Struggling to Represent the Left: The Pan Africanist Congress, the Azanian People’s Organization, and the Independent Democrats

Abstract

South African politics has a rich tradition of leftist political movements. During the struggle against apartheid, the African National Congress (ANC) was the foremost of these movements, though the less prominent Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) was, ideologically speaking, more radical than the ANC. Since 1994, most political parties in South Africa have moved to the center of the political spectrum, leaving the ideological Left wide open. Aside from the South African Communist Party (SACP), which is represented in government due to its alliance with the ANC, the parties that occupy this space barely receive any electoral support. In fact, were it not for the proportional representation system, most of the parties of the Left would not be represented in the National Assembly (NA) at all.