April 22 2009

Coming up next week here in South Africa are the national elections. These will be the fourth democratic elections  to occur since the end of apartheid and takes up much public attention right now. I personally find interesting and controversial elections great food for thought and discussion and recently enjoyed becoming overly opinionated in terms of the American elections. Regardless of your opinion about the outcome of the election, it was exciting to experience the nomination and election of President Obama and to feel like history had just been made. 

Voting is optional here, however many people recognize the importance of their right to vote.  This election in South Africa is far less glitz and glam than America’s election process, however it is every bit as important. The majority of South Africa’s population has only possessed the legal right to vote for 15 years. The picture above was taken on Election Day, 2004, showing just one line waiting for one voting station. Similar scenes were all over South Africa.

The major contenders are:

 ANC: The African National Congress is the party that Nelson Mandela led to victory in 1994. It was the political party that stood as the main opposition to the government in power during Apartheid and was very involved with the peace negotiations that headed off a civil war in the early 90s. The ANC naturally became the party in power after the country became a democracy. They have led the country through the difficult processes of repair and reconstruction following the Apartheid years, however are not immune from corruption and questionable behaviour from time to time. Jacob Zuma, the ANC candidate in the upcoming election, has faced various corruption charges over his political career. In fact, some were just dropped against him last Monday. Google him if you’re interested…

COPE: The COngress of the PEople was established as a result of a schism within the ANC in 2008. The President at the time, President Mbeki, was asked to resign because of questions regarding corruption, and when he did, much of his senior cabinet resigned along with him in solidarity. They then formed COPE as an opposition to the ANC. There has been much drama in terms of people defecting from the ANC to COPE and back to the ANC again over the past months. The current candidate for COPE is Mvume Dandala.

 

The DA: The Democratic Alliance stands in direct opposition to both the ANC and COPE in terms of policy and coins itself as having a lot of progressive policies promoting better social change than what is currently occurring. The candidate is Helen Zille, who is the white female mayor of Cape Town. They are working very hard to raise their profile, however are probably not a large enough party yet to stand a real chance of taking the majority.

In South Africa, there are 11 official languages and several different people groups. The different political parties have different associations with different tribes and therefore often have difficulties with factions within the party. It is obvious that corruption is an issue, and the parties seem to be making all sorts of promises to voters to win their vote. The ANC has given out many more food vouchers in this area of late in an attempt to win favour with the people around here.

It seems pretty clear that the ANC will win the election; according to the political analysts we see on the news, none of the opposing parties are large enough to be a serious threat to the ANC. This means that not much will really change for the time being. What is important to remember is the historical significance of the fact that democratic elections are happening here at all. Change takes time: the South African people reached a great victory 15 years ago with the peaceful end to Apartheid; rebuilding and restructuring will take a generation or so of hopeful growth and change.