Chiara Carter
A visit by President Nelson Mandela this weekend sets the tone for the African National Congress’s Western Cape election campaign which is likely to ignore the thorny issue of race.
The party is adopting a different strategy to 1994 when it suffered a bruising defeat at the hands of the National Party in an election dominated by the threat of swart gevaar.
The ANC’s approach for the 1999 election is based on a strategy document drawn up earlier this year which has two thrusts: targeting groups and identifying and tackling issues.
Instead of trundling out high profile coloured leaders as a response to swart gevaar tactics, the ANC intends introducing key leaders to selected groups.
These include Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and National Council of Provinces chair Patrick “Terror” Lekota, as well as Cape politicians such as Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel and returning ambassador Franklin Sonn.
Key elements of the ANC’s plan are not razzmatazz and mass mobilisation, but issues and personal contact.
Western Cape ANC leader Ebrahim Rasool says mass rallies and marches have been consigned to the past. The recent decline in NP support indicated in polls and by- elections has given the ANC new optimism. “We scent blood,” says Rasool.
However, while white voters were leaving the NP for the Democratic Party, coloured voters were moving towards apathy.
The ANC believes that a low voter turnout in coloured and white areas with a high turnout in African areas would favour them. However, growth is needed, particularly in coloured working-class areas.
Rasool says the ANC has maintained its base, identified in its strategy document as the African community, rural and some coastal towns, elements of the coloured middle class in urban areas and some sectors, mostly male, of the coloured working class.
Rasool says the ANC now hopes to win some of these “don’t know” and “don’t care” voters – including coloured women where research indicates the ANC is especially weak.
Mandela is meeting selected groups of community and religious leaders this weekend -people identified as possible ANC supporters.
Rasool says the ANC remains strong in township areas such as Khayelitsha, where 25 000 voters were visited by ANC activists over one weekend recently. However, the party is wary of the possibility the United Democratic Movement could make inroads in informal settlements.
ANC MPs and councillors have been “frog- marched” to their constituencies to report back, listen to grievances and outline achievements.
The ANC’s strategy is to no longer juggle the interests of African and coloured communities, but to demonstrate that their interests are complementary and at best, the same.
Education and crime have been identified as issues for the election campaign.
The ANC has been highlighting discrepancies in resource allocations to police stations in previously white areas and those on the crime-ridden Cape Flats, and has been pushing for transformation of the police force.
Rasool says ANC leaders have taken on People against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad), while at the same time attempting to persuade its supporters to use constitutional channels.
The stance taken by ANC leaders against corruption in government is another issue the party will highlight.
Rasool says while victory was the ANC’s aim, it was possible there might be a hung legislature in the Western Cape with the balance of power resting with the DP. “If that happens, we hope the liberal elements in the DP will win out and work with us, rather than the NP.”
The ANC has identified other possible actors on the election stage as the far- left, which has a strong tradition in the Western Cape, as well as “wildcards” such as groups linked either to Pagad or the gang leader organisation Community Outreach Forum.
The party believes gang-aligned groupings would take away NP votes, while a Pagad challenge would compete for ANC voters because the Muslim community is viewed as largely supporters of the ANC.