EFF was idealistic. Its demands for joining the government didn’t reflect the actual, real balance of class and political forces. They were impossible. And MKP was completely driven by a personalised hatred by Zuma towards Cyril, so they didn’t want to cooperate. ANC said it made many attempts to engage them. So, there can be a justification within the ANC for this current government. 

And there was internal division within the ANC. The dominant component of the leadership obviously favoured a line of engaging the DA, and for naive, but often well intended, reasons. The assumption is that capital is white in South Africa and actually has confidence in the DA, not in the ANC. This is despite what the ANC is doing to deliver their policies. So maybe it will enhance that confidence. And also we can address racial tension in that process. 

The ANC couldn’t be seen solely seeking a coalition with the DA—it would be suicide—everybody knows that. So you bring in as many parties as possible so that you create a semblance of national unity.

But the ANC couldn’t be seen solely seeking a coalition with the DA—it would be suicide—everybody knows that. So you bring in as many parties as possible so that you create a semblance of national unity. And as long as there’s no reversal of the gains so far, and if there can be at least a start to the implementation of the NHI and the basic income grant, then I think the picture can look different in 2029.

A!: But there is no macroeconomic policy in the ANC or in the DA that, in the next five years, will make any significant impression on employment rates or the broad standard of living of the working class. And if that is the case, then you arrive at 2029 with the ANC, jointly with the DA, responsible for an even worse situation. How does the Left position itself in order to be ready to take advantage, rather than these populist organisations which purport to stand for the working class?

SK: From our side, as Nehawu, there’s no debate. You can’t still want to convince the ANC about reconfiguration. It’s no longer a theoretical debate. It’s a practical question. 

The class has no leadership on the ground in the townships, in the informal sector, and to some extent in the small towns. Assert leadership there on the ground. Take leadership. Lead struggles on the ground. Defend the NHI, and fight for the BIG. Fight against any neoliberal macroeconomic policy. 

Focus on the next elections in local government; take issues on water, electricity, and indigency policy in the townships. From now on, take up those issues that are municipal because those are the sites of service delivery campaigns, where we have fragmented organisations that are also sometimes captured by opportunists. Although there are also well-meaning grassroot organisations, such as Abahlali baseMjondolo. Respect their independence, but take up the kind of issues they are struggling around, and work with them where it’s possible.

The point here is, in our analysis, we say it’s a scandal that in this election, there was no anti-capitalist voice. There is a rich tradition in our country.

A!: There was no real anti-neoliberal voice, actually.

SK: Yes. And we’ve got to also try to understand the alienation from the election. It’s not voter apathy, it’s alienation, but also, arguably, conscious boycott, withdrawal from the formal political process. And there’s a paradox. On the one hand, people talk about voter apathy, but actually, grassroots working-class communities are actively mobilising in their service delivery protests. There’s no apathy. They are just alienated from the formal, bureaucratic processes. 

It’s about building what the SACP calls a powerful movement of the workers and the poor, and in that context, you reduce the excessive focus on ideological sectarianism and build a broad front with other organisations. 

A!: A broad front has to take a political form. We cannot go into another election without, as you say, any political formation standing against capitalism, or at least neoliberalism. I listened to the SACP general secretary recently, and he said, ‘We’re not joining in with the neoliberal DA’. Well, what about the neoliberal ANC?

SK: It’s complicated. On the one hand, when you read the ANC manifesto, you can conclude that macroeconomic policy is actually anti-neoliberal. They don’t say anything on infrastructure for opportunist reasons. They know that they are continuing on the neoliberal project of privatisation. The ANC always produces reasonably good manifestos, but what it implements in government is different. We know manifestos don’t matter, but this can be confusing. 

But I think at this time now, the post-election, the good thing is it will be difficult to argue like they were arguing in the Congress. Comrades who opposed the idea of the SACP contesting elections have no leg to stand on. Even within the party, you are likely to see a shift away from the way they were shepherding us in the direction of the ANC. It is difficult to sustain the organisation in that way. But now I think the opportunities are unleashed. 

A!: I have two linked questions One is, where are we now in relation to the National Democratic Revolution? And then the related question is, will the Alliance hold? I was joking with you earlier on when I said you were in an alliance with the DA. But in a sense, it’s true. Cosatu is now in an alliance with the DA. Can this alliance be sustained, or will it rupture, or will parts of it peel off because they can’t sustain it any longer? How do you see all of that unfolding?

SK: Our analysis is that we are no longer concerned about the ANC. We are more concerned about the leadership of the NDR as a socialist strategy. Over the past 30 years, the NDR has taken a neoliberal trajectory. There’s been dilution, pragmatism, and opportunism in revising what it actually is. Instead, the NDR must take the form of class struggle on the terrain of building a sense of national non-racialism, deepening democracy while advancing the elements of class struggle.

Our argument is that the NDR has not been defeated just because the ANC lost a decisive majority. What we are arguing is that what is defeated is the neoliberal trajectory. Politically it is unsustainable. Socially and economically, it is unsustainable. Only 6.4 million people voted for the ANC out of 27.7 million registered voters, while a massive 42.2 million were eligible to vote. That’s just over 15% of all eligible voters. You can’t lead the NDR on that basis. 

So for us, this is a period of rebuilding. It’s not a period of just proceeding as if nothing has happened. The decline of the popular organisations, of the trade union movement has been happening since 1994. The rebuilding is not with the view of elections but a broader view of class struggle. Local government elections in 2026 provide an opportunity to project that anti-capitalist voice in the political discourse, but also in 2029.

A!: So how does that get organised politically? Under whose banner are they going to stand? Is it going to be a Popular Left Front banner? Is it going to be an SACP banner? How will it express itself politically? 

SK: Our view is that the SACP currently is the main coherent, large, Left, Marxist organisation. It’s one that can have the capacity to attempt a broad front, knowing that there can be pitfalls of ideological difference. That shouldn’t matter, but it can affect strategic and tactical questions. 

Our politics in this election, particularly, is largely drifting towards identity politics. From MKP, with a strong flavour of Zulu nationalism or tribalism, to the PA, the DA, with the racism and politics of liberalism, and the EFF, with elements of pseudo-militarism. You have the sort of context that gave rise to Hitler, gave rise to Mussolini, gave rise to Trump, gave rise to Modi.

It would have to be a different type of front. As much as possible, we can put aside whatever label you come with but also appreciate that the context doesn’t allow for the luxury you had in the 80s and 90s, where we could take the differences we had over the character of the Soviet Union and label ourselves in those terms. 

There’s a broad, reasonable consensus between us on the analysis of the situation with unions such as Numsa. Some things required time to take everybody together to see things in the same way.

You have to reconnect differently, but more genuinely, not instrumentally, just using people for election. It must be a genuine attempt to resolve people’s issues in the areas where they live. It’s a practical question. Build the structures of the working class, and you can organise the ANC differently yourself from outside. You can force it to make choices. But your main core is not them. You build new alliances. 

I think reaching a consensus on this, at a theoretical level, won’t be that tough in the party or in Cosatu. What’s going to be tough is practicalising it. Not every affiliate takes the issue of grassroots work and workplace organisation seriously. And not every region of the party or province of the party would take implementation of that type of strategy in the same way. If you are oriented in a right-wing direction, organisation is not important. What’s important is leadership and hierarchy.

But if you broaden your coalition, inject new energy, people can start reconciling themselves when they can see the difference they can make in the broader balance of forces. 

What is the Left?

During the discussion, Comrade Kgara said the majority in the election voted for the Left. Amandla! challenged Comrade Kgara on what he meant by that.  

A!: What do you mean by the Left? Where is the dividing line between the Left and everybody else? 

SK: There is an emerging centrist consensus: on the one hand, there is a neoliberal version on the Left (a neoliberal, centre-left ANC), and on the other hand, a neoliberal version on the Right (the DA). In this context, the Left is defined in terms of the broader political spectrum or parliamentary landscape. This does not narrowly pertain to Marxism, as such. To the right of Marxism, there is a form of Left politics hoping to attain ‘social justice’ within the bounds of capitalism. With the ANC, you can point to things like national health insurance in the manifesto. Or Basic Income Grant. That type of orientation. 

But at the same time, there are contradictions internally: there are the structural reforms of partial privatisation—of electricity, the ports, freight rail, telecommunications—through private-public-partnerships and through so-called blended financing. So the ANC is caught up in the same thing that is happening to the Labour Party in Britain and the Democratic Party in the US.

A!: Although, in MKP there’s the whole element of social conservatism, certainly in the leadership and probably the membership. 

SK: Even more reactionary than conservative. You can’t drive any revolution or transformation if you want to subject popular sovereignty, democratic sovereignty, to the traditional leaders. Basically, you are mimicking what is happening in Swaziland—the tinkhundla system. This even contradicts their fake agenda of radical economic transformation. Many of those who voted for MKP, and for Zuma in particular, would have done so in terms of what they may have seen as continuity with what he purported to stand for during his twilight years in the ANC—the radical economic transformation agenda.

When I’m saying to the Left, I mean from the ANC centre-left up to the EFF, including MKP. Their votes largely come from the ANC and EFF, as admitted by both these parties. There are people who would not have been voting for the ANC and EFF previously but for the IFP if they were narrowly driven by reactionary ethnic or identity politics. There are variations of that sentiment, but it represents the overwhelming majority of the vote share.

A!: In class terms, the leadership of the MKP represents that element of the African bourgeoisie which had no other means of accumulation than to take from the public sector. As opposed to Cyril’s generation, which took the first slices of the cake, direct from capital. So in that sense, they’re not Left at all.

SK: Except I would say, in my opinion, those are aspirant petty bourgeoisie, in the sense that they were excluded. These are disgruntled people, backed by thugs, in terms of funding, apart from the international component. 

There has been socio economic stagnation for almost 20 years in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, made even worse by Covid. We have only now recovered the size of the economy and the labour force pre-Covid. In that environment, sections of the working class and the poor tend to look to the populist and demagogic big men, like Zuma and, to some extent, the EFF, as their saviours or messiahs. 

Our politics in this election particularly, although it was already boiling under the surface, is largely drifting towards identity politics. From MKP, with a strong flavour of Zulu nationalism or tribalism, to the PA, the DA, with the racism and politics of liberalism, and the EFF, with elements of pseudo-militarism. 

You have the sort of context that gave rise to Hitler, gave rise to Mussolini, gave rise to Trump, gave rise to Modi. 

Sidney Kgara is head of Nehawu’s Policy Development Unit.