Internecine Factionalism

As the last chapter demonstrated, growing ideological differences over how to respond to militant strike action, Marikana and the ANC government more broadly have emerged within the Alliance. While the continuity faction advocates continued engagement with the ANC government and has been more supportive of Jacob Zuma’s faction of the ANC, the change faction has become increasingly critical of Zuma’s government and of the shortcomings of the Alliance in general. At the extreme end of this faction rests NUMSA, and among many commentators NUMSA’s move to break with the ANC and form a workers’ party reflects a welcome boost to an otherwise disjointed and poorly articulated collection of protest movements in South Africa (Bond 2014; Naidoo 2014; Saul 2014). Indeed, among some labour analysts the breakdown of the Alliance was an inevitable long-term consequence of its inherent ideological contradictions after the ANC embraced neoliberalism (Buhlungu 2005; Sparks 2003: 200), which is a welcome development that could introduce the long overdue ‘substantive uncertainty’ in South African politics and galvanise a new left wing electoral politics (Bond 2010; Gumede 2005: 272; Habib 2005; Habib and Taylor 1999b, 2001; Harvey 2002; Legassick 2007).