South Africa's ruling African National Congress has begun demanding loyalty declarations from party members, according to News24, a move signaling desperation within a party that lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since the end of apartheid.
The loyalty oath requirement, announced as party treasurer-general Solly Mapaila urged members not to panic, reflects the ANC's struggles to maintain cohesion amid deepening factional battles that threaten both party unity and the stability of South Africa's coalition government.
The ANC, which led the struggle against apartheid and has governed South Africa continuously since 1994, fell below 50 percent of the national vote in recent elections for the first time in its history. The historic defeat forced the party into a coalition arrangement with smaller parties, including the Democratic Alliance, its traditional rival—a marriage of political convenience that has satisfied no one and pleased few.
Within this precarious arrangement, the ANC faces internal warfare between competing factions with fundamentally different visions for the party's future. Some members support President Cyril Ramaphosa's emphasis on institutional reform, anti-corruption measures, and market-friendly economic policies. Others favor more radical economic transformation, including expropriation without compensation and expanded state control of key industries.
These are not merely policy disagreements—they represent battles for control of state resources, patronage networks, and the spoils of political power that have become central to ANC factional politics in the post-Mandela era. During Jacob Zuma's presidency, such factionalism facilitated state capture on a massive scale, with politically connected business interests essentially looting state-owned enterprises.
Ramaphosa has worked to reverse that damage, but factions aligned with Zuma and others implicated in corruption retain significant influence within the party. They view anti-corruption efforts not as principled governance but as factional warfare by other means. Loyalty oaths, in this context, become weapons in internal battles rather than mechanisms for party discipline.
The demand for loyalty declarations raises fundamental questions about what, exactly, members are pledging loyalty to. Is it loyalty to the ANC's founding principles of non-racialism, democracy, and social justice? Loyalty to the party's electoral platform? Loyalty to specific leaders or factions? The ambiguity is deliberate—such declarations can be weaponized against rivals while providing cover for one's own faction.
Mapaila's call for calm suggests awareness that loyalty oaths risk backfiring, accelerating rather than preventing defections. The ANC has already experienced breakaway formations, including the Economic Freedom Fighters led by former youth league leader Julius Malema and uMkhonto weSizwe (MK Party) associated with Zuma. These splinter groups have drawn support primarily from frustrated ANC members and voters who feel the party has abandoned its revolutionary commitments.
In South Africa, as across post-conflict societies, the journey from apartheid to true equality requires generations—and constant vigilance. The ANC's internal struggles reflect broader tensions in South African society: between those who benefited from the party's patronage networks and those still waiting for the economic transformation promised at apartheid's end; between procedural democracy and substantive equality; between accountability and impunity.
The coalition government's stability depends directly on the ANC's ability to manage these internal contradictions. If loyalty oaths precipitate defections or consolidate a losing faction's control, the resulting instability could collapse the government, forcing new elections in which the ANC would likely perform even worse.
For ordinary South Africans, the spectacle of the ANC demanding loyalty pledges while failing to deliver basic services—reliable electricity, functioning schools, effective policing—epitomizes a political class more concerned with internal battles than public welfare. The party that once commanded moral authority as the liberation movement now increasingly resembles a patronage machine fighting over shrinking spoils.
Yet the ANC retains significant support, particularly among older voters who remember its role in ending apartheid and among communities where it has maintained effective local organization. The question is whether that support can survive another generation of factional warfare, corruption scandals, and governance failures—or whether the loyalty being demanded is to a party whose historical achievements can no longer compensate for contemporary dysfunction.
