The Patriotic Alliance: Making the power of ONE count in multiples of service delivery and economic emancipation for the disenfranchised

By: Clyde Ramalaine

Part 002 Is the PA a Coloured party?

Former Speaker of the USA senate, Tipp O’Neal told us long ago , ‘All politics is local.’’ The application of that local in the PA setting locates itself automatically as Coloured.  There is little doubt that since its formation the question the PA continues to face is its identity politics. Meaning is it an exclusive Coloured Party that fights for Coloureds interests? The details is in the adjective of exclusive as descriptive of Coloured  designation. Without avoiding the question in the bluntness of meaning, I think it is better to rephrase the question in asking what aspect of that identity [Coloured]  is the Patriotic Alliance more gravitating towards in its target to address as its pertinent issue? I do not think the PA is seeking to fight the generic cause of the discursive Coloured identity, which we already in Part 1 of this series alluded to as established that manifests in at least three streams. These are those who reject the label in preference for Aboriginal identities [Khoisan etc], those who reject it from the preference of a Biko Black Consciousness cohort and those who proudly self-identify as Coloured.

In this instance placing the PA at the modern post-settlement interstice of filing the content- meaning of that Coloured identity is not far -fetched notion though its best to appreciate the critical context of its reconnaissance as that which attests a flagship concern of economic disenfranchisement. Attempting to fight the cause of a coagulum of coloured identity for a political party as its overarching aim may not only be compromising but also a cumbersome task where the milestones are less clear lending it for one to go off course.  This would naturally be a mean feat given the inter and intra contradictory dynamics of ideology, cultural interpretation and mix of class dispositions innately associated with this identity marker of Coloured.

It is here I wish to postulate the PA’s choice is then explicitly the central focus of economic upliftment as choice and less a generic Coloured identity cause. It can even be argued that at a subliminal level there is in the background a reverberation of a hope class migration notion also present, though implicitly. Locating the struggle for emancipation as the crossroads of economic disparities inequality and disenfranchisement is a salient, noble and sustainable choice since it brings the divided strands of the Coloured identity formulation and articulation into a synchronized reality of a congruent unassailable cause. If this is the PA’s identified cause its destiny can only be prosperous because the inaction and blatant negligence of ANC political power in the current leadership in SA presents a prolific  context for any opposition that has done its market segmentation to capitalise and grow.

The PA then appears to have fully understood it’s  foothold in community expression and has made its inroads from the bedrock of that acute awareness. It quickly understood the proverbial ‘power-of-one’ in a hung metro council. It furthermore proved cognizant not to antagonize but to solidify its presence in building bridges across other small parties in which the people’s issue of service delivery is the common denominator that points to its mantra of economic engagement for the disenfranchised.

It’s now history that the turbulent, nasty political, what I coined back then ‘vat-en-sit’ relationship between the Democratic Alliance [DA] and Economic Freedom Front [EFF] pact is long shrivelled up. This came at an expensive price for the DA who with its Herman Mashaba Mayor led the Metro with support from the EFF. We all know that the DA is bleeding from the inside with the departure of Musi Maimane, Herman Mashaba, and a slew of councillors that almost in weekly fashion abandon it.  It is also interesting that those who leave the DA all cite a common experience of white interest dominance juxtaposed to blacks merely being used as cannon fodder.

As things stand now, both the DA and EFF are not in control of for example the City of Joburg [COJ] municipality. The PA with a single seat became the influential powerbroker in a deal that saw to the ANC retaining the mayoral seat but not without forfeiting the important economic portfolio. Some may condemn the PA in this move as a having sold- out by lending support to the ANC, yet that’s only because they do not understand how political power is wrestled when you a minority in bed with a majority.  Equally, they do not appreciate the long game plan. Meaning with the PA’s undeniable growth be it by floor-crossing or by-election ballot victories it is geared to grow and present a larger contingent of councillors for the COJ which would entrench its bargaining power and influence to negotiate more portfolios.

It is perhaps hear that the fortitude, wit and acumen  of the PA leadership under its president Gayton McKenzie evidence an interesting and worthwhile dynamic. Placing the central focus where it matters as its party determined in economic upliftment made that portfolio an obvious and necessarily the correct choice to bargain with the ANC. The PA thus learned to box in a weight-division much higher than itself and began to dictate outcomes. One can even argue it was a classic business negotiation in which the business acumen of the PA overpowered the political acumen of the ANC.

The PA thus made the power of one to count in in an accruing multiplied fashion for selecting to make economic portfolio its target. While the DA and white privileged interest will cry in chihuahua sense of wild allegations of corruption (which is simply a deflection) it must concede that the PA with this single-seat weighed in much heavier and changed the dynamics matrix of City governance and by extension politics.

In recent months the PA has secured two more councillors from the DA in the COJ metro these are respectively Eldorado – Park and Ennerdale. With a soon to be contested ward 68 Riverlea area by/election the PA may boast four seats meaning its growth in city footprint since the last election is quadrupled. These are all historical apartheid legacy Coloured townships  which constitute the primary constituency of the PA.