History of the African National Congress
[5] Its founding leaders were John Dube (President), Sol Plaatje (Secretary), and Pixley ka Isaka Seme (Treasurer), of whom historian Tom Lodge says:[6]These were men who retained close ties with the African aristocracy, the rural chieftaincy, who, while anxious to promote the general advancement and 'upliftment of the race', were also conservatives, concerned with protecting a moral and social order they correctly perceived to be under attack.
[7] Possibly inspired by Mahatma Gandhi's concept of satyagraha,[8] developed only years earlier in South Africa, the Congress protested the pass laws through a (somewhat sporadic) programme of passive resistance.
[6] A just and permanent peace will be possible only if the claims of all classes, colours and races for sharing and for full participation in the educational, political and economic activities are granted and recognised.
Upon his election, Prime Minister D. F. Malan set about implementing apartheid, particularly through a series of laws which further restricted the civil, political, and economic rights and freedoms of non-white South Africans.
[16] The Programme explicitly advocated African nationalism and called for the use of grassroots and mass mobilisation techniques – such as strikes, stay-aways, and boycotts – which in the past had been used successfully by other groups, such as the CPSA, but not by the ANC itself.
[2][11] In late 1953, in response to this expansion – and anticipating further legal constraints on the ANC's activities – Mandela proposed a new organisational system, known as the "M Plan", under which branches would be divided into "cells", each centred around a single street and headed by a steward.
[5] According to Lodge, the ANC's endorsement of the charter reflected the changing character of its leadership and membership, who in 1955 were more likely to have legal, trade union, or non-professional backgrounds than the earlier generation of professional and religious leaders.
[5] The Africanist bloc had generally opposed the Freedom Charter and the broader Congress Alliance, feeling that the influence of the latter had steered the ANC away from the African nationalism asserted in the 1949 Programme of Action, in favour of a new de facto policy of accommodating whites and communists.
[3][26][27] The launch of MK was marked by the inauguration of a campaign of sabotage attacks, beginning on 16 December 1961 with a wave of bombings against government installations which were (at the instruction of the High Command) unoccupied.
[24] In May 1962, a memorandum co-authored by Mandela, Tambo, and Robert Resha referred to the MK sabotage attacks as "the first phase of a comprehensive plan for the waging of guerrilla operations",[24] a position endorsed by the ANC's national conference in October 1962.
[29] The memorandum cited corruption, nepotism, and a misplaced focus on garnering international support over fighting on the home (South African) front;[30] and it specifically named Modise and ANC Secretary-General Duma Nokwe as culprits.
[35] From the mid-1970s, conditions for an armed struggle improved: Angola and Mozambique achieved independence in 1975, allowing the ANC to set up facilities considerably closer to the home front, and, from 1976, the Soweto uprising in South Africa saw thousands of students cross the borders to seek military training.
Also in 1979, Tambo directed Slovo to establish a special operations unit, whose focus became "armed propaganda": attacks on symbolic state targets, partly aimed at attracting new MK recruits under the slogan, "Swell the Ranks of Umkhonto we Sizwe".
[40] Concerns included drug smuggling, car theft, dagga abuse, drunk driving, and a general element of ill discipline, as when in 1981 a group of MK members refused to transfer from Zambia to Angola because they perceived the Angolan camps as a place of punishment ("the ANC's Siberia").
[43] Between the mutiny at Viana and a second only months later at the Pango camp, the ANC appointed the Commission of Inquiry into Recent Developments in the People's Republic of Angola, chaired by MK commissar Hermanus Loots (code-named James Stuart), to probe cadres' grievances.
On the other side of the Cold War divide, the ANC had a close relationship with the Soviet Union, which was staunchly opposed to the apartheid government, including in regional conflicts in Angola and Mozambique.
From September 1985, the ANC hosted in Lusaka and Harare several formal deputations from South African civil and labour groups, presumably with an eye to building partnerships and discussing aspects of a potential settlement.
[3][53] In this context, in 1986 Tambo sanctioned the initiation of the clandestine Operation Vula, through which the ANC would seek to re-establish an armed underground and political leadership inside South Africa.
[74] The result in KwaZulu-Natal came to be known as "negotiated", in the infamous phrase of an electoral officer – despite allegations of foul play, the ANC opted to accept the IFP's victory, probably in order to avert further violence in the province.
The composition of the rest of the top leadership changed, ushering in a younger generation – notably, Sisulu declined to stand for re-election and was replaced by Mbeki, while Jacob Zuma won the national chairmanship in a landslide.
[83] Providing evidence on the "just and irregular war for national liberation" it had conducted, the ANC, both in its submissions and in its oral testimony, acknowledged some abuses but emphasised that it had not intentionally sought to harm civilians.
In December 1999, following several years of planning and negotiations during the Mandela presidency, the ANC-led government signed R30-billion in defence procurement contracts, under what is commonly known as the Arms Deal.
The deal is commonly associated with the large-scale corruption that is alleged to have taken place during and after the procurement process, and some critics have said that it was a defining moment or turning point for the ANC government, less than five years into its tenure.
[93][94][95][96] Arms Deal-related corruption allegations have provided a series of political scandals in the years since then, and in 2003 the ANC Chief Whip Tony Yengeni pleaded guilty to fraud in a plea bargain.
[74] In the aftermath of the elections, the NNP, which had performed very poorly – and which had in 2000 attempted a failed merger with the DA[92] – announced that it would disband and that its members would join the ANC during the floor crossing period.
[110][118][119][120] Allegations abounded that ANC politicians on both sides were abusing their state offices in service of the rivalry – in October 2005, for example, top Zuma-aligned officials in the National Intelligence Agency had been suspended for illegally spying on Saki Macozoma, an Mbeki ally.
[132] In response to Polokwane and to Mbeki's "recall", a group of pro-Mbeki ANC members broke away and in November 2008 announced the foundation of a new political party, the Congress of the People (COPE).
They were led by former Defence Minister (and two-term ANC chairperson) Terror Lekota and former Gauteng Premier Sam Shilowa, both of whom had been influential in the anti-apartheid struggle but had failed to gain election to the NEC at Polokwane.
The radical left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), led by Julius Malema, former president of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) from 2008 until his expulsion from the ANC in 2012, came third with 11%.
[148] Finally, the Government of National Unity (GNU) was formed by the African National Congress (ANC), Democratic Alliance (DA), Patriotic Alliance (PA), Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Good Party (Good), Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), Freedom Front Plus (FF+), United Democratic Movement (UDM), Al Jama-ah, Rise Mzansi (Rise) and UAT,[149] although the UAT withdrew on 12 July 2024 after it did not receive any positions in the Cabinet.
