Rehana Rossouw
President Nelson Mandela spent a windy, hot hour at the annual choir competition at the Athlone Stadium in Cape Town at the weekend, promising coloured voters a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow nation.
It was the second time this year he has taken time out of his hectic schedule to attend “coloured cultural” gatherings. He reminded the 800-strong audience in Athlone that he had opened the annual Coon Carnival on January 1.
Mandela said in 1994 many people in the coloured community felt anxiety about the future. “I am aware of concerns among the coloured community that the programmes of government aimed at redressing the wrongs of the past are not always benefiting them as they should. All those who have been disadvantaged by apartheid have a claim,” he reassured for the umpteenth time.
“Once again, I want to assure the coloured community that you have nothing to fear from democracy.” He reminded the audience that voters chose the African National Congress in last year’s local elections and asked them to vote in May in a way which would bring everyone in Cape Town together.
Mandela’s magic touch was evident on Sunday as performers in the competition clamoured to shake their president’s hand. With the ANC believing coloured voters are not committed to the National Party despite their choice in 1994, the party is bringing in its big guns to win the hearts of voters in the run-up to the May election.
All the major parties in the Cape have gone back to their drawing boards over the past year to formulate new campaign strategies. Without acknowledging that they still do not have a grasp of coloured voting trends, they have all enlisted experts to tell them what voters want.
The ANC’s focus group discussions over the past six months have told it people are concerned that development in the Western Cape is lagging behind the rest of the country. People also feel threatened by affirmative action programmes and perceive a lack of delivery on the part of the government.
The ANC is fortunate: it has candidates with excellent track records in community structures to field in virtually every community in the Cape. But it is not relying only on candidates to muster votes — its national leadership will be expected to chip in like Cyril Ramaphosa and Trevor Manuel did at the ANC’s election launch last month.
The ANC is out to win. Spurred on by its 30% increase in the coloured vote during the November elections in the Cape’s standalone towns, it is confident it can wrest local power from the NP.
The NP is still waiting for the outcome of its market research, but launched its campaign last week by announcing it was contesting almost every ward in the metropolitan area. Western Cape Premier Hernus Kriel and regional NP leader Dawie de Villiers immediately threw down the gauntlet by attacking the ANC’s policies and its leadership’s lifestyles.
Kriel kept a low profile in the 1994 campaign and left most of the electioneering to Deputy President FW de Klerk. De Klerk entered the election fray on Tuesday when he visited the crime-ridden coloured township of Manenberg and predicted the NP would triumph in the Cape in May. De Klerk promised the Government of National Unity was committed to supporting the police force.
Sources in the NP say after Kriel’s damaging attack on Mandela last week, it was possible he would be asked to keep mum once again.
The Democratic Party brought in the liberal democrats from the United Kingdom to tell it what the NP and ANC already knew — test voter expectations through focus groups. It has sent questionnaires to thousands of households asking what their problems are and how they should be addressed.
Western Cape DP leader Hennie Bester admits the party did not draw top-quality coloured candidates in the 1994 elections, but says this has been corrected and the party now has the most representative caucus in the Cape — – but it still does not have African support.
The DP has also started community work for the first time, and intends opening advice offices and launching community policing operations in coloured areas.
Nominations for candidates close on April 15 and, until then, voters are just as likely to get visits from representatives of market research companies beating a path to their doors as they are to get candidates begging for votes.