by Pallo Jordon, Business Day
SINCE 1994, the political party that has studiedly shunned
negative campaigning and ad hominem attacks is the African National Congress
(ANC). The ANC’s election campaigns have all been based on its political record
and as a party in the government.
Yet one regularly encounters opinions that the ANC’s
landslide majorities are not the function of rational voter choice but rather
an expression of racial solidarity among Africans. The unpronounced, yet
implicit, suggestion is that while white, coloured and Indian voters make
rational choices, African voters are motivated by racial considerations that
have little or nothing to do with reason.
Statistics indicate that, in 1994, African voters made up
more than 80% of the electorate. With an 86% voter turnout, if what these
opinion makers say was true, the ANC should have walked those elections with a
70% majority. In fact, it won just more than 62% of the votes. Its principal
competitor for African votes, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), won 10.5%. It
might have fared better had it not engaged in reckless brinksmanship in the
preceding months.
The ANC increased its majority at the 1999 elections, but it
faced two other parties fishing for votes in the same pond. While the IFP’s
share of the vote declined, the new kid on the block, the United Democratic
Movement (UDM), won 3.4% of the votes. Combining the IFP and UDM share of the
vote, one could conclude the situation remained largely unchanged in that 11.9
% of the voters supported the ANC’s rivals.
Do those figures suggest racial solidarity? Hardly! When the
ANC took all nine provinces and its share of the vote rose to 69.9% in 2004,
that could have been construed as a demonstration of African racial solidarity
except for the fact that the ANC’s majority was visibly improved by the support
of coloured voters in the Western Cape.
It is white voters who have voted as a bloc: for the
National Party (NP), in 1994. In 1999, a substantial number swung in support of
Tony Leon’s Democratic Party (DP), which fought those elections with a thinly
disguised appeal to white racial anxieties. Oddly, such voter behaviour is
presented as rational choice, not racial solidarity.
Addressing the Liberal International, Helen Zille admitted
that her party had made headway only among minorities. Paraphrased: the
Democratic Alliance appeals to communities that enjoyed absolute and relative
privilege under apartheid.
In 1994, the choice was between the parties associated with
apartheid and those that opposed it. It is a matter of record that white voters
preferred the party of apartheid. The swing to the DP was in response to the
"fight back" slogan that identified the DP as heir to the NP’s mantle
— the party of white power and privilege.
The proposition that it is irrational for African voters to
withhold support from a party whose entire history was their oppression and
repression is laughable. They have, quite sensibly, also withheld support for
an ostensibly "liberal" party whose policies are designed to deny
them equitable access to socially produced goods and services. The UDM and the
five-year-old Congress of the People have dashed the hopes of their supporters.
There is no credible evidence of African racial solidarity. Flaky opinions not
based on known and knowable facts are referred to as prejudice.
Am I being ultra-sensitive in detecting negative racial
stereotyping in such judgments? Clearly, many opinion makers and pundits are
displeased with the ANC’s electoral performance. No one contests their right to
propagate negative assessments of the governing party, but ascribing
unsubstantiated racial solidarity to African voters does not help to make their
case. Some will say that African voters continuing to vote for the ANC though
it has not fulfilled all its promises is proof of such racial solidarity.
Politics 101 says democratic systems are pluralist,
requiring continuing negotiation in society. In that process, concessions and
accommodations have to be made. It is only in a totalitarian system that a
party can hope to fulfil its electoral mandate to the letter. There are few
cases of parties in a democratic environment meeting all the promises in their
election manifestos. That being the case, it is hardly surprising that, until
now, African voters have backed the ANC, knowing that it might not be able to
fulfil every promise. But given its history in the government, they remain
confident that it will try.
Those who grew up taking clean water, electrified
neighbourhoods and a roof over their heads for granted might regard such
matters as of no importance. But, try living just one day without them.
The ANC has not delivered a perfect government and there are
significant instances of failure. But the lives of the majority have improved
during the past 20 years.
