Is Cope merely the anti-Zuma?

Two highly respected analysts have now asked roughly the same question in quick succession. Justice Malala in The Times and Professor Sipho Seepe in an article found in the Jewish Report (page 3 “Seepe sees short lifespan for Cope”) are querying whether there is any substance to Cope or is it really just a manifestation of the fear arising from a Jacob Zuma presidency?

Malala, in his assessment of Dr Mvume Dandala as Cope’s presidential candidate, is of the view that the “antidote to Zuma is not necessarily a Christian priest” and that the whole way in which the new leadership has been unveiled has been a shambles.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that Cope is deeply lacking in political strategy — and Dandala certainly does nothing to compensate for that. As priest after priest ascends to the top — from Pityana himself to Allan Boesak and Dandala — one has to ask again: “Is there any substance to Cope except fear of Zuma?” (Justice Malala)

Professor Seepe (president of the Institute of Race Relations) is even more damning and suggests that the party will not exist after the elections, it is purely there to try and avoid a Zuma presidency and should the ANC president achieve that, Cope will simply disband. “The party has no stamina and will not survive”.

Though I agree with both on what may have been part of the basis for the formation of Cope, I disagree with them on the long-term prognosis for the party.

An interesting analogy exists between Cope and the Whig Party in the US. The latter was formed in 1833 as a means of opposing the autocratic president Andrew Jackson and the Democratic Party. While it may only have lasted a couple of decades the Whigs produced a number of presidents before their demise around the time of the American Civil War. The issue of slavery proved too divisive and resulted in the Whigs in the north becoming part of the new Republican Party and those down south linking up with the Democrats.

Yet within the short span of their existence the Whigs ultimately changed US politics forever. Built upon key policy issues such as the power of Congress as opposed to the executive and protectionism they built a formidable party. One which had largely been founded, as stated above, to get away from an all powerful president in Jackson. Though some with vested interests later returned to the Democratic Party, for the majority there was no going back and they were to form part of former president Abraham Lincoln’s Republicans which beat the old enemy to the presidency.

In the case of Cope there can be no doubt that the sharp analytical mind of former president Thabo Mbeki picked up that there was a glaring lacuna in South African politics. In the fourteen years after South Africa became a multiracial democracy it had been governed by the “centrist faction”, for want of a better term, of the ANC. Polokwane and the decision of the majority of the 4 000 delegates at the party’s national conference, was that a material swing to the left should occur. While it was generally accepted that transformation was clearly under way it was moving far too slowly as far as they were concerned.

This meant that for at least the next four to five years, those who had been at the forefront of the party, and indeed government, would in effect be left out in the political wilderness. Moreover as a result of the division of the party into two separate factions ie those who supported Mbeki as opposed to those who followed newly crowned ANC president Jacob Zuma, the chances were that Mbeki stalwarts, long at the centre of power, would now be mere journeymen for the foreseeable future.

This not insubstantial group would thus be left with few acceptable alternatives: Sit back and wait for the pendulum of the party to re-centre itself, resign from the ANC and join the Democratic Alliance or simply give up politics altogether. That was until the arrival of Cope and the opportunity to compete with the ANC, primarily on its own policies. The centrist faction taking on the left-wing alliance. (Personally I believe a good amount of socialist software needs to be downloaded onto our capitalist mainframe but that is another article altogether).

What nobody can deny is that:

Cope fills a definite gap left by the centrist element of the ANC being sidelined for at least the medium term. It is a party with a strong black base, good struggle credentials and intent on pursuing primarily the centrist policies advocated by Mbeki. Unlike the DA it is not seen as a “white party” which arose during the bad old days of apartheid.

Cope has generated an enormous amount of support for a party that was not even in existence just a few months ago. Though obviously a lot of that is down to the Mbeki faction it certainly does seem to be striking a chord among voters who were not previously ANC supporters. This is why I don’t believe Cope will simply melt into the gloom after the election. Cope serves the needs of a substantial minority whose socio-economic profile has, in the main, arisen post-apartheid. The left-leaning ANC of the next government will be less and less appealing to this group of voters and Cope will be able to use the hard times ahead, to start making inroads into the ANC’s traditional base. Accordingly even if the pendulum should start to swing back a couple of years from now, that will be of interest to those centrists who have remained within the ANC not this group. Centrist in ANC terms, at that point in time, will be far left of where it was prior to Polokwane and the elections.

Though Cope and the ANC might be very close to each other on policies right now, post election a definite fork in the road will be reached. As the ANC begins to veer more and more left on policies such as land reform and finance, Cope will keep straight on ahead. Which means that by the time we reach the election after next, the gap between the ANC and Cope should be substantial. In place of who is the best party to implement the policies designed primarily by the ANC, you will have two distinctly separate parties. Again, this suggests that the group who currently see their future with Cope will hardly be likely to be drawn back towards a left-leaning party, which they abandoned and which, by then, will be even further over to the left.

If the ANC and Cope are ever going to merge then this would need to take place very soon. The financial implications of the global crisis allied to the left-leaning alliance now heading the ANC, will result in steps being taken by the next government that will leave a gap the size of the Grand Canyon between what was the centrist ANC (now Cope) and the ANC within months after the elections. Though individual members may return to the party that will not move the bulk of centrist voters who left the leftist ANC, to rejoin an ANC substantially more to the left than where it was when they departed. Accordingly though Zuma may well have been the prime catalyst for Cope getting started, its future is no longer tied up with his to anything like the same degree. Should Cope not stand the test of time it will result in another party taking up the slack as we saw in the case of the Republicans and Whigs.

Regardless, and whatever my own or others’ views on Cope, there does seem to be a large body of South Africans across the board who agree that the arrival of this new party has, for a myriad of reasons that I have set out in previous articles, strengthened our democracy and offered the voters of South Africa real choice in the upcoming election.