JOHANNESBURG, 13 April 2004 — When South Africans cast ballots in the country’s third democratic election tomorrow, history, not issues, will determine how most vote.
Pollsters and even the opposition expect the ruling African National Congress to be returned to power, the only question is by what margin.
President Thabo Mbeki, seeking a second five-year term, has sounded increasingly confident that the ANC will run away with a two-thirds majority in its third electoral triumph since the collapse of apartheid in 1994. And with polling day some 48 hours away, pundits say the ANC’s vow to win over the only two opposition provinces — KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape — cannot be dismissed. So why would South Africans continue to give massive support to a party that has been so comprehensively hammered by the opposition for its record on critical issues such as job creation, tackling crime and the country’s HIV/AIDS crisis? “The ANC is identified by the great majority of the people in the country as the party that liberated them from apartheid. That’s the critical thing,” John Kane-Berman, CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations told Reuters. “I think for most ANC supporters that outweighs any disillusionment they might feel about the ANC’s handling of AIDS or the rising unemployment.”
Mbeki is acutely aware of the magic of the black vote. In his campaigning he has pointedly held all his mass rallies in black townships. His contact with whites has been mainly during a few walkabouts in their neighborhoods.
And as the campaign drew to a close, he reduced his message to a simple formula that no black would miss: Just as the ANC conquered apartheid, the ANC will vanquish new problems facing blacks — unemployment, crime and the ravages of HIV/AIDS which afflicts one out of every nine South Africans. Most predictions suggest the ANC will win a two-thirds majority, hauling in around 68-70 percent of votes. That should translate into up to 271 parliamentary seats, against 266 in the 1999 election when it came just one seat short of two-thirds.
The ANC first won power in 1994 under anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela. Mbeki led the party to another poll triumph in 1999 when the charismatic and revered Mandela retired, leaving Mbeki with one of history’s toughest follow-up acts.
Some analysts say the lack of a serious opposition with clear alternative programs that could appeal to the country’s black majority also accounts for the ANC’s dominance. The mainly white Democratic Alliance is South Africa’s main opposition party. The Inkatha Freedom Party has its base among its mainly Zulu followers in KwaZulu-Natal and cannot truly be described as anything but a provincial party.
The New National Party, the remnant of the party that introduced apartheid in 1948 and held sway until 1994, rules the Western Cape Province in alliance with the ANC. Most analysts conclude it is in terminal decline.
“I think the most significant thing is there is no opposition,” said Keith Campbell of Pretoria-based think-tank Executive Research Associates. He said there were very few fundamental differences between the ANC and the three main opposition parties.
“They are all calling for jobs, they’re all calling for cutting down on crime, they’re all calling for services to the poor, and so on. So how do you choose other than on a historical sort of sentiment?,” Campbell argued.
