Twenty-one years after the African National Congress came to power in South Africa’s transition to democratic institutions and rules, a majority of South Africans would support the creation of a workers’ party to contest elections and fight for workers’ rights, according to findings of the latest Afrobarometer survey.
This level of public support for a new labour/workers’ party comes as a surprise given the ANC’s centre-left “tripartite alliance” with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), which professes to fight for the poor and working classes.
It also seems to give credence to calls by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) for a “united front” to lead the establishment of a political party that would better represent working-class interests than the ANC-led alliance (Cloete, 2014).
For more information, see Afrobarometer Dispatch No. 73.
