The Beginning of the End

To those that I’ve discussed South Africa politics with, I just want to say I knew I was right. It was only a matter of time until the ANC split. According to the BBC on September 30, the ANC announced that the party was not going to split. However, today, both the Mail & Guardian and the BBC have reported that talks are underway about a potential split. This is a good thing. It’s time for part of the enormous party that is the ANC to splinter off and hopefully break the rule of one party in South Africa. The ANC is too large now to make the disparate people that fall under its umbrella happy (and there are a lot of people without jobs and solely dependent upon government grants of some sort) and a split will only strengthen democracy in South Africa. The only fear is how much violence, if any, will follow any split. There’s talk of tribalism, but hopefully it won’t get stirred up too much. I mean, South Africa has to host the World Cup [if I'm gonna keep this up, I should at least correct this mistake. Thanks for pointing it out Andrew] Olympics in 2010, so the powers-that-be will keep things stable long enough for that to pass. They are not idiots. Well, at least the Finance Minister isn’t. And by then, who knows, maybe it will all be a thing of the past and South Africa can move forward. Only time will tell…I could be wrong and there will be no split.