Factional battles ravage break-away parties



Professor Farouk Cassim says ANC

 members created problems in the COPE

and then left.



Lebohang Pita

@LeboPita

Power struggle and infightings in many political parties do not only lead to discontent members defecting to other parties or creating factions but often prompt them to form break-away parties. These parties do not come up with their own ideologies but continue with those of parties which they broke-away from, and this does not create an exciting political environment as all parties will have a similar manifesto and are poised to face the same societal problems.

The United Democratic Front (UDM) and Congress of the People (COPE) are break-away parties from the African National Congress (ANC) and they both resemble the ruling party in many ways as manifested in their respective mission statements.

Both parties (COPE and UDM) were vocal and flamboyant initially. Lack of resources and factional battles ravaged and has led to their abrupt failure to challenge the ANC.

The UDM, formed in 1997 by General Bantu Holomisa after he was expelled from the ANC, was radical and amassed huge support across the country prior to the 1999 general elections but today the party has failed to maintain what it stood for years ago.

Member of Parliament, Nqabayomzi Kwankwa, attributed the UDM’s failures to bad-blood with the media and lack of resources in a press conference with TUT students in parliament on 12 September 2012.

He claimed that the UDM had a good relationship with journalists but somewhere things turned sour and it affected the party’s politics.

“In the past we had a good relationship (with journalists) and then somewhere along the line something went wrong. We had to spend the last 2 to 3 years trying to make amends because it has become difficult for us to reach out (to the people).”

Kwankwa said lack of resources halted their progress in making change and they failed to communicate with their supporters as they focused more on trying to control their constituencies.

In relation to break-away parties, Kwankwa believes South Africa need to realize that to make politics in the country more exciting; only two opposition parties are needed.

Nqabayomzi Kwankwa blames the media for

the UDM's failures

“I don’t like this notion of creating 60 or 70 opposition parties. We should get to a point where we realize that we need two opposition parties. If you check the UDM and COPE’s manifestos, it is the same content written in a different way therefore we need two parties like in the USA.”

COPE, started in 2008 by struggle veteran Mosiuoa Lekota and Mbhazima Shilowa after leaving the ANC amid a bitter succession battle between the then president of SA Thabo Mbeki and incumbent Jacob Zuma, has been mired in a factional battle between Lekota and Shilowa since its inception.





The infighting has seen the party’s membership decline with former ANC members who left with Lekota in 2008 returning back to the ruling party.

Farouk Kasim, lead researcher in Lekota’s office, said the party’s problems were created by ANC members who did not want to see COPE succeed.

“Many people who created problems in the Congress of the People never really belonged to the party. They belonged to the ruling party. They came here to merely create problems and leave.”

COPE acquired 1.3 million votes in the 2009 general elections, four months after it was formed. But power-mongering between Lekota and Shilowa resulted in the loss of prominent members and a vast majority of its supporters.

Kasim reiterated that the party is in a rebuilding process and it is also recruiting new members.

“We have started from scratch and the number of people who have applied to be COPE members appear to be telling us that COPE is taken seriously by South Africans.”

The party was believed to be a failed attempt by Lekota to revive his political career but Kasim believes COPE still has a point to prove.

“We believe we have a place and we are going to grow and if we can get our house in order then we will be an important political formation in South Africa.”

 “We would like to promote an activist state where people will become active in their own course and where they will have the financial, administrative and technical resources to be able to argue their case.”

Both the UDM and COPE were poised to be strong political foes of the ANC but the leaders who formed both parties have succumbed to pressure brought on by the ruling party. They have resorted to being critical while the ideology of the ANC still runs deep in their veins.