`Historic” is not the way most observers have described this week’s general election. The black majority, with the exception of the inhabitants of rural KwaZulu-Natal, voted overwhelmingly and predictably for the African National Congress, while the opposition parties squabbled over the crumbs of “minority” voters.
But any event that at once signals the exit from public life of such a towering figure as Nelson Mandela and consigns to the dustbin of history the party that ruled South Africa for more than half of the 20th century and gave us apartheid can hardly be called insignificant.
Not when we are months away from a new millennium. Not when theInternet and information technology threaten to transform the world which we inhabit in ways we have not even begun to understand yet.
Not when our continent stands at a crossroads where it can either sink further into a morass of poverty, disease and warlordism, or turn itself around by challenging the corruption of its elites and its domination by outside powers.
Not when our country stands at its own crossroads, needing to overturn its legacy of poverty and joblessness, or take its own route to the African curse of a two-class society – an unaccountable elite and a massive underclass.
Not when time is running out to stake our claim as a competitive, winning nation.
As Thabo Mbeki himself noted in his victory speech, the people of South Africa have clearly placed their trust in the ANC to start delivering “transformation” – jobs, houses, a better life for all. It is not a trust the ANC can afford to betray.
The ANC will be making a mistake if it imagines its majority is set in stone for all time, that the people of this country will simply vote for it again irrespective of what happens during the next five years.
The ANC won because it shaped the agenda in the country and ran an outstanding campaign, and because the opposition failed to make themselves any more trustworthy or attractive to the black electorate.
The success of the Democratic Party was achieved by appealing to anti-ANC sentiment. Now it faces the daunting task of taking the debate beyond the racial divides of the past, and of forming the core of a new opposition, uniting with others such as Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement and the rump of the New National Party.
Mbeki has worked hard for this moment and we want to see him succeed, because it is not just the ANC but the entire country that stands or falls on his ability to deliver.
There are many problems that afflict our country but we would most of all urge Mbeki to apply his huge public mandate to combating crime and corruption.
Rebuilding the police force and the criminal justice system would markedly improve the quality of life of all South Africans, while being the most potent force in drawing foreign investment into the country. And there will be no delivery if officials loot and steal, leaving few real resources for those for whom they were originally intended.
Finally, we hope that the ANC will carry the masterful way in which it ran its election campaign into running the country during the next five years. The feel-good Mandela years are over. It’s time, as Mbeki says, to go to work.