(Note: I’m back! My sincere thanks Mayibuye Magwaza for maintaining this blog in my absence.)

Eusebius Mckaiser in the Mail & Guardian discusses the future of COPE, a political party that has been so quiet since the election that most people could be excused for forgetting its existence.

Although his diagnosis is pessimistic, I think Mckaiser nevertheless overestimates COPE’s long-term prospects. The advice he offers is good, but even if it were accepted, COPE has three fundamental problems that are unlikely to disappear. First, it was always doubtful that a party which began as an elite-level project of opposition to Jacob Zuma could somehow transform into a mass movement, and this is especially true now that Jacob Zuma is actually president and COPE has effectively lost its raison d’etre. Second, the ex-ANC members who joined COPE are temperamentally unsuited to opposition politics: they came from an environment in which incumbency was virtually assured, and without the perks of elected office, they will become demoralised and dissatisfied with their new home. Finally, the strength of the ANC’s brand is such that COPE will always have enormous difficulty winning over ANC supporters, even if it can compete effectively on policy (which, admittedly, was not the case in the last election).

However, I think Mckaiser is absolutely right about the following:

Cope must choose: either it can hang on to the idea of politicians who have “no personal ambition”, who are willing to “be deployed” as the party sees fit, and have “no policy views” other than the “party’s views”, or it can allow party leaders to compete openly, fairly and without acrimony for all leadership positions. It would be wonderful if it chose the latter. It is about time South Africans saw the death of struggle-speak and the birth of a political culture based on honest contestation of ideas and leadership positions.

One of the more frustrating aspects of South African politics is the ritual dishonesty to which the electorate is subjected in order to spare us from the supposed horrors of US-style political campaigning. We were repeatedly told that there were “no factions in the ANC”, even as those factions were preparing to wage war at Polokwane. Similarly, Jacob Zuma repeatedly claimed that he had no interest in becoming president, even as he was orchestrating a massive campaign to achieve exactly that. As a result, we now have a president who somehow ascended to that office without ever having to make a public case for himself, without ever having to make a policy speech during either the ANC’s internal leadership struggle or the general election, and whose political preferences have never been tested by the marketplace of ideas. This is a disservice to all South Africans, and if COPE were to take a stand against it, it would be a good thing.