people’ of the rural hinterland
The votes of residents in the small towns of the Western Cape rural hinterland are ready to swing to anyone who is willing to address their problems.
Yet few in these small settlements far from the throbbing seats of power have seen a politician, election information or anything related to the June 2 poll other than posters.
>From Ceres, nestled between the Hex River and Swartruggens mountains, to Uniondale in the Klein Karoo little seems to have changed, especially for farm workers. Frustration about housing, unemployment, a deep-seated lack of understanding about the role of local government and insecurity in their relations with farmers mark the daily struggle of the Western Cape’s several hundred thousand rural people.
Indications of people’s eagerness not just to be heard but to be helped are the swings in support to the Pan Africanist Congress in several towns in the southern Cape. Uniondale and Calitzdorp joined the PAC en masse when party leaders intervened to help solve their problems. Voters in the tiny hamlet Zoar backed the United Democratic Movement in a recent by-election.
Residents of cement-brick Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP)housing settlements say they are fed up with their New National Party- and African National Congress-dominated local councils which have failed to resolve problems around housing, infrastructure and unemployment.
Registration statistics from the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC)show interest levels far below those in urban areas. Only 4 350 first-time voters aged between 18 to 20 have registered in rural areas, compared to 67 509 in urban areas.
In Ceres, people say there have been difficulties with the ANC-dominated council. There has been infighting among councillors whom some in the community say are no longer part of the “ordinary people”.
A similar picture emerges in Zoar and Calitzdorp where the acting mayor, former NNP member Desmond Strydom, claims councillors are more interested in receiving their pay cheques of between R2 000 and R3 000 than helping people.
In Ceres town centre, where roads are wide enough for an ox wagon to turn around, adults casually walk the streets during the late morning. On a street corner, a group of young men are waiting. Justin Davids says getting work is difficult, that’s why they are there. Freddie Koopman says he has a Code 10 driver’s licence and has been looking for a year for a job so he can feed his family. A man, who says his name is just Botman, adds jobs are scarce, even on farms.
The men say finding housing is also difficult, especially now that construction, which only started last year, has stopped again. “Maybe they’ll start building houses again after the elections,” says one.
But all agree they will vote. Asked for who, Koopman smiles: “I will vote for my rights.”
Ceres ANC branch chair Dan Melapi says the IEC has registered 9 000 people out of an estimated population of 30 000. There were difficulties in getting people, especially farm workers, to registration points.
He says the ANC office received reports that several farmers transported only coloured workers to register. Other farmers kept their workers’ identity documents after lending them money – often a necessity because wages range between R35 and R60 per week.
Melapi says so far it’s been peaceful and the run-up to the election has been without intimidation. Overall, the ANC is doing especially well in the black township of Ndoli.
The ANC’s election strategy of house visits has also reached the coloured township outside Prince Alfred Hamlet. Christina Klaaste says people came to her one-room house to drop off stickers and what seem to be copies of ballot papers, which she has tucked away in a cabinet. Klaaste says she has nothing to complain about. Little has changed in the 20 years she has spent in the area.
Two houses down the dusty, untarred road, David Andrews sits in the sun next to his flowers. He can’t remember how old he is, only that he has worked all his life on many farms in the area. Now that his only daughter works on a farm in the Bokveld, he relies on a pension.
Andrews struggles to speak, his right side is paralysed, but he says he can’t complain. “I will vote for [President Nelson] Mandela There’s no point going to another party now.”
This sentiment contrasts with that of residents in Uniondale’s coloured township, Lionville. There residents are seriously considering going over to the PAC. Among their complaints: bills of up to R300 for services, untarred roads and councillors who do nothing.
During a PAC-organised community meeting, it emerged that none of the residents knew of the R86 equitable share allocation as part of the Masakhane drive to get people to pay their rates.
But the ANC is gearing up to fight back to maintain control of the area. Residents say several people visited them to ask who they would vote for before dropping off leaflets.
Lionville consists mainly of one-roomed houses built with RDP funds. They have been dubbed “Fiat Uno” houses because they are so tiny. About 364 homes still use the bucket system to remove waste. Elsewhere residents complain that when they flush their toilets, homes down the untarred road overflow.
Dominee Steve Anthony works in the local advice office. He says little has changed since 1984 when he arrived in the chronically poverty-stricken community. “Promises have been made in the past four or five years, but nothing has been realised. In 1984 there were taps in streets, no lights in the homes. In 1995 the RDP houses were planned. They were finally built last year. When we get a storm, the homes are flooded.
“I think it’s really hard to live in Uniondale. Unemployment is a huge problem. The community relies heavily on grants and seasonal farm work. Relations between race groups leave lots of room for improvement. They live totally apart.
“Most of the whites in Uniondale are farm owners. They do not really implement the labour laws. Most of the cases we see concern workers not receiving pay. There are some cases of evictions. There are still some farm owners who think they can hit and intimidate people.”
On a farm outside Calitzdorp – a picturesque little town steeped in turn-of-the-century charm and the port grape farms – residents also say nothing has changed.
Across a dusty track, four families live in metal sheeting shacks and a broken, ancient trailer. Tiny puppies run amid discarded rubbish. Towards evening smoke from wood fires wafts across the hovels. The farmer will not build houses for seasonal workers.
But Ester Tiemmie says they have been on the farm for more than two-and-a-half years. Pointing to the graveyard just 10m away, she says: “The farmer has enough money to put marble headstones here. No money for houses.”
In Calitzdorp’s Bergsig township, the PAC signed up more than 1 200 members in just a couple of weeks, out of a voting population of 2 353. All it took for the PAC to capture enthusiasm was to address local grievances like the lawyers letters sent out by the council for service arrears or the sky-high electricity bills.
In the Western Cape’s rural towns the election up to now seems to be fought through posters strung on lamp-posts along the main roads. In Ashton the Democratic Party features strongly. In Oudtshoorn it’s the NNP, Freedom Front and the DP.
In white Uniondale the posters are NNP and FF. In the nearby Bergsig township it is president-in-waiting Thabo Mbeki who peers down from lamp-posts, competing with PAC leader Stanley Mogoba’s face on stickers on windows in almost every house. Bright red posters announcing UDM election meetings by Roelf Meyer are seen everywhere. On a tight schedule, Meyer is doing a small town on average every other day.
When Mbeki and senior provincial ANC officials hit the election trail in the southern Cape this weekend, they may well bear in mind the eagerness of rural residents to put their voice behind those who are seen to be trying to improve their lives.