South Africa

Writing the 2019 Elections

In the end SA politics is all about race — again

A white and black student hold hands, 25 February 2016. EPA/KIM LUDBROOK

There are times when it is hard to imagine South Africans rising one morning, say 100 years from now, and not blaming other races for all the problems that beset society. This is the leitmotif of the EFF. This rhetoric has been ramped up in the hustings. While the EFF has been true to form, ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule has urged people in the Western Cape not to vote for whites, having previously declared that his party did not need white votes.

With less than two weeks to go until the election, the campaign race is narrowing to three main contenders; the ANC, EFF and the DA. As things stand these three represent around 90% of the current Parliament. There is little chance of that number dropping below, say, 80%.

Across these heady days, there is a sense of desperation that would be hilarious if they were not so dangerous and threatening to the country and any future political economic dispensation. The EFF seems to be cruising on autopilot, which includes its usual measure of sanctimony, duplicity, racial scapegoating, name-calling and general vituperation. What is clear is that dedicated EFF voters care nought for the inherent violence and any potential injustice of the party’s policies.

The ANC has recruited former president Thabo Mbeki to help with the final push for votes. This is hardly a surprise, given that Mbeki never actually left the ANC, and the movement seems to be harking back to the days of Mandela (and Mbeki).

This makes the DA’s deployment of Tony Leon especially curious. Leon is notoriously conservative. As the leader of the Democrats, he moved what could be rescued from the often anodyne liberalism of Helen Suzman from its plinth and replaced it with Thatcherism. In 1999, the New York Times reported, probably correctly, that under Leon the liberals attracted more conservative Afrikaners displaced by the National Party — the founders of apartheid. One had to be really conservative to attract people to the right of the old National Party.

The EFF, apparently blind to history, heavily reliant on the politics of revenge, recrimination and rapine, has increased the tempo of its vituperation, and has tasted the blood of the ANC — so to speak. Anyone with a most basic understanding of how negotiations and bargaining works would recognise the apparent desperation of the ANC to get Malema and his followers back into the mother ship.

Whereas the ANC and EFF seem to be driving at radical political economy and the romantic idealism of between 1960 and 1990 of African governance, the DA may be fighting to stay alive nationally, while securing its “base” in the Western Cape. In this province, the ANC seems to be working an electoral bait-and-switch scam. It appears to be saying, with some coyness, vote for us, but we will only let you know who the leader will be after you have voted. Let us turn to an apparent meeting of minds and bodies between the ANC and EFF.

Race, actually

There are times when it is hard to imagine South Africans rising, one morning, say 100 years from now, and not blaming other races for all the problems that beset society. This is the leitmotif of the EFF. This rhetoric has been ramped up in the hustings. While the EFF has been true to form, ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule has urged people in the Western Cape not to vote for whites, having previously declared that his party did not need white votes.

There has probably never been a time when the EFF has not considered whites or other “non-Africans” as “the problem” — even when it couches its politics in the noblest of causes. The race-baiting is also constant in the ANC’s politics, but neatly tucked beneath platitudes of “non-racialism” or democracy.

Consider this: Post-apartheid South Africa is a so-called non-racial democracy. That is a good thing, right? But now consider that everyone who is “mixed-race” has to self-classify in almost all official documents (including access to university) as “coloured” — or “Indian” for that matter. This racial classification system remains in place, and will remain in place for as far as one cares to peer into history. Neither of the parties has rejected this reproducing of apartheid’s most iniquitous piece of legislation, the population registration law.

It is difficult not to conclude that to the ANC and the EFF, non-Africans are tolerated only for votes and for reasons of public relations. The most recent example emerged after Ace Magashule told voters in the Western Cape not to vote for whites (he clarified that he meant the DA). Magashule then went to a white community and asked them to vote for the ANC — and not the DA. This racism runs deep in the ANC. When he was secretary-general of the ANC, Gwede Mantashe rushed to the defence of Jimmy Manyi, when the latter spoke of coloured people being over-concentrated in the Western Cape. The ANC has always had the intention of “busing” people into areas where “non-Africans” may be in a majority.

EFF leaders have been a lot more strident in their attacks on “non-Africans” — the outstanding example is Julius Malema’s successive attacks on Indians, and notably, on Pravin Gordhan. Malema’s reference to Gordhan as a “dog” drew heavy criticism from the South African Council of Churches (SACC), but the EFF leader has been relentless and remains untouchable.

In response to Malema’s insults, SACC general secretary Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana said they took nothing away from Malema’s freedom of speech, but found it “unacceptable that an elected public official can call a person, whether government minister or not, a dog; especially given the connotation of such an expression in African culture”.

Moreover, such name-calling by a popular political leader could easily incite followers to violent acts. It engenders an attitude in society that says other people do not matter. That is not ubuntu. This kind of talk, accompanied by sabre-rattling and talk of war and possible bloodshed, on the eve of electioneering, is deeply concerning,” Mpumlwana said.

Most recently, EFF national chairperson Dali Mpofu showed the extent to which he and his party have run out of ideas, when he claimed that the ANC was “anti-black”. The appeal of racial politics, especially in the EFF and ANC, has been given increased attention in this, the sixth election.

When compared to the ANC and EFF, and if we can actually ignore numbers, quotas and history, the DA is probably the more non-racial party. That the body of its top leadership is white does not help the DA. That it does not seem to be making great strides in the “black African” community is a burden the DA has to either live with or deal with urgently. The party has two immediate problems in the 8 May election. It cannot seem to break reliance on the “coloured” vote in the Western Cape, and the white vote in general. Though the romancing of Cyril Ramaphosa in recent weeks may dent the DA.

A second problem is the bad rap that liberalism, capitalism and white politicians have received. This goes back to the repeated racialisation of politics referred to above. Between the ANC’s appeal to people not to vote for whites or the DA and the EFF’s position that all the problems of the country have to be laid at the foot of whites, the DA may lose votes in the 8 May poll.

By one calculation, the DA may shed votes to Patricia de Lille’s Good party in the Western Cape. The best the DA can hope for is a slight uptick in the national poll; retention of the Western Cape, and the city of Cape Town. That’s when the DA’s work may start.

For now, voters in the Western Cape may be forgiven for not investing in the ANC’s bait-and-switch scam. De Lille may take votes from the DA and force it into a coalition. For now, South African politics is all about race — again. DM

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