ABSTRACT
This chapter contributes the interface between popular mobilisation and political parties and examines how factional politics in the African National Congress depolitices community concerns by reducing them to individual factional struggles. It observes that the significance and role that political parties play is one major difference between the global wave of protest spurred by the Arab Spring and South Africa's service delivery protests. The chapter draws on separate ethnographic research projects on local politics in Buffalo City by both authors over a cumulative period of two years between 2011 and 2014. It draws on just one protest in Duncan Village for a richer description that offers a window into the intricate dynamics that underlie service delivery protests in South Africa. The chapter begins with a genuine community concern and demonstrates how, later on in the process, the party becomes involved. It argues that community protests and party politics become entangled through a double process of imposition and invitation.
