The ANC’s Crisis of Idealessness—and the Road Back to Democratic Renewal
The pathology of the ANC is a subject of growing fascination and frustration. For years now, South Africans both outside and in the party have been debating what exactly is wrong with the former behemoth that came to power so triumphantly three decades ago. It is not simply that the ANC is unpopular—though it is bleeding support across the country. It is not merely that the party is failing to govern effectively—though service delivery is in collapse and corruption is rampant. Nor is it just that its global standing has diminished—though its credibility abroad is probably nearing all-time lows.
Critics blame the ANC’s socialist roots, or its culture of patronage, or a lazy political elite living off the legacy of the struggle. These answers are probably not without a little bit of truth, but they are shallow, and serve no real analytic purpose. They describe the symptoms without diagnosing, or even attempting to diagnose, the disease. These symptoms are the fruit of a poisoned tree. The root lies elsewhere.
To understand that root, we must look beyond the usual blame games and observe what is actually missing: a guiding idea. The ANC has simply run out of ideas. And more dangerously, it no longer knows that it doesn’t know. The ancient maxim inscribed at the Temple of Apollo—know thyself—seems to not only have been spiritual advice but also political instruction. The ANC today is a living illustration of what happens when an organisation, once possessed of a historical mission, becomes severed from reflection, renewal, and self-awareness.
Bad ideas, not yet gone stale
In the late 1980s, when the ANC’s moral credibility was buoyed by its opposition to apartheid, the ideological foundation it leaned upon—centralised, state-driven socialism—was already showing signs of exhaustion in the wider world. Joe Slovo’s 1988 essay on the National Democratic Revolution hailed the ANC’s inheritance of Leninist and other socialist traditions. With regards to its contents, the broader national democratic revolution that Slovo envisioned was as much about moral and cultural uniformity as it was about political freedom.
Merging and smelting oneness at all thinkable levels from a country diverse by design, diverse by demography, diverse by geography, to name but a few. That being said, at least a centralising social democracy had not been tried in South Africa, and at least they had an idea and a broad strategy. Criticise as you will, but at least they had a plan, and a plan is organisational glue.
The economic boom that always follows democratisation predictably flowed over South Africa, and for a little more than a decade the economics of it all seemed to make sense. Inevitably though, to quote Thatcher, you run out of other people’s money. At some point, that is, centralisation falls prey to the strict regulation and political influence that are typical of centrally micro-managed economies. In our case a fair helping of mismanagement and corruption accelerated the seemingly inevitable economic slowdown.
The ANC should, at some point after the turn of the millennium, have realised that a shift in gears (away from GEAR) is in order. The revolution had by all accounts been won – the dawn of the modern African state was not just within their reach, it was by lying at their feet, begging to be picked up and carried home. All they needed was a new idea, a new goalpost for a new republic.
Instead of renewal the ANC opted for the devil that they knew: Revolutionary rhetoric, fingers in pies, and regulations upon regulations. By constantly avoiding serious ideological renewal, the ANC doomed itself to idealessness, and perhaps to irrelevance in the near future. In intellectual Darwinism, the ANC has shunned adapting, and seems to be rushing towards that alternative that Darwin reserves for those who refuse to adapt…
A New Vision: (Real) Power to the People
In this intellectual vacuum, Free SA’s “Power to the People” constitutional amendment offers a vital intervention. Unlike the ANC’s stale managerialism or populist theatrics, the amendment starts with a clear premise: the structure of power in South Africa is broken, and must be radically rebalanced to restore accountability.
The proposed amendment calls for a smaller, leaner national Cabinet, limited to 15 Ministers and 15 Deputy Ministers. This is more than a gesture of fiscal responsibility, but it is also a statement of humility. A bloated executive fuels patronage. A disciplined one fosters competence. This is all language which the ANC speaks but never practices.
Perhaps most radically, the amendment proposes that provinces should control their own policing. This decentralisation is not ideological. It is pragmatic. In a country as large, diverse, and unevenly governed as South Africa, a one-size-fits-all approach to law enforcement has proven disastrous. Localised policing would allow for targeted responses to crime and greater citizen oversight.
The amendment also seeks to prohibit monopolistic state-owned enterprises, many of which have become little more than vehicles for rent-seeking. This, too, reflects a new realism: economic transformation does not require inefficient behemoths; it requires fair rules and opportunities for all.
In effect, Free SA’s proposal responds to the ANC’s outdated centralism with a politics of subsidiarity, bringing power closer to where people live and experience its consequences. It reasserts the primacy of accountability and renews the constitutional promise of a government truly accountable to the people.
A Battle of Ideas Still Worth Having
The ANC has become what the Greeks might have called a tragic figure—one undone not merely by circumstance, but by its refusal to heed the Oracle’s warning. It did not know itself. And in that failure, it now leads a government unmoored from the people it claims to serve.
South Africa, however, still has options. It can choose transparency over secrecy, decentralisation over centralism, accountability over impunity. The Power to the People Amendment is not the final word but it is a first step away from the core that is rotten. And that step is long overdue.
The path forward lies not in nostalgia, nor in blind faith in the market, but in bold institutional reform. Free SA’s “Power to the People” amendment is not a magic bullet. But it is a serious idea. And it’s a new idea. And serious new ideas are what we most desperately lack.
We do not need another party promising to do better. We need a new grammar of governance, one that redistributes not just money, but decision-making. That is the ANC’s challenge—and South Africa’s opportunity.
