Ebrahim Harvey
left field
Rising poverty and joblessness, water and electricity cut-offs, the decimating HIV/Aids pandemic and the privatisation of basic social services, of which poor people are deprived if they cannot afford to pay, make the December local government elections a critical event for communities.
It also strengthens the fight for democratic and accountable local government which satisfies basic needs.
It is at local level that the negative effects of the neoliberal restructuring of the economy is most telling. Already some unions and communities have said that they will not vote for candidates who support privatisation. Local government is going to be an arena of such great struggles that it could set the political tone for the 2004 general election and prefigure its likely outcome. When and how the burning issues are resolved will determine the fate and future of millions of ordinary people.
Therefore any approach, even from the “left” which, based on individual despair, questions why people should vote is terribly misguided about the general situation and the particular importance of these elections. It will be the most interesting and exciting election yet in our country because it comes at a conjuncture of deep social crisis which poses the most serious problems and challenges for the ruling African National Congress since coming to power in 1994. In deciding who to vote for, voters face a complex and tricky situation. Never before has South African politics been as complicated and full of flux and ferment as it is today. If the situation is tricky for political analysts how much more is it not for ordinary voters? The complexity and confusion is greater for the traditional supporters of the ANC than for any other party.
But no longer do you have die-hard voters, who, come what may, will vote for the ANC. In the grip of the hard daily grind between elections, a consequence of unfulfilled promises and a deepening social crisis which worsens conditions, a wiser and discerning electorate is emerging.
The decision by the Eastern Cape region of the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) (an ANC ally) not to vote for it due to growing dissatisfaction, and to field independent candidates drawn from the community, is extremely significant.
That it took place in a historical stronghold of the ANC and the birthplace of Sanco makes it a major setback for the ANC which could have further ramifications.
So deep is the social crisis that it is undermining the historical loyalties of the masses for the ANC.
Some commentators think that these loyalties are indelibly etched in the memory and consciousness of the masses and not subject to changing material conditions and the vicissitudes of struggles.
There is no doubt that the black working class, even in areas of traditional ANC support, whose lives are harder than before 1994, are fed up with the ruling party for falling far short of previous electoral promises and will have no patience with its candidates who try to obscure this fact. Though some on the “left”, who are often middle-class intellectuals and activists, can decide, because they feel disillusioned, not to vote, the great majority of the working class, who have a keener sense of realities and power, will vote because it is they who suffer the daily indignities of poverty, joblessness and many other social problems. They vote in the hope of solving these problems. It is wrong to create a sense of helpless despair which could lead more people not to vote. Voting, even against the background of broken promises or party changes, is necessary. In a constitutional and parliamentary democracy such as ours it is imperative that the working class and the “left” exercise their vote.
What is far more important is which party they vote for rather than whether they vote. One can only hope that the earlier lethargy of voter registration was not an ominous precursor to a sizeable stayaway on polling day.
Not even the absence of a strong party to the left of the ANC can justify staying away from the polls. But this also cannot blind us to the reality that a decision not to vote is often the result of accumulated disillusionment with the lack of delivery on previous electoral promises. People actually start feeling like electoral fodder for opportunistic politicians who use their votes to ascend to power and forget about them thereafter.
In fact, often a sizeable stayaway from the polls is itself a political statement of protest, alienation and the need for a new and different party. But it is a passive retreat which does not help in solving problems and building alternatives. We also cannot, because we may have changed our political affiliation or sympathies or become disillusioned, call upon the masses, whom we called upon before to build the ANC, not to vote for it or abstain from voting, despite its failures, when we have failed to build a strong alternative.
Most workers and the poor will not stop voting for the ANC because we think they should. They will vote for the ANC not because of its good performance but in spite of the lack thereof, because there is no strong socialist alternative, and not mainly because of “historical loyalties”, which have serious limits for a deeper and dynamic understanding of the situation. Who then can the “left” vote for?
In wards where there are no alternatives to the left of the ANC, like the Workers’ Party, the Socialist Party of Azania and the Pan Africanist Congress, I would vote for the ANC, but certainly not for the Democratic Alliance, the representative of unbridled capitalism, which opportunistically and parasitically feeds upon the failures of the ANC.
If your ideal party does not exist it makes sense to vote for one that, though it may be far from the ideal, comes closest to it. To abstain is to waste a valuable vote.
We urgently need a new mass socialist workers’ party which can represent the interests and needs of the working class and not a party that tries to be everything to everyone. So huge is the ever-widening divide between rich and poor that it is very difficult to think that these conflicting interests can be reconciled in one party.
The current struggles against privatisation and other aspects of neoliberalism should lay a basis for such a party. The strands of these struggles can and should be consciously harnessed and coordinated for that purpose.
To champion “social movement” politics now and not see such a party as an urgent necessity, to lead the struggle against neoliberalism, ideologically, organisationally and programmatically, is shortsighted empiricism. It will dissipate if it does not consciously forge such a party.
Party-based electoral politics will be the reality for a long time to come.