Letter from the DM168 editor
Never has a wise vote been more important to the future of South Africa
After thirty years of democracy, the heroes of freedom have been replaced by the hyenas of stealing
Dear DM168 reader,
Thirty years ago today, almost 20 million of us woke up at the crack of dawn to wait patiently in lengthy queues to vote in our country’s very first democratic election.
Whether in remote rural villages or big, bustling cities, people from all walks of life, every racial, tribal and cultural group and every political persuasion in South Africa converged at voting stations to decide whom they would entrust with the governance of their future.
I was 29 years old then and took leave from my job as a features writer at Tribute magazine to volunteer at the voting station in Bezuidenhout Valley in Johannesburg. I wanted to play a part in this wonderful, momentous end to the horrible years of violence that preceded the election. As a reporter, I had witnessed and written about horrific incidents such as the Boipatong massacre, during which machete- and spear-wielding IFP members brutally murdered 41 people.
I didn’t want to write about the election, I wanted to be a part of making it happen freely and fairly, not in support of any party but in support of the process of democracy in action.
I worked side by side with other volunteers, ushering old and young to the voting booths, handing out the superlong ballot paper and showing people where to place it in the ballot box.
The feeling of relief and hope, echoed in the voices of ordinary South Africans, was palpable. My heart was filled with the laughter, the smiles, the willingness to wait for hours on end in the queues to have, finally, a collective say in our future. This was the day apart-hate ended and we no longer were prisoners of that heinous false notion of racial superiority and inferiority, the day all of us became South African.
Our first voting results
The majority of South Africans, 12 million or 62%, voted for Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress; 20% voted for FW de Klerk’s National Party; 10% voted for the IFP; 2% for the Freedom Front; and 1.73% for the Democratic Party.
I cannot imagine what a burden of responsibility it must have been to carry the dreams of so many South Africans on your shoulders. Yes, mistakes were made, but we must acknowledge that Mandela and his first Cabinet and the progressive cohort of civil servants fresh from jobs in NGOs, universities and the private sector, or from exile in Europe, the US, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola and Mozambique, were faced with a labyrinthine task.
Working with those civil servants who remained from the apartheid administration, they had to change and fix a system that had favoured a white minority into a government that would serve us all. They had to build single, national government departments out of the apartheid administration and the ghettos of Coloured, Indian and Bantu Affairs and broken Bantustans.
Building a broken country
Under the Mandela and Thabo Mbeki administrations, the economy grew. And with it developed a black middle class of skilled professionals earning over R22,000 a month, which now, according to a 2023 report by UCT’s Liberty Institute , constitutes 3.4 million people, superseding the white middle class by a million.
This black middle class, however, makes up only 7% of South Africa’s black African population. This brings into stark relief the vital importance of the lifeline of social grants, which have been a key priority of the democratic government.
The inequalities inherited from apartheid were too overwhelming for the first three administrations to solve. Mbeki was seen as arrogant and out of touch. He was an Aids denialist and his quiet diplomacy with Robert Mugabe had no effect in bringing any relief to Zimbabweans suffering human rights abuses and economic collapse.
The ANC eats itself
But the biggest push against Mbeki was from within. A coalition of disenchanted kicked out Mbeki and ushered in Jacob Zuma, the man who epitomises the ANC’s descent from globally heralded heroes of freedom to hyenas of stealing and stealing..
Ironically Mbeki, the man Zuma ousted, was the ANC leader who attracted the greatest percentage of votes for the party, 69.69%, in 2004. The party has faced a steady decline since then. In the Zuma years it declined to 65.9% (2009) and 62.2% (2014), and it has continued its descent under President Cyril Ramaphosa, getting 57.5% in 2019.
Whatever the motivation was for the ANC to swap freedom for a feeding frenzy, Jacob Zuma made it OK. No longer was the ANC the party of moral integrity and human rights; it was the party of patronage, tenders, cash, expensive labels and crass consumption.
Desperate Measures
The Zondo Commission revealed to us all how the ANC sold its soul for pieces of silver. Was it too much to work for the betterment of the lives of the poor, easier to ensure a better life for yourself, your friends and family? Probably.
In desperation, the ANC has dragged the 81-year-old Mbeki out to convince voters to stick with the party that has failed them. And the coalition of the wounded and greedy have placed the face of 82-year-old Zuma on the election posters for the breakaway uMkhonto Wesizwe party. The ANC, led by the 71-year-old Ramaphosa, is increasingly losing touch with the aspirations of the young.
As the party panders to the past and eats itself from the inside out, the EFF, another ANC offshoot, which has managed to speak to young black aspirations, captured 10.8% of voters in 2019, a similar vote to that of the IFP in 1994. The DA has grown from the 1% garnered from its predecessor in 1994 to 20.77% in 2019. This is a similar result to what De Klerk’s National Party got in 1994.
On 29 May, 27.2 million voters are able to vote. In our cross on the ballot paper lies a choice: a future torn apart by the harbingers of fear, greed and intolerance, or a future based on hope and the hard work of fixing a dysfunctional state, fighting corruption and crime and building an economy that can create decent jobs.
Poll says ANC ship will sink below 50%
The latest Ipsos voter survey, projects the ANC getting 40.2% of the vote, the DA 21.9%, the EFF 11.5% and the MK party 8.4%.
The MK party, which wants to remove the Constitution that protects your rights and mine, is polled at number four.
Thirty years after that momentous day in 1994, those in the ANC who value this Constitution and believe in continuous work to end inequality and not in filling the pockets of the political elite are at a serious crossroads. They will need to govern as a coalition. Who do they choose?
Our next 30 years, dear readers, are going to be in the hands of whoever we vote for on May 29. Choose wisely.
Let me know who you will vote for and why by writing to me at [email protected]
As today is a public holiday, DM168 will be sold and delivered on Sunday 28 April.
Yours in defence of truth,
Heather
Why some folks seem to believe that if South Africa put pressure on the government of Zimbabwe things will change there?
I mean, countries with more political, military and diplomatic influence, have tried and failed.
These are countries with bigger economies than that of South Africa, the likes of USA, UK and the whole of European Union.
South Africa is a small economy and a relatively young democracy, ever younger than Zimbabwe itself.
But a friend to Zimbabwe nonetheless. The ANC and ZANU-PF were chums, Mbeki could’ve done something
Would have been for the sake of record only, but it was not going to change anything in Zimbabwe.
You say it all, Heather.
And for an idiot like Mbeki to come out from under his rock to support the crooked ANC plus the Chief Crook Zuma to be allowed to escape the jail he should be in to get back into parliament shows that the Western Cape is the only province that stands any chance of surviving in this benighted (or bedonnerde?) country. Thank God for the honest and excellent DA.
Yip, Mbeki still in the bush.
Cannot let that one pass, Mbeki is anything but “still in the bush.” He did some really stupid things while president, around HIV and Zimbabwe, but he is a highly educated, sophisticated and philosophical thinker. Disagreeing with him does not make him stupid! If anything, the reverse may be more accurate. How does that comment get through?
Absolutely agree Hilary. If we were allowed to elect our President separately per the USA system I would vote for him without hesitation, flaws and all. I am sure there will be some huge pressure and some misplaced residual loyalty to the ANC behind his regretful decision to back the ANC, but on balance he is a good man that towers above most of the political dwarfs contesting this election.
Mbeki coming out to back the anc just shows how intelligence can be blinded by ancestral loyalty
And when there are characters talking snakeoil lies into desperate ears that cheer and applaud when they hear those lies then anyone who thinks this election will be crucial need to realise we’re in for another 4 years of this ruinous anc country killing nonsense
The anc are giving up nothing trough wise
Their inept gluttony will not stop
They will never admit to being public servants
They want to be useless “honourables” instead with all the perks that entails
Mbeki had his time – no repeats are necessary
The reason they want Zuma’s face on the ballots is so he’s recognized by those who can’t read
“Put your X here ….”
South Africa needs saving
How is the magic question
You are 30 years older, and have seen the destruction of this country under your dream party the ANC. Do not forget the mismagement which have left all infrastructure and organisations in pieces. Hope you realise this is not going to change under the present and similar minded political parties. We need knowledge, competence, financial stability and safety to grow as a country. There is no time to still have dreams about being hippy
It is frustrating, to say the least, to see Mandela’s face still decorating the front pages of many so-called press freedom issues as the DM, as a symbol of freedom and democracy. Mandela, once branded as a terrorist, single handedly destroyed a well-governed prosperous country and turned it into the mess we are in today. Instead of opting for a transitional government and in so-doing learn from them who governed before, his greed, with the support of millions of uneducated black voters, allowed him to declare himself the first so-called democratically elected black president of the country. With his policies of breaking down and tearing apart all the working structures of a prosperous country, he became the architect of state capture and the sorry state of the country as it is today that will take much longer than the 40 years of apartheid to recover and rebuild, if ever. For this he and the ANC should be tried for crimes against the citizens of South Africa. It’s time we say it as it is……
“For the middle class, over the past seven years, average take-home pay has increased by just 1%, while inflation has surged by 40%. To cope with this financial strain, people have increasingly turned to retail loans for clothing and homeware purchases, relying on unsecured loans and credit cards for other expenses.”
So what does this mean for a Country to be prosperous it must have a solid middle class. We are losing the battle. Why, apart from the endemic corruption, we are following Nigeria’s lead of complete overpopulation and letting illegal immigrants in. Other African countries with better moral Government will surge ahead of South Africa and we will drop lower annually in every World and African index. Crime, murders, rapes, see RSA close to bottom or bottom in some world rankings with Mexico and Latin America. Ports indices, you can name them all. Vote ANC out.
It’s just so sad that the majority of this country are captured mentally by identity politics.
The ANC winning an election after all they have done makes absolutely no sense to anyone with a rational mind.
Vote for actual results, The DA has its problems but at least you can hold them accountable. It’s obvious who we should all be voting for, DA or any of the smaller coalitions with the DA.
Come May 29th, A vote for the ANC is not just ridiculously stupid but in my mind it’s treasonous.
South Africa will be truly over if the ANC wins or goes into coalition with the EFF.
Cue the teenagers on the back of bakkies with machine guns. Just another completely failed African country.
It is true that the ANC is now a pale shadow of its former self, probably standing for not much more than primitive accumulation of wealth by those associated with it. To their credit, however, the ANC has so far at least, continued to submit to the will of the people as expressed through free and fair elections. That’s something to be grateful for and South Africans should not take that for granted as those of us on the other side of the Limpopo know only too well. Good luck to all.
I like your comment.
Ditto. That is something to be grateful for.
And what a special, historic and memorable day it was. It was the first time I voted and I’ll not forget the occasion. As difficult people’s lives are, so many people still vote for the ANC because their lives have improved when compared to what they experienced during Apart-hate (as Heather appropriately calls it). And then there is the loyalty to the entity that liberated the people. One should assume that, in general, people are rationale and capable of reasonable decisions. Credit to South Africans who increasing (especially in urban areas) do not vote for the ANC.
Yet DM and the rest of the media seem unwilling to endorse the multiparty coalition or the DA. It cannot even bring itself to advise voters not to vote for the utterly corrupt and incompetent ANC. It clings to the fantasy that the there is a good and a bad ANC. Even during the struggle the ANC was corrupt and involved in trafficking stolen cars and drugs. The ANC murdered its own members in Quatro. It deliberately targetted civilian targets in its bombing campaigns.
History and your wise men and women warned you this would happen.
How do you remedy this?
leslielox.com
The right to vote is too important to be wasted on everybody.
A qualified vote (pass some kind of test) would be ideal but never be accepted. Yet, I bet that if our people were allowed to sell their vote, then on 29 May I could buy as many as I want for under R200 each. That is what the value is most people put on the right to vote.
Tragic that so many ‘leaders’ of African countries have succumbed to self-interest above the needs of the people. Madiba’s dreams of a rainbow nation have become the nightmare of non-governance that prevails. Do people learn nothing from the more recent past? This precious vote, for which so many died, is squandered if not used wisely or, even worse, not used at all.
Well said ! I wonder if Cyril Ramaphosa has ever pondered what Nelson Mandela’s current opinion of him would be ? It certainly would’nt be positive !