ANC's Sway over South Africans 

-By Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal 

I- ANC is back  

South Africa, the homeland of Nelson Mandela, has held a vote on 22 April 09 to elect a new parliament and Mandela's African National Congress (ANC) has won the poll. Jacob Zuma is set to become the country's next leader as parliament elects the president by a simple majority. South Africans voted in an election that poses the toughest challenge to the ANC since the end of apartheid and could weaken its overwhelming dominance in parliament and the party has come back with an outright majority in general elections, having had just short of two-thirds of the approximately 17 million ballots cast. A two-thirds majority in parliament is needed to change the constitution. But the ANC has said it has no intention of changing the constitution as it co-authored it. Zuma told reporters he was happy with the ANC's share of the vote, which dropped by nearly 4% and will work to unite the country. South Africa is priding itself tonight on a well-run and highly successful election.

The ANC won 65.9%, well ahead of the Democratic Alliance (DA) with 16% and the new Congress of the People (Cope) at 7%, but fell just short of its previous two-thirds majority. The ANC will have 264 seats in parliament, while the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA), will have 67 seats while in third place with 30 seats is the Congress of the People (Cope) - the party formed by Mosiuoa Lekota as a result of the ANC split. The ANC lost Western Cape province - centre of the tourist industry - to the DA although it made inroads against the Inkatha Freedom Party in Kwazulu-Natal, home province of Zuma. During the election campaign, DA leader Helen Zille had urged South Africans to deny the ANC a two-thirds majority, arguing that the party would use it to protect Zuma from new corruption charges.

With some 23 million eligible voters, a high turnout strengthened the authority of Zuma. South Africans lined up before sunrise to vote in an election energized by the hugely popular Jacob Zuma, who has overcome scandals and helped generate an excitement not seen since the country's first multiracial vote in 1994. In Johannesburg, crowds also cheered and sang for Mandela as the anti-apartheid icon cast his vote. Mandela, frail at 90, smiled broadly but did not speak. The ANC sees Zuma as its first leader to energize voters since Mandela became South Africa's first black president in 1994. Mandela appeared alongside Zuma at his final campaign rally. A record number of people "” more than 23 million "” have registered to vote and election officials were expecting a turnout of about 80 percent.

The ANC party faced an unprecedented challenge from opposition parties hoping to capitalize on frustration over corruption, poverty and crime, and could lose the two-thirds majority that gives it the right to change the constitution and entrench its power further. The first credible black opposition party, the Congress of the People, has some support among the growing black middle class, but has struggled to win over the poor. The emergence of COPE did force the ANC to campaign more aggressively. The ANC had won 69.9 percent of the vote in the 2004 vote and Zuma said he expected an overwhelming majority again. Many analysts believed the ANC, whose anti-apartheid credentials make it the choice for millions of black voters, would win between 60 and 66 percent of the vote, compared to in 2004.

A presidential candidate Mvume Dandala said the new party was still optimistic it could bring change. "We are entering a post-liberation era. People are talking about new issues and challenges and there's also a new generation that's not attached to the liberation struggle."  The official opposition Democratic Alliance, resurgent under new leader Helen Zille, a white South African, also hopes to boost its presence in parliament and has campaigned under a "Stop Zuma" slogan, with an anti-corruption message. In Kwazu-Natal, home province of ANC leader Jacob Zuma, the ANC says it has taken all the strongholds of the Inkatha Freedom Party, giving it an outright majority there for the first time.

II- Jacob Zuma's common touch

The poll outcome in South Africa, the continent's biggest economy and diplomatic heavyweight, clears the way for ANC party leader Jacob Zuma to become president when parliament convenes. Zuma, a populist who spent 10 years in prison during the apartheid era for ANC membership, faces challenges including a struggling economy and soaring violent crime. Charges of corruption against the 67-year-old were dropped just two weeks before the poll after state prosecutors said there had been political interference in the case.

A truly majority-run South Africa may not operate the way a foreigner or European immigrant would expect, but it is also a culture with its own well-defined approach to culture and justice. Many white South Africans see in Zuma the stereotype of the African Big Man politician "“ a man who uses political power to build up himself and his cronies. Many say people like Zuma because he tends to spend time locally. He observes local traditions. He listens. He is sympathetic, and he can say, 'I have gone through the same thing.' But many Zuma supporters say he will be the exact opposite. Rather than looting the national treasuries and natural resources, in the mode of Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko, Uganda's Idi Amin, or Nigeria's Sani Abacha, they say, he will be keen to ensure that national services like education, hospitals, clean drinking water, and electricity are shared more equitably, especially among the poor. Africans expect their kings to share the largesse in a trickle-down fashion, holding massive feasts for the elders of the tribe and making decisions only after the elders have formed a consensus.

The poor black majority connects with his deprived background and he also has promised to speed up delivery of jobs, houses, schools and clinics. Zuma was fired by Mbeki as deputy president in 2005 after he was implicated in an arms deal bribery scandal. In 2006, Zuma was acquitted of raping an HIV-positive family friend. But he has been ridiculed for his testimony during the trial that he believed showering after the encounter, which he said was consensual, would protect him from AIDS. Many credited the ANC with managing South Africa's economy and doing much to improve conditions for the poor. Indeed, with  Zuma "“ a man with a grade-school education, a polygamist, who has definitely tilted his party away from the moneyed suburbs and toward the black African masses "“ many South Africans are finally coming to grips with what it means to live on the African continent. Yet a closer look at the expectations the South Africans have of their leaders, suggests that some of this pessimism.  

Zuma is also a skilled conciliator, credited with ending the political violence in KwaZulu-Natal and helping to bring peace to Burundi. African Union observer mission head Salim Ahmed Salim said the poll had been free, fair, transparent and credible. Supporters of the crowd-pleasing Zuma, imprisoned alongside Mandela, brush off the graft accusations as the work of his political enemies. People expected jobs, and to be comfortable but they are still living in shacks," said Margaret Nkone, 57."I don't have a lot of confidence in Zuma but we hope he will do a better job," she complained in Soweto, a Johannesburg township that symbolized the fight against apartheid. Samuel Kekana, a 46-year-old security guard who was among the early risers lining up to vote in Soweto, said he was voting for the ANC, crediting it with building schools and houses and improving education since first taking power in 1994.

 A central concept in southern African cultures is the notion of ubuntu, which literally means "being a human being." The ubuntu is the way in which people look after those who are vulnerable and weak. Ubuntu is a collective compassion that holds people together, that won't allow someone to starve or to remain homeless; it is the glue that can hold society together. Ubuntu, seen in the many families who take in AIDS orphans, and in voluntary township soup kitchens, has been weakened significantly in recent years, anthropologist Pearl Sithole says, as blacks move from tightly knit rural areas to the cities in search for jobs, and as politically connected Africans use their personal connections to achieve personal wealth. Most communities in South Africa are bound by ubuntu, the notion that if your brother dies, you are obliged to engulf his family as your own. "Ubuntu is what South African black voters expect to hear from their leaders at election time "“ a reassurance that common sense and decency will prevail. Those black politicians who talk in abstract terms of economic growth may reassure white South Africans and educated members of the black middle class, but they leave many African voters cold.. "The idea of ubuntu survives, but it has been contravened by the current economic consensus," says a researcher at the Human Sciences Research Council in Durban.  

The ANC leader is still something of an enigma - part Zulu traditionalist, part international leader who jets around the world. A smaller ANC majority would cheer investors keen to see its grip loosened. Despite Zuma's assurances, they fear he may bow to leftist allies who say policies credited with South Africa's longest spell of growth have harmed the poor. During this campaign, the ANC has stressed its commitment to creating jobs and a stronger social safety net for this nation of nearly 50 million, which is plagued by poverty, unemployment and an AIDS epidemic.. As South Africa heads toward its first recession in 17 years, its mines and factories hard hit by the global downturn, Zuma's room for policy change is limited. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, a market favorite, is expected to stay for now. "Our economy won't become ideological, it will stay rational," Manuel said. In thin offshore trade, the rand was bid stronger at 8.94 to the dollar after firming almost one percent.

The opposition has tried to paint the populist Zuma as corrupt and antidemocratic. Retired Cape Town Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his anti-apartheid campaign and has dedicated himself since to building democracy in South Africa, has questioned whether Zuma is fit to govern. Critical of Zuma, he said in the first years of our freedom most people would have tended to vote ANC, now it is no longer quite so straight forward. The governing party has been accused of moving too slowly over the last 15 years to improve the lives of South Africa's black majority. Mbeki was forced to step down last year as South Africa's president after he was defeated by Zuma in a bitter power struggle for the ANC leadership. Kgalema Motlanthe was appointed president of a caretaker government until the election. Mbeki supporters broke away to form their own party late last year, the Congress of the People, which was initially seen as a strong challenger to the ANC.

III- Post-script:   Which way?

Jacob Zuma, 67, one of the African National Congress party's most popular leaders ever, is now poised to become president. Parliament elects South Africa's president, putting Zuma in line for the post when the new assembly votes in May after he survived corruption and sex scandals that once threatened to derail his political career altogether. Of course, the main challenger to ANC Congress of the People (Cope) did not prove to be a real a threat, although the party has cut into ANC votes and reduced the expected two-thirds majority for the ruling party.

Nelson Mandela's ANC has come back to power, even if with a reduced majority. The challenges which confront Zuma as president include a struggling economy, rising prices, rampant corruption and soaring violent crime. Rising crime, crumbling roads, pernicious corruption, and landslide victories for the ruling party in charge: these are the signs that South Africa "“ so "First World" at first appearance "“ is now on the decline. But the one complaint that seems to top them all here these days is that the country is becoming more "African". That particular gripe usually comes from well-to-do South Africans "“ white and black "“ who are worried about the trajectory of the country once populist leader Jacob Zuma takes power. It's a statement that perhaps conjures the frenzied dysfunction of Nigeria, the brutal despotism of Zimbabwe, the power-madness of Kenyan politicians, and the genocidal civil wars that strike Rwanda and Sudan's Darfur.  

South Africa is an important weapon merchant for the Third world and India, purchasing arms from all regional markets to store in its depots, is an ardent customer. South Africa has the unique status of a nation which developed nuclear weapons but has since disassembled its arsenal before joining the NPT.With rising problems and equally rising expectations, one does not know if Jacob Zuma would deliver, but he has a big responsibility to take his nation forward as well as prosperous by taking special care of the poor populace and make South Africa a truly corruption free state, perhaps, the first in the continent and the world at large. A corruption-free state has no worry about crime which is closely knit with deformed democracy and rampant corruption.   

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Yours Sincerely,

Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal

Columnist & Independent Researcher in World Affairs,

The only Indian to have gone through entire India
South Asia.