The pre-determined collapse of the blacks-only coalition

If all so-called black political parties were to decide to unite to serve the African majority, their coalition could claim almost 60% of the voting power bloc. That is not a guess. That is arithmetic.

Take the Johannesburg numbers. Take the national numbers. Add them up: ANC 22%, MKP 10%, EFF 10%, ActionSA 10%, Patriotic Alliance 5%, Rise Mzansi 2%, BOSA 1%, plus Al Jama-ah, UDM, ATM and other small parties. You get to 60%. Easily. In Gauteng, you get more.

That 60% is a government. That is a mayor, a premier, a president. That is a budget. That is the power to appoint the city manager, to decide where the R86-billion Johannesburg budget goes.

This coalition would be premised on working together to achieve more by the ANC, MKP, EFF, ActionSA, Patriotic Alliance, Rise Mzansi, BOSA and other small parties. On paper, it is logical.

All these small fish swimming in the ponds are ANC offspring and splinter groups. This is historical fact. MKP is ANC - it is Zuma's ANC. EFF is the ANC Youth League that grew beards. ActionSA is DA which is itself former ANC members like Herman Mashaba who left the ANC, went to the DA, then left the DA. Patriotic Alliance is the ANC coloured caucus that got tired of being taken for granted. Rise Mzansi and BOSA are ANC children who went to private school and came back with American accents. They all come from the same womb.

There is no reason they cannot rally around a common vision: to better the lives of the African majority. All of them say the same things in their manifestos. Jobs. Houses. End load shedding. Fix water. Stop crime. Land. Dignity. If you remove the logos and read their manifestos blind, you cannot tell which is which.

After all, they are all products of the same history and heritage of Mandela, Sobukwe and Biko. Above all, the liberation struggle mother body, the self-appointed leader of society, the ANC. Whether they like it or not, whether they admit it or not, they were all formed by the ANC's culture - its congress tradition, its branch structure, its love for the big man, its understanding of politics as access to resources.

But they have become permanently fragmented and disunited. Too much sibling rivalry, you can say.

And this sibling rivalry is not ideological. It is deeply personal.

It is the pursuit of big man syndrome that keeps them apart.

Everybody wants to be chief to be able to access and control resources. Nobody wants to be deputy chief. Nobody wants to be secretary-general who takes minutes. Everybody wants to be president. President of what? Of a party with 1% that can negotiate an MMC position.

In our culture, to be chief is not to serve. To be chief is to eat first, to sit higher, to control the kraal. Our politics has not moved beyond that. The party is not a vehicle to implement a vision. The party is a vehicle to get to the trough.

Zuma wants to be chief because he believes the ANC stole his legacy. Malema wants to be chief because he believes the ANC betrayed the youth. Mashaba wants to be chief because he believes both ANC and DA are corrupt and only a businessman can fix the city. McKenzie wants to be chief because coloured people must finally be chiefs of something. Songezo and Mmusi want to be chief because being clever in South Africa now means starting your own party.

All of them cannot be chiefs in one kraal.

In fact, today black unity is a mirage. Nay, an illusion.

We have been talking about black unity since 1960, when the ANC and PAC split. Since 1977 when Biko died and AZAPO and BCMA argued over his corpse. Since 2013 when the EFF left. Since 2024 when MK left. Black unity has never happened. Even in Codesa, it was Mandela and Sisulu negotiating while Sobukwe's people and Biko's people were outside.

Thus the white-controlled DA stands a better chance to be seen to be doing something for the disadvantaged.

This is the most painful truth. The last 33 years have taught us that the general populace believes that both black and white must work together to build a better South Africa.

The voter is not racist. The voter is practical. The voter says: I tried black-only government for 30 years. My street is darker, my water is dirtier, my child is more unemployed than in 1994. Maybe the idea that "black man, you are on your own" does not work in a modern state that needs skills, capital, and management.

The black-dominated ANC is responsible for this turn of events. It has done nothing but betray African aspiration. It promised houses and delivered shacks with solar panels. It promised jobs and delivered SASSA queues. It promised to kill apartheid geography and it built more townships further away. It promised to fight white monopoly capital and it married it.

And the non-existence of a black coalition to serve black material aspiration is confirmation, in the eyes of many, that black cannot work together.

That is a terrible perception, but it is a perception the black leadership has created. When a white party like the DA, with all its historical baggage, looks more united, more disciplined, more able to produce a joint statement than seven black parties, the ordinary person concludes: things become better when whites are involved.

In fact, it is white money that funds black political parties to fragment the voting bloc. This is not conspiracy. Follow the funding. The same family office that gives R5-million to the DA will give R2-million to ActionSA, R1-million to BOSA, R1-million to Rise, and R500,000 to PA. Why? Because it is clever. If the black vote is split into ten pieces, none of them can ever threaten the real economic structure. White capital does not need to win elections. It just needs to make sure the black majority never wins as one.

Well, black leadership has failed itself in one of the richest countries on the African continent. South Africa is not poor. Johannesburg alone has a GDP bigger than Kenya's. We have gold, platinum, coal, sunshine, smart people. What we have is leadership that cannot sit in one room for two hours without arguing about who must chair.

And in the next few weeks, as Johannesburg goes into coalition negotiations after the election, the unity talks will not be about satisfying the interests of the African majority but about what leaders can get for themselves.

We will not hear: How do we fix Rea Vaya? How do we bring back City Power? How do we stop hijacked buildings?

We will hear: I want finance. I want speaker. I want three MMCs. I want my wife to be appointed. I want my security company to get the tender.

That is why the blacks-only coalition is pre-determined to collapse before it even starts. It collapses not because white people destroyed it. It collapses because there is no black unity to begin with, only black ambition wearing black skin.

And while they fight over who is chief, Helen Zille - organised, funded, patient - will walk through the middle, pick up the pieces, and become mayor.

SANDILE MEMELA IS A VETERAN SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNALIST, AUTHOR, CULTURAL CRITIC, AND FORMER GOVERNMENT SPOKESPERSON. HE WRITES IN HIS OWN CAPACITY.