MARIAM ISA and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday
ANALYSTS have laid the blame for an ”alarming” rise in racial divisions in South Africa’s local government elections firmly at the door of President Thabo Mbeki, who they say ”reintroduced race into South African politics with his two-nation theme of rich whites and poor blacks.”
The outcome of the poll should also serve as a wake-up call to the ruling ANC that it must start delivering the jobs and services it promised after the start of black-majority government in 1994, they said.
Richard Calland of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) said the poll had produced increased racial and social polarisation.
In KwaZulu-Natal province, local ANC leader S’bu Ndebele warned people who voted for the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) that they would be penalised.
”To all Africans, coloureds and Indians who voted for the DA, be warned that there’s going to be consequences for not voting for the ANC,” he was quoted as saying.
Later, President Thabo Mbeki lashed out at the opposition after it made big gains in the elections, calling it an ”unholy alliance” which was bad for the nation.
”The truth is that the ANC has achieved a popular victory in the face of a coordinated attack carried out by an unholy alliance of many parties, united by hatred for the ANC, rather than any commitment to serve the people,” Mbeki said.
The ANC – in power nationally and in eight of the nine provinces – took most of the 237 local councils as expected.
But the DA – created five months ago from a merger of the Democratic Party, the New National Party and the Federal Alliance – captured nearly a quarter of the votes.
Mbeki suggested the ANC’s win was a victory over people who wanted to re-establish the racist values of white-minority rule.
Just under nine million of 18.5 million registered voters cast ballots on Tuesday, of which the ANC took 59%, the DA 23% and Inkatha Freedom Party nine percent.
”This local election really turned out to be an ethnic census,” said Willie Breytenbach, professor of political science at Stellenbosch University. ”Whites, Indians and coloureds make up exactly 23% of the population.”
Breytenbach said the key to the future lay in how Mbeki’s ANC reacted to the poll. ”Under (former president Nelson) Mandela and his rainbow nation the party would have made a point of reaching out across the racial divide,” he said. ”But Mbeki has a much more Africanist perspective. He is more likely to focus on delivery to the blacks, although he is constrained by the need to bring business and a functioning economy with him,” he added.
While the ANC swept the rural regions, the DA made gains in many urban areas in what was perceived as a protest vote against corruption in local government. – Reuters
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