The ANC’s official position is progressive and democratic-socialist. But, even more so than the DA, it includes a very wide range of views within its membership and even the leadership. The unifying principle is that it is the party of liberation, not a particular policy standpoint.
On abortion, the ANC has been pretty consistently pro-choice, having enacted abortion on demand in 1996, including free abortion at state hospitals. Given. however, that 70% of South Africans oppose abortion on demand, probably the majority of ANC voters disagree with its position. On the death penalty, the ANC welcomed the Constitutional Court’s decision to abolish it, and while the topic sometimes comes up in public discourse, it’s never been revisited by the government because the court’s ruling was very definite.
On LGBT rights the ANC is theoretically in favour but in practice ambivalent. As with abortion it accomodates a large voter base at odds with the party. However, on abortion the party policy is influenced by the large cohort of women leaders, whereas there are no openly LGBT party leaders (as far as I know). When new laws are passed the ANC-majority Parliament has included LGBT people and same-sex couples in them when relevant (so for example the new domestic violence law includes same-sex couples) but there’s been no move to go back and revise old statutes. The upshot is that most gay-rights victories have come through the courts. For the most part the government hasn’t opposed these rulings, with the notable exception of the same-sex marriage case (they tried to argue for separate-but-equal civil unions).
On the economic side of things the ANC government has not displayed much of its theoretical socialism. The government has introduced things like fee-free schools, and is introducing a long-term plan for national health insurance. But on the other hand a number of state-owned companies have been privatised and, despite much talk, there’s been no sign of nationalisation of the mines, for example.
(You would not be wrong to infer from this that there’s not actually much of a gap between the ANC and the DA politically. Most of the debate revolves around government efficiency (or lack thereof), wasteful expenditure and corruption; and many people’s reasons for voting are based on race rather than actual issues.)
When I hear about international news I find myself agreeing with Greens, Labor, and Socialist parties/politicians in about equal proportions. It would be fun to support the nascent Pirate parties, but I’m not very familiar with their ideas outside copyright reform.
Unfortunately, when Greens take hard anti-nuclear stances, it’s a deal breaker. UK Labour has been pretty awful the past couple decades from what I understand. And many firm-left Socialist/Communist parties were too “useful idiot” back in the day for my taste.
With apologies to Churchill, the US Democratic Party is the worst left-wing party, except for all the others.
It already sort of happened with the breakaway Congress of the People (COPE), but that fizzled out because of internal bickering and a not very good performance in the 2009 elections.
But another split is certainly possible, since there’s a number of diverging groups in the ANC - the populist/social-conservative wing, the trade-unionist/communist wing, and the big-business/middle-class wing all spring to mind. If it is to happen in the near future, look to the party’s imminent Mangaung national elective conference. Whichever faction loses out there may break away, as COPE did after the previous elective conference in 2007.
If there is a really big split in the ANC then it might just put us in an interesting situation where no party holds an absolute majority. If, say, 40% of the ANC’s support were to split to the new party, we could have the ANC with 35% of the vote and the breakaway and the DA with 25% each. This is unlikely, I suppose, and more possible is another COPE-style split which would move the ANC from having a big majority to having only a narrow majority.
The chance of the DA (or another non-ANC party) getting to a majority seems quite far away. The DA has not yet shed it’s image as a white party, or at least a non-black party, and it probably won’t for a while. But if the DA joins with COPE or another hypothetical ANC breakaway, who knows what might happen.