The ANC has become adept at straddling the speak-left and walk-right divide. The distinction between the two worlds of policy aspiration and government policy action – and the uneven connecting lines between the two – are a large chunk of the ANC's world of policy in the time of Jacob Zuma. At heart, the ANC is the unflinchingly radical (former) liberation movement with its aspirations anchored in the Freedom Charter. The ANC's quotidian life as South African government is in a different world, one in which progressive enclaves and hard-working individuals battle and often lose against tenderpreneurs and the strident patriotic-nationalist bourgeoisie. This struggle unfolds amid international pressures and the ‘global economy’ which push leaders to compromise on overall policy positioning. Nationally, the ANC has turned into a middle-of-the-road, perhaps social-welfarist-neoliberal, post-liberation policy project.

The government has become skilful at putting on the Janus-faced act in policy practice. It works hard to fit into the liberal-capitalist world order. It prioritises friendships with the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India and China, besides South Africa), honours the Chinese and obliges the Russians. It has been said that the ANC consistently uses ‘left and Marxist rhetoric to justify and mask neoliberal policies’. Numsa cites the implementation of e-tolls, the youth wage subsidy, adoption of the NDP and refusal to ban labour brokers as examples of neoliberalism in the ANC's policy repertoire. Jeremy Cronin of the SACP questions whether BEE has been transformative and developmental. He notes that more public funds were being spent on BEE than on housing and land reform, and links the often disconnected and incapable South African state to tenderisation and agentification (creation of semi-autonomous units within public sector departments). He suggests that BEE has been parasitic and compradorist.

The Freedom Charter of 1955, despite having been overtaken by world ideological developments, remains at the heart of the ANC's frequently restated commitment to the people of South Africa. Official ANC speeches and websites cite the Freedom Charter freely, without reference to discrepancies with prevailing policy practice. Whichever compromise or practical policy deviation is manifested, the ANC is certain to project it as a step towards realising the Charter's ideals – and as revolutionary progress. Its 2012 debate on a ‘second transition’ versus ‘second phase of the transition from apartheid colonialism to a national democratic society’ (the latter prevailed) shows deft footwork in matching explanations of the policy mutations over time.