ANC NOT A LEFTIST PARTY

The African National Congress (ANC) garnered international attention and global popular support during the late 20th century for being one of the leading organisations fighting against the apartheid system in South Africa. But what is the party’s legacy in 2024?

In this clip, Lunga Mantashe, a member of the Pan-African Congress of Azania (PAC)(@mypaconline), gives his perspective on the ANC. PAC split from the ANC in 1959 because it disagreed with the ANC’s position that “the land belongs to all who live in it, both White and Black.” For PAC, South Africa, or Azania as they refer to the country, belongs to the Indigenous African people.

While the ANC did produce some progressive and revolutionary leaders, since the time of the first ANC president, Nelson Mandela, the party has failed to adequately address the land question at the heart of dispossession and destitution for the African majority. White commercial farmers own about 50% of the land in South Africa, but White people make up only around 8% of the South African population. According to The Global Wealth Report 2024, released by Swiss bank UBS, South Africa is the most unequal country in the world. The World Bank goes further, saying that South Africa has the world’s greatest wealth disparity largely on racial lines.

As mentioned in the video, questions of inequality and poverty will persist under an ANC government, proving its centrist capacity to draw from both left- and right-wing forces. The ANC has recently entered into a coalition with the Democratic Alliance (DA), a majority-White party that is generally pro-West and pro-NATO in its foreign policy and which rejects real land reform, Black Economic Empowerment programmes and even the existence of a minimum wage.

Is Lunga Mantashe correct in his analysis of the ANC? Agree or disagree? Let us know why. Catch the full conversation on our YouTube channel under the title, ‘Is South Africa Falling for Xenophobia? Miss South Africa Competition Stirs Global Controversy.’