Reconfiguring South Africa’s Left: A Fragmented Front Versus the Dawn of a New Power Bloc

Three decades into democracy, South Africa’s left is fractured and searching for renewed purpose and coherence in an ever-shifting political landscape. The central challenge is the elusive unity of organisation, mobilisation, and ideological purpose. Once the ideological and organisational engine of liberation, anchored in the Tripartite Alliance led by the African National Congress (ANC), the broad left now stands divided along ideological, generational, and strategic lines. And a clash of narcissistic leadership personalities.

The ANC’s loss of its majority in 2024, falling to 40% of the vote, has contributed to and accelerated this fragmentation, raising the question of whether the established left is decaying or a new, pluralist left bloc is emerging—potentially for the first time posing a credible challenge to the centre.

The Government of National Unity (GNU) has emerged as a moderate, predominantly neoliberal force spanning the centre but inclusive of left- and right-wing elements, which often provokes conflict. Despite volatility and the ever-present risk of collapse and dissolution, the GNU has largely settled into uneasy governance for now. The centre-left is represented in the GNU by the ANC, including embedded SA Communist Party (SACP) members, and the Pan-African Congress (PAC). Centre-right parties in the GNU include the Democratic Alliance (DA), Freedom Front Plus (FF+), Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), and some other small parties, while it also aligns with extra-parliamentary actors such as Solidarity, AfriForum, Sakeliga, and agricultural unions. A host of small parties fill the space in-between.

Meanwhile, the radical left, rejecting the GNU, continues to struggle with identity, purpose, mobilisation, and influence. The 2024 elections saw the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) fall to fourth place, while the newly formed, disruptive uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) unexpectedly rose to third, behind the two major GNU alliance parties, replacing the EFF. Both the EFF and MKP trace their origins to ANC fragmentation, competing claims of radical legitimacy, and personality-driven politics.

Longstanding socialist and workers’ parties, including the SACP and the splintered Workers and Socialist Party (WASP), retain ideological relevance but no electoral traction. Outside their dedicated following they are virtually unknown entities. The likes of Floyd Shivambu, who defected from the EFF to the MKP from which he was later expelled, is exploring new radical spaces, potentially forming another leftist nucleus. And another competitor for leftwing dominance.

From Struggle Unity to Post-Liberation Disarray

The ANC’s transformation from liberation movement to governing party brought both ascendancy and erosion. The Tripartite Alliance dominated early ideological discourse, but the focus shifted to technocratic governance centred in the Presidency, the National Treasury, the finance ministry, and the National Development Plan (NDP) project, sidelined radical left influence, and promoted the GEAR strategy under then President Thabo Mbeki.

The SACP derogatively dubbed this the “1996 class project,” engineering Mbeki’s removal, yet radical energy later migrated to social movements and parties such as the EFF and MKP, leaving the SACP in political no-man’s land. State capture politics under Jacob Zuma, and the oscillation between socialist and neoliberal tendencies under Cyril Ramaphosa, together with service delivery failures and large-scale corruption, eroded ANC support, culminating in the ANC’s 2024 decline and the GNU’s formation.

Two emerging centres of left-wing power now exist. Inside Parliament, the Progressive Caucus brings together the EFF, MKP, African Transformation Movement (ATM), and others. But more on an issue-by-issue basis than as a firm alliance. Beyond Parliament, there is no cohesion, but left-wing parties increasingly recognise the need for a broader mass alliance. Calls for progressive unity, anti-neoliberalism, redistribution, and state-led development have become recurrent, yet ideological fragmentation, leadership rivalries, and divergent strategies impede coherent alignment. This is where the biggest challenge for the left lies.

The ’Radical Left’

The ‘radical left’ comprises a diverse constellation of parties, unions, movements, and ideological formations advocating socialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-neoliberal transformation. Ideologies range from the EFF’s populist mix of Fanonism, Marxist socialism, and racial nationalism; to the MKP’s radical economic transformation with a racially exclusive African focus; to the SACP’s Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy within the Charterist tradition. These actors distinguish themselves from the reformist or centrist left, rejecting neoliberal policies and cooperation with the DA, and calling for systemic change rooted in working-class power, public ownership, decolonisation, and the eradication of apartheid legacies.

Advancing the theme of the need for a leftwing mass movement in South Africa, Gunnett Kaaf, Bloemfontein-based Marxist activist and high-ranking SACP member in the Free State, argued in his article ‘31 Years of Democracy: Neoliberal Crisis and Prospects for a Left Renewal in South Africa’ (Pambazuka News, 7 August 2025) that the left must urgently reorganise to confront the “neoliberal crisis” entrenched by three decades of ANC dominance.

Kaaf contends that the left’s renewal depends not on mainstream parties but on building mass popular movements capable of concrete struggles around basic income grants, decent jobs, quality public services, land reform, and sovereign industrial development. The kind of stuff that have been flowing forth from many a communist pen for many decades. Nonetheless, for him, grassroots victories are prerequisites for meaningful electoral success, as only organised popular classes can drive a shift toward a socially transformative, sovereign, and socialist-oriented agenda, he contends.

Kaaf’s call is echoed with varying emphases across the left. Floyd Shivambu, after launching the Afrika Mayibuye Movement, vowed to “unite the black vote behind a sensible movement, not a fiefdom,” advocating for a united left. SACP General Secretary Solly Mapaila has emphasised the importance of organised social forces in the Red October Campaign 2024–2025: “There can be no social revolution without a consciously organised social force, especially a class force.” In April, the SACP Central Committee endorsed a “Conference of the Left” scheduled for September to build a “popular left front movement” with other parties, though it has yet to materialise.

MKP founder Jacob Zuma, while not explicitly calling for a broad left front, has urged black South Africans to unite politically around the MKP. In early 2024, he hinted at “a united revolutionary front of the oppressed,” without formal follow-up. EFF leader Julius Malema has similarly emphasised “building a genuine movement of the poor,” echoing Shivambu by speaking of “revolutionary unity” and a “left axis” to challenge ANC centrism and DA liberalism, though he increasingly positions the EFF itself as that movement.

Smaller organisations like the WASP and NUMSA-aligned groups, splinter socialist formations, and informal settlement and civic organisations, consistently call for working-class unity, grassroots organising, and cooperation with trade unions and community movements, but none has produced a nationwide, binding electoral or organisational pact. In fact, “unity” remains little more than a buzz word wearing red socks.

Across these actors, the pattern is clear: mass-based unity and collective purpose are widely proclaimed, yet actual unity remains absent. Longstanding ideological disputes – Marxist Stalinists versus Trotskyists, Charterists versus Workerists, ANC/SACP-aligned COSATU versus SAFTU, to name a few – continue to dominate discourse. Until tangible organisation and coordinated action and purpose emerge, replacing rhetoric, posturing and impossibly convoluted and lengthy “discussion documents”, the prospects of a new front or movement making a significant impact within South Africa’s political landscape remain extremely uncertain… or unlikely.

The Numbers: A Stark Reality

If power rests on numbers, the left faces a sobering truth. In the 2024 general election, the ANC – whose left wing urges a break from the DA in the GNU – won only 40.2%. The newly formed MKP shocked many with 14.6%, dominating KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Gauteng but marginal elsewhere. The EFF slipped to 9.5%, while the SACP and WASP did not contest, and Shivambu’s Mayibuye had yet to emerge.

Opposite them stands a centrist bloc: the ANC’s moderate wing, the DA with 21.81%, IFP with 3.85%, and several smaller parties which, together as the GNU, command an unassailable National Assembly majority.

By-elections from mid-2024 to mid-2025 show MKP gains in some KZN wards, cutting into ANC and IFP support but remaining weak elsewhere. The EFF stagnated in urban areas, made small rural gains in the far north, and the SACP fared negligible where it ran. The ANC regained limited ground in Gauteng through the GNU’s stability narrative but remains vulnerable. The DA largely retained its wards, while the Patriotic Alliance (PA) advanced at the expense of both ANC and DA.

Membership claims tell a story of inflated overstatement: the ANC cites an unaudited, dubious 1.4 million (with a million recent additions), the EFF 1.2 million, the MKP 800 000, and the SACP 350 000, none independently verified, all most likely inflated. The WASP likely counts only hundreds or a few thousand. Together these figures probably constitute the entire size of the registered electorate. More realistically, together, these figures show the collective left remains far from power—yet capable of growing as a disruptive, progressive opposition force. And the latter is important.

Could They Make a Difference — Alone or Together?

Theoretically, a united left bloc combining MKP, EFF, and SACP support — even at considerably less than their claimed strength — could perhaps command 25–30% of the vote. In practice, ideological contradictions and personal ambitions render such cooperation improbable.

It’s important to note that, for instance, the EFF’s urban, youth-based radicalism contrasts sharply with MKP’s ethno-populist, largely rural and traditional, Zuma-centred mobilisation. The SACP’s Marxist discipline finds little comfort in the EFF’s populist theatrics. And WASP’s insistence on class purity isolates it even from sympathetic trade unionists and perpetuates its prospects on the political and ideological fringes.

The only realistic convergence point might be issue-based cooperation — on anti-privatisation, land redistribution, nationalisation, or public sector wage battles — rather than a formal alliance. However, if the ANC’s internal balance shifts leftward, and it distances itself from the DA and centrist GNU partners, the calculus could change dramatically.

The ANC remains the gravitational centre of South Africa’s leftist politics — even if rhetorically socialist, structurally capitalist, and factionally divided. Despite entering the GNU with the DA, the ANC continues to rhetorically assert its commitment to the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), which envisions a socialist-oriented developmental state. But even this has recently thrust the ANC into a fierce contestation with its ally the SACP, when the two squabbled over who should focus on leading the NDR and who should advance socialism.

Furthermore, several key dynamics are worth noting. The ANC has repeatedly reassured the SACP and COSATU that the GNU is tactical, temporary, only a means to an end, and not ideological. Both allies remain sceptical but unwilling to completely break ties (although as already pointed out the SACP wants to contest elections on its own).

Communists/socialists and Radical Economic Transformation (RET) remnants within the ANC view the GNU as a betrayal and have sympathies toward MKP or EFF narratives. A leftward pivot, should the GNU collapse or prove unstable, could see the ANC reassert its socialist credentials, re-engage the SACP in policy formation and revitalise the Tripartite Alliance (currently a lame duck), and explore cooperation with “progressive patriotic forces” — code for the EFF and MKP.

Were the ANC to exit the GNU, or form a new GNU that is leftist dominated without the DA and possibly one or two other parties, and reposition itself as leader of a renewed left bloc, several outcomes could follow.

· The ANC–SACP–COSATU could re-solidify their alliance under a “developmental socialist” banner.

· EFF cooperation could re-emerge under shared anti-privatisation and land reform goals, though Malema’s distrust of ANC leadership remains deep.

· MKP inclusion would be the most divisive, as personal animosities between Zuma and ANC leadership run high, but grassroots overlap in KZN makes pragmatic cooperation tempting. However, replacement of Cyril Ramaphosa with a new ANC leader from its radical leftwing, could smooth cooperation as Zuma’s biggest gripe is not the ANC, but Ramaphosa.

This hypothetical “Left Realignment” would likely focus on reclaiming the state from “neoliberal capture,” reversing privatisation, and reasserting economic sovereignty — themes that may in a less abstract and more tangible format resonate with working-class voters disillusioned by austerity, poverty, unemployment and inequality.

Strategic Outlook and Risk Analysis

The prospect of a unified or semi-coherent left front remains politically significant but operationally and practically uncertain, with a low potential probability at this stage. What is the outlook then?

In the short term up to the 2026 local government elections, one might expect some fragmented cooperation potentially with joint protests, rhetoric of unity, and selective coordination on labour and land issues among others. The ANC’s internal orientation will determine whether this energy channels into any kind of formal alliance or dissipates into fierce rivalry, with the latter being the most likely at present. The EFF and MKP will compete fiercely for the protest vote, which, together with a clash of leadership personalities, will limit prospects for joint action or campaigning. All of these make potential election pacts improbable or at least highly problematic.

In the medium term up to the 2029 national and provincial elections, a leftward shift at the ANC’s 2027 national conference could push the party back into the leftwing fold, with a variety of cooperation permutations being possible.

However, apart from that, three broad trajectories could possibly unfold: (1) fragmentation continues with the EFF, MKP, and SACP each carving niche constituencies for themselves, and the ANC–DA dominated GNU persists; or (2) the left realigns if the GNU collapses, the ANC pivots leftward, and closer synergy is achieved between the ANC, the SACP, the EFF, and possibly the MKP, while a leftwing collective such as a “People’s Front for Transformation” could be a realistic possibility; or (3) there could be a populist convergence with the MKP and EFF forming a tactical anti-ANC alliance, driven more by resentment than ideology, and destabilising the traditional centre-left spectrum.

Risks and Opportunities

A populist-left surge will bring significant political and economic risk as it would radicalise discourse, alienate investors, and strain fiscal stability. In the sphere of social risk, competing left populisms may heighten polarisation and erode institutional trust. As for opportunity, a disciplined left coalition, if economically pragmatic, could revive the redistributive agenda and reconnect with the working class. But that’s a long shot.

But for now, South Africa’s left is neither dead nor united — it is dispersed, noisy, and ideologically restless. Across this spectrum runs a shared undercurrent: resentment toward neoliberalism and yearning for a new social contract. If the ANC abandoned its uneasy marriage with the DA and returned to its historic socialist rhetoric and NDR project, it could perhaps once again anchor a broad left renewal — but this time not as a revolutionary vanguard, but as a pragmatic coalition against inequality.

For now, though, the left remains a potential force without formation and few realistic prospects. Whether it evolves into a strategic bloc or dissolves into populist competition will depend not only on ideology, but on leadership, organisation, popular support and also the ANC’s next move. Putting all of this together into a coherent, united proposition into which voters will buy on a large scale, will more likely than not remain as elusive as ever.

Stef Terblanche is an independent political analyst and journalist based in Cape Town.