Glossary

Alliance		Political alliance of the ANC, SACP, Cosatu and the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco)
ANC		African National Congress, South Africa’s governing party since the achievement of democracy in 1994. Established on 8 January 1912. Outlawed 1960 and operating illegally from then to 2 February 1990
AFU		Asset Forfeiture Unit, which resides under the National Prosecuting Authority with a mandate to recover the proceeds of crime for which purpose it works closely with the Special Investigations Unit (SIU)
BRICS		Acronym for the association of five emerging major national economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, for mutual trade and cooperation. It was originally composed of the first four, with South Africa being inducted in 2010.
CC		Central Committee, the highest decision-making organ of the SACP between national congresses. Congresses elect thirty-five members to join the six office-bearers as the CC.
Cope		Congress of the People, a political party formed by former defence minister and ANC chairperson Mosiuoa ‘Terror’ Lekota in 2008 as a breakaway from the ANC following the ANC’s decision to recall Thabo Mbeki as national president. Support has plummeted from 7 per cent of the national vote in 2009 to 0.48 per cent in 2016
Cosatu		Congress of South African Trade Unions: South Africa’s largest trade union federation with 1.8 million members in twenty-one affiliated trade unions, established in 1985. In alliance with the ANC, SACP and the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco)
DA		Democratic Alliance, the centre-right official opposition in parliament. The DA controls the Western Cape province and the Cape Town metropolitan council and, in 2016, took control, in coalition with the EFF and other minor parties, of Johannesburg, Tshwane (Pretoria), Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth) and Mogale City.
DEP		Department of Economic Planning of the ANC headed by Trevor Manuel in 1991–4 before the ANC was elected to power. Was also referred to as the Department of Economic Policy.
DPCI		Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations (see Hawks)
DSO		Directorate of Special Operations (see Scorpions)
EFF		Economic Freedom Fighters, the third biggest political party in South Africa, with 8.3 per cent of the national vote in 2014. Established in 2013 under Julius Malema (the ‘commander-in-chief’) following his expulsion as president of the ANC Youth League
Hawks		The Hawks or DPCI, South African Police Service’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation which targets organised crime, economic crime, corruption, and other serious crime referred to it by the president. Established in 2008 to replace the Scorpions. Shortly after its establishment, the Hawks unit terminated the Scorpions’ investigation into corruption and bribery by Zuma associates in the multibillion-rand arms acquisition programme.
IEC		Independent Electoral Commission. Established in 1997 as a constitutional body to manage free and fair elections of legitimate bodies and institutions in South Africa to deepen electoral democracy.
IFP		Inkatha Freedom Party, political party with its main base in KwaZulu-Natal
IG		Inspector General for Intelligence
Imbokodo		Grindstone in isiZulu; colloquial term among ANC exiles for the ANC security and intelligence organ, the latter section was headed by Jacob Zuma from 1987. See NAT.
MERG		Macroeconomic Research Group, established under the aegis of the ANC in the early 1990s to develop a costed, South African-appropriate economic policy for the incoming democratic administration. Its first report, rejected by the Mandela leadership of the ANC, was published in late 1993 as a 300-page book, Making Democracy Work: A Framework for Macroeconomic Policy in South Africa.
MK		Umkhonto weSizwe (the Spear of the Nation), established following the banning of the ANC in 1960. Undertook its first sabotage operations on 16 December 1961. It was responsible for the bulk of guerrilla and military operations against the apartheid government and contributed significantly to the semi-insurrectionary resistance to apartheid in the mid- to late 1980s that became a major factor in the F.W. de Klerk administration’s decision to begin negotiating with the ANC. MK was formally disbanded on 16 December 1993. Many of its members were integrated into the SANDF.
MKMVA Movement (or the Movement)		Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association Colloquial reference to the African National Congress (ANC) or to the broader alliance, including the SACP and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (Sactu) of which the ANC was the dominant formation. Sactu was replaced in the alliance by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in 1990.
NAT		National security organ of the ANC, primarily security and counter-intelligence in exile, referred to as ‘imbokodo’, meaning ‘the grinding stone’ in the Zulu language.
National Conference		Elective and policy-making gatherings of the ANC, which take place every four years
National Congress		Elective and policy-making gatherings of the SACP, which take place every four years
NCC		National Communication Centre. Arm of the State Security Agency, monitors electronic communcations, focussing on foreign signals intelligence. Has no explicit funding legislation and rules governing its activity are not public.
NDR		National Democratic Revolution. Strategic concept of the ANC and SACP, characterising the immediate phase and objectives of the movement seeking to overcome and transform the socio-economic manifestations of apartheid colonialism on behalf of the entire oppressed people, with the African majority and black working class as the central driving force. The SACP see the NDR as a necessary stage for the advance to a socialist society.
NEC		National Executive Committee, the highest decision-making organ of the ANC between national conferences, which elects eighty NEC members. These, plus the six elected office-bearers and two provincial representatives from each provincial executive committee, form the NEC. Meets quarterly
NGC		National General Council: gathering of ANC delegates, predominantly elected by branches, held every four years, usually midway between the organisations’s four-yearly elective National Conference (NC). The agenda deals primarily with ANC strategy and policies, and reviews implementation of resolutions adopted at the immediately preceding NC.
NIA		National Intelligence Agency, South Africa’s domestic intelligence-gathering agency from 1994 to 2009 (when it was reorganised as the State Security Agency’s Domestic Branch)
NICOC		National Intelligence Coordinating Committee, responsible for assessing reports submitted by the intelligence agencies and presenting a final product to Cabinet.
NPA		National Prosecuting Authority, established in terms of the 1996 Constitution as a central agency responsible for all prosecutions in South Africa. The NPA is formally accountable to parliament, but appointment of its senior executives has been highly contested, particularly under presidents Mbeki and Zuma.
NUM		National Union of Mineworkers, affiliated to Cosatu, which had variously been led by Cyril Ramaphosa, Kgalema Motlanthe and Gwede Mantashe.
Numsa		National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa. Founding affiliate of Cosatu and, with 330,000 members, its largest affiliate until its expulsion in November 2014. Main affiliate of the rival federation, Saftu, established in April 2017
NWC		National Working Committee of the ANC: comprises ANC office-bearers, one representative each from ANC Women’s League, Youth League and Veterans’ League, and an unspecified number (currently twenty) of additional members elected from among their number by the ANC NEC. Meets fortnightly
OIC		Office of Interception of Communcations, an arm of the State Security Agency, responsible for targeted interceptions approved by a designated judge; established in terms of the Regulation of Interception of Communcations Act (Rica)
PAC		Pan Africanist Congress, which broke away from the ANC in 1959 over the ANC’s adoption of the Freedom Charter, which the PAC said opened the way for influence by communists
Party (the Party)		The South African Communist Party
PB		Political Bureau of the SACP (Politburo), comprises the general secretary, national chairperson and six members elected by the CC from among its number. Meets quarterly
SACP		South African Communist Party. Established on 30 July 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) and outlawed under apartheid from 17 July 1950 to 2 February 1990
SADF		South African Defence Force, the military arm of the South African state from establishment of the Union in 1910 until 1994. During the apartheid era from 1948, and particularly under the P.W. Botha administration, the SADF played a directly political role in resisting the mounting, semi-insurrectionary opposition to apartheid led by the ANC.
Saftu		South Africa Federation of Trade Unions, launched in April 2017, with former Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi as general secretary. It has 800,000 members in twenty affiliates.
SANDF		South African National Defence Force, formally established in 1994 to replace the apartheid-era SADF. Although most SANDF were drawn from the SADF, combatants from MK and other anti-apartheid military formations (notably the PAC’s African People’s Liberation Army) were integrated into it.
SAPS		South African Police Service, established as a national police service in 1994, replacing and demilitarising the apartheid-era South African Police (SAP), which had been described as a ‘police force’.
SASS		South African Secret Service, South Africa’s foreign intelligence-gathering agency, from 1994 to 2009 (when it was reorganised as the State Security Agency’s foreign branch)
SCA		Supreme Court of Appeal, which sits in Bloemfontein, is the highest judicial authority, save for the Constitutional Court based in Johannesburg.
Scorpions		The Scorpions or DSO was an independent multidisciplinary agency established as a unit of the National Prosecuting Authority under President Thabo Mbeki in 2001 to investigate and prosecute organised crime and corruption, serious and complex financial crime; and racketeering and money laundering. It was disbanded in 2008 and replaced by a police unit, DPCI (the Hawks).
SIU		Special Investigatiosn Unit, of the NPA, with a primary mandate to prevent financial losses to the state caused by fraud, corruption and mismanagement. Works in tandem with the Asset Forfeiture Unit (see AFU).
SWAPO		South West African Peoples Organisation (of Namibia)
WMC		White Monopoly Capitalism. The term became an issue of contention within the ANC in 2017 as to whether it was necessary to characterise capital with a racial label. It raged around the so-called ‘state capture’ allegation and the argument that it was traditional white business that controlled the economy and the emergent black capital, including the Gupta family, were small fry by comparison and needed to be assisted by the State and not be the focus of criticism.