South Africa

Case notes

African National Congress (Jacob Zuma)

As an entrenched dominant party with multiple internal political traditions, the African National Congress (ANC) is difficult to categorically depict as holistically populist at any point. The period of Jacob Zuma’s leadership, however, is generally seen by the literature to be a “ANC’s populist turn” (Vincent 2011, 8), that fundamentally shifted the party’s political narrative. Zuma was previously the deputy president before being sacked by President Thabo Mbeki in 2005 on corruption grounds. From that point he became the figurehead of an anti-Mbeki faction of the ANC and its allies (Gumede 2008, 264), resulting in his successful challenge for the party leadership at Polokwane in 2007. He went on to lead the party to victory in elections in 2009 and 2014, before being forced to resign in 2018 due to a number of high-profile scandals. While Zuma’s own rhetoric, behaviour, and charisma was important in signifying the ANC’s populist turn (see below) the embrace of populism under his leadership was far deeper than him, including the rise to prominence of other figures representing a broader “politics of grievance and resentment” that came together around is presidential candidacy (Hart 2007, 86; see also Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2008; Tshabangu 2022, 46; Cooper 2015, 156; Bassett and Clarke 2008, 797). In Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s words, a nativist and populist politics “crystalis[ed] around” Zuma at the time of the Mbeki transition (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2008, 53). Hence, while Zuma’s own populist statements against the elite are relatively thin, such attacks from key allies within the party achieved enough salience to compensate for this in the party’s new discourse. The most important of these allies was Julias Malema, the leader of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL), who has been called Zuma’s “attack dog” (Glaser 2011, 89) and the “oft-quoted battering ram of the ANC’s 2009 electoral campaign” (Vincent 2011, 4).

Classing Zuma and the ANC as populist for the 2014 election is somewhat more difficult than in 2009. According to some sources the president’s persona and rhetoric after the election changed quickly, (“he can call the mobs off… he has no further need for their service,” (Glaser 2009, 11)), and in government he seemed to abandon any tactic of visibly fighting the elite – on the contrary making alliances with key business figures and continuing Mbeki-era policies (Glaser 2011, 68). Most significantly, in 2010 he moved against Malema and other “left populists” in his political faction who dramatically turned their fire on him (Cooper 2015, 156; Glaser 2011, 89). This “served to dampen the spirit of rebellion” that had previously characterised Zuma’s faction (Cooper 2015, 162). However, according to other sources, he did appear to rely on populist tropes in his second campaign (Melber 2014, 645), and deep into his late presidency (Melber 2018, 683; Plaut 2014, 637; cf. Horwitz 2016). Because of this, we’ve kept the ANC in the dataset for the 2014 elections, though this should be reviewed.

At the time of his ascendancy, Zuma’s appeal was considered by most observers to have been based in his “anti-elitist” credentials (Nyandera and Agwanda 2019, 82; Resnick 2010, 21; Vincent 2011, 4). The context for this was the aloof and intellectual image of Mbeki, which seemed to many of Zuma’s supporters to personify the betrayal of ordinary members and workers by the ANC (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2008, 77). Zuma, by contrast, played up his credentials as a non-educated foot soldier in the ANC’s struggle, remote from the self-serving elites who had taken over the party (Hart 2007, 98; Tshabangu 2022, 46). His being sacked by Mbeki and subject to numerous criminal and corruption cases allowed him to embody a sense of victimhood at the hands of that elite (Southall 2009, 319). In Glaser’s words, Zuma’s coalition was mobilised

against a range of ‘insider’ elites, first and foremost the leadership cadres and businessmen around Thabo Mbeki but encompassing, if often only subliminally, liberal judges and journalists, intellectuals, gender activists and urban sophisticates. Against these forces, the ‘Zunami’ represented an anti-establishment revolt (Glaser 2009, 9; see also Makulilo 2013, 196–97).

In doing so Zuma and the ANC consistently portrayed their political rivals as nefarious conspirators against the him and average people, calling them “witches” (Melber 2018, 683), “clever Blacks” (Shain 2017, 6), and “bright people” (media, opposition politicians) who think they know better (Melber 2014, 645). The sense of antagonism against this elite in Zuma’s discourse is tied up in his “trademark” song, Umshini Wami (“My Machine Gun”), sung so frequently by him that it became “part of [his] skin” (Gunner 2009, 27). The song had very few lyrics, but with its call-to-arms-message “drew boundaries between those perceived as insiders and those seen as outsiders” (Gunner 2009, 32; see also Resnick 2010, 22), and recalled a time when the ANC’s core project was not governance but “struggle” (Melber 2018, 683). As mentioned, much of the party’s rhetoric against the political class was outsourced to Malema, who for example, warned the party’s enemies “acting against the youth and the workers you are acting against the people who brought down the apartheid regime . . . they too can bring you down” (Vincent 2011, 4–5). While this is clearly evidence of hostility to the political class, we find that it is somewhat shy of a 3 on the OTH_POLCLASS variable, and we’re therefore coded 2.

The populist turn under Zuma had elements of race/ethnocentrism and hostility to business and capital – often tied together. Ndlovu-Gatcheni claims that Zuma’s politics had a clearly nativist component, awakening race-populist tropes that had been long-present within the ANC but somewhat subdued in the post-Apartheid era (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2008). Again, much of the evidence for this comes not from Zuma but from Malema, who, while leading at the ANCYL, made derogatory comments about Whites (Plaut 2010) and Indians (Shain 2017, 8), and accused black critics of the ANC of being “not really black” (Glaser 2011, 74). Relatedly, Zuma engaged in an “unabashed promotion of his Zulu identity” (Resnick 2010, 23; see also Sitas 2008; Glaser 2011, 87). This is partially relevant in populist terms because the ANC had previously been dominated by Xhosa leaders (Tshabangu 2022, 46), causing a sense of marginalisation among Zulu (Nyandera and Agwanda 2019, 83). However, this embrace may have been more an attempt to court votes in KwaZuku Natal (Paret 2018, 476) (a province where the ANC had traditionally struggled) (Resnick 2010, 22), rather than to frame national politics and “others” in ethnic terms. Regarding business leaders and the wealthy, numerous sources point out that Zuma positioned himself against “white monopoly capital” (Melber 2018, 683), and that Mbeki’s closeness with business leaders was one of the criticisms against him (Glaser 2009, 9), even though he maintained controversial connections with major financial elites before and after his election to the presidency (Southall 2009, 324). Given the presence of nativist rhetoric in Zuma’s coalition, but the avoidance of full-throated ethnocentrism, we’ve coded the party 2 on OTH_ETHNIC. Likewise, there are clear strands of hostility to financial powerbrokers within this discourse, yet not to the highest extent. Hence we’ve coded OTH_ECONOMIC 2. Despite overseeing a crisis of anti-immigrant violence during his tenure, we’ve seen no sources claim that anti-immigrant discourse was a apart of Zuma or the ANC’s rhetoric (OTH_IMMIGRANT = 1). Similarly absent is hostility to the military (OTH_MILITARY = 1).

Zuma’s rise has also been considered by many to have threatened democratic and constitutional norms in South Africa (Southall 2009, 326). The main initial reason for this appears to be his contempt for the judicial process and hostility towards judges (Gumede 2008, 267). As he was charged with both corruption and rape before his ascendency to the ANC leadership, Zuma questioned why judges were “not human beings”. (Vincent 2011, 5). Glaser claims that “[h]is mobs and allies gathered aggressively outside courtrooms, demonized judges as ‘counter-revolutionaries’ and successfully turned the tables on his prosecutorial accusers” (Glaser 2009, 10). Malema, for his part, repeatedly threated violence on behalf of Zuma and other ANC allies (Vincent 2011, 6; Southall 2009, 326). He also put pressure on unfriendly media, threatening them with legal suits and tribunals (Glaser 2009, 10). In government Zuma’s government became “increasingly tyrannical as it set itself up against the constitution and the rule of law,” and increased the state’s control over the media (Chipkin 2018, 101; see also Guha 2013, 7; Gumede 2008, 269). These are significant breaches of liberal democratic norms, but they do not quite rise to the threshold of 3 in our definitions – hence LIBDEMNORMS = 2. Zuma is universally considered to have been a “charismatic” figure (Nyandera and Agwanda 2019, 82; Resnick 2010, 21), who commanded a strong personal following among supporters. To Glaser, this became a “popular cult of Zuma – the belief in Zuma’s almost Jesus-like powers” (Glaser 2009, 11). Given the embeddedness of the ANC at the time of his ascension, we’ve coded the part 2 for CHARISMA under his leadership. Given that he was a former deputy president at the time of his 2009 election, we’ve labelled the ANC 2 on INSIDER in 2009 and 3 in 2014.

Zuma and his ANC are difficult to categorise ideologically. He has been called a “post-ideological” leader (Glaser 2009, 10), whose political appeal was “not a matter of left-right” (Nyandera and Agwanda 2019, 83). At the time of his ascension, though, he was considered a part of a leftward shift away from the pro-market policies of his predecessors (Chipkin 2018, 104; Gumede 2008, 267), hence the strong support he received from the left factions of the party. Given this, and the ANC’s general left leaning profile, we’ve positioned the party as L on LRPOSITION.

Economic Freedom Fighters

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) were formed by former African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) leader Julius Malema in 2013 after his expulsion from the ANC and fall out with president Zuma the previous year. The new party wedded Malema’s faction of the ANCYL with several smaller left-wing parties. In keeping with Malema's well-established confrontational style, the party combined a militant, revolutionary posture with a leftist policy agenda based on nationalisation of assets and land redistribution. The party received 6.35% in its first election in 2014, increasing to 10.8% in 2019.

The EFF is thoroughly anti-elitist (Akinola, Oluwaseum, and Tolulope 2015, 110; Nyenhuis and de Jager 2021), training most of its rhetoric against the elite of the ANC (Nyenhuis 2020, 412; Akinola, Oluwaseum, and Tolulope 2015, 109). The ANC elite is considered by the EFF to be a political elite estranged from the black majority, the latter having become a “voting, but powerless majority” (Mbete 2015, 41). A recurring theme of the EFF’s is that the ANC has “sold out” its original black working class constituency (Horwitz 2016, 548; Fölscher, de Jager, and Nyenhuis 2021, 448), for which it had “sheer disregard” (Adams 2018, 115). In Everatt’s words “voting ANC was equated with voting for more of the same – white economic control, white racism, ‘neoliberalism’, black elite sell-outs and little or nothing for ordinary black citizens” (Everatt 2016, 58). Much of this critique originally centred on Zuma, who was mired in corruption scandals at the time. Malema and the EFF called the president a “thief” in 2013 (Cooper 2015, 153), and pledged to send practically all leading ANC figures to jail for corruption (Nyenhuis 2020, 420). The attacks against the ANC continued after Zuma left in 2018, and in a debate he accused Ramaphosa of becoming “the enemy of the people” driven by personal gain and representing the economic elite (Nyenhuis 2020, 419). Aside from the ANC, Malema has also targeted the other major party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), which he also called an “enemy of the people” (Horwitz 2016, 543). More generally, Melama and the EFF have asserted the organs of the state itself were hostile to the ordinary people. In its first election campaign in 2014 the party played heavily on the clash between striking platinum miners and police in Marikana, which left 34 of the former killed, as a iconic revelation of the way that the ANC had sold out to capital (Mbete 2015, 41; Nyenhuis 2020, 419). He was later ejected from parliament for saying that the ANC had “murdered” the miners (Mbete 2015, 51). The EFF has campaigned with a highly confrontational style, often linking with protests in various cities and towns (Hurt and Kuisma 2016, 12; Mbete 2015; Adams 2018, 116). In each of its categorisations of the political elite, Malema and the EFF asserted a conspiratorial tone, accusing the elites of “stealing from the poor” for their own benefit (Nyenhuis 2020, 420) (OTH_POLCLASS = 3).

Shunning the post-1994 ANC’s rainbow nation narrative, the EFF “discard[ed] any pretence of support for non-racialism” (Everatt 2016, 58), and “equated elitism with race” (Resnick 2018, 276). The party has explicitly defined its “people” as black Africans (Mbete 2015, 41), and often referred to “whites” in categorical terms as the people’s enemy (Akinola, Oluwaseum, and Tolulope 2015, 109). Party posters included slogans like “’the honeymoon is over for whites,” and Malema has stated that white South Africans were collectively “thieves” (Mbete 2015, 36) and “criminals” (Akinola, Oluwaseum, and Tolulope 2015, 107; Welz and Kromrey 2015, 268) for their possession the nation’s land and assets. In practice, the concept of the white racial elite and the rich were merged in Malema’s discourse (forming “economic apartheid”) (Oso 2020, 251; Essop 2015, 214; Fölscher, de Jager, and Nyenhuis 2021, 543), in the same way that the black racial majority was merged with the working class (Hurt and Kuisma 2016, 14; Mbete 2015, 41). Malema has accused his black critics of being “coconuts” who are “not really black” (Glaser 2011, 73–74), and in the 2019 election accused Ramaphosa of wanting “to sound white, because you do not believe in the total liberation of African children” (Nyenhuis 2020, 419) (OTH_ETHNIC = 3).

Alongside the political and racial elite, big business and capital were considered as key enemies of the people to the EFF (Horwitz 2016, 548; Hurt and Kuisma 2016). The party’s 2014 election manifesto describes itself as “anti-capitalist”, and states the party’s goal to

emancipate [workers] from economic subjugation and oppression. The African working class suffered and continue to suffer excessive levels of oppression and exploitation as Mineworkers, Farm workers, underpaid Domestic workers, Petrol Attendants, Private Security Guards, and constitute the large pool of reserve labourers as they are [unemployed] (cited in Phadi 2020, 420).

The party called a minister “a dog of white monopoly capital” (Phadi 2020, 425). For this we have coded them 3 on OTH_ECONOMIC.

Not a lot is written about the EFF and immigration, but some scholars have noted that it has avoided xenophobic attacks on immigrants in South Africa, taking an “open and pan-Africanist approach to immigration, rather than a purely nationalist stance on the issue” (Hurt and Kuisma 2016, 2). After episodes of violence against foreign immigrants and refugees (particularly Zimbabweans) in South Africa, Malema has been a notable voice of opposition, claiming that he “did not want a vote of xenophobes” (Asuelime 2020, 14622), and criticising black South African’s who championed the global Black Lives Matter movement while not caring about violence against African migrants (Ruzungunde and Zhou 2021, 7) (OTH_IMMIGRANTS = 1). Though they were highly critical of the police, we’ve seen no evidence that they were hostile to the military (OTH_MILITARY = 1). The party’s manifesto mentions its “anti-imperialism”, but not that the domestic elite represents foreign powers (OTH_FOREIGN = 1)

EFF policy is considered by Fakir to have been a “hodge-podge of different ideological and political strains melding the incendiary politics of ‘radical blackness’ with the seeming elements of socialism” (Fakir 2014, 4). While some have associated the party with fascism (Satgar 2019), the party (as its name suggests) usually tends to be considered far left (Hurt and Kuisma 2016; Yende 2021; Fölscher, de Jager, and Nyenhuis 2021, 543) owing to its stated policy of nationalising assets like farms, mines, and banks without compensation, as well as other conventionally left leaning economic policies (Mbete 2015, 39; Adams 2018, 115). We’ve concurred with this, and labelled it FL on LRPOSITION.

The party is widely considered to be tied to Malema’s charismatic personality and his remarkable ability to command media attention (Mbete 2015, 35; 2020, 241; Roberts 2019, 101; Gunner 2015). Malema is the party’s “Commander in Chief” (Horwitz 2016, 543), and some consider a “cult of personality” to have formed around him (Calland and Seedat 2015, 305). One study of local branch members showed the centrality of Malema’s personality in the motivation of members’ participation (Essop 2015, 222). (CHARISMA = 3). Given Malema’s closeness to Jacob Zuma in the early years of the latter’s presidency, there could be an argument that he served as an “insider” in government at that time. We don’t think this is sufficient to register on our INSIDER scale, and have thus coded the EFF 1.

For several reasons, many scholars have considered the EFF to be threat to liberal democratic norms in South Africa. Malema has repeatedly made threats of violence against rivals, such as: threatening to “cut the throat” of a Democratic Alliance mayor (Horwitz 2016, 543); telling a crowd in 2016 that “we’re not calling for the slaughter of white people, at least for now” (Hitchcock-Lopez 2019, 319); celebrating attacks on white farmers (Morrell, Jewkes, and Lindegger 2012, 18); and encouraging supporters to “go to parliament… and shoot them randomly” (Horwitz 2016, 550). Perhaps the most notorious example is his singing of the anti-Apartheid era song “Shoot the Boer”, for which he was found guilty of hate speech (Akinola, Oluwaseum, and Tolulope 2015, 108). The party’s 2014 advertisements were banned for calling for the physical destruction of highway toll booths (Mbete 2015, 43). This is in keeping with the party’s self-identification as “militant” in its 2014 election manifesto (Horwitz 2016, 543). The combination of its uniforms (with red berets), its designation of Malema as “Commander in Chief” (Horwitz 2016, 543), and its rigid command structure (Paret 2018, 477) has given the party a “performatively militaristic” style (Nieftagodien 2015, 447). The EFF has also undermined parliamentary procedures, disrupting sittings and refusing to show up to disciplinary hearings. (Horwitz 2016, 543; Roberts 2019, 99; Yende 2021, 59), sometimes leading to violent altercations with the chamber’s security (Hurt and Kuisma 2016, 11). One such interruption was during President Zuma’s State of the Nation Address in 2015 (Calland and Seedat 2015, 304). Ideologically, Malema has a history of illiberal majoritarianism (Vincent 2011, 4–5), and party spokespeople have claimed that they want to create a “one-party system” (Horwitz 2016, 543; Fölscher, de Jager, and Nyenhuis 2021, 543). We find this sufficient evidence to code the party 3 on LIBDEMNORMS.

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